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CONTAGIOUS MOON ROCKS AND OTHER DISEASES
Oct. 3rd, 2011 09:34 pmAnd then I went to the movies and crap.
Apollo 18
SF/horror flick purportedly edited from “found footage” of a top-secret 18th Apollo moon landing in 1974. The mission to establish a base for monitoring Russian ICBMs goes wrong when the astronauts discover the Russians are already there – and that someone or something killed them.
The film has been so widely panned that it’s quite possible I’m the only person who actually liked it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a real film critic. Or because I have a fetish for conspiracy theories and NASA videos. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego does a pretty good job of making it look like NASA archive footage (apart from certain cinematic conceits like sound effects and incidental music).
Granted, it’s somewhat predictable, since – given that all this has been supposedly covered up by the govt – you pretty much know what’s going to happen to the Apollo 18 crew. But I was pretty riveted throughout the film as the story unfolded. It may have more style than substance, but as alien-horror films go, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen.
Contagion
Steven Soderbergh’s “realistic” pandemic film, in which a new virus strain originates from Hong Kong (where else?) and kills tens of millions while the CDC and WHO try to find a cure.
The film has been so widely praised that it’s quite possible I’m the only person who actually wasn’t that impressed. The film follows about a dozen characters Altman-style, from CDC/WHO officials to victims and survivors, but the lack of a protagonist makes it hard to feel too involved. And the “realistic” approach is undermined by a few silly subplots like the kidnapping bit and the blogger bit.
I will say it’s reasonably well acted and surprisingly concise, given the scope of the topic. Still, I felt underwhelmed by the end.
Calling in sick,
This is dF
Apollo 18
SF/horror flick purportedly edited from “found footage” of a top-secret 18th Apollo moon landing in 1974. The mission to establish a base for monitoring Russian ICBMs goes wrong when the astronauts discover the Russians are already there – and that someone or something killed them.
The film has been so widely panned that it’s quite possible I’m the only person who actually liked it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a real film critic. Or because I have a fetish for conspiracy theories and NASA videos. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego does a pretty good job of making it look like NASA archive footage (apart from certain cinematic conceits like sound effects and incidental music).
Granted, it’s somewhat predictable, since – given that all this has been supposedly covered up by the govt – you pretty much know what’s going to happen to the Apollo 18 crew. But I was pretty riveted throughout the film as the story unfolded. It may have more style than substance, but as alien-horror films go, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen.
Contagion
Steven Soderbergh’s “realistic” pandemic film, in which a new virus strain originates from Hong Kong (where else?) and kills tens of millions while the CDC and WHO try to find a cure.
The film has been so widely praised that it’s quite possible I’m the only person who actually wasn’t that impressed. The film follows about a dozen characters Altman-style, from CDC/WHO officials to victims and survivors, but the lack of a protagonist makes it hard to feel too involved. And the “realistic” approach is undermined by a few silly subplots like the kidnapping bit and the blogger bit.
I will say it’s reasonably well acted and surprisingly concise, given the scope of the topic. Still, I felt underwhelmed by the end.
Calling in sick,
This is dF
