Inception Trailer

So, let's see: a mega-budget sci-fi action thriller, made by my favourite director, with a frankly amazing cast? I was always going to be there on opening day for Christopher Nolan's latest film Inception, but this trailer, as short as it is, has just raised my anticipation even further. And unlike a lot of trailers, it doesn't even begin to give away the plot!

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Wait, what?

Good God, could it be... another post? The second in as many days? Miracles evidently can happen.

Anyway, a bit of a random one, this. The other night, not long after getting home from work, the phone rang. As I expected, it turned out to be a wrong number. In fact, it was a wrong number I had encountered a few times before, except this time with one interesting difference:

Me: "Hello?"

Caller: "Hi, is that Mr. Harberry?"

Me: "No, I think you must have the wrong number."

Caller: "Oh, I'm sorry. Could I ask, are you the home-owner of 38 Prestonfield Terrace?" (well, some address to that effect. It certainly wasn't mine.)

Me: "Sorry, I'm not."

Caller: "Oh, okay. Sorry to bother you, Iain." *Hangs up*

Notice anything strange? About a half-second after putting the phone down, my brain caught up with proceedings and I went on to exclaim (out loud, in an empty flat) "What?! Did she just call me by my name?!"

After a few more seconds of consideration, the rational side of my brain concluded that what she must actually have said was "Sorry to bother you, then.", which does admittedly make a lot more sense. But the irrational part of my brain couldn't help but wonder if I had actually just stumbled across the horrifying truth that I am in fact the subject of some Truman Show-esque experiment where my every action is being observed as I am presented with various tasks and challenges, such as regular and repetitive wrong numbers. I could imagine that the actress at the end of the phone had made a slip of the tongue as she put the phone down and that she was at that very moment being fired by the nefarious individuals running the experiment for jeopardising the entire project with such a foolish error.

Such an experiment would certainly explain some of the situations I have found myself in over the past few months...

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Moon

Hmm, and so another month has passed since my last review. Would you believe that I've only seen one new film in that time? What a lousy run of movies. Anyway...

It's a couple of decades into the future and the world energy crisis has been solved through the mining of helium-3 on the dark side of moon. Sam Bell is the man currently responsible for maintaining the mining operation, and is approaching the end of his solitary 3-year contract. Unfortunately the time spent in isolation with only an AI computer/robot with the voice of Kevin Spacey for company and no direct contact with Earth is starting to take its toll, and he begins to see some very odd things...

Moon is one of those films that is much better experienced knowing as little as possible about the plot. Even though the plot's twists and turns and actually quite subtly presented rather than playing up to potential shock value, none-the-less I feel that your appreciation will be higher when you discover them for yourself rather than having a trailer or review spoil them for you. As such this review is going to be quite short, but what I will say is that Moon is very a much the kind of intelligent, thoughtful science-fiction that is quite rare in today's age of CGI aliens and gigantic robots.

The effective use of miniatures for the visual effects and the retro-feel of the set design harkens back to sci-fi classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Soylent Green and (I'm told) Silent Running. Combine some stylish direction (from the son of David Bowie, no less), a great Clint Mansell score and an absolute tour-de-force performance from Sam Rockwell (this is essentially a one-man show and he certainly delivers), this is a highly enjoyable and rewarding film. While perhaps not quite as original as it could have been - most of the plot elements can ultimately be recognised in other films - this is undoubtedly amongst the best films of the year so far and deserving of the Audience Award it won at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

VERDICT: Well worth seeing. Just a pity I didn't post this review when it was still in cinemas. Ahem.

IMDb

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