I finally saw Moon Saturday after two-and-a-half month wait for it to open in B’ham and I advise everyone to do your best Neil Armstrong kangaroo hop to the Summit (or your nearest theater) to see it. Aside from some technical aspects it's a film
that might have been made in 1973, though I mean that in the best way, it's a well-made though bare-bones piece, atmospheric and austere. Obvious nods to several classic genre productions from that era abound though I’ll not spoil them here and let the viewer
discover them. While the film has a few plot issues here and there, none were show-stoppers for me. I enjoyed the story and the performance by Sam Rockwell enough to worry about the existential issues raised rather than the logistics of the mining operation. Waiting for Godot’s Harsh Moon Mistress might be an apt description, though Moon's far less political than its obvious literary antecedent.

    One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the model work with huge machines harvesting helium-3 from lunar regolith and heavy-duty rovers rolling across the surface. It was Gerry Anderson’s Space 1999 with a bigger budget and the switch from CGI was pleasant. I fully appreciate what CGI has allowed. Seeing the brachiosaur in Jurassic Park was a transformational movie moment for me. I cried because I knew what could be done. Over the succeeding years, many of the vistas I imagined have been revealed, at least in part. Without the savings possible with CGI, the summer’s other excellent film, District 9, would have been impossible to carry off at its scale with its budget. However, too often films have come to rely on the cheap and quick zip-zoom-bang-boom of CGI sensory overload to carry an audience for two hours rather than engage a viewer’s brain with an idea. A real grognard’s grumble but it’s (mostly) true. As much as I enjoy many of the, I begrudge the fact this breed of veloci-movie has hunted to virtual extinction a different, more sedentary animal, the hard SF film and certainly the sub-species, the hard SF space film.

    Proving you don’t have to spend a small nation’s annual GNP to produce a film, Moon is a very welcome change of pace and a film that deserves more publicity and recognition, not having a few prints snuck around the country as if they were part of a cinematic Witness Protection Program. Along with District 9, Moon provides a strong and thoughtful finish to a summer which began with idiot plot shoot'em-ups not smart enough to feed a tribble.

Yes, I'm looking at you, "—— ——" and Terminator: Field Cardio-thoracic Surgeon.