"Moon"

This is British science fiction at its best! Well, I don't know why I narrowed it down to "British," but... It is great science fiction. I guess I was thinking back to Nigel Kneale, Gerry Anderson... You know, that kinda stuff. This film about a man at his wit's end as he wraps up a three-year solitary mining job collecting helium-3 on the far side of the moon for a large corporation.

This film is the debut of director Duncan Jones, who happens to be the son of David Bowie. Sam Rockwell stars as Sam and Kevin Spacey is the voice of his robot, Gerty.

There is a love here for hard scifi that brings to mind 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, Solaris, Alien, Outland, and THX 1138. Jones clearly loves these movies and it doesn't feel like the ideas here were ripped off as it does in other films that pretend that it is instead, homage.

I loved the special effects in this! I am a huge fan of the use of miniatures instead of CGI. I don't mind CGI for small additional effects, like the way the Bjork video, "All is Full of Love" uses CGI for mechanical arms, drills, welding rods and pasting Bjork's face onto a mannequin, because there's a physical object in the scene to give it weight. That's just me.

I saw this film when it was first released and I knew nothing about it going it, so I was very excited by the mystery and the characters of Sam and Gerty. I must say, I was very moved, even emotional in a few parts. I really liked this film a lot! Duncan Jones is quite a talent, just look at his commercial work below.

Duncan Jones Moon Interview from /Film on Vimeo.