If you happen to be in one of the select markets carrying Duncan Jones’s (aka Zowie Bowie) “Moon” and still haven’t made it out to see it, you don’t know what you’re missing. The film recently crossed the $1 million mark. Here’s to many more.
The film is just landing over in the UK and Jones is owning the publicity thing with his story. The next stop appears to be this Vicki Reid article in London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, which does a fine job of spotlighting what it is about this film that makes it register so profoundly: it’s focus on character amid all the familiar tropes of the genre.
With the anniversary of a sci-fi classic already coming this year, and the hope that James Cameron is set to change the game for everyone in December, it’s still so refreshing that a film like this has found a spot between the extremes, destined to be, at the very least, a cult-admired staple of thinking man’s sci-fi.
Here’s a taste of Reid’s piece:
Jones originally approached Sam Rockwell in early 2006 to discuss his script for Mute, a thriller set in the underworld of Berlin, which he was then planning to shoot as his first feature-length film. They met in New York but, ‘I had wanted him to play one role and he wanted to play another, and we both tried to convince each other, but that didn’t really happen.’
Instead they discovered a mutual love of the science fiction films they had grown up with – Outland, Alien, ‘those very human-centric films with the blue-collar characters you don’t really see any more,’ Jones remembers, ‘and I said, if you promise to read it I’ll write something for you. I think he was a little bit sceptical that I would ever get back to him, but I did – about nine months later I had a draft I was happy to send to him.’
Read the rest here.
Comments
5 responses to “Zowie Bowie talks more ‘Moon’ across the pond”
I really, really liked this film. Currently sitting in a healthy second place on my year’s list, behind only Star Trek, and in a healthy position ahead of such disappointments as Public Enemies, Whatever Works, Up and ugh, The Girlfriend Experience.
Rockwell was fantastic, and even though I know the Oscars won’t remember this piece of art, I will.
I went into Moon wanting to dislike it. After all, it is directed by the son of a celebrity, and how often does that turn out well? But between Spacey’s haunting voice, Rockwell’s performance, and the suspense in the narrative, it is easily the best movie I have seen this year.
Just back from it. Loved it. Every second of it. My only worry is that it’s too subtle and artsy to go mainstream or be appreciated or remembered.
And…….I’m finally going to see this in a double-header with The Hurt Locker on Friday. It’ll hopefully provide a somewhat (visually) relaxing counterpoint to the Bigelow film.
I think ‘Moon’ is too commercial and broad. It’s a nice movie — Mansell score, exterior lunar photography, Rockwell has fun with it — but it has horrible bookends and seems to be composed of recycled parts.
It’s a film that thinks it’s got this revelatory, philosophical burrowing going on, but it’s actually just late to the party.