Moon (2009)

No Spoilers!! (Though it's an older movie, many haven't seen it, and I would hate to ruin its twists for anyone)

Director: Duncan Jones

A fairly quiet, still-underrated modern sci-fi classic featuring a brilliant performance by Sam Rockwell.

Rockwell plays the character Sam Bell, the lone worker on a moon station where he he oversees the sending off of a resource - known as helium-3 - that has helped vastly reduce Earth's reliance on other forms of energy. Sam is nearing the end of his three-year stint at the station, where he has worked in total isolation except for his computer/robot assistant GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). With only a few weeks to go, however, Bell makes a discovery about the station and possibly himself that throw his entire existence into a horrifying new light.

Moon is a great example of that rare science-fiction movie that plays things simple, without sacrificing the intelligent speculation and the connections to human emotion that make for the very best of the genre. With relatively little reliance on special effects or dazzling sets (though they are perfectly crafted), this movie does what the best sci-fo movies do: plausibly imagine the impacts on a person's psyche and emotions of the advancement of science and technology. It doesn't take long to establish that Sam's job of gathering and sending of helium-3 has been an invaluable boon to mankind as a whole. But as you learn of its cost to Sam himself, some serious questions arise. Questions that one could easily apply to many of the wonderful advances in technology in recent decades and those in the decades to come.

Sam chats with GERTY, his robot assistant and a welcome
departure from the artificial intelligence units that you
may be used to in sci-fi movies.

Being a movie with a single actor inhabiting the screen for about 99% of the entire time requires a certain skill level to keep an audience engaged, and Sam Rockwell was more than up to the task. The incredibly versatile Rockwell has to display a wide range of emotions here, all without any acting partners to play off of. I imagine that this is something which not many film actors could do, and it is captivating to watch Rockwell work through the wild ride that the story sends him on.

It's also worth noting how Moon echoes certain earlier, iconic space flicks, though modifying things to satisfying degrees. The notion of the "one savior in space" is one that's at the heart of cult sci-fi classic Silent Running (a film with a good premise but, in my opinion, some awful execution). And the presence and voice of GERTY can't help but remind one of HAL in landmark sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Again, though, GERTY is a rather welcome variation of HAL, which had long been overly mimicked to the point of unintentional parody.

My hat's really off to writer and director Duncan Jones for this one. I haven't seen any of his other movies (though I've heard that Source Code is quite good), but I'll be checking at least one of them out sooner rather than later. 

New(ish) Releases from 2019: Ad Astra and El Camino

No Spoilers for either show. Read away!!

Ad Astra (2019)

Director: James Gray

A decent enough sci-fi flick with enough to keep a person tuned it, but not inventive enough to stand out very much.

In a not-too distant future, Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride, an astronaut called upon by the government to embark on a mysterious mission to the far reaches of the Solar System. Some sort of strange energy is emanating from a location there, and it threatens to destroy the entire system. As if that weren't enough, the government believes that the person behind the imminent catastrophe is the last astronaut sent to the area, none other than McBride's own father, H. Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones), long hailed as a national hero and icon.

The movie is a solid, space-faring sci-fi flick that does the sci-fi elements better than the emotional ones. Like the very best mission-to-space flicks - I'm thinking 2001, Interstellar, and Europa Report, among others - Ad Astra maintains a cool, meditative tone throughout, especially once the story brings Roy outside of the Earth's atmosphere. The vision of director and co-writer James Gray is an engaging one that seems grounded in a very believable possible future. There is a thrilling pursuit on the Moon, and a rather striking and eerie vision of what Mars might become, which offer some nice food for thought on how humans may be interacting with the nearest celestial bodies long before the century is over. Anyone who enjoys such topics and themes is bound to appreciate these aspects of the movie. And there is the greater mystery of what, exactly, is the threat in deep space to pull one along through Roy's journey farther from home.

The more personal story about Roy and his father? Not nearly as engaging. While Pitt and Jones play their roles perfectly well, the entire relationship never feels like it is offering anything that is novel or surprising. Right from the jump, it's clear that Roy's mission is as much about finding closure with his father, long-presumed dead. I suppose one could read a certain amount of symbolism into the narrative about an absent father's ability to mysteriously have the ability to annihilate one's world, but that's a bit of a stretch. Because Roy is a rather repressed individual (not uncommon for astronauts, who need the ability to subdue and overcome their own nerves), there is a certain detachment which runs through the film. Had there been a few more moments of vulnerability sprinkled in here or there, the film may have had a bit more emotional impact. As it was, though, there was only so much pathos to be found.

