In honor of tonight's 'super moon', and because my brother has been asking me to watch this movie for months, I decided to watch the 2009 film Moon. Directed by first-time director Duncan James, Moon stars Sam Rockwell, Robin Chalk, Kaya Scodelario, and Kevin Spacey as the voice of GERTY. In the movie, Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an astronaut working for an energy company on the moon to help harvest helium-3 for use on Earth. Bell's only contact on the station is with a supercomputer called GERTY, and as such he leads an existence of near solitude. But things are looking up for Bell, as the end of his three year stint is coming soon, and Bell looks forward to reuniting with his family on Earth. However, a crash in a lunar car complicates things, and Bell is left to wonder whether he will ever return to Earth. A few notes about this film, and there probably will be SPOILERS, so read carefully.
- From the start of the film, you can tell that Jones was greatly inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. For one thing, both films are set on the moon, with space stations that look somewhat similar to each other. Also, the sense of loneliness in space is a theme explored in both movies. But the most obvious similarity is that both films have a super computer running the space station, as GERTY is quite similar to 2001's HAL 9000. In interviews after the film, Jones admits that he was greatly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (and other films). Also, Jones's father was inspired in his musical career by the same film. Jones's father, by the way, is David Bowie.
- GERTY, voiced by Spacey, is not just a simple HAL 9000 clone. True, the computer has a giant glowing light (blue in GERTY's case, compared to the red light in HAL 9000), but GERTY also comes with a smiley face emoticon screen that can mimic emotions based on how Sam is feeling at the moment. At one point, GERTY even sheds an imaginary tear. More importantly, whereas HAL became self aware and started doing things to serve it's own purposes, GERTY remains completely loyal to Sam throughout the movie, even if its action hurts the company that designed him. A question for those that have seen this movie: Do we ever find out what GERTY stands for? I mean, I just watched the film, then tried to look it up on the internet, but I've come up empty. How peculiar.
- With only eight actors in the entire film, and every other actor either only supplying a voice or on the screen for less than two minutes, this is a vehicle entirely driven by the acting skill of Sam Rockwell. Whereas some actors may take a role like this and drive the movie off a cliff, Rockwell not only stays on the road, but he also wins the big race with his performance here (enough driving references for you?). Rockwell is given a challenging role, with little or no on-screen help, and excels at it. Rockwell's so good in this film that it makes me wonder just how in the world he didn't get at least a Best Actor nomination from the Academy in 2009. I mean, surely Rockwell did better in this film than Morgan Freeman in Invictus or George Clooney in Up In The Air? Besides, they already have their Oscars.
- Despite a budget of only $5 million, Jones and his special effects crew did a fantastic job of showing their vision of a moon populated by an energy plant. Jones and crew are able to create a setting that looks both futuristic and realistic, and use the blank surfaces of the moon and the empty feeling of the space station to add tension to the film. As for the plot, Jones and writer Nathan Parker come up with a story that is kind of hard to follow at the beginning, but ultimately starts to make sense towards the middle of the film. However, there are a couple of plot holes that I found somewhat unexplained, which I won't discuss here because I don't want to spoil the film too much.
- Here's another question for people that have seen this movie: Is it just me, or did anybody else find the ending to be a bit rushed and anticlimactic? Personally, I was kind of interested in what would happen after the climatic event, but other than a few voices gabbing, we don't really get a whole lot of answers. Also, did anyone else find that song that they kept using in every major scene a bit annoying? I know I started to get tired of it after the seventh time I heard it.
Overall, Moon's not the perfect movie, but it is a movie definitely worth seeing. Jones did a heck of a job as director, especially considering this was his first feature film, and Rockwell gives the best performance of his career as Sam Bell. Overall, I'd give Moon a 7.95 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this review, or ideas for a future review, then please feel free to share those thoughts either by leaving a comment or by sending me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com.
Showing posts with label Kevin Spacey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevin Spacey. Show all posts
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Canon Movie Review: The Usual Suspects
Today I am going to review one of Roger Ebert's most hated movies and one of my favorite movies, The Usual Suspects. Yes, Roger Ebert dislikes this movie so much that he has it on his most hated list along with such movies as Battlefield Earth and Freddy Got Fingered. Anyway, The Usual Suspects was produced in 1995, was directed by Bryan Singer, and its screenplay was written by Christopher McQuarrie. The movie stars Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, and Stephen Baldwin. The movie was nominated and won two Academy Awards, one for McQuarrie for best original screenplay, and one for Spacey for best supporting actor. A few thoughts about this movie, and yes there will be spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie, than stop reading now. Also, if you haven't seen the movie, than stop reading and watch it right now.
- You may find this hard to believe, considering he mainly shows up in reality shows like "Celebrity Apprentice" and "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here", but Stephen Baldwin did an excellent job of playing the wise-cracking thief McManus in this film. Other than Spacey and Byrne, Baldwin had the strongest peformance in the film, and this film was full of strong performances.
- One of the more interesting performances was that of Benicio Del Toro, who played McManus's long time partner Finster. Del Toro decided to speak every line with a nearly unintelligible voice that made it hard to understand what he has saying. According to Del Toro, since Finster was ultimately a throwaway character, it wouldn't matter what he said, which is why he decided to portray Finster in that matter. The result is that viewers of this movie definitely remember Finster and his crazy accent, so what was a throwaway character, so to speak, becomes one of the more interesting aspects of the film.
