The American Astronaut

Starring:Rocco Sisto, Tom Aldredge, Bill Buell, Greg Russell Cook, Annie Golden, Mark Manley, Robert Philip Marcus, Doug McKean, Joseph McKenna, Peter McRobbie, James Ransone, Ned Sublette, Joshua Taylor, Melissa Wilder
Studio: Plum Pictures & Bns
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Literally out-of-this-world, The American Astronaut is a post-Eraserhead, black-and-white comedy set on an asteroid that serves as an outpost for desperadoes, mad scientists, and paranoid travelers. Director Cory McAbee, frontman for the dynamic, experimental rock band the Billy Naylor Show, has constructed a seedy, surreal vision of conquered space that includes rocket ships operated by junkyard parts, barflies with a increasingly pathological sense of humor, and handguns that reduce people to a bucket's worth of sand. In this nightmarish, sometimes funny, sometimes tedious fantasy noir, a distressed astronaut (McAbee) agrees to swap a caged, embryonic female for a captive male on one planet and deliver the latter to the man-hungry (if peculiarly antebellum) women of Venus. The film doesn't necessarily hold up as a singular work, but there are several remarkable sequences, including a dance number in a scummy restroom and an unsettling comedy routine. Special features include an interesting interview with McAbee. --Tom Keogh
Description
Written, directed, and starring Cory McAbee of The Billy Nayer Show, this space western musical uses flinty black-and-white photography, rugged Lo-Fi sets and the spirit of the final frontier to bring the film, set in the dirty, isolated vastness of outer space, to life. The film also stars Rocco Sisto and Gregory Russell Cook. THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT follows the adventures of an interplanetary trader (McAbee) through his Homeric intergalactic journey to provide the all-female population of Venus with a suitable singular male, all the while being pursued by the cold-blooded and childish killer, Professor Hess (Sisto), an enigmatic figure from his past. The film features an original soundtrack by the The Billy Nayer Show.

American Experience: Race to the Moon: The Daring Adventure of Apollo 8
Average customer rating:

Michael Smith

There really is a Santa Claus

Educational and Extremely Interesting

American Experience: Race to the Moon: The Daring Adventure of Apollo 8
Starring: Kevin Kercher , Ben Loeterman , Mark Zwonitzer , David McCullough (II) , and Marion Ross
Director: Rocky Collins , and Matthew Collins (III)
Manufacturer: PBS (Direct)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video
Science & Technology | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video
Space Exploration | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video
General | Travel | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video
United States | Travel | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video
( A ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
All | PBS | Specialty Stores | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

NOVA - To the Moon

The Race to the Moon (History Channel)

Apollo Moon Missions: The Unsung Heroes

Apollo 1

Apollo 13: The Real Story

ASIN: B000CPHA9W
Release Date: 2006-01-17

Customer Reviews:

Michael Smith.......2007-03-21

Race To The Moon takes the viewer inside the emotions and thoughts of those who rode with Apollo 8 on its epic voyage to the moon. Accompanying the crew's story are the fresh insights from the wives, which adds a human dimension that astronauts usually struggle to convey. The wives portray the drama of this flight across the unknown with an honest and raw account of what it was like for them to live through the emotionally draining journey. This documentary captures the full scope of an Apollo mission - from the crews perspective and from those the left behind.

Apollo 8 was a political gamble that produced an engineering triumphant and the unexpected stirring of the human spirit. The documentary deals with the spiritual and human aspects of witnessing the first earth rise above the lunar horizon. Race To The Moon tells the story Apollo 8 from the political, technical, emotional and spiritual perspectives, capturing the drama of the most significant event of human exploration - the first journey from the earth to the moon.

There really is a Santa Claus.......2006-09-15

An interesting documentary with excellent coverage specifically of Apollo 8, the first and overwhelmingly successful manned mission to orbit the Moon. This DVD runs slightly under 60 minutes, however there are about another 30 minutes or so of deleted scenes provided as extra features on the disc.

For a home entertainment DVD version of the original broadcast on TV, as a part of the ongoing PBS series, the American Experience, I do not understand why the publisher did not simply include all the scenes (uneditted) and make this a 90 minute feature. All deleted scenes are completely relevant to the storyline and likely be of keen interest to the average viewer.

