Moon (2009)
Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is on a three-year mission to the moon where he and a robot named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) will mine helium-3 for use in fusion energy production.
After an unexpected accident, Sam discovers he’s a clone used by Lunar Industries to save labor costs. At the end of his three-year “contract” he’ll be “sedated” for the journey home.
The feature-length debut of Duncan Jones, son of rocker David Bowie, explores ethical issues surrounding ownership of genetic material. Are clone versions of Sam entitled to the same rights and protections of other people? As far-fetched as it seems, the issue has already been the subject of a Supreme Court case.
As the only actor onscreen for the majority of the film, Rockwell has a difficult task. Fortunately he’s up for the challenge, and his restrained performance keeps the film from being too theoretical or preposterous. Between this and The Way, Way Back (2013), Rockwell is becoming one of my favorite actors.
House of Cards proves Kevin Spacey is great at straddling the line between menacing and benign. His nuanced performance keeps GERTY character from devolving into a parody of HAL 9000.
Similar to Never Let Me Go (2010), this is a thought experiment about the consequences of medical advancement in cloning, but unlike the pessimistic later film, Jones finds hope in humanity’s ability to make the correct choices in an increasingly cold, rational world.
True Romance (1993)
After Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) impulsively marries prostitute Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette), he visits her pimp, drug dealer Drexl Spivey (Gary Oldman), to negotiate her release. When Drexl is murdered during their negotiation, Clarence steals a large amount of cocaine.
The rest of the movie is a series of violent encounters between factions seeking control of the drugs.
Written by Quentin Tarantino before he directed Reservoir Dogs (1992), this is a laboratory for the ingredients he would unleash in Pulp Fiction (1994): copious, stylized violence, fast and breezy dialogue, obscure pop culture references, one or two racially charged scenes, and Samuel L. Jackson.
Tarantino has called the infamous “Sicilian scene” featuring Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken one of his proudest moments.
This film came at the tail end of Christian Slater’s early success, following Heathers (1989), Pump up the Volume (1990) and Young Guns II (1990). Unfortunately, a series of legal matters derailed his career and he hasn’t been able to fulfill the promise of those early roles.
Until she won an Oscar for Boyhood (2014), Patricia Arquette was most famous for her television work as Allison Dubois, but her film career has been impressively eclectic. She’s worked with Tim Burton, David Lynch, and Martin Scorcese. She’s great as the impetuous and off-kilter Alabama.
Bronson Pinchot is best known as Balki Bartokomous and comic relief in Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Elliot Blitzer is a change of pace from his usual roles, but he manages to hold his own.
James Gandolfini’s low-level gangster who meets an early demise was, in retrospect, an audition for his future life as Tony Soprano.
Before he was Jim Gordon or Sirius Black, Gary Oldman was playing so many villainous characters he earned the label psycho deluxe. The man excels at playing sociopaths and his brief scene as Drexl is a highlight of the film.
Tony Scott is a capable action director and does an admirable job maintaining balance with the chaotic screenplay, but there are too many characters (including a young Brad Pitt).
It’s a watered down version of Tarantino’s original vision, but the success of this film proved his vision could work and without this film, Pulp Fiction (1994) might not have been made.
I’m No Angel (1933)
The film is an excuse to let Mae West make pithy, mildly sexual jokes.
West’s quotes are very funny, but in the context of the film they lose their spontaneity and are hampered by her odd and peculiar delivery.
A young Cary Grant plays one of her numerous love interests, reuniting the pair from She Done Him Wrong (1932).
It’s worth watching to get a feel for who Mae West was and a glimpse of what Cary Grant would become, but if you’ve seen West in one film, you’ve seen every one of them: a lot of risqué, dated jokes.