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Review by E.C. McMullen Jr. |
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USA Release: Nov. 8, 2019 Eliandier Pictures, Gravitas Ventures Rating: USA: PG-13 |
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It begins with the sky at night.
Then a forest.
Light shines here and there casting shadows in the woods. Night varmints live their lives.
A Volvo station wagon drives down a dirt road in England, in the dark, while a podcast plays an American sounding show host talking space, asteroids, and the Cosmos.
Two men sit up front talking while a third sleeps in the back. As they talk the conversation reveals a friendship suffering unknown damage.
This friendship may be dissolving.
The three on this uncomfortable road trip are stargazers. More than a hobby, all three work in the aerospace research industry in some capacity.
Each is also an inventor and the car is jam-packed with their Do-It-Yourself, bleeding edge, untested high tech and three people who each know how to use a third of it.
They reach their middle-of-nowhere destination, getting as far from the city light pollution and communication grid, and each stakes out a cramped bit of real estate in the Volvo.
In front is the one trying to mend the wound, Harry Knight (Joshua Ford). Harry created a special telescope with special custom modifications. Tonight he tests it out.
In the middle is Mike Webster (Tom England).
Mike invented a software that filters cosmic background noise that allows him to see invisible light: radio waves, as a video of the night sky. Mike's software runs data that usually takes weeks, maybe months to process, but his can render in real time. The risk is, with a program still in the early testing stages, it can either save incoming data to memory or actively render it on the un-saveable CPU, GPU, and RAM, but it can't do both at the same time.
Mike, trying to be friendly, wants to show off his creation to Roy, who is being a salty pain in the ass. But as Mike runs his program, the visual renders a bright orange spot in the sky that doesn't belong there. What the hell happened? Frustrated and embarrassed after months of work, Mike's program still has a major glitch.
So he retreats and tries to debug. Like SETI, Mike scans the Water Hole.
In the back with easiest access in and out of the wagon, is Harry's old and maybe former friend, Roy Kennedy (Arjun Sungh Panam: DREAM CANDY). Roy is an inventor as well. He designs satellite navigation systems. Roy once worked as head on the Goodman satellite project with Harry on his team, but when the company was bought out by a larger concern, the new company wanted credit for Roy's work and unceremoniously booted him out of his own project, not even allowing him to be there when the rocket launched it into orbit.
Now Roy uses his computer to help Harry put his telescope through its paces and, for Roy the best way to do that is to wait for his child, the Goodman satellite, to fly overhead. All Roy wants to do is watch a video feed of his work in the sky. Unfortunately, that means sitting next to Mike.
Mike's the guy the new company brought in to lead the team that finished the Goodman. Only Roy doesn't know that Mike doesn't know that. Roy only knows that Mike took his job and Mike only knows that he was given a job and he does it. So he can't fathom why Roy is so curt with him.
Wait! Wait! Wait! The Water Hole?
What's that?
!!!THE SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
It's a bandwidth: 1420, known as the Water Hole to Radio Astronomers. A place on the frequency where all the waves go quiet ... well, almost but not quite. There is the matter of...
Continued at !!!THE SCIENCE MOMENT!!!/Cosmos
Using a satellite dish connected to the car, Harry and Roy count down the time as the Goodman moves toward England. The computerized tracking telescope moves to the settings, and Roy sees his satellite.
Then the image vanishes and the signal is lost. Then its there again. What the hell happened?
So it goes throughout the night as the three boffins sit, confounded by their glitching DIY tech, watching and listening in the middle of nowhere.
Roy waits to see his satellite pass overhead again via Harry's telescope.
Mike searches for bugs in his code.
Harry troubleshoots his new telescope, but more than anything, helplessly waits for his friendship with Roy to evaporate.
While each man in these close quarters retreats into his own bubble, the world and sky - the cosmos all around them - is steadily changing in unexpected ways that, as scientists they want, yet are neither willing or ready to accept.
Written and directed by brothers, Elliot and Zander Weaver, COSMOS is their first fiction feature film.
Shot on a 4K Black Magic pocket cinema camera, the cinematography lacks nothing and, in fact, has a professional image and sound polish rarely seen in even high budget Indies.
The movie literally had no budget of its own. The equipment was owned or borrowed by the crew and everyone worked for free, with the brothers' Mom supplying craft services and meals. While they don't look it, many of the interior car shots were done with green screen windows.
It was the Post Production, clocking in at 31 months that took the longest time, but the result is all right there on the screen.
While there are no technical errors, there are n00b mistakes throughout.
Sadly true to the creators of this movie being genuine hard-core science geeks (and the possible social awkwardness that seems to shadow it) there are no gals in this sausage party flick, which leaves a noticeable vacuum.
While Arjun Sungh Panam is an experienced actor and movie maker, COSMOS was a first for Joshua Ford and Tom England as well as the brothers directing, which means moments requiring emotional connection or impact are strained, regardless of how uplifting the music may be.
At 2 hours and 8 minutes, this really starts to show at the grand climax that draws out the end far longer than it needs to be. The brothers didn't know how to let the powerful moment carry itself, so added unnecessary dialog and around 5 minutes too much time.
Of course tighter editing is an issue that plagues even the most experienced movie makers.
Things the Weaver Brothers did well is leading the audience to expectations and giving us the unexpected.
In fact, with all the "dark woods at night" scenes in the movie, I kept expecting to get taken down a disappointing cliche-riddled road like so many studio and Indies in the past, but COSMOS never let me down.
How can that be?
Because those "First Timer" flaws don't overwhelm the story.
I've watched this movie about 4 times now, revisiting the friendship of two friends who wonder if they can still be friends, and if they can do that and make room for a third.
COSMOS is the first Science Fiction movie I've seen that depends on the science to both open wonders and ground the reality of constraints, which is amazing.
There are also the extras to go along with the movie. Discovering the effort it took to make Cosmos is awesome. The ingenuity to create what they achieved in the final product just leaves me blown away.
I'm looking forward to what these folks do next!
Three Shriek Girls.
This review copyright 2021 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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