The American Astronaut (2001)

Directed By: Cory McAbee


Starring: Cory McAbee, Rocco Sisto, Gregory Russell Cook


The Main Review: The American Astronaut is a 2001 sci-fi-western-musical featuring the music of The Billy Nayer Show. It follows Samuel Curtis (Cory McAbee), an inter-planetary trader, who is asked by his acquaintance, the Blueberry Pirate, to return a dead man on Venus to his family on Earth. Before he can do that, Samuel has to ride around in his spaceship with a Real Live Girl, The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast, a boy in a bodysuit, and some truly fantastic and bizarre music. All the while, he's followed by his crazy, obsessed nemesis Professor Hess (Rocco Sisto). And, guess what day it is! It's the professor's birthday!

 Yeah, this is the most normal movie I've ever seen. Total normalcy - right here. Check it. 

So, the opening is Professor Hess telling us about the bar on the asteroid Ceres, onto which our hero will soon be landing and doing business. (Also, there's a dance contest there that night!) Curtis is shown arriving with a cat that he trades to the owner of the bar for a Real Live Girl in a cloning device (Please note: the Real Live Girl is in, basically, a box and needs to be grown and raised before she can really do anything). The bar owner tells Curtis to stay for the dance contest, which he agrees to. He then goes to the bathroom, gets sung at by two men sent by the Blueberry Pirate, who take his picture while he's on the toilet.

Curtis is kind of thrown by that experience for a little while, but, when he realizes it was his old friend Larry Blueberry who had that picture taken, he seems to forgive the whole incident. The Blueberry Pirate, who is a galactic fruit thief, tells him that the Women of Venus recently lost their King and his family on Earth want him back. To get the man's body back, a new, young man must be provided for the women. The Blueberry Pirates suggests that Curtis trade the Real Live Girl for The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast - who is currently living on the mining planet of Jupiter and boosting morale by giving terse descriptions of of his famous titular experience. From there, he can take The Boy to Venus, retrieve the dead king, and collect a handsome reward. Curtis agrees and he and the Blueberry Pirate pair up for the dance contest, which they win.

Professor Hess was at the Ceres bar as well and spotted Curtis. Once our hero leaves, Hess confronts the Blueberry Pirate in the bathroom, tells him it's his birthday, then kills him. He goes on to kill everyone else in the bar, except for the cat, and then goes out after Curtis.

Samuel Curtis gets to Jupiter and sees The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast perform. He trades the Real Live Girl for The Boy and leaves the planet. Professor Hess comes soon after and, once again, kills everyone, taking the Real Live Girl. He sings a party song and then leaves. He calls Curtis on the phone and has him listen while he feeds the Real Live Girl to the cat he got from the bar. Curtis later explains to The Boy that Professor Hess kills for no reason. If he has an actual reason to kill someone, he can't do it because it would leave an issue unresolved.

The two of them stop off in a barn that's just floating around in space. A group of mutated farmers are living there with a boy they raised (poorly) who they just call Bodysuit. In exchange for some cigarettes and chocolate, Curtis agrees to take Bodysuit to Earth.

Here's Where It Gets Spoilerific: They make it to Venus. Curtis sings Cloris - the apparent queen of Venus - a song about a woman with a vagina, but notices that Professor Hess is there. He figures that Hess wants to kill The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast, so he swaps Bodysuit for the dead man instead. The Women of Venus just love Bodysuit, despite his disorderly conduct and foul smell, and Professor Hess meets someone he has every reason to kill. He vows to be Bodysuit's father and raise him into a good man, so he can kill him. Curtis and The Boy take off together.

Scenes To Watch Out For: The Hurts Donut joke. 


The Boy's performance of "A". And really, all of the songs in this are phenomenal. "Hey Boy" and "The Girl With The Vagina Made of Glass" are two more of the really stunning performances. And "Party."


