Moon
While I had some qualms with the film--I found it a bit easy to figure it out--I nevertheless enjoyed it overall: I agree that it's a very emotionally moving film--in fact, it's quite devastating by the end. It did no help for me being depressed lately! :;):
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
First of all, I have to call out two professional film reviewers, Mick Lasalle of the San Francisco Chronicle and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor. It is not that they gave negative reviews of a film I enjoyed. It is that, after seeing the film and then reading their reviews again, I have doubts if they saw the film or were paying attention. They both printed very brief reviews that contained inaccuracies that should not have been in a review of a professional who was paying attention. Lazy work. Example: Rockwell plays two characters. Rainer is very confused by this and uses it as a reason to attack the film. It is obvious to anyone seeing the film why Rockwell is playing two characters, it makes perfect sense and is essential to the plot.
Both reviews went over the top on saying how bored they were. I liked Lasalle's line: "Agonizingly, deadeningly, coma-inducingly, they-could-bury-you-alive-accidently boring." They say the story never moves along to engage the audience. They compare it unfavorably to the many long scene in 2001 when we are shown the everyday lives of the astronauts and nothing happens to move the story along.
Wrong. There is plenty going on and it is not at all hard to follow. The film is something we rarely get in U.S. theatres, a cerebral film in which we are caught up in what happens to the characters ("character" in this case). Rockwell gives a very solid performance playing two characters and he does a very good job carrying the film. I was totally caught up in the story and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what was going on with Rockwell's mission. When I found out late in the film I was surprised and moved. It is a very satisfying and logical plot twist. The music is outstanding and does a good job of ratcheting up suspense, longing, fear or whatever emotion is needed for the scene. And it is only 97 minutes but it did not feel that long.
You can tell this is a low budget film but I thought the sets, including the scenes on the moon itself, looked authentic.
I do not see this film getting any Oscar nominations but I highly recommend it. I hope it does good business. Studios need to be encouraged to put out more sci-fi films like this.
Both reviews went over the top on saying how bored they were. I liked Lasalle's line: "Agonizingly, deadeningly, coma-inducingly, they-could-bury-you-alive-accidently boring." They say the story never moves along to engage the audience. They compare it unfavorably to the many long scene in 2001 when we are shown the everyday lives of the astronauts and nothing happens to move the story along.
Wrong. There is plenty going on and it is not at all hard to follow. The film is something we rarely get in U.S. theatres, a cerebral film in which we are caught up in what happens to the characters ("character" in this case). Rockwell gives a very solid performance playing two characters and he does a very good job carrying the film. I was totally caught up in the story and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what was going on with Rockwell's mission. When I found out late in the film I was surprised and moved. It is a very satisfying and logical plot twist. The music is outstanding and does a good job of ratcheting up suspense, longing, fear or whatever emotion is needed for the scene. And it is only 97 minutes but it did not feel that long.
You can tell this is a low budget film but I thought the sets, including the scenes on the moon itself, looked authentic.
I do not see this film getting any Oscar nominations but I highly recommend it. I hope it does good business. Studios need to be encouraged to put out more sci-fi films like this.
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. Oliver Wendell Holmes
I checked metacritic.com and found almost all of the reviews of "Moon" very favorable but a couple were very bad. The division among the critics, along with the intriguing story, makes this the film I will see either tonight or tomorrow night.
The Times-Picayune gives it a rave (4 out of 4 stars), though I have to be skeptical about his statement that if you are going to have only one actor on screen for ninety percent of a film, Sam Rockwell is your guy.
===
Old-school sci-fi yarn from David Bowie's kid is packed with both suspense and meaning in 'Moon'
by Mike Scott, Movie critic, The Times-Picayune
Friday July 10, 2009, 5:00 AM
Sam Rockwell stars in 'Moon,' a refreshingly intelligent sci-fi film from first-time director Duncan Jones. With the sci-fi movie genre descending to disappointing new CG-assisted lows this summer (yes, I'm talking to you, Michael Bay), "Moon," the feature directorial debut from Duncan Jones -- son of Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie -- is a perfectly timed little space oddity.
A refreshingly intelligent and surprisingly polished indie sci-fi film, "Moon" owes equal debts to "The Twilight Zone," "2001: A Space Odyssey" and Isaac Asimov's three rules of robotics, but that doesn't mean it's overly derivative. In his first time out of the gate, Jones (who also wrote the story on which the movie is based) has crafted one of the more enjoyable science fiction adventures to hit the big screen in some time.
And yet there's not one fiery explosion, not one transforming robot, not one spider from Mars. This is old-school sci-fi, a psychological thriller built on suspense, meaning and strong performances -- and which happens to be set on the surface of the moon.
It helps that Jones has hitched his star to actor Sam Rockwell, a reliable talent who always picks interesting roles. Sometimes his characters are weirdos, sometimes they're psychos, but they're almost always freaks, so far off Hollywood's beaten path as to make them immensely interesting.
In other words, if you're going to have a movie that features only one on-screen actor for 90 percent of the running time -- which "Moon" does -- then the reliable Rockwell is your guy. In it, he plays Sam Bell, an astronaut in the near future who is in the waning days of a three-year gig at a gritty and comfortingly realistic moon-mining station.
It's a one-man operation, so his only company is GERTY, a HAL-like computer -- voiced with an oddly caring emptiness by Kevin Spacey -- along with the occasional taped message from home and the echo of his own thoughts.
