MOON starring Sam Rockwell, dir. Duncan Jones (aka Zowie Bowie, son of David)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/moon/

haven't seen it yet, but it looks amazing for a sci-fi film that only cost $5 mil.

also, Sam Rockwell <3 <3

i saw this at tribs. it's not all that.

that's disappointing

actually this just looks like a cheaper "Sunshine", and as long as it's at least slightly better than that film, I'd prob love it anyway. Is it?

If I was stuck on the moon with Kevin Spacey mouthing off to me I'd go crazy too.

yeah casting spacey as a HAL-type AI is way distracting because it's so fucking obviously spacey

I prefer Sunshine, tho the first 2/3 of this are very watchable, esp if you like two Sam Rockwells acting together.

But I did figure out the twist, and after it was revealed, the film went on for 20 minutes to not much effect.

It was either use Kevin Spacey or Kevin Mooney.

Kevin Smith would cause me to blow up the whole moon.

a moonage daydream

I was just gonna say I'd enjoy to spend some time with Kevin Smith but then I thought about the implications of being stuck on the moon with him and I was Ned OTM. I think tbf to Kevin Smith he would probably say the same thing.

dir. Duncan Jones (aka Zowie Bowie, son of David)

should have been Moon Unit Zappa amirite

I'm really excited about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIexG8179K8

the best musical moment involves "Walking on Sunshine"

I prefer Sunshine, tho the first 2/3 of this are very watchable, esp if you like two Sam Rockwells acting together.

But I did figure out the twist, and after it was revealed, the film went on for 20 minutes to not much effect.

― Dr Morbius, Saturday, June 13, 2009 5:05 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i felt he couldn't really decide whether to make an identity-driven psychodrama or a straight genre thriller and the results feel a little wobbly. i liked the grunginess of the space station. i didn't really like the spacey-bot.

Want to see!

The Sam Rockwells are clones being sent videos from a fake wife/child so they don't realize the truth about their situation?

Trailer looks a lot better than the Apple link, which had a distinct Dr. Who feel.

Thought this shit was pretty good. Yeah it tails off at the end a little but Rockwell is as watchable as ever and the design/effects were really nice and it was fun to see something new with a 1960s paranoid sci fi feel to it.

Bang up for seeing this.

ditto

saw this today - amazing performance by rockwell, no surprises there. thought the plot was surprising in terms of not playing to (my) expectations - i kept feeling like something creepy was gonna happen eg. gerty turns psycho, the clones spend the movie trying to kill each other, that kind of thing, but it was a lot more subtle than that and there was no real 'bad guy'. rockwell should be winning more prizes, he seems to be so underrated.

Was liking the tone and pace of the movie until the clones thing screwed up the plot for me - especially that very last soundbite in the very last shot (literally the last 5 seconds of the film). Why oh why did they put in a rush limbaugh-type radio broadcast?

Awesome movie. Morbius, well done for spotting a nonexistent twist

lollllll

thank you for saying that, i was a bit confused

liked this pretty solidly, justine otm about the movie not going in several obvious directions

Why oh why did they put in a rush limbaugh-type radio broadcast?

I thought that was to show the reaction of earthers to this guy's claims of a clone warehouse on the moon.

yeah, it basically confirmed a happy ending of sorts

second time around is better i think, i found it more satisfying emotionally. there were a few moments where i was thinking 'this sort of feels like it started off as a short,' but on the whole, i think it's a fantastic film. i think both sam rockwell and sam rockwell's butt deserve best actor nods.

there was no real 'bad guy'

i don't think so

i mean, i kinda think what makes it so incredible is the tension the clones have to deal with, you sorta have to hate this guy who sold himself to this company but at the same time by doing that you're hating yourself?

what i meant is that the mining company is sort of the 'bad guy' in one sense, but they're always out of the frame and their part in the story isn't that crucial. i really loved that the story didn't have a classic antagonist.

loved this

especially all the directions it didn't go, as people have mentioned. in a different movie they would have woken up a bunch of clones and killed the rescue party to take their ship. also liked how the robot wasn't omniscient/wired into the whole station, it was just a robot.

http://suburbanknights.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/clonewars.jpg

This was ok. Fairly boring in parts but nice performance(s) from Rockwell. Weirdly touching at the end too. ANd how come these kind of low budget sci-fi movies always look better than the mega-budget blockbusters? Money is no substitute for imagination i guess

i liked the boring parts

Thinking about seeing this after work sometime this week before it disappears from theaters. (Or rather the one theater it's been at for the last six weeks.)

Awesome movie. Morbius, well done for spotting a nonexistent twist

SPOILER, I guess

OK, given the initial setup, both of the principal Rockwells being clones was entirely suspected all along by you, Niles Caulder, if that is your name, and thus doesn't constitute a twist? Well, I'm in awe. You must be a student of Robert freakin' McKee.

Kept waiting for Gerty to turn psycho like HAL. Glad he didn't.

yeah he was a brobot

(spoiler)

But they reveal like 20 minutes into the movie that he's a clone, and the rest is figuring out what's real and what's not, and what they're going to do. 20 minutes from the end is when they're plotting about escaping and the only real "twist" at that point (which is really well-projected) is that the 'original' clone isn't going to go anywhere, because he's sick and dying.

