Spaceman

I ended up watching Spaceman on the recommendation of a friend of mine.  Since I quite enjoyed the last movie he suggested (Six-String Samurai, which I may or may not end up writing about sometime in the future), I figured I'd add this one to the Netflix queue as well.

Written, directed, and produced by Scott Dikkers (former editor-in-chief of The Onion), Spaceman is about a man who was abducted by aliens when he was a young boy and returns to Earth twenty-five years later trained to kill and follow orders.  Spaceman has trouble adjusting to life back on Earth and tries to get a job with the FBI and then the army with no success.  He eventually winds up working for a supermarket until he attacks a shoplifter.  Eventually, Spaceman ends up trying to get a job for the Mob.  There's also a romance subplot between Spaceman and his neighbor, Sue.

Ok, so this movie is terrible.  I think it had a budget of about $20, it seemed like every bit of dialog was recorded after the filming and dubbed in rather haphazardly, the picture quality was pretty atrocious (especially on an HDTV), and the acting was... not that great for the most part.  HOWEVER: It was incredibly entertaining!  Spaceman gets into all sorts of poorly choreographed fights that are kind of hilarious.  I think the best was when he blinded a guy using two forks and it looked like the "blood" was actually barbecue sauce.  We are also treated to a cleaning/home improvement montage that includes Spaceman going to the library to research some home improvement ideas.  Any book that promotes library usage is OK in my book!

Bottom line: if you like campy movies, give Spaceman a shot.  Just make sure your expectations are set less "Citizen Kane" on the movie-greatness scale, and more "Plan 9 From Outer Space".  Have any suggestions for other movies I should try?

Another Earth

I'm fortunate enough to live near a small, independent movie theater that shows a lot of limited-release, generally arty, movies.  A lot of the time I'm not that interested in what's playing, but every so often a movie comes there that catches my interest.  This time that movie was Another Earth.

Another Earth is a "science fiction" (I'll get to why that's in quotes) movie that involves a second Earth, completely identical to our own, even down to having copies of the same people, appearing as a tiny blue dot in the sky one night.  The night that it first appears, Rhoda Williams (played by Brit Marling) is celebrating getting accepted to MIT.  She has too much to drink, is distracted by trying to see Earth 2, and runs her car into the one occupied by John Burroughs (William Mapother), his pregnant wife, and their young son.  Burroughs goes into a coma and his wife and son are killed.  Four years later, Rhoda is released from prison and, not really knowing what to do with her life, she enters an essay contest to win a seat on the first civilian shuttle to Earth 2, which is now much closer and is visible even in the daytime.  She also finds out where Burroughs lives and goes to his home intending to apologize for the grief she's caused him.  Rhoda panics when he answers the door, says instead that she works for a cleaning service offering a free trial cleaning, and winds up cleaning his house on a regular basis.

Now to why "science fiction" is in quotes up there.  The whole second Earth premise doesn't hold up at all if you think about it even for a moment (such as the havoc another planet being that close to ours would have on things like tides, the fact that people generally seem to feel pretty ho-hum about another Earth suddenly appearing, why didn't anyone know about this planet before it suddenly appeared, etc.).  However, this movie isn't actually about Earth 2.  It's about how Rhoda is dealing with her guilt and the relationship that builds between her and Burroughs.  The appearance of Earth 2 is the catalyst for the events of the movie, and is important to the film's resolution, but it's mostly just in the background.

I don't have much to say about the acting or cinematography or any of that, but I thought Brit Marling did a wonderful acting job in this film.  She was very convincing as a young woman consumed by guilt and unable to forgive herself.  I definitely recommend checking this movie out, provided you aren't a real stickler for plausibility in your movies' premises.