I particularly liked the deleted scene with Astronaut Bill Anders explaining his first sighting of the Moon (closeup, just prior to going into orbit) while it was still in total darkness (Double Umbra).

The many additional interviews with the other Astronauts, Jim Lovell, the Command Module Pilot, and Frank Borman, Mission Commander, their wives and Mission Controllers, TV commentators (Walter Cronkite) and space historians, and their reflections of the event, were also very interesting.

There was an interview with Frank Borman's wife, Susan, that reveals at one point during the mission while her husband was already orbiting the Moon, she insisted on knowing what the astronauts' chances were for a successful return to Earth. Kris Craft, head of Houston Mission Control, gave her his honest opinion, as no better than 50-50.

The pictures of the Earth from a quarter million miles away are breathtaking, as is true of most other movies about the Apollo program. My favorite is of the "crescent" Earth as scene from outer space, as opposed to a fully illuminated sphere. I find such photos to be absolutely stunning; truly awe inspiring.

In summary this DVD is well worth viewing and the successful mission of Apollo 8 is still quite remarkable and truly inspiring. Forget about the political motives that encouraged the space race with the Russians, a course set for the nation by President Kennedy. This event was truly risk taking in its finest form, and a spectacular historical accomplishment for all mankind, particularly NASA on behalf of the American flag.

This and subsequent U.S. manned space flights to the Moon, notably Apollo 11, the first lunar surface landing, will forever be imbedding in any proud to be an Americans' mind who lived through that unforgettable era. This DVD will surely bring back those fond memories, and renew your faith in American pride.

Educational and Extremely Interesting.......2006-02-23

A well-told, informative film that captures the essence of the Space Program. Using the perspectives of the astronauts, their wives, cosmonauts as well as engineers and journalists, this documentary tells how the Apollo team accomplished the aggressive goal of reaching the moon and how this historical mission touched their lives.

Those interested in the space program, history and quality films will find this is a must watch.

Average customer rating:

The Gospel of all movies
MOVE OVER LYNCH!
A junker spaceship full o fun
only one episode in the many adventures of Samuel Curtis
Weird but worthwhile

The American Astronaut
Starring: Tom Aldredge , Bill Buell , Greg Russell Cook , Annie Golden , and Mark Manley
Manufacturer: Plum Pictures & Bns
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

( A ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Rabbit
The American Astronaut
The Billy Nayer Show, The Early Years
Primer
The Saddest Music in the World

ASIN: B00074CBZ6
Release Date: 2005-02-22

Amazon.com

Literally out-of-this-world, The American Astronaut is a post-Eraserhead, black-and-white comedy set on an asteroid that serves as an outpost for desperadoes, mad scientists, and paranoid travelers. Director Cory McAbee, frontman for the dynamic, experimental rock band the Billy Naylor Show, has constructed a seedy, surreal vision of conquered space that includes rocket ships operated by junkyard parts, barflies with a increasingly pathological sense of humor, and handguns that reduce people to a bucket's worth of sand. In this nightmarish, sometimes funny, sometimes tedious fantasy noir, a distressed astronaut (McAbee) agrees to swap a caged, embryonic female for a captive male on one planet and deliver the latter to the man-hungry (if peculiarly antebellum) women of Venus. The film doesn't necessarily hold up as a singular work, but there are several remarkable sequences, including a dance number in a scummy restroom and an unsettling comedy routine. Special features include an interesting interview with McAbee. --Tom Keogh

Description

Written, directed, and starring Cory McAbee of The Billy Nayer Show, this space western musical uses flinty black-and-white photography, rugged Lo-Fi sets and the spirit of the final frontier to bring the film, set in the dirty, isolated vastness of outer space, to life. The film also stars Rocco Sisto and Gregory Russell Cook. THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT follows the adventures of an interplanetary trader (McAbee) through his Homeric intergalactic journey to provide the all-female population of Venus with a suitable singular male, all the while being pursued by the cold-blooded and childish killer, Professor Hess (Sisto), an enigmatic figure from his past. The film features an original soundtrack by the The Billy Nayer Show.