If you're like me, and enjoy good space-faring movies for their ability to inspire awe at the cosmos, then Ad Astra can give you that. If you're looking for the more human drama elements, though, this one may leave you wanting.

El Camino (2019)

Director: Vince Gilligan

Compelling, entertaining, and satisfying sequel movie to the brilliant Breaking Bad TV show, which ended its outstanding run in 2013.

The sixty-odd episode run of Breaking Bad represented one of the very best TV shows of all time, created and run by Vince Gilligan. It saw the rise and eventual fall of high school chemistry teacher-turned-drug kingpin, Walter White, who used his genius for chemistry to concoct the most potent formula for crystal meth ever known. White, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, took this bizarre career shift in an effort to quickly earn enough money to support his family after his impending death. The problem was that, once White got a taste for the money and nefarious reputation which his recipe brought him, he found that he liked it. So much, in fact, that it sent him spiraling down darker and darker paths in order to maintain and grow his place in the drug-peddling world. By the end of the show's run, White had destroyed or alienated everything which he had once held dear; and although he found some measure of penance and rectification, he still died a tragic and lonely death.

White's partner through nearly his entire journey was Jesse Pinkman, a confused former student of his who had been dabbling lightly in the drug trade during his few years removed from high school. Pinkman, played brilliantly by Aaron Paul, while likable and funny in many ways, was always a lost soul, never knowing exactly who he was or what he wanted from life. As such, he was ripe to be pulled into the dark gravity of Walter White's drive and obsession. As White's decisions grew grimmer and more self-serving as the show progressed, Jesse felt more and more tied to him, despite his pangs of conscience and general reluctance to get so deeply involved in such dastardly deeds. In the show's finale, the last image we see of Jesse is him driving away from a white supremacist compound, where he had been brutally imprisoned and forced to cook meth for them for six straight months.

This is where El Camino picks up the story. In the hours immediately after the fiery end of Walter White, in which he freed Jesse, gunned down and killed all of his tormentors, and then died himself, Jesse has to elude the police as they look to put the pieces together of the entire bloodbath at the compound. A beaten and traumatized Jesse must seek out any friendly faces and places of sanctuary that he can, in an effort to not only escape capture and certain imprisonment, but also to truly decide who he is and what he wants to do with the rest of his life, should he even have one.

The movie is every bit as good as Breaking Bad was, even if it doesn't have the power of some of that show's most memorable moments (think Walter's showdown with Tuco or Gus Fring's death). El Camino certainly has a few great thriller sequences, with some fun twists of their own, but a two-hour movie is never going to be able to have the build-up necessary for the explosive moments that a longer-form TV show can offer. This movie does, however, make the most of its time, balancing Jesse's soul-searching and recovery from a horrific situation with the more cat-and-mouse elements that come from his scrambling away from his pursuers and towards an uncertain future.

Jesse, after cleaning himself up a bit, during one of several
moments of desperation. Viewers of Breaking Bad may
recognize the blurred outlines in the back of Skinny Pete and
Badger, two of several familiar faces who appear in the film.

The show is split roughly in half, with the tale alternating between the roughly 48-hours immediately after Jesse's escape and a series of flashbacks, some going way back into Breaking Bad's first season, when he and Walter White were just getting into the meth-cooking business together. We get to see scenes and moments never revealed during the original show, and they all make maximum use of the many open areas in the story, adding extra shading to certain familiar characters, some friendly and others downright evil. It all makes a great follow-up and addendum to the entire story.

I can't say enough about Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman. This film requires nearly every bit of the immense acting chops and range that he showed during Breaking Bad, and he seemed able to get right back into the character's head, despite having been away from it for a good six years. He exhibits, by turns, all of the terror, misplaced swagger, soul, and humor that he did at various points during the original story. Though Breaking Bad was mostly the story of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman was the soul and often the tragedy of the tale. Aaron Paul's ability to play the character with just the right type of vulnerability at just the right times is what elevated the show well above other drama/suspense/thriller fare.

