Neil Armstrong RIP (1930 – 2012)
No words, just this;
Lets hope we go back one day and erect a worthwhile memorial to him and the other heroes who pushed the limit of human exploration.
Dream Home Trailer
Hmm, this embargo on my 13 Assassins review is a tad annoying, I think I’ve put together a reasonable post but alas I’m awaiting clearance before sharing it with you all. In the meantime here is some more Asian carnage that I have for tonight’s entertainment, I missed it at Frightfest and it looks like a blast;
So I guess this weekends cinema visit will be to see Duncan Jones’ follow-up to Moon, I’ve avoided absorbing any full reviews but reading between the lines it sounds merely adequate. I really hate it when very promising directors get offered a follow-up star vehicle and their potential talents get neutered but we shall see…
Frozen River & Kubrick’s Moon
Given the reviews I’ve read of ‘Frozen River‘ since catching it at the Apollo a couple of weeks ago it appears obligatory to use the terms ‘frigid’, ‘blue-collar’ and ‘promising talent’ in any review of the film, the latter phrase referring to lawyer turned writer/director Courtney Hunt who has been working on her debut project for over ten years. Oscar nominated Melissa Leo is Ray Eddy, a trailer park dwelling mother of two whose gambling addicted husband has just fled the coup with the families savings that were intended as a down payment on a new home. The family lives in Northern New York state, an area which straddles the Canadian border on one side and a Mohawk reservation on the other, an enclave with its own state sanctioned legislation and customs where law enforcement are not welcome and will not tread. In the process of attempting to tracking down her husband and recover her savings Ray falls in with the similarly desperate Lila Littlewolf, a young Mohawk mother whose infant child has been remanded into the custody of the tribal elders due to her past criminal activities and grievances with the law. Both women, living in poverty, desperate to support and protect their families almost imperceptibly drift into the smuggling immigrants into the states from Canada, across Mohawk land, Ray’s white heritage ensuring their car won’t be stopped by the authorities. As you’d expect things don’t exactly go to plan…
It’s ‘Thelma & Louise’ in winter without the laughs. The film encompasses all the best that US independent cinema has to offer – good performances, strong characterisations, interesting locations and an emphasis on a social strata not usually covered in American cinema – the working class, the marginalised, society’s forgotten. There are plenty of ideas floating around to mull over, the themes of immigration 
entwined with the native American experience over the past few centuries is interesting, financial imperatives and fiscal survival driving essentially decent people into the realms of illegality, the landscape capturing the bleak realities of both women’s lives as they are of course both skating on the thin ice referenced in the films title. I thought I recognised Melissa Leo and it took a while to click that she was of course the great Detective Kay Howard from ‘Homicide’ back when it was good (essentially the first two or three seasons), I read that she left in despair when the suits started pressuring the shows creators to bring in more conventionally attractive actresses to supposedly boost ratings because of course the reason people watched a smart, cerebral crime procedural show like ‘Homicide‘ was to gawp at pretty ladies right? Idiots. ‘Frozen River‘ was good and recommended although I suspect you won’t be able to catch in the UK very easily, despite the unanimous praise it was showing on exactly two screens in London due to exploding wizards and child robots dominating the multiplexes. I may have got that the wrong way round.
From the intimate to the galactic, ‘Kubrick’s Moon‘ was a panel discussion at the NFT to discuss the movie ‘2001‘ in light of recent technological trends and developments rather than any specific discussion of the films mythology, themes or production history although some of these elements did creep into the fascinating discussion that took place. The delegates were drawn from a variety of disciplines, mostly non-film which was preferable as I didn’t really want to see a re-hash of the same articles, analysis, opinions and observations I’ve absorbed over the years, besides I didn’t want to embarrass anyone by leaping on stage to correct any inaccuracies. That’s a joke. Mostly. Documentary film maker Theo Kamecke was present as was author Simon Ings, BBC science correspondent Christopher Riley and Kubrick assistant Anthony Frewin was on hand to provide some ground zero, firsthand context to the discussions of the film itself and Kubrick’s intentions.
Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic kicked off proceedings with a half hour riveting cantor through the past fifty years or so development of space travel, I’m a convert of what they can achieve with their project which has been built and begins detailed testing in December. Flights will begin at around the £200K mark so it’s probably best to start saving now. The panel discussion then opened up and it was swiftly confirmed what Kubrick got wrong (HAL) and what he got right – everything else. To clarify, we’re not talking about regular lunar commercial travel being in place by 2001, a date selected by Kubrick for its intrinsic elegance rather anything clumsy like 2347 or 2284, more the design and some of the specific environmental observations nestled with the movie. People seem to forget this – the film, after five years of production and shooting – was released before we actually set foot on the moon. Kubrick hired two of the top available specialists – Fred Ordway and Harry Lange– as senior consultants for the film and of course there are tales of how through these connections he coaxed out some of the films legitimacy from technicians actually working on the Apollo project. Frewin provided a comment that had crossed my mind the last time I watched the movie which was that when approached from one angle it could be said to be that 2001 is a film as much about the 1960’s as any supposed prediction for the future – a function of all the best speculative fiction, to take contemporary concerns and developments and extrapolate them into some imagined dimension to better explore their contours and implications without the encumbrance of realism.
