Further to my previous entry slightly mocking EM Forster for predicting a world of ‘pneumatic mail’, I’m now told this was indeed what many thought the future would be like in 1909. This Wikipedia entry on the subject points out that more than a few cities not only adopted a pneumatic postal system in the 19th century, but some kept using their systems long into the era of fax and email. Prague’s pneumatic post lasted until 2002, and only stopped then because of the floods.
I love this Italian P-Post stamp from 1945:
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To the Curzon Soho to see the film Moon. A somewhat sleepy, low-key sci-fi tale in the vein of Silent Running, Solaris, 2001 et al. Not that much happens: a lone astronaut on a moonbase finds something odd has happened. He works out what it is, and decides what to do about it, and it takes him about 97 minutes, all in.
Much as I like quiet, slowburning indie films – Red Road springs to mind – I’m surprised here to find myself hankering after more biff-bang-pow fare, such as the recent Star Trek film. In that, a life-or-death sword fight on a vertiginous mining platform is immediately followed by a life-or-death race to teleport two people before they fall to the ground, right before a life-or-death race to save Young Spock’s parents as their home planet explodes. The whole film is like that, and yet it never feels ‘dumbed-down’, or banal: just proper, unabashed value-for-minutes plot. Pure, 100% What Happens Next. The new Doctor Who is similar – 45 minute adventures compressing the same amount of plot as the old 4-part, 100-minute tales.
Maybe it’s because sci-fi is all about on the ability to DO so much more, that one expects the principle to apply to the amount of story as well. Or perhaps it’s because Moon feels more suited to a 30-minute episode of a series like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits rather than a movie.
Still, 97 minutes essentially staring at the face of Sam Rockwell isn’t so bad: he has the kind of existential hangdog canvas highly suited for the purpose, much like Paddy Considine’s.
What’s most unexpected is that the film makes entirely logical use of the song ‘The One And Only’ by Mr Chesney Hawkes. Really! Given the director is Mr Bowie Jr, who presumably has easy access to any of his father’s many space-themed popular hits, his choice to eschew the likes of ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Life On Mars’, ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and ‘Hello Spaceboy’ in favour of Mr Hawkes’s less artistically acceptable 1991 opus is entirely commendable.
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I watch the film with Charley S and her friends Pam and Tristan. Always nice to meet brand new people, or so I think. Pam says she met me at the club Stay Beautiful some years ago, and Tristan tells me he met me 13 years ago when Orlando played a gig in Cambridge. One vain part of me wonders (as ever), how can I convert this so-called ability to be held in the minds of so many for so long into a modest income, while another thinks, well, you just have a silly name and silly hair. That’s all. Now get on with that book.
Tags: Moon, pneumatic post, Star Trek
