Originally published in Verbicide issue #14

Commodore Films and BNS Productions
91 minutes, dir. by Cory McAbee with Rocco Sisto, Joshua Taylor, and Annie Golden

There have been many reviews of Cory McAbee’s The American Astronaut that describe the film as a combination of several pieces of previous pop culture. And here’s mine: imagine an episode of Lost in Space directed by Stanley Kubrik and co-written by Ronald Dahl. Too abstract to picture? Then try this: The American Astronaut is f-ing spectacular.

The film’s greatest quality actually caught me off guard. In the midst of my first viewing, a startling fact dawned on me much to my pleasure: I had never seen or heard this story told before…ever. In a time when Hollywood exclusively releases remakes of just about everything (and never fails to absolutely insult the original), McAbee presents us with a film so distinctive that it surpasses unique and (dare I say) becomes revolutionary. It’s one part space adventure, one part spaghetti western, one part suspenseful mystery, several parts hilarious and completely one of a kind.

Astronaut stars McAbee, also the writer/director and musician of the soundtrack supporting band, The Billy Nayer Project. McAbee is Samuel Curtis, a rugged space trader that makes Han Solo look like a pansy. When making a delivery to a saloon located on one of the moons of Jupiter, Curtis meets up with longtime friend and intergalactic fruit smuggler, The Blueberry Pirate (Joshua Taylor, co-producer). The Pirate presents Curtis with a get-rich-quick mission that will bring him from the sex deprived planet of Jupiter to the all-women inhabited Venus to good ol’ Earth. It all sounds like peaches and cream to Curtis but he is unaware of a huge problem: his old arch nemesis, the delightfully psychotic Professor Hess, is right on his tail. Hess is flawlessly played by Rocco Sisto, whose other work includes TV’s “Law & Order” and “The Sopranos.” Sisto delivers just one of the many wonderful acting performances of the film’s talented, eclectic cast.

The wonders of Astronaut do not end at its brilliant writing and acting. The cinematography of this movie is something more than impressive. McAbee channels the style of Vincent Gallo when holding the camera on one well-shadowed character for a prolonged period of time (i.e. Buffalo ‘66). You may even see glimpses of Quentin Tarantino during particular shots, like when Curtis and the Pirate strut through the Ceres Bar in the manner of Pulp Fiction‘s Vincent Vega and Jewels Winnfield. The entire movie is filled with fantastic black and white film noir-like images and even uses the silhouetted figure technique that the Apple Corporation claimed as their trademark for their ridiculous iPod commercials.

Lastly, let us not forget the film’s exemplary soundtrack, a score completely done by McAbee’s band, the Billy Nayer Project. Not only does the Project sound off killer tracks during this entire film, but the majority of the songs are sung by Astronaut characters, moving like they were given dancing lessons by Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas. This allows the movie to be filed under yet another genre category: flamboyant musical. Some may say the use of only one band in a film’s soundtrack would turn a movie (especially a musical) into a 90-minute band promoting music video. Even if this accusation were true, I say: so what? If that’s the way you feel, it will still probably be the funniest, most clever music video you’ll ever see.

McAbee does not break any rules of traditional cinema—he simply bends them into something none of us have ever seen. The American Astronaut truly goes where no film has gone before and fortunately is getting the praise it deserves more and more. With ample appreciation, The American Astronaut will not only be one small step for McAbee’s filmmaking career, but one giant leap for the entire movie industry.