Moon

Drew's Thoughts:
I'll say it right up front, I think Moon is a great movie. I watched it again to see what'd I'd think after knowing all the twists and I still thought it was a hell of a picture.
The story revolves around Sam Bell, played by Sam Rockwell (Snow Angels), who mans a space station on the moon with only a computer, GERTY (voiced perfectly by Kevin Spacey), to keep him company. He works for a company that harvests Helium3 on the far side of the moon (which supplies the world with 70% of its energy in the film) and he's got two weeks left on his 3 year contract and things start getting strange.
Sam Rockwell who is more or less the only actor in the film, gives an absolutely brilliant performance and is surely the one to beat for the Best Actor Dolphin this year. I don't want to give anything away because it seems best to watch the film knowing as little about it as possible but Rockwell gets inside his character Sam Bell and manages to find how Bell would react in so many different circumstances making for a seamlessly real performance. More than just authentic, Rockwell's performance is incredibly engaging, natural, heartbreaking, and humorous. Just tremendous overall.
Rockwell isn't the only one who deserves commendation though. Writer/director Duncan Jones crafted a very interesting sci-fi story and then took a small budget of about 5 million and made one of the best looking sci-fi movies I've ever scene. The story is very tightly told and edited and the production design is fantastic. What I really liked was that the space station didn't seem like it was hermetically sealed off. It looks like it is lived in. There are skuffs, scrawled post-it notes stuck to everything, dust, grimy tape wrapped around the rungs of ladders etc. Furthermore, Sam Bell hangs out in slippers, sweat pants and an old t-shirt like any person does when they're at home alone. Sci-Fi isn't a genre I'm usually predisposed to liking, though there are many sci-fi films I really like including this one, but Duncan Jones treats his material like it's real so there isn't any disconnect with the audience despite the outlandishness of the tale. Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain) also composed a moving, fitting score for the film that is certainly deserving of a nomination.
I don't want to say any more and leave the film still shrouded in a bit of mystery but it's a really fantastic film and should be high up on the "to-see" list.