Space Cowboys Reviewed: August 14th, 2000 Website: http://www.movieinside.de/trailer-inside/Archiv/S/Space_Cowboys.htm       Movie Snob       Safety Jeff   {NOTE: Dear readers... You bastards! I know when I'm being mocked. If you HATE the Arena Football Rating System be courageous enough to just say so. To mock a man makes you and another man smaller, direct honesty only makes the other man smaller.      I'll show YOU who's the bigger man. You've all had a sip of water before? Then you ingrates should be able to figure this new Movie Rating System out -Movie Snob} Have you ever viewed a Renoir, Monet or other such original masterpiece? Movie Snob has; it's called "2001: A Space Odyssey." Have you ever seen a "paint by numbers" rendition of a bowl of fruit? It's called "Space Cowboys," and it's as original as a velvet Elvis. Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this film about 4 old-timers who get to live out their dreams of being astronauts through a set of circumstances so labyrinthine, I was half-expecting to see a Minotaur flying the shuttle. Joining Clint as outer space septuagenarians are solid actors, Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Sutherland. They are on a mission to repair an old Soviet satellite that, unbeknownst to the crew, contains 6 nuclear warheads. Oh yeah, if you don't want to know the secret plot twist in advance, don't read the preceding paragraph. The 4 stars of this picture are in a constant struggle to free themselves from the flat, cardboard prison that is the script. Take Tommy Lee Jones' character, "Hawk." I'm surprised the writers didn't just call him "Maverick." He's the tough, hot shot pilot who breaks all the rules, and sings "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," and hates Val Kilmer and... you get the idea. Picture "Top Gun" 40 years later. To top it off, "Hawk" robs the cradle in a relationship with a 20-something NASA engineer, and as the piece-de-resistance, he has inoperable pancreatic cancer. When that bit of information was imparted to me, I thought, "Gee, I wonder whether he'll end up sacrificing himself to save the rest of the crew." Not to give away this totally unexpected plot point, but... he does. By the way, if you don't want to know in advance that Tommy Lee Jones dies, don't read the preceding paragraph. Note to NASA: Take a cue from this film. For future missions, always include crew members with inoperable pancreatic cancer. Think of it as using zip-lock bags instead of Tupperware. If you throw them away it's okay, because you weren't going to use them again anyway. All hot shot stereotypes must have cool nicknames: Hawk, Maverick, Solo. Here now are some hot shot nicknames you'll never see: "Weenie" "Hiccup" "Tricycle" "Dookey Shoe" James Cromwell, of Babe the Talking Pig fame, plays Clint's evil nemesis. At one point, Cromwell all but admits to Mission Control that he sold secrets to the Russians and conspired with them to hide the truth about the warheads. Then, inexplicably, a few minutes later, he's heading up the mission as though nothing has happened. Huh?? I'll have to consult my Federal Legal Procedure Handbook, but I'm pretty sure that treason gets you lead away in irons. Maybe it's that little known codicil that gives you the option of life in prison OR a high paying job with NASA. Moving on, I shall now address the primary downfall of this film: technobabble. Now, as embarrassing as it is to admit, Movie Snob is a Star Trek fan, so he knows a thing or two about technobabble. Heck, Star Trek invented the word, along with "warp assembly," "tricorder," and "dilithium crystals." And yet, the show could still build tension, because the writers made it clear that "reversing the polarity," meant that Scotty (or Geordi or 7 of 9) had to put the blue chip in the red hole before the ship exploded. "Space Cowboys," on the other hand, fails to clarify what the technobabble means. Thus, the tension of the moment is replaced by confusion. "Hawk, put the STS on the PAM. Then activate the Navicom and uplink with the hydrogrid." [cue dramatic music] [cut to shot of shuttle floating through space] [cut to shot of nervous mission control folks wearing headsets] [cut to shot of guy in space suit] "Got it!" Buh??? The space action scenes were just too vague to be engaging. I still don't understand why Hawk had to be strapped to the front of the satellite and blasted toward the moon. I think the reason is - BECAUSE THE WRITERS WANTED IT THAT WAY. Clint, here's a little advice. If you want to make a Western, stick to six guns and cowboy hats. That's what you do well (see "High Plains Drifter," "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly," "Unforgiven," etc.). Don't try to dress up your genre in the techno, special effects laden trappings of sci-fi. The result is the artistic equivalent of "Dogs Playing Poker." My rating? Sorry Americans, I have to give rate this a . Darnit, I think this is a VERY good movie. This week Safety Jeff watched Space Cowboys at an "Away" movie theatre. I left for two reasons. The Machias Blueberry festival was on the horizon, and I figured I better skedaddle before the locust like invasion of blueberry lovin' crazies. Damn people from Saco come up and think they run the place. Anyway, the other reason I watched from "Away" was that a good friend of mine owns 2 corn fields Nebraska and he invited me to fly out and watch the fields for a spell. He didn't have to ask twice. Watching a corn field is WAY more interactive than watching a potato field. You still sit for hours, the same way you do when you watch a potato field, but more stuff flies out of the crop and hits you the face. I was very hesitant about bringing my hockey goaltending mask (autographed by Portland Pirates backup goalie, Curtis Cruickshank!!!) but I quickly found it to be a necessity when corn watching. It actually turned into a real neat cultural exchange piece. Two neighboring farmers were sitting right across the road from us, watching their own corn field. There was little car traffic to speak of, and so it was easy for them to hear us set up our clickity-clack metal lawn chairs. "Who's there ! Damnit! Who's is that?!!!" the older one started screaming. Of course they both had boxes on their heads to protect them from the stuff flying out of their own crop and so they couldn't SEE us. In a flash they were up on their feet, walking around like zombies or sleepwalkers, "A-Feelin'" for us as they called it. I thought the screaming was awful, but the "A-Feelin'" was worse. The young farmer hit a stalk of corn and fell right over. A maddening voice looped inside my head, "VERY UNSAFE!" I turned into what my friend described latter as this sort of SAFETY PROPHET. I suddenly knew I had to get my hockey mask on that old farmer. With amazing legerdemain, I pulled the box from his head, said "Hello, I am Safety Jeff. I am here to help. Don't move. You've had a box over your head and you've become disoriented. Everything is going to be all right." The old farmer put his zombie-esque arms back down by his side. "What I am going to do now is place a Corn Mask on your head. You may experience a little tightness. If it starts to hurt say, 'Ouch, its starting to hurt.' Okay?" The farmer nodded in agreement. Long story short: I got the mask on the old man. By the time my friend and I were flying back to Portland International I had taken 34 orders for Portland Pirate goalie masks, aka Corn Maskss. I never did tell any of the farmers that they were hockey masks. Then they would have asked, "What's hockey?" and as Safety Jeff has written one too many times in shis assorted safety literatures, "Explaining Hockey to Midwesterners living below the Hockey Line -- VERY UNSAFE". Instead, I told them the pirate on the side of the mask was a picture of an old time corn picker and that the hockey stick in the pirate's mouth was a "Corn Greeter" whereby a lead corn picker would walk up to every stalk in a field, tap it with the "Greeter" and ask for permission to pick its ears. Maybe Saftey Jeff went too far with all his lies. By the time I went to see Space Cowboys at the tiny local movie theatre, my friend and I were the only ones not dressed up like pirates (or like the wives of a pirate, or dressed like the children of a pirate or dressed like the dogs of a pirate). I am obligated to give Space Cowboys the highest rating possible: 5 Safety Helmets.