I really thought it was a strength that instead of making it a suspense/mystery, it let the trailer for the movie carry that and you find out fairly early why things are going sideways.

enjoyed this, despite some borrowings from other (very) notable sci fi flicks. Once I figured out that it was part comedy, part mystery, it became much better. What I loved about this movie was that it was consistently surprising, original. Even Sam Rockwell was surprisingly good! Looking forward to whatever director Jones does next.

'even sam rockwell was surprisingly good'

what?!? when is he ever bad?

liked how it presented itself as an existential malaise then developed into a tightly plotted thing

i like sam rockwell! I'm just not convinced he can always bring something to a part that isn't the "sam rockwell carefree/less wisecracking slacker" role. still, i think this movie is probably the best performance I've seen from him.

he was rad as an idiot in the assassination of jesse james

he was also rad as a fuckin evil child-raping/murderer in the green mile

Saw this tonight. Awesome. SHIT loads of 70s sci-fi present in the art design.

Really liked this. Rockwell *superb* and the sets and models terrific.

A plot point that I may have misread: were all the clones being killed off by radiation sickness after a couple of years, hence the need for replacements? There was a sequence where the first clone watched a load of videos of his predecessors and they were all in various states of illness and saying "my hair's falling out" etc. So after three years they were expected to be worn out and the death-chamber was there to maintain the illusion that they would go home?

i wondered if they weren't designed to die after three years (maybe the water was poisoned/irradiated?), since they couldn't remain mentally stable for longer than that.

I'm not seeing an awful of Blade Runner in that, as per his claims about a year ago though.

xxp lol

But really, I'm criticizing the corporation. Gotta be cheaper and less complicated and less than 95% likely to eventually be accused of crimes against humanity by just putting robots up there.

right.

in the intro of moon they say they are mining for helium3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNzf6erIhlw

that would be doable with today's technology and there are parties interested in doing that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraterrestrial_supplies

some say a moon base would cost like 35 billion + 7 billion upkeep per year and let's say the mining tech would cost as much: it would be, like, a 70 billion job.

now, where do you even start if you want to make a clone with built-in memories... for a start i presume it would take nothing less than 100 billion investment in cog sci research and dev ... for better and for worse clones like that are not happening anytime soon imo.

that'll show him!(?)

o_O

uh i agree with spencer (?)

like, making clones would probably cost more than the entire mining project.

ha! sorry. Thought the quote was from a Jones interview or something. Really just amused that it seemed to come from nowhere, but I've looked upthread now.

So it turns out this film is a documentary or something.

This was fun for awhile - and in places thrilling, like when you realise the newly woken clone is actually gonna cooperate with our decaying hero - but wow what a let down.

They foreshadow the arrival of the rescue ship / hit squad for at least HALF THE MOVIE and then... ???? You don't even see them! I felt certain that a major dust-up was in the cards and I even dared to anticipate a faceoff between clone buddies vs corporate baddies. But no. And we never get an explanation of why the clones deteriorate. Of course we can come up with our own explanations but it's a goddamn scifi thriller flick, SHOW IT. I mean, I'm not even going to get into all the things that fall apart once you think too hard about them.

Spaceybot a real missed opportunity to do something new.

that may have been budget restrictions rather than choice

you mean not having a fight?

Cause as far as Spaceybot goes, it's a computer voice, why pay for Spacey

i mean the rescue ship/hit squad. if i understand what you're suggesting, that's new set/location, cast and maybe an action sequence. seems like something that would be a totally different scale of production to the rest of the film.

Definitely an action sequence! Same set though. They show up, binga bang with the hit squad for awhile and then GERTY saves them at the last second somehow.

i just didn't think this film was exciting enough. it wasn't bad, but it had been talked up as something more.

needed willis/affleck and maybe peter jackson rewrite

Look I would have had much less of a problem with the ending if they hadn't signposted the arrival of the baddest group of interlunar bounty hunters this side of Jupiter for HALF THE FILM. I retrospect I suppose it was a device to force the decision about who to leave in the rover. But like... what a letdown.

That would have been a terrible idea. Would have ruined the pacing of the entire movie, and not add anything in the way of story. Like Nate mentions way upthread the photo of the 'rescue team' says it all.

The pacing of the entire movie points to a showdown! Look I'm not saying you have to have a Willis style shoot em up but it just felt empty at the end to me. And my conclusion is that the promised arrival of the rescue ship is the reason why.

Oh, one thing mentioned upthread regarding how long it took between clones. You're all assuming that the three years thing is actually true. But I wouldn't be surprised if these guys only last for like two months before their shitty, mass-produced bodies broke down. And everything else is an implanted fiction - that they've been there for three years, etc.

i struggle to see how a climactic bounty hunter throwdown would fit in this movie at all.

use your imagination

I mean, it's the movie itself that says there are bounty hunters. And that they look like badasses. And that they are coming. And that they will kill any Sam who knows the secret. So... not really a stretch?

well yeah. i don't recall anticipating a showdown at all. seems like tracer was watching alien 3.

not really a stretch to imagine staying the fuck out of their way iv possible

I dunno man, the new Sam looked ready to rumble after all that time on the punching bag

Something else I wondered - why erase GERTY'S memory banks? Sam becomes a whistleblower on Earth - surely that data would help? Otherwise the company can just deny everything.

apart from him actually being a clone?

