Sunday 8 January 2012

Starman

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:1984
Country of origin:USA
Director:John Carpenter
Genre:Alien visitation
Starring:Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen
Rating:5/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088172/
Tagline:In 1977 Voyager II was launched into space, inviting all lifeforms in the universe to visit our planet. Get ready. Company's coming.
Favourite line:"I watched you very carefully. Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast."

As we all know, John Carpenter's oeuvre is usually fixed firmly in the horror camp, he being the director of some genuine masterpieces (Halloween, The Thing, The Fog).
Starman, however, is an altogether different skittle of chips.

Jeff Bridges plays the eponymous 'Starman', a mysterious alien whose ship crash lands in The Middle of Nowhere, USA, where Karen Allen's recently widowed Jenny is recovering from the loss of her husband, who just happened to look exactly like Jeff Bridges. Starman assumes the form of her ex-husband and, through his peaceful demeanour and general off beat manner, convinces her to assist him escape the authorities and head to the place where he must meet his own kind. He has three days to get there, else his kin will leave, exiling him to a short existence on Earth before death.

Beautifully shot, under-stated, and with a haunting score that is not dissimilar to the title theme from Midnight Express, this is intelligent sci-fi with real soul. A littly gloopy in places, but even this is not enough to detract from what is just a magically warm hearted movie.
As with, say, Juno, this is another movie that shows that it is possible to do sentiment without resorting to bile inducing moments of saccharine.
A very, very good film.

No comments:

Post a Comment