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Director Duncan Jones impressed critics and a cult audience with his 2009 debut sci-fi movie, Moon, which saw Sam Rockwell alone in a space station with nothing but a computer to talk to, and decided to stay in the genre for his follow-up, Source Code, which follows Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier that wakes up in another man's body and tries to stop a train explosion. So far, one trailer for the movie exists, which wouldn't be that unusual if the movie wasn't coming out in April. Several new interviews with Jones have been released online, with Jones telling ComingSoon why he's choosing to keep most of the plot details for Source Code a secret.
Well, I had what I thought was a horrible experience on Moon in that what I thought was a really fundamental reveal was given away in the trailer. But there seems to be something really weird about trailers these days and what they're able to do. I, for one, tend to avoid trailers as much as I can. They seem to reveal a lot more than I would want them to. But with this film, there's a lot that is not revealed in the trailer. You may think there's more revealed in the trailer than there is, actually. It's tricky. Trailers have a job to do. You have to excite an audience and get them to want to come see a film. At the same time, you want to hold back as much as you can for the actual film. You want to give them a new experience rather than just an elongated version of the trailer. So you just have to find that balance.
Jones "intimidated" by Superman? >> Posted 01.22.11 by Ryan -
Weeks after director Duncan Jones made his debut with Moon — the highly-lauded 2009 sci-fi movie starring Sam Rockwell — reports revealed that Jones' next project would be the a Blade Runner-inspired, futuristic thriller Mute, about "a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender" who "has to go up against the city's gangsters." Instead of making Mute, however, Jones moved on to a different sci-fi thriller, Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier who wakes up in the body of another man in order to discover the culprit of a train bombing.
With Source Code opening later this year, WeGotThisCovered spoke to Jones about Mute, which Jones admitted is "in limbo."
what's the problem? >> Posted 01.17.11 by Ryan -
Despite being arguably this year's best sci-fi/mystery movie, Sony is quashing any chance of Sam Rockwell getting an Academy Award for Moon, according to THR.
The movie made it on to many critics' favorite films of 2009, and Rockwell did a marathon acting job playing the lone man on a desolate moon base. However, it seems Sony has decided not to send out screeners, which means it won't be among the movies included for Oscar consideration.
Director Duncan Jones is said to be pleading with the studio to reconsider, and tweeting...
We have more than asked ... we've knocked heads. They have chosen the films they are backing and we are not in their plans. They say it costs too much for our little film as they would need to be water-marked copies as our DVD isn't out yet in the US."
Thankfully, some big players in Hollywood are voicing their disappointment to Sony. The likes of Neil Gaiman and Jon Favreau are reportedly expressing outrage and offering help. There's also a petition circulating to get Rockwell an Oscar nomination for his performance.
Posted 12.31.09 by reelz -
Sam Rockwell seems like the only cast member not interviewed at the Entertainment Tonight set visit, but IGN managed to catch up with Rockwell and find out more details about Justin Hammer, the character Rockwell plays in the movie.
He's a rival of Tony's — they are competitors in the weapons industry. I team up with Mickey Rourke and we decide we want to take him down and take down the Stark legacy. He's sort of like a cousin of the Charlie's Angels character I played. The smarmy cousin. But it's Mickey — he does the fighting and the kicking ass in the film.
Rockwell glowed about the Iron Man 2 cast.
It was great ... it was a good time, a lot of fun. It's like the all-stars; like the globe-trotters or something. You know, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth [Paltrow], Scarlett [Johansson], and Robert Downey Jr. And Sam Jackson's there too. It does feel like you're passing the ball with Michael Jordan and then onto Larry Bird.
After taking part in such a high-profile sequel, has Rockwell been hit by the superhero bug?
I would love to do something like that. It would have to be a pretty strange superhero. I would love to do that with someone like Duncan [Jones, who directed Rockwell in Moon]. Duncan and I could create something really cool. I would love to create a character like Indiana Jones or something like that.
Posted 10.01.09 by Ryan -
Though most of the current buzz surrounding actor Sam Rockwell has had to do with his recent appearance at San Diego Comic-Con and his participation in next summer's Iron Man 2, Rockwell is currently starring in an independent movie with a minimal budget and an even smaller cast that's winning over fans and critics alike. Moon is the directorial debut of Duncan Jones, aka rocker David Bowie's son Zowie Bowie, and was specificially written by Jones and Nathan Parker with Rockwell in mind.
In a performance that Wired called "intensely introspective" and The Times called "poignant," Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, a blue-collar lunar employee who struggles with the effects of long-term isolation after a three-year stint. With nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey and gritty sci-fi like Outland, Moon was initially only released in New York and Los Angeles but is now in wider release, thanks to critical praise and positive word-of-mouth. Some are even calling Rockwell's performance Oscar-worthy.
Rockwell is less concerned about the talk of awards than he is the fact that people have the chance to see the movie. When asked about the prospect of an Academy Award nomination during Comic-Con's Iron Man 2 Q&A, Rockwell said:
It's very flattering. It's a nice thing to say. You know, from their mouth to God's ears. But, you know, right now it's early in the year for that kind of stuff. It's very nice. It's very nice to hear that kind of validation. It's a small movie that I thought was going to disappear after a week or two that's still around, so I'm really excited about it.
