Monday 18 January 2016

Moonwalkers

I've spoken many times before about the Apollo moon landings; see the background links at the bottom. Despite the doubts I've raised, along with many others, about the official record of man's supposed first adventure to another world, none of us have ever unearthed a complete alternative narrative. This does not mean that the moon landings were real, just that the truth still remains hidden. One suggestion that has become very popular in recent years is that the fake moon footage was directed by Stanley Kubrick. The idea comes from several documentaries that were made over the last few years including this spoof, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lud_6SBjhR8. I have my reservations about this theory, but I'm studying Carl James' material on the matter, see: http://thetruthseekersguide.blogspot.co.uk/. Then a few weeks ago a supposed interview with Stanley Kubrick appeared that was an alleged deathbed confession; in fact it was nothing of the sort, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/kubrick-moon-hoax-confession.html. In that article I suggested that it might be a piece of viral marketing for a new feature film that had premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in Texas last year and was due for released in mid-January. It's called Moonwalkers. The movie is about the faking of the moon landings and the involvement of Stanley Kubrick so I was very keen to watch it. I looked out for it in the cinema to no avail. I then found out that it had been released, but not to the big screen anywhere. A company called Alchemy had bought the distribution rights and it was only available on their pay-per-view online platform, see: http://www.ouralchemy.com/. I tried to watch it but was told it was not available in my country. My only option therefore was to go to a pirate video site where it was shared. I don't feel comfortable doing that and I won't be posting a link to the page; but I had been willing to pay $US6.99 rental at first and I'll buy the DVD when it's released. If the distributors want to block UK viewers' access to it, then what do they expect?

Moonwalkers is a slapstick black comedy by a new director called Antoine Bardou-Jacquet; With a name like that I'm guessing he, or she, is French. It has a fairly simple plot about an attempt by the American government to fake the moon landing footage on the eve of the Apollo 11 mission. The film makes it clear that the Apollo 11 rocket is being sent to the moon, but that the NASA officials are concerned that the astronauts won't be able to land there and will only be able to orbit the moon; or they might be killed in an accident. The fake footage is a back-up if the real thing can't be pulled off. They employ a CIA agent called Mr Kidman to approach Stanley Kubrick and ask him to do the job. Mr Kidman is played brilliantly by Ron Perlman. He's a large hard-bitten undercover specialist who is haunted by nightmares about his service in Vietnam. He's prone to violent outbursts and knocks out almost all the other characters at one point or another. He contacts Kubrick though his agent in London. However, because of a mishap he end up approaching Jonny, the agent's cousin, who is the hard-up manager of a rock band, played by Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame. Jonny decides on impulse to play along with Kidman's error and persuades his flatmate Leon to disguise himself as Kubrick when they meet with Kidman to make the arrangements. Eventually Kidman discovers that they were impostors and hunts them down, but by then it's too late to go back and so he has no option but to let Jonny and Leon make the lunar visual record. They employ their friend Renatus, who is a rural bon viveur and bohemian film maker. The rest of the film follows the characters' abortive and inept attempts to film the fake Apollo moon landings. The movie is essentially a parody of 1960's culture. Most of the characters are caricatures of the young generation of that era. They are all hippies and take drugs; a few are addicts, including Leon who has to pass as Stanley Kubrick. They wear bright clothes... when they're not walking around naked, and surround themselves with psychedelic art. The score is mostly contemporary pop songs. Moonwalkers has been hit with some rock bottom reviews, but regular readers will know what I think of "duh cwittix", see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/critics.html. The film is quite amusing in places, but some of the flower power jokes did become rather tiresome and predictable. It's also a very violent film with a couple of gruesome shootouts and punch ups. Along with the scenes of constant drug abuse, it will get an 18 certificate for sure when it released over here. In the end their plan to fake the moon landings fails abysmally; it had to with such incompetent perpetrators. However it doesn't matter because the real moon landings are achieved anyway, making the insurance unnecessary. So this is a film which not only lampoons the idea of moon landing conspiracy theories, but has a serious moral in its finale that supports NASA's official story of human exploration of the moon. Moonwalkers is a reasonable movie, if you're in the mood for a chuckle at the expense of the swinging sixties, but it's disappointing if you're expecting a whistle-blowing satire. This is no new Capricorn One. It's not in any way informing or thought-provoking about alternative views of the Apollo moon landings. In fact its ridicule may well repel viewers from further investigation... Maybe that's the idea.

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