Moon
Packing four Buds, a mouthful of esperanza, and an eye for a leggy lady in the back row, Divad Q. Nead drops ten on Duncan Jones’ Moon and probably takes a bathroom break.
A hobo-type outside the tiny Harvard theater asked me, with a Jackson in his hand, “What’s this Moon, anyway?” - to which my reply simply cut it, “A man works on the Moon. That’s it” - Unsatisfied, he cajoled those behind him in line for a better interpretation, then cited some Public Enemy lyrics, making machine gunsounds. He wasn’t allow’d inside for the film, to my utter disappointment, or chose another. Duncan Jones, son of Starman, jumps on theever-loving wagon of space, and doesn’t makea film about string theory, which we’d have luv’d. Instead, he and Matchstick Man Rockwell back into been-there Citgo with their rovers and & have a go at the overplayed space isolation genre -Adoring the very “Solyaris“ poster designed by Britain’s All City Media (danke auteurs) I’d hoped for a good hand-holding of an ether rag for this. Instead, I get Rockwell bearded; the semi-atypical film transition I’d like to kill a la Dr. Richard Kimble in “The Fugitive” - stop the beard-chop as metaphor. Spacey works a Flo-bee, and um is he acting blasé or am I just remembering him from something else? Rockwell loops into his past, spraying plants, posing gentle, and mostly going about his Bruce Willis biz while mining the Moon for helium, [please don’t mind the pre-film ad] it’s verité, it’s a terror of a two finger in the john. If anyone’s ever learned from our Tarko, it’s that space films, and the genre of the destitute & lonesome traveler, hinge on our layman’s perspective of a space penitentiary. The sci-fi canon fires best when it cups us in the back row and holds our nuts while we reach for a beer. Shock me. Space is one empty hole and we’d appreciate more silence next time, less shots of people driving Jeeps on the surface. Jones is at his best on the direct when he brings hiss.f.x Gemini into the equation, using the screen double technique to a T. I’m over white space station guts & secret panels, you could say I’m over robots in general. Loose script transitions, a lumpy last act, had me at the exit soon after the end, to which I didn’t much know or learn anything new about human nature or our place in the cosmos. Unable to place a finger, I loped out into Tuesday night, waiting for late trains, standing on an empty platform, and then truly I knew what must be known to those who’ve walked on the Moon - humans, in our essence, struggle endless on the big Q - Am I alone, are we?, and who’s that pretty boy over there lookin’ at me?
~ DQN
