It’s quite amazing that Moon was shot on such a small budget (about $5 million). It has a scale and a scope that would suggest it’s an incredibly expensive production. It just shows what you can do when you have a bit of imagination and when you don’t have massive stars demanding outrageous salaries.

One of the interesting things about Moon’s effects work is that they actually used models for lots of it. This flies in the face of modern filmmaking when even the most mundane things are produced entirely from a computer. So in this day and age it’s unusual to see effects that actually have a weight and tangibility about them. It harks back to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running and Alien where you actually felt like you could reach in and touch the world that was flashing across the screen.

Something else that is pleasing about Moon is how low-key it is. This isn’t a monster production with a huge cast and loads of explosions. It revolves around one guy doing some tedious work on the surface of the moon.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an employee for Lunar Industries who lives alone on the surface of the moon. His job is to oversee a bunch of robotic lunar harvesters that are gathering Helium 3, a source of fuel that has solved the energy crisis on Earth. It’s mind numbing work and work that he does on his own. He only has a robot called GERTY for company and his contract is three years long. Therefore it’s not surprising that his mental well being has deteriorated considerably.

As Sam’s contract gets closer and closer to expiring, he begins to see things. At one point he sees a girl sitting in his favourite chair. And then later he imagines he’s making love to his wife. At this point the film kind of feels like Solaris.

Adding to the weirdness is the fact that Sam crashes his lunar rover into one of the harvesters and is then rescued by…himself. At this point the film could really feel like Solaris but a solid explanation is quickly given. The Sam who crashed and the Sam who woke up in the base and then rescued the first Sam, are both clones.

And so what you have is a kind of spin on the mysterious company that featured in the Alien films. You have a company that lies and kills to increase profits. And what better place to cheat and steal than on the Moon? Who’s ever going to know?

The conspiracy to keep the truth from Sam, that he’s a clone of a real person, extends to keeping a satellite link permanently broken. This means that Sam never has any live interaction with anyone on Earth. It also means that he never gets to talk to his wife – he only gets video messages from her. And so therefore, as you can imagine, it’s a bit of a pisser when he eventually finds out that his wife is dead and that the real Sam Bell is alive and well on Earth.

One of the strengths and weaknesses of Moon is Sam Rockwell. As the first Sam, a clone that is slowly falling apart both mentally and physically, he occasionally falls into Rockwell’s familiar tics – wild-eyed mania. But as the second clone, he exudes strength and arrogance. There aren’t any of the usual Rockwell theatrics.

But even though Rockwell does occasionally tread familiar ground with some of his rants, it’s impressive that he manages to hold the film together on his own, because aside from GERTY (who’s voiced by Kevin Spacey), he’s the only performer in this film. Everything rests on his shoulders. If only he could express anger and mental instability without resorting to his Chuck Barris shtick, it would show considerable growth as an actor.

The film’s only other weakness is the ending. You see, both of the Sams find out that they’re clones with a three year lifespan and that they’ll never get a chance to go home. They have no home. It’s all a lie. They also find out that a ‘rescue’ team is arriving soon to supposedly repair a broken harvester. But in reality it’s an execution squad. Despite this, the second Sam puts himself into a pod that is used to send Helium 3 back to Earth and fires himself back to the blue planet. We then find out that because this clone has suddenly landed, LUNAR’s dodgy business practises have been revealed and their share price has fallen. Somehow this is just a little too neat for me. I mean, I know most companies are comprised of colossal fuck ups that couldn’t keep a secret if they tried, but I don’t have faith that the little man will eventually triumph over the corporations. And so I think the ending is an unrealistic ray of light in a believably bleak movie.

But despite this, Moon is a marvellous film. It’s an old fashioned science fiction film that shows that man’s biggest conflict will always be with himself. And there’s also man’s relationship with technology. In the recent past we worried that robots or computers would make us obsolete. These days the concern is that we’ll be used for spare parts or engineered to someone’s specifications.

A small detail that I loved was that Sam’s alarm clock woke him up with Chesney Hawke’s ‘The One and Only’. Despite the obvious amusement factor of this man using a bemoled teenage heartthrob with helmet hair as his wake up call, it’s also pleasantly subversive. This man isn’t the one and only. He’s company product. And that’s what we’ll need to avoid if we’re hold on to our humanity.

I can remember watching a Channel 4 documentary a few years back about new age soldiers who would stare at goats and hang weights from their genitals. The staring was supposed to kill the subject they were staring at but I’m not sure what the weights did. Regardless, the documentary was very amusing and had a complete ‘what the fuck?’ aspect to it. It was hard to fathom that the military would allow a bunch of hippie soldiers to do all of these wacky things.

However, I quickly forgot about the program and it was consigned to the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind. But then one day I saw a trailer for a new film called The Men Who Stare at Goats. Suddenly it all came flooding back: the Jedi-hippie-samurai-warrior monks who spend their time taking acid and hanging weights from their genitals. I had to see the movie.

