The American Astronaut

Cory McAbee's 2001 film is hard to file: a black and white, musical, comic space western. Samuel Curtis's first assignment is to deliver a cat to a saloon on an asteroid. There he meets his old dance partner and collects his payment, a device capable of producing a real live girl. The journey that follows proceeds through a series of strange stops where looking for logic is abandoned from the outset. The film existed first as a live show and found its audience there; the music is by the band The Billy Nayer Show. The visual language does not hide the small budget but turns it into an aesthetic, and the result looks like fifties science fiction cheapness crossed with experimental theatre. It sits among the cult titles of American independent film. Who it's for: viewers who like strange, genre-mixing independents and musical experiments. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a legible plot and a coherently constructed world.