Dark Star. 1974.
Hey! It’s movie time again!
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this before, but it’s a long long time ago. The context now is very different, because it seems like every other line in the film is familiar from samples in music. I think Meat Beat Manifesto has most of the dialogue on their early-90s albums?
Dark Star is very 70s: Made by hippie nerds for hippie nerds. Which is great! But.
As a sci-fi comedy, it’s more “that sure is wry, man” than “ha ha”. Smoking would probably help, though.
It’s visually very inventive, and probably largely the result of having no money. Plot-wise, it’s probably what some draft dodgers came up with after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey a few too many times.
Yeah, yeah, it’s a cult film. And there are entertaining scenes here. But it’s mainly boring.
This post is part of the A Carpenter Winter series.