Dark Star

1974 science fiction spoof

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Four astronauts have been aboard the title ship for twenty years. Their mission has something to do with flying around and blowing up unstable planets. They run into some problems with a beach ball with claws and a talking bomb that threatens to end their mission.

According to Carpenter, this is Waiting for Godot in space. That's not a bad way to think about it. It's also like a no-budget 2001 except it seems even more languidly paced. It's pretty neat, but definitely not for everybody, the kind of film that could never be anything but a cult classic few have heard of. The scene with the beach ball later, almost bafflingly, became Alien, and a scene in which one of the astronauts teaches the bomb "a little phenomenology" is great. I'm amazed when directors can take almost nothing (I think a lot of the props came from John Carpenter's kitchen) and create a mood, and this one has this sickly alienation, this sense of tediousness, that almost overwhelms. It's sketchy and a bit stupid, but it's also unique and fun and definitely worth seeing.