Movie Reviews
Well, we finally have a real movie theater in Santa Fe. Fourteen screens, stadium seating, high back seats that rock, and screens that aren’t the size of postage stamps. For three days all the movies, drinks and popcorn are one dollar so Carl and I decided to give it a go. We ended up going to see THE ASTRONAUT FARMER at the late show. I’m a space junkie, and have been trying to sell a NASA/space show with my friend Mike Cassutt. (If you don’t know Cassutt’s work I recommend you try to find RED MOON in particular and his NASA books, MISSING MAN and TANGO MIDNIGHT. He also wrote the biography of Deke Slayton and the bio of General Stafford, WHO’S WHO IN SPACE, and he’s even been to Star City.) Anyway, we’re working on a movie proposal — cannibalizing from a mini-series version — that combines the private space ventures and Nasa and a thirty year old mystery. All this as a preamble for why I went to see this movie. Also, it had gotten pretty good reviews.
It’s basically FIELD OF DREAMS, one of my favorite films, but it’s not structured as seamlessly as FIELD. You can see the cracks between the acts and the scenes, and the emotional interplay between the husband and wife feel like it’s dictated by a Sy Field screen writing course rather than growing logically out of the events. Okay, it’s time for them to have a fight now. Check. Done that.
There are some effective moments, and Billy Bob Thorton turns in a very nice, understated performance, but I felt like the movie was endless. I was sure it would have been three hours, but when we left the theater we discovered it hadn’t been quite two hours. There are also some hilarious goofs. Like launching a rocket with ten thousand pounds of fuel from a wooden barn, and having the barn still standing there after the launch.
I came home and found myself lying awake and trying to analyze that fine line between knowing the format of a particular form — movie, one hour tv episode — but trying to make the format seem invisible or not present. I’m going to do some more cogitating and perhaps I’ll have some ideas when I get back.
I’m off to Farmington to be an oil and gas maven, and I’ll be staying over at the ranch so I won’t have internet for a couple of days.
Melinda