It would be kind of hard to fuck up a movie like this. The subject matter is just so silly. And to be fair, the filmmakers do a decent job. The film is well acted and very funny. But at the same time it’s nothing more than a fluff piece. There’s a tiny bit of commentary on Iraq and how corporations are carving it up instead of nations, but most of the film is gag driven. Which is fair enough – the film is very funny – but you aren’t really given the bigger picture. I wanted to know more about the climate of fear during the Cold War that allowed this very peculiar brand of craziness to flourish.

In general it’s the flashback sequences that I found the funniest. There’s a hilarious bit where George Clooney’s character joins the New Earth Army. He’s told to dance. At first he’s kind of stiff but then he loosens up, gets a goofy look on his face and begins to go crazy. It’s just fun to see Clooney let his hair down and it’s obvious that he’s having a great time.

This scene has another moment that had me cracking up. There’s a flashback to Clooney’s character as a child. We see why he’s so reluctant to dance. You see, the kid loves to dance to pop music but his father doesn’t approve. In fact, in the scene, the father, upon seeing his son dancing in a very feminine fashion, throws something at him and tells him to stop acting like a ‘queer’. It’s a very harsh moment, and it didn’t actually get many laughs in the theatre, but I was cracking up. The kid, the music and the timing are all perfect.

I was also highly amused by some of the horrific experiments that the army got up to. There’s a bit where the military want to know if a cat can telepathically tell whether its kitten is in danger. So we see a scientist about to stub out a cigarette on a kitten’s face. It’s horrific to think about, but the pathetic meow that the cat makes and the absurdity of the experiment make it blackly funny.

There’s a Dr Strangelove element to all of this. We find out that some of the experiments into telepathy and psychic phenomena are inspired by gossip, rumour mongering and hoaxes. The Soviets and the Americans both get into this nonsense because they fear that the other side will have some success with it.

Sadly most of this information is dwelt on for just for a few moments. The vast majority of the film focuses on the relationship between a reporter, played by Ewan McGregor, and an aging soldier, played by George Clooney. Yes their journey is consistently amusing, but it can’t disguise a rather moribund story.

It takes a while to learn why Clooney’s character wants to go to Iraq, and when we do find out, it lands with a dull thud. The wraparound story and the finale are the least interesting things in the film.

One of the film’s biggest selling points is its cast, and most of them do an excellent job. George Clooney, in particular, is excellent. As is Jeff Bridges, who basically reprises the role of The Dude. Ewan McGregor, on the other hand, lets himself down with his American accent. As my wife pointed out, it just sounds like a monotonous drone, which is a shame, as McGregor’s comic timing is excellent – he and Clooney work well together.

A bit of a head scratcher, though, is Kevin Spacey. Yes the man is funny but he seems to be making a career out of bit parts. I’m not saying that the role is beneath him, but it’s disappointing that he seems to be choosing ‘easy’ roles. It seems his film career is a brief holiday from his theatre duties at the Old Vic. He isn’t taking many risks.

Despite this, Spacey still contributes a couple of the film’s funniest moments. One scene in particular that I liked was when he makes a soldier take LSD and then bombards him with flashing lights until he goes mad. I also liked it when Spacey himself unknowingly takes LSD and contemplates blowing his brains out. He thinks about it for a second and then suddenly announces that he’s hungry. It’s both enjoyable and a letdown to see Spacey in these roles – he’s a funny guy but with films like Superman Returns and 21 he’s been punching under his weight for the last few years.

And that’s what the film does. It punches under its weight. With a bit more context it could have been a memorable satire. As it is, it’s just a funny, silly, forgettable movie. It’ll probably stay with me as long as the Channel 4 documentary that I watched all those years back.

There’s a scene in Glengarry Glen Ross where Shelly ‘the Machine’ Levine (Jack Lemmon) says that a man is his job. And as far as some people go, he’s right. Many men define themselves by the work they do, the money they earn and the car they drive. I mean, who gives a fuck about friends and family or higher aspirations? Or even simple things like happiness? That shit is for dickless deadbeats. The real meaning of life is a high wage and to vanquish your enemies. Everything else is a pointless waste of time.

In the great scene where Blake (Alec Baldwin) gives his ‘motivational speech’, he mocks the notion of a man being a nice person or a good father. Yeah, is that going to pay for your nice suit or your expensive watch? No it’s not. And he says that any man who can’t close a deal should hit the bricks; they should leave. This is pure Darwinism. Do or die. Fuck or be fucked.

