Binge-r #216: Moonbase 8 + Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun
Ground Control: Tim Heidecker (Rook), Fred Armisen (Skip) and John C. Reilly (Cap) in Moonbase 8
MOONBASE 8 S1
Streaming Service: Stan
Availability: All six episodes now streaming
A comedy as dry as its Arizona desert setting, Moonbase 8 revolves around a trio of hopeful NASA astronauts stuck in a moon habitat simulator where they pretend, much as they’ve always done in life, to be engaged in important duties. Without ever being explicit, the series is about shaking, however temporarily, the nagging fears of middle-aged inconsequentiality. Unlike Netflix’s expensive and uneven Space Force [full review here] from earlier this year, which used a similar concept for a single episode, this is a low-key exercise in bungling and redemption. The humour is more tangy than tangible.
When it works it’s because the show’s creators – actors John C. Reilly, Fred Armisen, and Tim Heidecker, along with co-writer and director Jonathan Krisel – can sync up their distinctive comic styles. Reilly’s Robert ‘Cap’ Caputo is a buffoon without ballast, desperate to make amends for past failings but incapable of command, Armisen’s Dr Michael ‘Skip’ Henai is an eccentric wonk prone to discursive chains of thought while in thrall to his astronaut father’s legacy, and Heidecker’s Professor Scott ‘Rook’ Sloan is an evangelical Christian with a boundless family (“we’re running out names,” his wife cheerfully notes via video) but limits to his faith. None of the three dominate an episode, even as the individual focus shifts, so the comedy ebbs and flows. Of the three Heidecker is the scene-stealer, rendering his everyday dedication with a hint of the bizarre.
When the question is raised none of the aspiring astronauts can actually say what NASA stands for, and that’s readily symbolic of their connection to the mission. Crucial events pass without bother and tiny moments spiral out of locked down self-control. If you want something eruptive see the Aunty Donna review below, but if subtle strokes are what you appreciate in a comedy then Moonbase 8 is worth trying – quirky appears to be its default description, but that’s not completely accurate. For a standout episode I’d suggest the fourth, where the isolation is interrupted by a visit from a young crew of fellow trainees (and familiar faces) from Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture. The change does everyone some good.
House of Games: Zachary Ruane, Mark Samual Bonanno and Braden Kelly in Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun
AUNTY DONNA’S BIG OL’ HOUSE OF FUN (Netflix, all six episodes now streaming): The six-strong Australian sketch comedy group Aunty Donna – three performers on screen, three collaborators off – don’t do punchlines. Their sketches are lengthy and increasingly ludicrous, pursuing an idea not to the point of comic clarity but the moment where it can be inverted and rampage anew. With some loopy framing, set in a share house more musical and madcap than even The Monkees, these 20 minute episodes build a handful of ideas, with inexorable absurdism, to sustained peaks that are mostly silly as opposed to abrasive. The daftness marshalled on-screen by Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane hasn’t abated in moving from YouTube to Netflix: a piece in the second episode that involves a prize spree handed out by Ellen DeGeneres (a barely costumed Kelly) makes exemplary use of “Toyota Car City, Ringwood”. Aunty Donna lampoon – through accurate imitation – entitled arts bros and then swerve into child-like gameplay that goes haywire, and it’s their unpredictability versus a complete control of tone that makes this concise series so enjoyable.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: Goldstone (2016, 110 minutes) was Ivan Sen’s second outback noir drama, with Aaron Pedersen returning as Indigenous police detective Jay Swan alongside Jacki Weaver and David Wenham; Neil Jordan’s Greta (2018, 98 minutes) is a preposterous and shallow horror-thriller mainly notable for letting Isabelle Huppert go full psychopath as a scorned maternal figure stalking Chloe Grace Moretz.
New on SBS on Demand Led by an uncompromising Natalie Portman performance as a pop music superstar twisted by American violence, Vox Lux (2018, 110 minutes) is an implacable study of suffering and success; Aisling Walsh’s Maudie (2017, 112 minutes) is a hardscrabble period drama about perseverance and creativity with a bracing lead performance from Sally Hawkins supported by Ethan Hawke.
New on Stan: With Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer, Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly (2012, 94 minutes) is a withering crime drama about personal and institutional failing co-starring James Gandolfini and Ben Mendelsohn; Three Kings (1999, 115 minutes) remains a sharp satire of military madness lodged inside a heist thriller starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze as rogue U.S. soldiers in Gulf War Iraq.
>> Missed last week’s BINGE-R? Click here to read about SBS on Demand’s sublime We Are Who We Are plus Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw in Netflix’s A Very English Scandal.
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>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 269 series reviewed here, 155 movies reviewed here, and 36 lists compiled here.
