Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"Moon" is Stellar Filmmaking



Duncan Jones’ directorial debut, "Moon," is, like its namesake, mesmerizing, stunning, haunting, illuminating and mysterious. A throwback to 70s-style science fiction films like Outland with a dash of 2001, star Sam Rockwell turns in a virtuoso performance which moves from brash, aggressive space cowboy to a slowly disintegrating permutation of Dustin Hoffman’s Ratzo Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy."


The film is set on the moon in the near future. The Earth’s primary energy source is Helium-3 harvested from the lunar surface by a soul operator on a three year tour of duty at the loneliest, most solitary outpost imaginable with just a perky Hal-like computer named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey, adding to the creepy Hal-ness) and his smiley face emoticons to communicate with.


Describing this film would be to rob an audience of the wonderful discovery the movie holds. Suffice it to say, "Moon" is about many things including the unavoidable finality of life, the tenuous nature between who we are and who we’d like to be, the consumptive nature of humans and the question: If you met yourself, would you like yourself?


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