Hey everyone, back from a fun weekend and slowly starting what is looking to be a pretty ho-hum Monday. Luckily, I am here with an all-new post to help cure what ails ya'. First off, I want to mention a fun outing from this past weekend, as some friends and I attended a performance of CIRQUE BERZERK! Basically, this local LA event combines an old-school circus-under-the-bigtop with the darkly-comic style of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Since a regular circus tends to have that dark and creepy element to it anyways, it seems like a natural fit to just crank up the goth and see what happens. And that's exactly what Cirque Berzerk does. It's a lot of fun, and I especially loved the crazy carnival atmosphere that surrounded the show. They literally set up a giant old-fashioned circus tent in the middle of a field in downtown LA, and surround it with a mini-carnival area with food and merchandise vendors, a spacious bar area, and live music. Evil clowns stroll the grounds even as giant fireballs signal that its time for the circus to begin. The show is very performance-heavy, with acrobats, trapeze artists, clowns, and music - all with a distinct goth / bizarre twist. Each segment of the show is given a title like "The Final Moment" or "The Danse Macabre". And while most of the fans in attendance are simply curious joe-shmo's, you do get a certain segment that comes decked out in full-on goth gear, further adding to the Tim Burton-esque atmosphere. Good times - I'd definitely recommend that people in the LA area try out the Cirque Berzerk.
- Also, saw a couple of movies this weekend that I'm excited to talk about, so let's get to it:
MOON Review:
- To me, Moon is an absolute must-see movie. It's an honest to god SCIENCE FICTION movie, and in this day and age, that is a rare but pleasant surprise. Moon isn't about f/x or over-the-top action. It's about an intriguing idea, a mind-bending premise, a moral quandary. This is the stuff of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, of Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick. Moon is a movie that is in the cinematic tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Alien, and other such true science fiction movies - the kind they just don't make much of anymore. Somewhere along the way, movie makers got so caught up in CGI and remakes of 80's cartoons that they forgot what it meant to create sci-fi that is cerebral, intelligent, and thought-provoking. Well, Moon is a low-budget but high-concept return to sci-fi awesomeness. If it's playing in your area, run and see it immediately.
It's a bit hard to talk about this movie because so much of what makes it a fun film is the element of surprise. The story plays out like a mystery, with tension slowly mounting as we begin to realize that something isn't quite as it seems. And when the twists start coming, they really do transform the movie. The film that you think you are watching in the first ten minutes or so is NOT the same film that you end up with when all is said and done. So I'd urge would-be viewers to read as little as possible about the movie beforehand.
To set up the basic setting and premise though, MOON stars Sam Rockwell as the lone worker dispatched to manage the day to day duties of a lunar energy-mining plant. It seems that in the near future, the world's energy problems have been largely solved by the discovery of a nearly unlimited energy source buried deep within the moon's surface. Large energy corporations have set up mining operations on the moon, creating lean, efficient lunar bases, staffed with minimal crew, to help oversee the harvesting of materials. When we first meet Sam Rockwell's Sam Bell, he is literally all alone on a remote lunar outpost, though he is nearing the end of his three year contract with the energy company, and is eager to go home to his wife and daughter. By this point in his tenure, Sam is slowly beginning to succumb to what some might call space madness. He is trying to keep it together for a little bit longer, but it's clear his time alone in space has had some severe psycological effects. To that end, Sam's only company on the station is Gerty, an omnipresent computer system that runs the station's operations and communicates with Sam with a collection of smiley-face emoticons, as well as the calm but slightly eerie voice of Kevin Spacey. Undoubtedly, the intention was to draw comparisons to HAL in 2001, and the movie deftly plays off of the similarity.
Again, hard to say much about what happens from there, suffice it to say that this is NOT just a movie about a guy alone on a lunar space station. Some major $%#*% goes down, is about all I can say.
But what I can say is that Sam Rockwell is absolutely great as the central character here. A lot is asked of him in this movie, and Rockwell takes on the challenges that the script presents and turns in a defining, career-best performance. Given how much of a singular focus Rockwell is in the film, things could have easily gone bad in the hands of a lesser actor. But Rockwell pulls it off, and is alternately intense, tragic, funny, heroic, insane, and yet easy to root for. I'll also mention Kevin Spacey as Gerty. As odd as it sounds, Spacey's turn as a conflicted computer system might just be his best performance in years.
I also want to mention the look of this movie. New director Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie!), is now intantly a name to watch in my book. He pays tribute to a lot of movies in terms of look and feel - 2001 immediately comes to mind, for example - but he gives Moon a great clean but lived-in look. The sets are all filled with great detail. And the atmosphere is suitably tension-filled and claustrophobic. And best of all, Jones uses old-school model work to great effect. No CGI - the lunar surface scenes are done the old-fashioned way, and the low-budget means of coveying the vastness of outer space looks solidly awesome.
Now, part of what makes Moon so good is that it's a refreshing throwback to old-school sci-fi. But I do want to make sure to judge it on its own merits, and think that as a whole the movie really works. I think the one weakness is that, at times, the script doesn't quite come together as well as it should. Moon seems to hesitate in terms of how much it wants to provide a greater context to the time and place in which it occurs, and that ambiguity makes for an ending that isn't quite the exclamation point that it should be. In addition, the movie is in some ways a loving tribute to films like 2001 and Blade Runner, but some might question its overall originality. Personally, I enjoyed the potent mix of new and very relevant / topical ideas with the familiar sci-fi tropes.
My hope is that Moon gets the attention it deserves from fans and critics alike, and that more movies of this ilk get made. I also hope that Sam Rockwell is remembered come awards season, as this may be one of the first true Oscar-worthy leading performances of 2009. In any case, go see Moon - it's a bonafide trip to the Twilight Zone.
My Grade: A-
- Alright, I've got a lot more coming your way this week, so ... stay tuned.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment