Moon

Just a few quick comments, as I am falling behind on my blogging, due to so much travelling lately.

From the web sites I visit, especially reddit, I had gleaned that a lot of people liked Moon. I had seen only one trailer for it before seeing it, and knew very little about the plot. That turned out to be good, as I spent a lot of the movie trying to figure out what was going on (in a good way).

The story is about a man (Sam Rockwell) working by himself on the lunar surface, for a mining company. There is a computer that keeps him company (voiced by Kevin Spacey). This immediately brings up comparisons to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but since this is not that movie, you have to start wondering: "O.K, obiviously they are not going to go down the same route as Kubrick's movie. But where are they going with this?"

All this wondering about the plot was great fun. There are of course plot twists, but in the third act, I began to wonder if maybe there was another plot twist coming that would be too much---a plot twist too far. At that point I was thinking, "this is a great story, I hope they don't ruin it."

They didn't (they being director/screenwriter Duncan Jones and co-writer Nathan Parker). It was fun. The "too far" plot twist I was fearing did not arrive. The plot twist could have been one of those "let's make it more psychologically and existensially universal" kinds of things. But that would have been trite. By not intoducing the "existensial" plot twist, but keeping a "straight" narrative, it actually became more universal, because it forces one to find the existensial nuggets in the surface level of the story. That's what makes for a superior movie, I think.

It was fresh. Highly recommended if you're in a sci-fi mood.

The auditorium at the Nickelodeon in downtown Portland was nice and cozy, and quite full on a weekday afternoon.