Monday, July 6, 2009

Fly me to the Moon... doo da daa da da da daah...

To my distress I've been meeting people out there who liked the new Transformers movie. In fact, when I went to see it I heard people laughing at the wretched 'comedy' on screen, and speaking favourably of the relentlessly tedious action. Putting aside the sheer hideous sleaziness, the misogyny and racism and the emotional bankruptcy of the film - how the fuck can people find this to be anything other than two and half hours of pompous gibberish dialogue, lobotomised comedy filler, nonsensical shouting and staggering general boredom and disgust engendered by unfeasibly annoying robots dueling with paper-thin characters in a non-stop macho, territorial, verbal, pissing contest?

It's awful. I kind of enjoyed the silly, fast and screwball first one, but this shows nothing but contempt and - I hate to say it - but I'm pretty pissed off at the message it must be giving the kids. So why do so many people declare a fondness for it, with the maddening words "It's just an action movie, Pete..."

And then I feel compelled to kill them.

Just had to get that out of my system on this blog, otherwise it'd be festering within me. But seriously, if you liked that film, punch yourself hard in the face please.

Thankfully we have a couple of fun looking summer movies on their way. The first of which is the new Potter movie, which looks pretty good. Or at least the trailer does. I like the idea that we'll get to see Death Eater attacks on the muggles and the entire thing looks pretty epic. Just hope the troubled production and all the delays work in its favour in the end.

The other film is Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. It's an old-skool sci-fi head-scratcher and features Sam Rockwell as a solitary miner counting the days, weeks and months of a lonely shift on the moon seperated from humanity. His only company on this lunar mining facility is a conversational computer with the voice of Kevin Spacey, working that happily pre-psychosis Hal 9000 vibe. He's due to be relieved from his profitable but lonely hell in a few weeks. And then, something happens. Check the trailer out for a notion of what:



Pretty cool, huh? The film was shot for an astonishing five million dollars, and looks ten times that. It's had nothing but rave press so far, and the accomplished direction by David Bowie's son recalls that seminal 70's sci-fi flick Silent Running, only without Joan Baez warbling all over the soundtrack, thank God. I'm hugely looking forward to this Twilight Zoney adventure, and though I loved the action packed Star Trek reboot, I'd dearly love Hollywood to get back to these idea-driven sci-fi films, instead of the toys & comic-book optioning franchise path they're ploughing right now. (Hah! Fat chance!)

God speed, Moon.

What's that? Can't wait to see Sam Rockwell walking around in moon-pants in his squalid student-flat style Moon base? Want to hype yourself up with more Moon related movies? Worried about the voices asking rhetorical questions that Pete's hearing in his head? Then distract yourselves with the following quality movies!

The Right Stuff

All about America's first astronauts, and the driven, unruly test pilots who became them. Based on the Tom Wolfe book this film is fast and funny, epic and beautiful and features actors whom you'll be constantly pointing at shouting, "Crikey! It's him! Whatshisname!" Featuring Fred Ward, Jeff Goldblum, Smithers/Skinner/Lovejoy bloke from The Simpsons, Lance Henrikson, Ed Harris... basically everybody.

Here be the trailer:



For further Fred Ward awesomeness, don't forget Tremors, by the way. Y'know, the one with the big worms underground that can feel you moving and munch on hapless Arizonians. Kevin Bacon also stars in this one too, to my mind, his best film.


In the Shadow of the Moon

Catch the big gorgeous trailer here:

http://www.intheshadowofthemoon.com/

A little light on details, but this is an enthralling and visually stunning race-to-the-moon documentary. Oh, and finally - to all those who say that the landings were filmed in a studio - the actual landings would have had better production values. Also, go join the gaggle of Michael Bay fans punching themselves in the face.

1 comment:

  1. The Moon looks interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing what Major Tom Jnr does with it: he produced a great Heinz Tomato Ketchup commercial not too long ago.

    Best,
    Rhys

    ReplyDelete