Obviously, I can't recommend this movie highly enough for fans of Breaking Bad. If you haven't seen the show, then the movie won't make much sense to you. In fact, you should stay well away if you haven't watched the original show. It will mostly baffle. But feel free to use this as yet another endorsement from me to go ahead and start watching Breaking Bad. I've watched the entire series twice now, with a likely third time coming at some point in the future. It's brilliant, and El Camino only further enhanced the entire amazing show. Now, we just have to wait for the next season of Better Call Saul for more stories from this incredible tale that Vince Gilligan has created. 

New Release: Interstellar (2014)

Have no fear - there are no spoilers in this review.

Director: Christopher Nolan

It's certainly not a bad movie, but it's one that leaves a few things to be desired.

Christopher Nolan has always loved multi-tiered stories. Whether he's layering experience with memory as in Memento, layering illusion and showmanship with personal desires as in The Prestige, layering heroism and villainy with their own social constructs as in the Dark Knight trilogy, or any of his other movies, his films always operate on a few levels. Interstellar in no different. Unlike his best films, though, this one tries to add at least one stratum too many.

The story is mostly that of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former test pilot and engineer who is living on a future earth that is slowly dying of a massive and growing blight, a la the Dust Bowl of the 1930s Midwest U.S. This one, though, is on a global scale. In a last-ditch effort to escape the seeming fate of humanity slowly choking to death on its home planet, Cooper is enlisted for a mission through a wormhole next to Saturn, beyond which he hopes to find a habitable alternative planet. Once through the hole, though, things do not go exactly as planned, forcing Cooper and his fellow astronauts to make several extremely difficult decisions that weigh their own beliefs and hopes with those of all humanity.

Many of the themes in the movie are worthy of speculation and make for some solid food for thought. The place of exploration in our society, especially when balanced against far more immediate problems, is one that people have always struggled with. In Interstellar, this makes for a legitimate source of conflict, especially as the success of Cooper's mission is far from guaranteed. Then of course, are the tremendous sacrifices that the boldest explorers must make, and not just to life and limb. When Cooper and his crew near a planet where time is distorted by gravity, they must also consider how their aging will be slowed immensely, leaving everything and everyone they know to age far more quickly while they explore. The film does a very nice job of making these theoretical consequences of space exploration more tangible and impacting on the characters.

I'm no astrophysicist, but much of the science behind the film seems solid; at least, as far as the physical rigors and obstacles which need to be overcome are concerned. These days, there have been so many excellent documentary series done on such topics that we laypeople can have a pretty good idea of what things are like for astronauts, and Nolan seems to have done all of his homework. It helps that the visuals are extremely well done, and several scenes and sequences do an excellent job of capturing the vastness and majesty of the cosmos.

The relationship between Murph and her father is actually
endearing for the first part of the film, but grows a bit stale
as things progress. It eventually comprises what I found to
be one of the biggest weaknesses of the tale.

Where the movie goes astray is with the "human" layer of the tale. Filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky made thoughtful, insightful, artistic statements about humanity's probable destiny in space and the collective psyche of our species. Without giving away anything, I can say that I felt Nolan's attempt to weave human emotion into the story was a tad forced, with extremely shaky support. This thin tether is meant to be the link between Cooper deep in space and his daughter, Murph, back on Earth. The connection works at certain points in the movie, but is often either baffling or lacking the desired emotional effect.

Another problem I have with the film is the casting and acting. While Matthew McConaughey has proven himself to be a legitimately excellent actor in recent years, I was annoyed by the constantly hushed drone that he chose to speak in through nearly the whole movie. A tad more baffling was Nolan's choice to cast Anne Hathaway as the fellow astronaut/astrophysicist Brand. She's not terrible, but I found her lacking some of the grit, confidence, and stoicism that I associate with such professionals. I wonder if we're not starting to see Nolan fall in love with some of his own casting choices; what else would make him recast "Catwoman" in such a way? There are a few other casting choices that made me scratch my head, but I don't want to give away too much.

So the movie is a decent one, but I would have to put it towards the bottom of the Christopher Nolan catalog, especially when weighed against its huge ambition and massive budget. Nolan has never, in my view, made a "bad" movie. He has, however, made a few that smack of a bit of pretension and fall a bit short of his lofty goals. Interstellar is one of these. I would recommend that nearly anyone watch it once, but I would caution against expecting a masterpiece. Ultimately, the film just made me want to re-watch Europa Report at the earliest possible chance.