Heh yes, good point.

Still - I wasn't real clear on the point of shutting down GERTY's memory.

I may be turning into the Tuomas of thinky sci fi movies.

lol

Been a while since i saw it so not really able to argue the in-depths. I didn't feel the ending was a cop-out though, i was happier that it wasn't join-the-dots stuff

Just caught this - had no expectations (didn't even realise it was D. Jones until after) but really liked it. Many homages to past greats in shots and design etc, but stood on its own feet, I thought. Could have done with a more miserable ending, though. Also rolling my eyes at some of the comments above: an element of the plot revealed in the first third of the film is not a twist, people.

Of course it can be. M Night Shyamalan didn't invent the twist. (I believe it was C. Checker?)

Of course it can be

Eh, a film can be 'full of twists and turns', I guess, but the way people were saying 'I totally got the twist straight away' or 'the twist was a bit lame' would imply they were treating it as a twist-in-the-tail type twist.

M Night Shyamalan didn't invent the twist.

Lol, wut? Where exactly did you pick that up from in my post, you maniac?

Based on my scientific viewing of 1.5 Shyamalan films, his twist reveals are the absolute final narrative event of the movie

would imply they were treating it as a twist-in-the-tail type twist.

It's a twist-in-the-upper-torso type twist.

Based on my scientific viewing of 1.5 Shyamalan films, his twist reveals are the absolute final narrative event of the movie

That isn't at issue. What is at issue is that you somehow went "emil.y is saying that films have a twist at the end" -> "M. Night Shyamalan films have twists at the end" ∴ "emil.y thinks M. Night Shyamalan invented the twist". THIS LOGIC IS HIGHLY FAULTY.

It's a twist-in-the-upper-torso type twist.

Genuine, actual lol.

Still - I wasn't real clear on the point of shutting down GERTY's memory.

i think it was to give the escapee some time. if the corporation found out what happened they could have, say, shot down the escape pod thing.

soundtrack just filled me with fremdschämen.

The World's End has an event about a third of the way in that upends the narrative and tonal expectations set by the entire preceding part of the film, and I was very very pleased not to be expecting, and thus to be surprised, by it.

Midnight In Paris has an event in the first third of the film that upends the narrative and tonal expectations set by the entire preceding part of the film, and I was very very pleased not to be expecting, and thus to be surprised, by it.

Neither of these present themselves as a justification or raison d'etre of the entire work, but they still "twist" the story and the viewer's experience away from what was previously established.

Super-detailed blog post about typography and other set details in Moon (warning, SPOILERS, etc): http://typesetinthefuture.com/moon/

Someone from the post-production team comments re the blog post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244517

and more interviews/posts from designers here and here:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/moon/
http://www.gavinrothery.com/moon-blog-index/

which I haven't even looked at yet because information overload

the reviews for his new netflix film are so spectacularly awful that it's intriguing, somehow. From various reviews:

Mute review – Duncan Jones's sci-fi thriller is a Netflix disaster
...
Mute, a spectacularly blown shot at redemption.
...
Alexander Skårsgard, Leo has been rendered unable to speak by one of those throat-slashing Amish motorboating accidents that are always in the news.
...
Not merely tonally incoherent, the film’s denouement utterly defies comprehension; the barrage of inexplicable twists that closes out the film contains one of the more unexpected and staggeringly mishandled depictions of pedophilia in recent memory.
...
Mute represents the nadir of [Netflix's] paradigm-shifting strategy.
...
A good word to describe Mute might be berserk.
...
when the two plot elements finally combine, it’s in a woefully confusing way that manages to be both boring and melodramatic, while giving paedophilia one of the most curious cinematic treatments on record.
...
at no point in the film does his quest feel as if it actually matters.
...
the story is a maze of dead ends and non-sequiturs that are never quite interesting enough to seem purposefully confusing.
...
Mute is a punishing watch.

Uh, wow.

William Gibson loved it, but I'm suspicious he has terrible taste in most things.

Netflix's track record for features (save for Gerald's Game and the only so-so Mudbound) really has been awful

Okja was enjoyable.

Sadly this wasn't. What a fucking mess.

Okja was a cute thirty minutes of oooo-ing over the hippo and then turned off

I randomly watched this for the first time last night and really enjoyed it. Previously, I'd refused to watch any scifi film made this millennium after the trauma of enduring the execrable Interstellar but this gave me lite Primer vibes and I loved it

Surprised no one itt mentioned the conspicuous and confusing presence of not only 80s music ("Walking on Sunshine," the generic 80s hair metal Sam wakes to) but also the use of The Clapper to turn off the tv

People who enjoyed this might like I Am Mother.

Moon was a great choice for the whole family early in the pandemic, before the kids (and we) realized that, no, it wasn't exactly a strict lockdown and no, they didn't have to be stuck inside watching movies with us all the time.