Moon

In some ways Moon is a very simple movie, though for the most part I think it works in its favor. The cast is quite small, with the main character played by Sam Rockwell, and the only substantial role besides that being a voice performance by Kevin Spacey as his computer assistant. Otherwise it's just him, some equipment, and the moon, with an interesting though basic-for-sci-fi story about a man who discovers a dark secret about the facility he works on to provide energy for the earth. The twist comes fairly early in the film without too many surprises after that, but I still don't feel like giving it away because it was one of my favorite moments of dawning realization in a while. It might be easier to guess the twist if you're really looking for it, but I mostly let the story wash over me as the film went on and enjoyed myself a lot.

First-time director Duncan Jones had a very small budget to work with, but he stretched it pretty far with a narrow focus on what he was trying to do. The computer effects are not very elaborate but they're effective, and the set and overall design of the picture is very evocative of the classic, pulpy story the film tells. There's some pretty clever work done throughout, and the movie feels like a well-tuned machine that knows exactly what it wants to do. Sam Rockwell is always a charismatic presence, and he nails every bit of a very multi-faceted role, appearing in pretty much every scene. He basically has to carry the whole thing and does it with pretty noteworthy skill. I also loved Spacey's voice work, because of its reverse-deception. He does the quasi-charming creepy voice exquisitely, but the way the story turns the robot-going-against-its-programming trope upside down and has it actually benefit the hero is even more fun, and the fact that the voice turns out to be genuine after all is kind of great. I'm a bit skeptical of Source Code based on the way the trailer presents its plot, but Jones looks to be a promising young genre filmmaker. Also his dad is David Bowie, which is pretty cool too.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Goats is one of those quirkier comedies that just lets you enjoy the slight air of absurdity around it for a while instead of hitting you over the head with wacky moments. It's mostly propelled by good, off-beat performances, especially from its two leads, Ewan McGregor and George Clooney. McGregor is a down-on-his-luck reporter who spends a lot of the film in awe of the strange stuff he keeps seeing, though he also has a strong humorous streak whenever it gets too crazy and he has to lash out. Clooney does one of the best jobs I've seen him do, as an army man on a mission obsessed with his special skills which may or may not be totally fictional. The movie's based on a book about an apparently very real government program to train psychic soldiers to do things like see into distant locations and even kill things with the power of their mind. The film itself can't seem to decide whether to make it real, because half the time they really do work and the other half it's just the hopelessly narrow way they look at it. Maybe that's what it's really about though, just your perspective at any moment.

Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey also turn in solid work as other members of the special unit, though they're mainly seen in flashbacks to when it was still in its prime. The whole movie's structured a bit oddly, bouncing back and forth between mostly the 80s before the program was shut down and earlier this decade, when the author/narrator was in Iraq finding all this stuff out. It really has the feel of one of the Coen Brothers' more light-hearted movies, which is totally cool by me. It's the kind of thing where I enjoyed watching it a lot more than you might guess from just monitoring my laughter, although there were definitely plenty of times I chuckled. The ending was a bit weird, and it's an unusual situation because it would have been pretty much perfect if they just cut it literally a few seconds earlier. It has the feel of being based on a somewhat troubling book to adapt, though for what it's worth the writer did a pretty good job at it. I can't remember many comedies from this year and there are definitely a couple I want to see, but this is one of the better to come out as this decade closes.

Se7en

One of my friends has been trying to get me to see this for maybe a decade now. I'm not sure why it took so long. David Fincher's Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. Maybe being repeatedly told to see it was subconsciously pushing me away. Whatever it was, it's definitely a good film. It's part crime movie, part suspense. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are a couple detectives in a strange city where everything looks run-down and it always rains. Pitt just moved to town to replace Freeman, who's set to retire at the end of the week, but a string of related murders start showing up, pointing to a serial killer obsessed with his own sense of justice and the seven deadly sins. It's a slow burn as they examine the aftermath of his painstaking, disturbing work and try to find connections that will lead to him before he finishes the job. It's clear that he's toying with them, almost challenging them to catch him while he goes about his business. As a look at the possible endpoint of what a human mind might be capable of putting together, it's intriguing and chilling at the same time.

In between checking crime scenes, the movie takes some time to develop the detectives when they're off the job. Pitt comes home to his wife played by Gwyneth Paltrow and their three dogs, while Freeman goes to the library, rarely able to stop thinking about work. There are a couple scenes where Paltrow confides in Freeman, the only man besides her husband she knows to turn to in a new city that she hates. It's unclear at first what the point of this stuff is besides preventing the entire movie from being a creepy detective story, but as the depths of the killer's horrifying plan are unraveled the truth becomes clear. Kevin Spacey has a good role, one of the more interesting in his career (which was nice to see, because it's been a while since I've seen him do a whole lot). It all builds to a huge downer of an ending, one that the studio fought against but ultimately had to happen for the movie to totally work. I should be more diligent about seeing Fincher's films, because he's certainly one of the most interesting directors of the last couple decades.