Posts tagged Duncan Jones
“Source Code” Expect a Tweak
Apr 7th
“Expect a Tweak”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SOURCE CODE is a science-fiction, action-thriller version of the 1993 GROUNDHOG DAY, except each return to the past lasts only eight minutes apiece.
And yet it is still worth watching, especially for the work of star Jake Gyllenhaal and director Duncan Jones, who previously directed the excellent 2009 MOON.
However, you have to be willing to suspend your disbelief at least nine times, if my count of the trips back in time are accurate.
And we are told that these events are not time travel; they are time reassignment. Also, the program that is called “Source Code” and allows these events to take place is not designed to alter the past. It is designed to affect the future.
It all begins when Capt. Colter Stevens wakes up one morning on a commuter train to Chicago. A woman sitting across from him says, “I took your advice. It was good advice. Thank you.”
And yet Stevens doesn’t know where he is, what is happening, or who this woman is, whose name is Christina.
Eight minutes later a bomb on the train explodes and everyone on it is killed.
Then Stevens finds himself in a crashed helicopter in Afghanistan, and a woman is talking to him over a video screen. She is Capt. Goodwin, and she tells Stevens that he is part of a mission designed to prevent that bomb explosion.
Eight minutes before the explosion, Stevens’ mind can be inserted into the body of another man on that train, and his mission is to find the bomb, find the bomber, and report the results.
Nice work if he can do it, especially in only eight minutes, but each time he goes back, he knows a little bit more which will allow him to find the bomb, find the bomber, and complete the mission.
We learn that Stevens is a born hero and saving people is what he does best, but he is also told by Capt. Goodwin that he can’t save the people on the train, because they are already dead.
This causes conflict in Stevens, because he becomes more and more fond of Christina each time he meets her for the first time.
However, the ending is all wrong and expect some changes to it when the DVD comes out.
SOURCE CODE is entertaining, but expect a tweak.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Source Code – Movie Trailer
Apr 6th
When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the Source Code, a program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack.
“Moon” Excellence
Jul 22nd
Excellence
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MOON is an excellent film that doesn’t answer all of the questions it raises, but it leaves them for you to think about and enjoy for weeks to come, if not for years to come.
In other words, it stays with you and isn’t easily forgotten about, as so many other movies are today.
It was directed by Duncan Jones, which is all the more remarkable, because this is the first feature film that he has directed. What is at least interesting, if not also remarkable, is that Jones is the son of David Bowie.
The film stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, the only human on a mining base on the far side of the Moon, which means that he doesn’t even have the comfort of being able to look up into the sky and see planet Earth.
Sam has only two weeks left on his three-year contract with Lunar Industries, and he says, “I’m talking to myself on a regular basis. Time to go home.”
However, Sam isn’t alone inside the lunar station. There is also a robot named Gerty to look after him and the operation.
Gerty, which is voiced by Kevin Spacey, isn’t just a stationary box inside a wall, either. It has components that can move around inside the station, and it has an animated smiley face that displays its three “emotions”: happy, sad, and noncommittal.
Sam can also communicate with his wife and daughter back home on Earth by using recorded video messages, but that isn’t very much comfort to him.
One day Sam injures himself when he is distracted by a hallucination of a beautiful woman sitting in a chair, and his injury will have consequences later on.
Worse than that, however, Sam has an accident in one of the lunar rovers while out at a mining operation, and this accident will change his life for the rest of the time he has on his contract, if not forever.
When Sam lies to Gerty, and then we catch Gerty lying to Sam, we know that something dramatic is about to happen. And when Sam’s replacement shows up, it does.
At first Sam and his replacement don’t get along, but then they start cooperating for reasons that we couldn’t have imagined.
MOON leaves us with questions, but its lasting impression is excellence.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”