I'm a sci-fi fan, so I'm just proud to be a part of it. I'm really excited. I didn't think anybody was going to see it and more people have seen it than I thought.
Posted 07.30.09 by BrentJS -
Sam Rockwell is an actor known for taking interesting and challenging roles, such as game show host Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or the sex-addicted Victor in Choke, which likely prepared him to take on two difficult roles, that of astronaut Sam Bell in Moon, a movie that revolves entirely around Rockwell's solo performance, and rich industrialist Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, a role Rockwell accepted "on faith" when the script arrived only one week prior to shooting.
With both movies, Rockwell is having a great time, in part due to the amount of improvising he gets to do, especially on Iron Man 2:
It's not dissimilar to other studio movies, but the thing that's different about it is [director Jon Favreau] really likes to improvise. So we get to play more on this movie than you would on a lot of studio movies.
Moon, with only Rockwell as the camera's focus, also had opportunities for improvisation:
The first [take] that you'd shoot you'd have more room for improvisation. The second one you'd have to get it within the window of time — you had a space of time for your line. I could change the ad-libs as long as they fit the same amounts of beats. You could ad-lib but you had to be very clever about it, otherwise it wouldn't work.
Still, acting alone is a challenge no matter how much freedom you have, as Rockwell discovered working on Moon:
I had a body double, and he was a young actor who I would work with sometimes. And sometimes I would work with a tennis ball, and I would act with myself. It was pretty complicated. My sense of timing came in handy. Whether that be comic timing, or like dance or something. Timing was very instrumental in making it work.
With Moon finished and released Friday in New York and L.A. before opening in other cities, Rockwell can now concentrate on Iron Man 2 and his fight scenes with Mickey Rourke:
We don't punch each other physically, but we do punch each other in other ways — it's emotional.
And this time, he won't have to do it alone.
Posted 06.13.09 by Ryan -
Despite being shot on a shoe-string budget and helmed by a first-time director, Duncan Jones' Moon is coming to town. This quirky tale of madness and isolation on the moon, which picked up an impressive list of endorsements on the film festival circuit, opens tomorrow at select theaters in LA and New York. Sony has now released a more extended schedule of openings elsewhere across the country for later June and July.
The fact that the movie is directed by the son of David Bowie has been a source of intense curiosity in the press and a real boon for headline writers. ("Son of Major Tom, at Ground Control" is an instant classic). But several reviews suggest that there may be a bit more to that comparison. Wired, for example, finds something in it that harkens back to the sci-fi classics of the '70s and '80s:
With no giant explosions, no monstrous aliens and no shortage of nods to cerebral sci-fi classics, Moon delivers a stirring, character-driven story about a profoundly isolated blue-collar guy in a bad situation. [Sam] Rockwell's intensely introspective performance imbues this somber little movie with sci-fi beauty that's more than skin deep.
High praise, indeed, and all the more surprising coming from the high-priests of gadgetry over at Wired. And, for the record, Jones' father is proud.
Posted 06.11.09 by reelz -
A scrubbed and cheery -- but decidedly creepy -- ad for the fictional Lunar Industries opens a new red band clip for Duncan Jones' space isolation drama Moon. It basks in all the good that the company has supposedly accomplished, providing cheap energy and helping alleviate the world's problems, etc. There is, of course, a dark side, as Lunar Industries miner Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) soon discovers.
On the strength of the positive buzz about Moon on the film festival circuit, Jones has now been tapped to direct Escape from the Deep, the story of a WWII-era U.S. navy submarine and crew stranded on the ocean floor.
Posted 06.02.09 by reelz -
Moon, an indie sci-fi film about disturbing discoveries at a lonely lunar outpost helmed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones, has been getting largely rave reviews on the film festival circuit. Finally, the trailer has been released. Some clips were available earlier, but the trailer offers new footage and a better sense of where the picture is headed. When things start to go wrong for a lonely space miner (Sam Rockwell), the computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) looks like it might just go all HAL 9000 on him. Its emoticon puts on its twitchy face and suggests, "Perhaps you are imagining things." It's a menacing doubt also neatly incorporated into the movie's trippy new op-art-inspired poster.
Posted 04.13.09 by reelz -
Details about Duncan Jones' tale of tale of space-isolation, madness, and disturbing revelations begin to emerge in 5 clips of the upcoming movie. Moon, which will be premiering at Sundance on January 23, follows a space miner (Sam Rockwell) at a desolate lunar base as he discovers that the company that put him there may be using him in ways he hadn't considered. The clips feature a Hal-like computer, voiced by Kevin Spacey, sporting a smiley-face emoticon, and hints as to what might be driving the miner toward madness.
Given that the movie is being directed by Duncan Jones (aka Zowie Bowie), his vision of isolation and madness in space could by very interesting indeed. For more of Jones' take on Moon, check out his interview yesterday with Quiet Earth.
Posted 01.15.09 by reelz