Thank you for the concern, Keith. As for the "it's fun!" comment -- I just let
it go now. Too many real things in life to focus on.
---------[ Received Mail Content ]----------
Subject : Re: [RE][scifinoir2] "Moon" puts fiction back in science fiction
Date : Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:09:10 +0000 (UTC)
From : Keith Johnson <keithbjohn...@comcast.net>
To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Not to stir you up again, Martin, but that's the slight thing that worries me
about the new Star Trek. More focus on the gadgetry and FX than the original,
and I wince when I hear people say (as the Onion spoofed) that it was "fun!".
As if that's all there is to "Trek" to be meaningful, and all they want going
forward.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Baxter"
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 4:02:21 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [RE][scifinoir2] "Moon" puts fiction back in science fiction
rave, this draws me to the movie more than its initial premise.
Also reminds me of an argument I had with my Last Ex, her decrying science
fiction for being "little more than flashy lasers and zoomy spaceships". If I
were still on speaking terms with her, I'd forward her this.
---------[ Received Mail Content ]----------
Subject : [scifinoir2] "Moon" puts fiction back in science fiction
Date : Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:53:12 -0000
>From : "ravenadal"
To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhIB0mqbPiE
http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/movies/50384927.html
Lonely man in the 'Moon'
By Duane Dudek of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: July 9, 2009
"Moon" is one small step for mankind.
It puts the fiction back into science fiction, not because it's unbelievable
but because it's a life-size and plausible portrait of our daily gravity.
Too many genre films are virtual, superheroic variations on arbitrary themes
and are slaves to the digital technologies that allow them to portray anything.
The less-is-more aesthetic of "Moon," by comparison, is a reminder that true
creativity is a function of ideas and imagination. In much the same way we take
for granted the fact that science drives our lives in countless and invisible
ways, "Moon" takes a satisfyingly pragmatic approach to the extraordinary.
And in the process, it puts a human face and heart at the center of its
universe - a man in the moon, if you will.
Sam Rockwell portrays the only human employee at a lunar factory where his
companion is a HAL-like computer named Gerty, voiced by Kevin Spacey.
For technical reasons, Rockwell cannot communicate directly with home; he sees
his daughter grow up in tape-delayed messages from his wife and watches old
sitcom reruns. Rockwell is just two weeks away from completing a three-year
service contract and returning to Earth. If he is going a bit buggy, talking to
his plants and seeing things, these seem a reasonable response to his
isolation.
Unless, of course, they represent something else.
Perhaps things are not as they seem. Perhaps he is not really alone. Or perhaps
he is more alone than he knows.
Lunacy runs in the family of director Duncan Jones: His singer-songwriter
father, David Bowie, imagined all manner of star men, space oddities and
spiders from Mars. But if there is an apple-doesn't-fall-far-from-the-tree
quality to the material, the approach has its roots in the golden age of
science fiction.
The miniatures, matte paintings and digital effects do not dazzle; like
Rockwell's space suit worn with use, they add a scruffy realism. The way Jones'
camera looms over cramped spaces like a surveillance video adds a Big Brother
feel to the piece.
And the edgy, slightly crazed Rockwell, practically the only actor in the film,
is a sympathetic, cautionary figure howling at the moon.
"Moon" is not about the dangers of technology, but mankind's misuse of it.
Even before President John Kennedy vowed to make landing on the moon a national
priority, the exploitation of it for war or profit seemed inevitable. "Moon"
portrays such possibilities, in service of some greater good, as the banal
oppression of the very qualities that make us human.
E-mail: ddu...@journalsentinel.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdwk8Yntds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdwk8Yntds
