So the trend in my movie watching lately has been 1950's or 1960’s homage films, probably because most of my friends are sci-fi fanatics. For those of you who don’t know, a sci-fi film during those twenty years have a lot to do with the fear of the unknown which in the reality of that time was Communism plus Russia. In cinema, the unknown was portrayed through aliens, weird creatures like The Blob, and again Russians. There was also some disdain towards technology. Think about the constant offenders in Mystery Science Theater: The Dead Talk Back, The Atomic Brain and Monster A-Go-Go.
Anywho, let’s start with the delightfully campy 1950’s spoof “Alien Trespass.” The inhabitants of a desert town witness a “meteor” crashing into earth. Scientist Dr. Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) and Lana (Jody Thompson) are finishing up an anniversary barbecue, Tammy (Jenni Baird) is peering out the window after painting, and teenage couple Penny and Dick are taking a respite from making out when the “meteor,” also known as alien Urp’s spaceship, crashes into their small town.
The next day, Dick and Penny go back to the scene of the crash and run into a Cycloptic monster with a myriad of tentacles that occasionally turns invisible. They hurry back and report their findings to the soon to be retired head policeman . He scolds them for their farfetched tales and kicks them out of the station. But then weird things start to happen. There are scream filled phone calls. And allegations that someone was just turned into a puddle.
Furthermore, Dr. Ted Lewis is running around with a weapon device and stealing a car. It might be because alien Urp has inhabited his body. Tammy, a diner waitress, becomes involved with Urp, on a rural outing to pick up more eggs for the diner. Mistaking Urp for Ted Lewis, she offers him a ride and becomes involved in his plight to stop the one eyed monster.
Above: Tammy tries to help Urp/ Ted get back to his home planet, by protecting him from fellow suburbanites.
The best part of Alien Trespass is the archetypal characters. You have the 1950’s homemaker Lana Lewis, the disgruntled cop, the young new policeman, the scientist genius Ted Lewis, the pretty single girl Tammy, the nosy townspeople, and the gang of teenagers, the couple Penny and Dick and their cocky bad boy pal. Each line is said with such dramatic emphasis, that you can't help but laugh and enjoy the references to 1950's life. The costumes and scenery are emphasized as much as the dialogue to a campy and cartoonic degree.This film is not for the serious film goer at all. It is for those who find enjoyment in films like Barbarella, Batman with Adam West and the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Here is some interesting trivia about Alien Trespass. Make sure to watch the prologue of the movie with a short discussion with Eric McCormack and the director. Both of them have a historical connection to the film: their ancestors created the film and it was shelved until they recently found it. It is interesting that they wanted to make the movie to highlight the sci-fi age, but also make fun of it at the same time.
I also watched Moon, which was made in 2009 as well. Moon is a more darker look at technology, really similar to WALL-E. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an astronaut who has been up in space for a long time. He misses his wife and hasn’t seen his newborn daughter yet. He doesn’t really interact with any other people. So it is a very lonely life. The only source of interaction is GERTY, a machine that controls the ship and keeps Sam healthy. GERTY is voiced by Kevin Spacey. One day, Sam leaves his base and explores the moon. He crashes his space vehicle and next thing he knows, he is waking up in the base infirmary and GERTY is taking care of him and not responding to the questions he has about his accident. After being cooped up in the station for awhile, Sam goes out to explore even though his sponsor and GERTY forbids him to. Then he finds his crashed vehicle with a man inside…..so is he really as isolated from others as he believes?
This film is hard to sit through even though it is only ninety minutes, because of the silence and large open set design. But Moon covers many psychological issues concerning the self and Sam Rockwell’s acting is always quirky and enjoyable to watch. Moon effectively pulls you into the isolated setting with its repeated scenes and simple set design. It causes you to question how technology isolates people, a problem not thought about today with the latest technology causing decreasing our human interactions and our thinking processes.
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