“Space Oddity,” a new overstuffed feature directed by actor Kyra Sedgwick and now playing on VOD, flits around between space travel, trauma, the ecology, family dynamics and romance without ever settling on any one of them.
When we meet the McAllister family, Rhode Island flower farmers Jeff (Kevin Bacon) and Jane (Carrie Preston), daughter Liz (Madeline Brewer) and son Alex (Kyle Allen), they are dealing with great trauma. The death of their middle son has left the parents and sister lost, throwing themselves into work to cope with their loss.
Alex, however, has an out-of-this-world plan to escape his pain. He joins Mission to Mars, a private company—think Bezos and Musk—with plans to colonize Mars. It’s not a one-way trip either. Earth is dying, Alex says, so why hang around?
His family goes along with his pipe dream until he gets serious, and applies for insurance to help finance the journey. At the insurance office, however, he meets Daisy (Alexandra Shipp), a broker who just might give the rocket man a reason to come down to earth.
The subject of space travel is the method by which “Space Oddity” conveys its real message, about the state of our planet and what needs to be done to save our environment, but the addition of family drama and romance makes it feel like it is madly running off in several directions all at once.
It has the feel of an after school special. The lead, Alex, isn’t a teenager, but he behaves like one and Allen’s wishy-washy performance doesn’t do much to hold our interest at the center of the film. He isn’t aided by a script that telegraphs every plot twist in advance. If the film’s journey had been more interesting, the predictable destination wouldn’t be as bland.
“Space Oddity” simply bites off more than it can chew. The environmental messages are heavy-handed with no new ideas and, as a study of grief, it is far too light weight.
Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Angie Seth to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the wild Ron Perlman flick “This Game’s Called Murder,” the Netflix musical biopic “Tick, Tick… Boom,” the documentary “Brian Wilson, Long Promised Road” and the arthouse sequel “The Souvenir Part II.”
Tailor made for fans of musical theatre, “tick, tick…BOOM!,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Netflix autobiographical musical about “Rent” composer Jonathan Larson, is a celebration of the creative process and the following of dreams.
“Everything you are about to see is true… except for the parts Jonathan made up.”
It’s January of 1990 and Larson (Andrew Garfield) is a wannabe composer, working at a restaurant to pay the bills. He’s also about to turn thirty. Older than Stephen Sondheim when he wrote his first musical. Older than Paul McCartney when he wrote his last song with John Lennon.
Eight years writing a futuristic rock musical “Suburbia,” a satire set in the future on a poisoned earth, he’s feeling the pressure to succeed. “I’m the future of musical theatre,” he says, but his girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) wants to leave New York and his best friend Michael (Robin de Jesús) gave up, leaving the stage for a job at an advertising company, making “high five figures.”
Jonathan is struggling to finish his musical in the days leading up to a workshop of the show before a select audience of Broadway luminaries. He’s broke and being pulled from many different sides, but confident. “When ‘Suburbia’ gets produced,” he says optimistically, “I will be getting paid for my music.”
In his personal life his friends and theatre colleagues are dying of AIDS. Professionally he’s distracted, struggling to finish the show, feeling anxiety at the passing of time and his failure to break through on Broadway.
“There’s not enough time,” he says. “Or maybe I’m just wasting my time. And the time keeps ticking, ticking, ticking and I have three days left to until the workshop. Three days left to write this song and if the song doesn’t work, the show doesn’t work. And then it has all been a waste of time.”
Larson’s preoccupation with time, about finding success and not being “a waiter with a hobby,” is made all the more poignant with the knowledge that he passed away at 1996, at the age of 36, on the day of “Rent’s” first Off-Broadway preview performance.
“tick, tick…BOOM!” is kind of meta. It’s a musical about another musical, wrapped up in a movie musical. It follows Larson through the workshop for “Suburbia,” the writing of the songs for the off-Broadway show that gave the movie its title and the experiences that lead to the writing of era-defining show “Rent.”
Music takes center stage, with exuberant performances of the song-and-dance number “No More,” he catchy “Boho Days” and the powerful “Come to Your Senses” and the heartbreaking “Real Life,” but this is a musical whose dramatic scenes aren’t simply links between the tunes. Garfield not only captures Larson’s angst, but his passion as well. This is a story of following a dream, and the mix of aspiration, determination and desperation in Garfield’s performance is palpable. His face as his agent Rosa (Judith Light) tells him, “You keep throwing them against the wall and eventually hope that something sticks,” encapsulates the realization that every creative person must face.
As good as Garfield is, the real stars of “tick, tick…BOOM!” are Larson and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The composer’s more obscure songs are given a deserving showcase and Miranda, brings Larson’s story to life with equal parts reverence and joy.
On a side note, the film, finished and released before the death of Stephen Sondheim, presents a warm tribute to the legendary composer, who offered support and grace to Larson when many others didn’t.
The X-Men have a rich and textured history but almost none is more complicated than Jean Grey, the mutant played by “Game of Thrones” star Sophie Turner in this weekend’s “Dark Phoenix.”
A human with the superpower of telepathy, she’s an empath and, for good and for evil, is also the physical manifestation of the cosmic Phoenix Force, “the spark that gave life to the Universe, the flame that will ultimately consume it.” Over the years she has been included on Top 100 Comic Book Heroes and Comic Book Villains lists and been killed off several times.
The action in “Dark Phoenix” begins with the X-Men team heralded as heroes by the public who once feared them. Professor X (James McAvoy) is a celebrity, featured on magazines, getting medals from the president. He sees their do-good work as a way to keep them safe. “It’s a means to an,” he says, “We are just one bad day away from them starting to see us as the enemy again.”
When a group of astronauts find themselves in trouble Prof X sends Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Grey and others to space on a daring rescue mission. During the operation Grey is hit by “pure and unimaginably powerful cosmic waves” that will eventually transmute her into the Dark Phoenix, a malevolent force with the potential to tear the world apart. The core of good inside Grey battles for supremacy until repressed pain and anger push her to the dark side. “You’re special, Jean,” says shapeshifting energy sponge Smith (Jessica Chastain), “and if you stop fighting that force inside you, if you embrace it, you will possess the very power of a god.”
The X-Men crew have been always been concerned with the greater good, doing what is best for the masses, but what happens when one of their own turns bad and needs to be stopped? That’s the question at the heart of “Dark Phoenix.” “When I lose control,” Grey says, “bad things happen to the people I love.”
At their best the “X-Men” movies are an ode to outsiders. Ripe with metaphor and nuance, they look at how society treats marginalized people. They also find the humanity in their outsider characters. Whether they have blue fur or can bend metal with their mind, their greatest superpowers are always qualities like forgiveness and loyalty.
Progressive ideas about acceptance are still at the heart of “Dark Phoenix” but all the nuance is consumed in a cosmic bonfire of CGI flames and the messaging is delivered with a mallet. “They can never understand you! What they can’t understand they fear and what they fear they seek to destroy!”
The film’s biggest (and only intentional laugh) comes with a good and timely line courtesy of Jennifer Lawrence. “The women are always saving the men around here,” says a huffy Mystique to Professor X. “You might want to think about changing the name to X-Women.”
Despite the pyro on display “Dark Phoenix” doesn’t catch fire. The tone is flat, passionless even as a hectic CGI-A-Thon of eye blistering action eats up much of the last reel. (MILD SPOILER AHEAD) Long-time fans may get a lump in their throats as one classic character makes their farewell but as Grey says, “emotions don’t make you weak, they make you strong.” Whether you’ll feel stronger or not after the end credits roll will depend on how much attached you are to the X-Men characters. If you’re not already a fan this lackluster movie is unlikely to convert you.