In this sort of environment personal lives are next to non-existent (when work is your entire being, what else is there?), but Shelly Levine does attempt to extend beyond these limits. Through a series of phone calls we hear that he has an ill daughter. But to be honest he always sounds like he’s going through the motions – he seems to be checking up on her out of obligation rather than because of any feelings of tenderness. Shelly’s heart is elsewhere. His heart belongs to the sale.

There’s more than one instance when the sale is spoken about or shown to be close to a sexual act, but the best example is probably the scene where Shelly and Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) are discussing a deal Shelly’s closed. He’s been going through a lean phase, unable to sell shit, but suddenly he’s on top of the word, spilling his guts to his pal. And he talks about it like he’s been with a woman. ‘They signed. It was great. It was so fucking great. It was like they wilted all at once.’ And to make the story even more sexual, Levine had been waiting for 22 minutes for his ‘clients’ to sign the deal. 22 minutes that he had to spend in silence waiting for them to sign the contract. In a world of lies and deceit, this is the closest these men can get to intimacy – the signing of a piece of paper has a purity and a joy that even the act of love lacks.

But it’s not just the orgasm of a scratched name that provides satisfaction, there’s also the foreplay. Sometimes it goes horribly wrong like in the excruciating scene when Shelly turns up at someone’s home and faces a brick wall, but sometimes it goes like clockwork. An example of this is when Ricky Roma is talking to James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce). Roma isn’t so much selling as seducing. He whispers soft words into Lingk’s ear and charms the pants off him. Lingk is fooled into thinking that this is a genuine relationship, that there’s sincerity here. And for once he feels like a man. He can step out of his wife’s shadow and show that he has a pair of balls. But unfortunately, later, those balls are cut off and he comes back begging for his money. But he only does it because his wife has told him to get his cheque back. And at the end he goes to the remarkable length of apologising to Ricky. This is how deep the seduction has gone. The broken sale is a betrayal of sacred the link between men.

But even the sacred bond between men is shown to be completely phoney. After all, what’s the next best thing to making lots of money? To see your colleagues or your friends fail miserably. And what’s more infuriating than someone else’s success? Answer: nothing.

Some of the best exchanges in the film occur between Levine and Williamson (Kevin Spacey). They should be pulling for the same team, but they hate each other’s guts. Williamson is a ‘secretary’ (any man who doesn’t have the balls to hit the streets and make some money is a worthless, prissy faggot) and Levine is a washed up has-been with a big mouth. So at the beginning, when he can’t make a sale, Levine is servile and pleading – he even tries to buy leads from Williamson. But once Levine closes a deal, the real Shelly comes out. He taunts Williamson and asks him what he is. He even demands the new Glengarry leads. But then once Levine becomes comfortable, Williamson tells him the bad news that his deal won’t go through, that the people he sold to are insane. It’s an incredibly cruel scene, with some scathing dialogue. ‘Why?’ asks Levine, wanting to know why he wasn’t told earlier (Williamson was aware all along that a deal wouldn’t stick). ‘Because I don’t like you,’ replies Williamson. ‘My daughter?’ ‘Fuck you.’ In this world there are few things better than screwing someone over, to drag them down and pull yourself up.

Another relationship filled with animosity is the one between Roma and Moss (Ed Harris). Moss despises Roma because Roma’s on top of the board. And there’s a lot of dark humour to be had in the argument they have in the office. The dialogue is perfect. But it’s made even better by Pacino’s performance. His delivery of the lines is outstanding. And I also love him in the scene where he berates Williamson for ruining his sale. ‘You stupid fucking cunt, you idiot…You fairy. You company man…Who told you you could work with men?’ The outrage he feels at losing a sale is probably as strong or stronger than the anger he’d feel if a drunk run over a loved one. And his dialogue also highlights the way that nothing is despised more than incompetence. We can tolerate greed and deceit, but incompetence is beyond the pale. There’s no more worthless human being on the planet than a person who can’t do their job properly.

However, there is one seemingly sincere relationship – the one between Roma and Levine. They seem to get along quite amiably. But then again, you get the feeling that these men are two sides of the same coin. You get the feeling that Roma is a reflection of Levine in his youth. How long before things goes south for Roma? How long before his confidence is ruined and he’s reduced to begging for scraps?

And that’s the scary thing about Glengarry Glen Ross. When you’re doing well, great, but if you begin to do badly, you’re fucked. No one wants to know. No one wants to help. You can’t rely on anyone but yourself.

And the ending wonderfully illustrates how lonely this type of existence is. Levine, unknown to Roma, is going to be arrested for robbing the office – at the end, Levine pathetically tries to talk to Roma one last time before being hauled into to speak to a police officer, but Roma is busy on the phone. So Levine’s departure goes unnoticed. And worse than that, Ricky goes off to lunch alone and Levine’s colleagues continue to try and sell. Yes, the world will manage to revolve with Levine behind bars. He, like us, is easily replaced. Therefore if work is what defines us, we have nothing when it’s taken away.