The film has an inherent positivism, a vision of humankind reborn, evolved, transformed and the revelation of our sharing of the universe with some unknown, omnipotent guiding force which gives us succour in that we are not alone in a rudderless, indifferent, cold universe – and people say Stan was a miserable sod. The use of technology is simultaneously worshipped (via the monolith’s alien technology) and admonitory in the form of HAL, the films only real character with any sense of personality, one of Kubrick’s little jokes there. Some other general data and anecdotes where thrown around much to the audiences and panels amusement and fascination. A discussion about HAL led into the revelation that the Internet has recently overtaken the 1HB or One Human Brain threshold – it’s actually fairly difficult to track down any clear material on this phenomenon on the very vessel on which it resides – the web – which either can make you chuckle with the irony or like me develop a slight case of paranoia. I think the point is that the number of nodes, of websites and convulsions through its infrastructure has hit the same volumes of neurons firing off in one human brain, if the futurologists are to be believed at this rate of expansion it should equal the entire population of the planet by 2025. I don’t know about you but what with all the porn, conspiracy theories and self important bloggers (like yours truly) I don’t envy the prospect of the net becoming self aware as it would be, in a very real and literal sense, fucked in the head. I’ve seen ‘The Forbin Project‘ too thank you very much. NASA’s monthly payroll cost is $200 million. $200 million. A month. That’s more than the entire development budget for the whole Virgin Galactic programme.
Apparently James Lovelock, the founder of the Gaia movement had his eureka moment when he saw the mythical photograph taken of the Earth from the lunar surface and realised that our humble little planet could be viewed as one organism, all the facets of which are inter-dependant on each other. Whatever your views on the tree-huggers that instinct was instrumental in the detection and measuring of climate change which is a pretty important problem we’re 
currently facing. Some talk was made of Kubrick’s analysis of the Drake Equation (he thought it inevitable that we would make contact) explained by Carl here which led into thoughts of perhaps looking closer to home for purportedly ‘alien’ evidence given the recent exhumation of unusual silicon material from the Mariana trench by the Nereus. To end on a sombre tone, apparently the first message beamed into space from our paltry little rock was by the Nazi’s when they transmitted Hitler’s address at the 1936 Munich Olympics out into the galactic ether. Thanks guys, either some war-mongering, xenophobic green fuckers will pick up that transmission and assume they’ve just been offered out in the galactic equivalent of the pub car park or some peaceful, harmonious celestial solars will see this and decide to nuke us from orbit – we’re screwed either way. Here’s some Kubrick related stuff I’ve unearthed from youtube recently including a brief extract from the Academy Tribute event from 2007, finally if you are ever offered the chance to see this then decline, it’s terrible which was a shame given the pedigree of the people behind the camera.
EDIT – Ok, I was hoping that some of the ‘Avatar‘ footage might have leaked by now but apparently not, probably for the best. Instead here is the stunning Tron 2 trailer which I’ll admit has got my nerd button fully depressed, good ole Bridges is effortlessly cool as always:
Who knows, if it’s a hit then maybe, one day, we’ll finally get that ‘Automan‘ movie…
40th Anniversary Moon Landing
Says it all really:
OK, I’ll cut the snark – good work Mike, Buzz and Neil, good work….
I’ve got more lunacy to come (did you see what I did there?) after the ‘Kubrick’s Moon’ event over the weekend that needs to be written up and a review of ‘Frozen River’, however tonight is the epic screening of ‘Once Upon A Time In America’ at the NFT and tomorrow is another gig – this could take a while so here’s a few chuckles to tide you over;
Moon + Director Q&A
It seems everyone’s going Lunar crazy these days. Screened as part of the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo landing ‘One Giant Leap‘ film season, ‘Moon‘ got a preview screening at the NFT last night and I was in attendance. First things first, lets get the gags about Starmen out of the way as yes, the director of the new cult UK SF movie is David Bowies son, Duncan Jones. We’ll come to the post screening Q&A below but suffice to say the similarities are there in appearance and voice, he was quite self-deprecating about the whole family connection which won over the crowd. But lets begin with the movie itself;
Sam Rockwell, whom I’ve always considered the most dishevelled man on Earth has transplanted his vaguely soiled demeanour to the dark side of the Moon as the solitary character Sam, a working class Joe who is working a solitary three year contract overseeing a tripartite of Hydrogen Isotope farming machines that are providing 70% of the Earth’s clean energy requirements – quite an important job then. Rockwell’s only company apart from intermittent messages from his wife and mission control is the base computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), a very deliberate HAL reference with a slightly more affectionate demeanour. With a mere two weeks of his sentence to go Sam is suffering from extreme fatigue and loneliness which seems to be manifesting itself in mysterious hallucinations of himself, his sorely missed wife and young daughter around the base. Are these figments of Sam’s deluded mind or are there more subversive elements at play? There’s not much more to reveal without spoilers which I’m loathe to unveil, I went into this film deliberately cold (I even avoided the trailer hence I’m not posting links to it here as I understand it reveals one early development), suffice to say this was a quietly rewarding, charming little film that trumpets the debut of a promising new talent.
