pedestrian saga

My name it is Sam Hall, Sam Hall
-English folk song, voiced by Johnny Cash in my head all evening

Hey, you want to play Ping-Pong?
-Sam Bell, in Moon

This afternoon I went over to the Darkside to watch Moon. Having heard 2001: A Space Odyssey meets The Twilight Zone, with the son of Ziggy Stardust at the helm, I was floating some pretty high expectations for this flick. It soared above and beyond.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the lone employee posted to a corporate lunar mine (or is he?), just two weeks from completing his three-year contract and returning home (but will he?) The voice of Kevin Spacey plays the emoticon-happy space-station computer, GERTY, a fabulous send-up of HAL 9000 that I can’t believe they pulled off so well.

Moon has got itself some serious atmosphere. Poignant desolation and nostalgia. (I totally cried!) But also charming workplace humor and situation comedy. (I totally chuckled!) Did I mention mystery? It’s got that. Existential Ping-Pong, too. Ooh, plus stickin’ it to the Man!

The production design is gorgeous, and the sets chock full of fascinating details. It’s an outer space future that is gritty, industrial, retro, and utterly convincing. Okay, I want to go again now. But perhaps with a friend this time.

****

New York Times review
Trailer

It was with mixed feelings that I read reports of the inaugural SLIFR Night at the Drive-in with Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, held the last Saturday in May at the Mission Tiki in Montclair, California. There was, of course, intense longing to partake in such a unique cinematic celebration, alongside vicarious satisfaction for ringleader Dennis* who organized such an exquisite movie event, and veneration inspired by the magnitude of his success: an ozoner billing tailor-made to his sensibilities, plus the participation of not only the local hearse club (!) but also Variety film columnist Anne Thompson, who featured it prominently on her blog (!!). His brilliant one-sheet sheet-cake was, well, icing on the proverbial cake.**

Then there was a flush of aw-shucks embarrassment at seeing your humble narrator named among those Dennis wished had been able to attend, in such esteemed company as his lovely and wonderful wife Patty, BFF Bruce (fellow Animal House alum and a horror-comedy film star in his own right), and pal Don Mancini (no less than the creator of Chucky).

I confess to sulking awhile in June, overcome by regret for missing so much fun, until an extraordinary coincidence offered partial redemption. (more…)

ON A RECENT list of fifteen books I’ve read that will always stick with me, I included Stephen King’s Misery, not for its literary value, but for the vivid memories of the context in which I read it.

Round about the summer of 1989, my siblings and I packed into the bench seat of a conversion van and headed west with Dad and Kara toward Denver, Aspen, and Grand Junction, for reunions with various families in the Colorado tribe of the paternal clan. Always one for themed reading (or maybe it was unplanned and serendipitous?), I brought Misery along for the ride through the Rocky Mountains, where the story unfolds. (more…)