Anything Else: This movie is shot so interestingly. The lighting is brilliant. And, as I've already said, the music is really great. While this movie might be so bizarre there isn't a word weird enough to cover it, it's really fantastic and (if you can find a copy) it should be watched.  

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)

Directed by: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld


Starring: Jennifer Westfeldt, Heather Juergensen, Scott Cohen

The Main Review: Kissing Jessica Stein was a 2001 film in which a woman, Jessica Stein, decides to stop dating men and try dating a woman. She gets involved with the lovely Helen, who was also, until recently, only engaging in heterosexual relationships. The two of them pair up in what's supposed to be a sweet, quirky romantic comedy about straight girls going gay. Sounds adorable, right?

Yeah, not so much...

All of the men in Jessica's life before meeting Helen were unattractive, unintelligent, jerks and/or already taken. Her mother keeps trying to set Jessica up with other Jewish men that she just doesn't find herself attracted to. There are two conventionally attractive men shown in her life, one of them being her snarky, ex-writer, ex-boyfriend boss (Scott Cohen)  and the other being taken (John Hamm). It just kinda makes sense that she'd try dating in a different group, especially when they put such a charming and non-threatening personal ad in the paper.

There's a lot of middle stuff about painting and dating and being accepting of being gay (I mean, hey, this is a rom-com). What we find is that Helen and Jessica do have sex and, while Jessica isn't really used to it, she thinks it's good. So, Jessica and Helen do fall in love, do engage in physical intimacy and, by what seemed like the end of the movie, go to a wedding together as an open couple.

Of course, at the wedding, her jerk boss shows up a new, better man. He's started to do his bohemian writing thing, he offers her his coat when she's cold, and, being the only person at this point who doesn't know about Jessica and Helen, confesses his deep, romantic feelings to her. He's attractive, he's intelligent, he's nice (now) and he's very available. We can all see that Jessica is tempted, but she refuses his dinner invitation because she's with Helen. So, for that moment, the audience feels satisfied in Jessica and Helen's relationship and love for one another.

Here's Where It Gets Spoilerific: The movie doesn't end there. We see a cute little montage of Helen and Jessica moving in together and being a couple. Then, there are a few scenes of their relationship a few more months in. It appears that Jessica is avoiding - whether purposefully or not - having sex with Helen. In the very end, Helen breaks up with Jessica for not wanting to have more sex with her. Jessica is obviously distressed and tries to get Helen to stay, because, you know, she loves her.

Flash forward another few months, Jessica goes to a bookstore and finds her old boss there. They've, by this point, both quit their jobs and are working on their artistic careers. Of course, the two of them decide to see each other. Then, Jessica goes to have lunch with Helen - the two of them now just best friends. The movie ends and I leave with a displeased feeling in my stomach.

Scenes To Watch Out For: Helen trying to talk to Jessica about their sex life in public and Jessica trying to get her to stop. While Helen sees it as Jessica just not being open about their relationship, I see it as a basic desire to have privacy. But, obviously, wanting to have some privacy when it comes to sex makes you uptight.

The scene where Jessica is pleading through tears with Helen, asking her not to leave, saying she really loves her. And Helen saying they're just roommates.

Anything Else: For Christ's sake, this is supposed to be a rom-com. I was pretty sure that meant fun and light, with a happy ending. Maybe it's just my looser view of sexuality, but I was pretty sure that these two girls loved each other. The movie didn't go too far into their sex life, which is fine. However, it does mean that we have no idea what these two women tried when it comes to sex. I can't tell exactly how much effort they'd put in before Helen threw in the towel.

Also, I don't know if Jessica Stein being heterosexual in the end makes the movie sell better to the public. I think that might be why. The movie is fairly explicit - or at least more explicit - with showing heterosexual sex then the lesbian sex. In fact, the most lesbian action we see is some timid kissing between Jessica and Helen. However, Helen and one of her boyfriends are shown to be very intimate at times. I guess it's to give the heterosexual female viewers something they like, while also giving them the sense of being "adventurous" and "open-minded" because they watched a movie about "lesbians."