Moon (2009)

Moon: Directed by Duncan Jones. With Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Rosie Shaw. Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet’s power problems.

“Originally posted to titsandgore.com, April 2009:u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMoon is an auspicious debut from Duncan Jones (née Zowie Bowie), a talented new director who happens to be the son of David Bowie (let me officially be the first person to predict that every review of this film in the mainstream press will have the tagline u0026quot;SPACE ODDITY!u0026quot;). Sam Rockwell gives a truly remarkable performance as Sam Bell, a lunar miner who is nearing the end of his 3-year contract at a single-man mining outpost. His only companion is the station computer, Gertie, a straight-up HAL homage that tantalizingly suggests how a culture informed by decades of watching 2001 might choose to design a companion robot.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTo say too much more about the plot would be to spoil its central conceit, and while Iu0026#39;m sure many reviewers will talk openly about it, I want to preserve the surprise if at all possible at least until the film gets its theatrical release this coming June.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSuffice it to say that Jones admirably mixes together stock genre tropes, paying tribute to a number of classic science fiction features while retaining his own idiosyncratically dark vision. Familiar filmic concepts of the u0026quot;clean futureu0026quot; and the u0026quot;dirty futureu0026quot; are mixed together to create a unique atmosphere; the milieu is suitably claustrophobic, the cramped quarters of the mining station serving the filmu0026#39;s conceptual purposes while masking the shoestring budget. In fact, it may be hard to spare a glance at the meticulously designed sets with your eyes glued to Rockwell for the duration of the picture. His performance is utterly mesmerizing, inhabiting the role so completely that it is impossible to imagine any other actor having the chutzpah to pull it off.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhich is not to say that Moon is without its problems; the pacing is hardly consistent and Jonesu0026#39; reliance on Rockwell tends to undersell his direction. Parts of the film veer dangerously close to identical thematic elements in Steven Soderberghu0026#39;s recent adaptation of Solaris, without being as emotionally potent. But what it lacks in originality is mostly compensated for by the sheer audacity of its central performance and the careful economy of its direction.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMoon may be dressed in familiar clothing, but it is a singular experience, a clever, darkly funny and genuinely moving journey into the nature of individuality. Jones is already at work on a second science fiction feature, and it is welcome indeed to see such a promising new talent continue to develop his voice by working in genre film-making!”