- Even though Kevin Spacey won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, I find it hard to believe that he would even be considered a supporting actor. After all, Spacey's character, Verbal Kint, is the person narrating the story and the person who is the main focal point of the plot, so even though his performance was certainly Oscar Worthy, I wouldn't neccesarily call him a supporting actor. Just a thought.
- Spacey did an excellent job as Verbal, no doubt, but to me the strongest performance in the film was turned in by Gabriel Byrne, as Dean Keaton, a disgraced ex-cop who is trying to lead a straight and narrow life, but whose past always ends up catching up to him. Byrne played that role perfectly, and I could not imagine anyone playing that role any better, which I couldn't say about a lot of the other roles in this movie. And yet, Byrne actually turned this role down on more than one occasion, in part due to his feeling that the director couldn't pull off this type of movie, before finally agreeing to take the part. It's a good thing he did, because if nearly anybody else takes the role of Keaton, than this movie is not nearly as good as it is.
- More casting issues, the part of special agent Dave Kujan was written with Chazz Palminteri in mind. While Palminteri eventually took the part, at first he was unavailable due to schedule conflicts , and the part instead was offered to Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, and Al Pacino, who all turned it down. While Palminteri eventually found exactly one week to do the part and did an excellent job, it is interesting to wonder just how DeNiro, Walken, and Pacino would have portrayed the role of Kujan.
- Because of the huge twist at the end of the movie, there are a few people that have seen the movie that dislike the movie because it's kind of hard to tell just how much of the events portrayed in the movie really took place, so to speak. While I can see their point, as the twist does somewhat muddle things, to me the big twist in the end actually makes this a better film, as it brings things whole circle and the various actions and reactions in that final scene are done perfectly.
Overall, this is probably one of my five favorite films of all time. I could see this film once a week for the rest of my life and not tire of the film. The acting is top-notch, the script is just about perfect, the score of the film really adds a lot to the film, and the film held my interest from beginning to end. There were probably a couple of things that could have been improved, but overall it's as close to a perfect movie as you can get. I'll give it a 9.83 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this post, or ideas for future reviews, than share those thoughts and ideas either by leaving a comment on the blog or by sending me an e-mail at kthec2001@gmail.com.
- You may find this hard to believe, considering he mainly shows up in reality shows like "Celebrity Apprentice" and "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here", but Stephen Baldwin did an excellent job of playing the wise-cracking thief McManus in this film. Other than Spacey and Byrne, Baldwin had the strongest peformance in the film, and this film was full of strong performances.
- One of the more interesting performances was that of Benicio Del Toro, who played McManus's long time partner Finster. Del Toro decided to speak every line with a nearly unintelligible voice that made it hard to understand what he has saying. According to Del Toro, since Finster was ultimately a throwaway character, it wouldn't matter what he said, which is why he decided to portray Finster in that matter. The result is that viewers of this movie definitely remember Finster and his crazy accent, so what was a throwaway character, so to speak, becomes one of the more interesting aspects of the film.
- Even though Kevin Spacey won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, I find it hard to believe that he would even be considered a supporting actor. After all, Spacey's character, Verbal Kint, is the person narrating the story and the person who is the main focal point of the plot, so even though his performance was certainly Oscar Worthy, I wouldn't neccesarily call him a supporting actor. Just a thought.
- Spacey did an excellent job as Verbal, no doubt, but to me the strongest performance in the film was turned in by Gabriel Byrne, as Dean Keaton, a disgraced ex-cop who is trying to lead a straight and narrow life, but whose past always ends up catching up to him. Byrne played that role perfectly, and I could not imagine anyone playing that role any better, which I couldn't say about a lot of the other roles in this movie. And yet, Byrne actually turned this role down on more than one occasion, in part due to his feeling that the director couldn't pull off this type of movie, before finally agreeing to take the part. It's a good thing he did, because if nearly anybody else takes the role of Keaton, than this movie is not nearly as good as it is.
- More casting issues, the part of special agent Dave Kujan was written with Chazz Palminteri in mind. While Palminteri eventually took the part, at first he was unavailable due to schedule conflicts , and the part instead was offered to Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, and Al Pacino, who all turned it down. While Palminteri eventually found exactly one week to do the part and did an excellent job, it is interesting to wonder just how DeNiro, Walken, and Pacino would have portrayed the role of Kujan.
- Because of the huge twist at the end of the movie, there are a few people that have seen the movie that dislike the movie because it's kind of hard to tell just how much of the events portrayed in the movie really took place, so to speak. While I can see their point, as the twist does somewhat muddle things, to me the big twist in the end actually makes this a better film, as it brings things whole circle and the various actions and reactions in that final scene are done perfectly.
Overall, this is probably one of my five favorite films of all time. I could see this film once a week for the rest of my life and not tire of the film. The acting is top-notch, the script is just about perfect, the score of the film really adds a lot to the film, and the film held my interest from beginning to end. There were probably a couple of things that could have been improved, but overall it's as close to a perfect movie as you can get. I'll give it a 9.83 out of 10. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this post, or ideas for future reviews, than share those thoughts and ideas either by leaving a comment on the blog or by sending me an e-mail at kthec2001@gmail.com.
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