Customer Reviews:

The Gospel of all movies.......2007-06-10

I'll just say if Orson Wells were alive and an indie rocker he would have made this movie. If you haven't seen it, you aren't a whole person yet. You'll understand that once you see this movie it is your civic duty to show everyone you know. One day, maybe, every man, woman, and child will have seen The American Astronaut.

MOVE OVER LYNCH!.......2006-11-16

THIS IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE!!! It's so crazy because you never know what is going to happen next because it's in another reality on a different planet. But they still have super cool dirty dive bars even in space where things get REAL CRAZZZZY! Like this guy goes to the bathroom and these other two martians or something come in and start singing at him through the stall FOR NO #@%#!ing REASON. WTF-LOL!!? Absolutely incredible! It's like 2001 Space Odyssey on acid directed by David Lynch. Or Twin Peaks on MARS. PLUS, it's in Black and White, which makes everything seem old and real serious but at the same time weird and futuristic. BUY ONE. BUY TWO. BUY THREE of these DVDS and your out of your mind at the old ballgame. :@

A junker spaceship full o fun.......2006-07-05

Cory McAbee's movie is a fantastic voyage through weird-land. The story is very loose, essentially providing just enough glue to connect a series of musical set pieces. Every one of those pieces is completely hilarious, as well as being great music. Two early on in a bar (on the moon) are as wacky as anything I've ever seen; you'll know at that point whether you'll like this movie or not. If you have fairly broad musical tastes, and a hankerin for a different type of pure-entertainment movie experience, American Astronaut will not disappoint. Highest recommendation.

only one episode in the many adventures of Samuel Curtis.......2006-06-02

Directed by Corey McAbee of the rock/performance/art/film group The Billy Nayer Show (KETCHUP & MUSTARD MAN, reviewed in CdC #9), THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT is a cross-pollinated pastiche that plays as a science fiction/musical/comedy/western/road movie shot in beautiful black and white, with occasional low-tech animation, retro-futuristic art direction, and chocked full of catchy tunes, quirky characters, and pure originality.

Rakish pilot Samuel Curtis (McAbee) pilots his flying mobile-home spaceship through the galaxy, on several missions at once. When we first meet him, he's taking a cat to a run down bar on barren asteroid. He trades the cat for the ingredients of a "real live girl" clone. He meets up with his old dance partner, the Blueberry Pirate (producer Joshua Taylor) who proposes that Sam take the clone to Jupiter, an all male planet, in exchange for "The Boy Who Actually Saw A Woman's Breast" (Greg Russell Cook) before turning around and trading the boy for the former king of Venus, an all female planet. Corpse in tow, Sam could turn a hefty profit by bringing the deceased king back to his family on Earth. Got that? All the while, Sam is pursued by the insane Professor Hess (Rocco Sisto), a birthday boy who kills only those he has no reason to kill.

One of the things that make this film stand out among other musicals is that the songs are mere excuses for absurdity, rather than devices to progress the story. The music resembles avant-rock more than show tunes. The only exception is a song sung by a miner explaining how he and his clan ended up floating around space in a barn. Again, the song does not progress the film's story but explains the existence of some mostly insignificant characters and one minor character, and contains the only lyrics that sound specifically written for the film.

THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT feels like it is only one episode in the many adventures of Samuel Curtis. When the ending comes, it comes abruptly, as if McAbee is saying to the audience, "You already know how this is likely to end, so let's just stop here." McAbee's version of space, though, is one that deserves further exploration.

Weird but worthwhile.......2006-05-31

While this film is not quite a masterpiece, it deserves a place on the shelf of anyone who likes low budget oddness. However, The American Astronaut is more than just weirdness. It has a story, strange as it may seem, and it has down to earth characters, odd as they may appear on the surface. The FX are nice. Not fancy or impressive, but simple and effective. Not that they're really the point.

Astronaut has many strange musical interludes, which just pop up without reason. And the dialogue is often full of intentionally awkward moments. The movie has a leisurely pace, and doesn't rush where it's going. And when it gets there, it doesn't mind stopping with a simple resolution. I recommend renting before buying because it won't be to everyone's taste. But it's a good, unusual film. And I enjoyed it.

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