Just about this time last year I devoted a column to indie or indie-ish movies hunkered down out there among the multiplex behemoths, titled “Summer Shorts.” It’s time for the sequel. The “specialty” market needs all the help it can get—this year’s biggest grosser among the littles has been Sunshine Cleaning, which washed up with a paltry $12 million in the till, or about what it costs to stage a Quidditch match. Consider this a lifeline, for them and for you, if you’re sick of super-stuff (and don’t forget the excellent The Hurt Locker, which I reviewed two weeks ago).
What I liked best about Moon, which I saw this opportune week, was its retro look. Director Duncan Jones (once known as “Zowie Bowie,” son of the formerly named David Jones) was inspired by the industrial design of Silent Running, Alien, and Outland, which production designer Tony Noble and visual effects supervisor Gavin Rothery translated with models rather than computer graphics. Every time the movie, shot in slightly distressed widescreen by Gary Shaw, ventures outside to the lunar surface I was transported to the pre-digital era. This movie has those movies in mind and also the worlds of Gerry Anderson, of TV’s Thunderbirds and Space: 1999, whose 1969 feature Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is another clear inspiration. (And maybe The Man Who Fell to Earth, but Jones is careful to distance himself from his space oddity dad.) (more…)
There is a sentiment, shared by many followers of great art, that monetary success strips an artist of his inspiration. It is the idea that once the artist has little left to prove, the quality of his work will take a dive and said artist will be a shell of his former self. In popular culture, it’s the idea behind “keeping it real.”