It’s a minimalist film, certainly in terms of cast and what director Jones and producer have rendered on screen with the astronomically low budget of $5 million and a mere 7 week shooting schedule is quite remarkable. With it’s retro-design chic the film is very much a love letter to the character driven, working class SF movies of the 1970’s – ‘Silent Running‘, ‘Alien‘, and ‘Outland‘ although conceptually I’d say its Polanski’s ‘The Tenant‘ crossed with ‘Dark Star‘ divided by ‘Solaris‘ (either version), the latter two being films that are numerously referenced throughout the film along with just about every post 1975 SF movie that has endured and developed fan-bases of varying extent. This density doesn’t sink the movie however, they are nice touches for the genre fans to muse over as the main plot – this tale of loneliness and solitude -evolves into an examination of more contemporary and pertinent scientific development, an area I’m keeping quiet again for fear of spoilers. Uber-hip music composer Clint Mansell (I can dig it) provides an amazing score but this is Rockwell’s movie through and through, as practically the one man cast his charm and charisma holds the entire film together, sometimes twice in the same scene. Heh. Little joke there. Jones plays with the genre conventions nicely, even from my brief précis you may have already formed some opinions on what might happen and where possible threats may emerge but these tired expectations are for the most part evaded, your attention is held as you’re never quite sure how things will turn out for Sam, a character whom you increasingly begin to like and care for as the film meanders along.
Producer Stuart Fenegan and Duncan Jones were both thoroughly charming in the post screening Q&A and provided some fascinating insights into how the film got made with no evidence of nepotism I hasten to add, Daddy Bowie didn’t give them any money or lean on any contacts for assistance although Duncan did concede that he did manage to obtain a wealth of production advice on some of the SFX shots from the likes of Tony Scott and Spike Jonze. Jones recounted that he thinks his ambition to make movies sprang from one his earliest memories of being on the set of ‘Labyrinth‘ back in the early eighties and operating some of 
Jim Henson’s puppets, not a bad way to contract the film-making bug I guess? In another bout of serendipity the film was shot on the very same Shepperton Sound Stages that Ridley Scott constructed ‘Alien’ on exactly thirty years ago, the production also had access to some of the UK Film industries last remaining model effect and in-camera SFX technicians who loved practicing their dying arts on such a respectful and intelligent project. The camera team specifically sourced aged film stock to achieve that slightly more muddied, grainy surface to the film, a decision that I suspect simultaneously hit three core criteria – keep costs down, to again subtly reference the influences and help mask any potential SFX glitches.
Finally Jones recounted a wonderful Q&A he held at NASA after a recent screening which swiftly evolved into a full blown Moon exploration discussion between various science departments. After apologising for not being able to maintain the low-gi gravity realism throughout the film Jones was asked why he followed a bunker type production style for the film’s locale rather than the Eco-Dome, transparent half-sphere construction that has led the way on conceptual designs for lunar terra-forming over the past couple of decades. Jones answered that he figured that one day we would be looking to source the basic materials for shelter and survival on the moon from its atmosphere and he therefore imagined some type of dense building material forged from the moons rocks and dust. Quick as a flash a fellow NASA scientist got to her feet and explained that her department had been working on this very concept – which was termed ‘mooncrete’ – for a while with some success. A detailed discussion amongst the NASA intelligencia ensued. One imagines that Mr.Jones was pretty damn proud of that little exchange….
I love how they have made a SF film worlds apart (groan..) from what passes for SF these days, all adolescent CGI and explosions where the sheer purpose of the movie is to move from one set-piece to another. That’s fine in moderation – as I said I enjoyed ‘Star Trek’ – but it has dominated the landscape for far too long so this was a welcome alternative. I’ve been thinking about how the apparent rise in 3D will reflect on this type of film-making, whilst the expectation mounts around ‘Avatar’ and I’m sure the film will be a visual tour-de-force I’m willing to bet that Cameron doesn’t manipulate or employ the 3D conceptually, to use it as anything more than a visual tool when I believe it could be engaged with rendering the less tangible themes of a film in a formalistic, historically unique fashion – I’m thinking predominantly about Chris Nolan’s upcoming Area 51 type secrecy bound ‘Inception‘ which has been described as ‘a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.’ – now that could employ that type of approach. A Wong Kar Wai film with 3D sequences? What about a Kiarostami? The mind boggles at a Jodorowsky or even a Gasper Noe? OK, maybe not the last one. Still, you never know. Anyway, enough of this amateur prophesying, the producer and director team of ‘Moon‘ hope to follow this assured debut with a SF thriller called ‘Mute‘ which they describe as taking place ‘in a future retrofit Berlin which essentially is one big homage to Blade Runner – I’m sure after the indie cred they have generated (‘Moon’ hit big at Sundance this year), a succession of praiseworthy reviews across the press and a definite return on their meagre budget they should have no problems securing funding. Watch this ‘space’….
Minty's Menagerie 
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