What style, what class

The American Astronaut

(2001)

First time I saw this I was staying at my wife's apartment in Brooklyn, taking care of her cats while she went to the Austin Film Festival. Now the cats are dead, the wife's an ex, but the film remains one of my favorites of the millennium--or, as my daughter calls it, one of the weirdest films I've ever loved. (I also learned on that trip that I could go to movies and concerts [Jonathan Richman] in Manhattan on my own, and I've made good use of that discovery since. But it's still sad about the cats and the wife.)

As the title suggests, it's science fiction, and the special-effects budget must have approached three figures. It's also a western, and a musical, and a chase movie, and a buddy flick, and a sexual-confusion pic, and there's a very nice kitty in it. Bottom line: if you don't love this, then there's really no point in your trusting anything I say about anything.