Sam's days are spent monitoring the hulking Helium-3 harvesters whirring away outside his sterile station, sending reports back home, and fixing whatever needs fixing. The rest of the time he kicks around the station, working on a scale-model picket-fence town, getting a Flowbee haircut from GERTY, running on a treadmill -- anything that will shave seconds off the clock.
"Three years is way, way too long," Sam notes -- and his psyche is beginning to show it.
Then, after an accident in a balloon-wheeled lunar rover, Sam wakes up in the station's infirmary to find the station being run by what appears to be a younger version of himself. Clone? Hallucination? Alien imposter? It's unclear.
As with the rest of the film, Jones and Rockwell mine the initial encounter between new Sam and old Sam with a dash of humor, but mostly it's trippy, mind-stretching stuff -- for the audience, sure, but even moreso for Sam.
"Moon" reclaims a chunk of the nerd-iverse from the fan-boy masses. In the ultimate compliment to his audience, Jones never resorts to spoon-feeding. Nor does he take the predictable, comic-booky path. Instead, he leaves it to moviegoers to connect the dots, to plumb his story for his thoughts on the human condition -- the way the best science fiction does.
Ground control to major new talent: You've really made the grade.
MOON
Stars: Four
Snapshot: A sci-fi thinker about the one-man crew of a moon mining station whose boredom gives way to a shocking discovery.
What works: More than anything this is an intelligent film, a satisfying bit of old-school sci-fi suspense.
What doesn't: It is a meditative film for patient moviegoers, so those looking for frame-filling explosions should look elsewhere.
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey.
Director: Duncan Jones. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes.
Rating: R for language
Edited By kaytodd on 1247271214
The Times-Picayune gives it a rave (4 out of 4 stars), though I have to be skeptical about his statement that if you are going to have only one actor on screen for ninety percent of a film, Sam Rockwell is your guy.
===
Old-school sci-fi yarn from David Bowie's kid is packed with both suspense and meaning in 'Moon'
by Mike Scott, Movie critic, The Times-Picayune
Friday July 10, 2009, 5:00 AM
Sam Rockwell stars in 'Moon,' a refreshingly intelligent sci-fi film from first-time director Duncan Jones. With the sci-fi movie genre descending to disappointing new CG-assisted lows this summer (yes, I'm talking to you, Michael Bay), "Moon," the feature directorial debut from Duncan Jones -- son of Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie -- is a perfectly timed little space oddity.
A refreshingly intelligent and surprisingly polished indie sci-fi film, "Moon" owes equal debts to "The Twilight Zone," "2001: A Space Odyssey" and Isaac Asimov's three rules of robotics, but that doesn't mean it's overly derivative. In his first time out of the gate, Jones (who also wrote the story on which the movie is based) has crafted one of the more enjoyable science fiction adventures to hit the big screen in some time.
And yet there's not one fiery explosion, not one transforming robot, not one spider from Mars. This is old-school sci-fi, a psychological thriller built on suspense, meaning and strong performances -- and which happens to be set on the surface of the moon.
It helps that Jones has hitched his star to actor Sam Rockwell, a reliable talent who always picks interesting roles. Sometimes his characters are weirdos, sometimes they're psychos, but they're almost always freaks, so far off Hollywood's beaten path as to make them immensely interesting.
In other words, if you're going to have a movie that features only one on-screen actor for 90 percent of the running time -- which "Moon" does -- then the reliable Rockwell is your guy. In it, he plays Sam Bell, an astronaut in the near future who is in the waning days of a three-year gig at a gritty and comfortingly realistic moon-mining station.
It's a one-man operation, so his only company is GERTY, a HAL-like computer -- voiced with an oddly caring emptiness by Kevin Spacey -- along with the occasional taped message from home and the echo of his own thoughts.
Sam's days are spent monitoring the hulking Helium-3 harvesters whirring away outside his sterile station, sending reports back home, and fixing whatever needs fixing. The rest of the time he kicks around the station, working on a scale-model picket-fence town, getting a Flowbee haircut from GERTY, running on a treadmill -- anything that will shave seconds off the clock.
"Three years is way, way too long," Sam notes -- and his psyche is beginning to show it.
Then, after an accident in a balloon-wheeled lunar rover, Sam wakes up in the station's infirmary to find the station being run by what appears to be a younger version of himself. Clone? Hallucination? Alien imposter? It's unclear.
As with the rest of the film, Jones and Rockwell mine the initial encounter between new Sam and old Sam with a dash of humor, but mostly it's trippy, mind-stretching stuff -- for the audience, sure, but even moreso for Sam.
"Moon" reclaims a chunk of the nerd-iverse from the fan-boy masses. In the ultimate compliment to his audience, Jones never resorts to spoon-feeding. Nor does he take the predictable, comic-booky path. Instead, he leaves it to moviegoers to connect the dots, to plumb his story for his thoughts on the human condition -- the way the best science fiction does.
Ground control to major new talent: You've really made the grade.
MOON
Stars: Four
Snapshot: A sci-fi thinker about the one-man crew of a moon mining station whose boredom gives way to a shocking discovery.
What works: More than anything this is an intelligent film, a satisfying bit of old-school sci-fi suspense.
What doesn't: It is a meditative film for patient moviegoers, so those looking for frame-filling explosions should look elsewhere.
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey.
Director: Duncan Jones. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes.
Rating: R for language
Edited By kaytodd on 1247271214
The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. Oliver Wendell Holmes