The Incomplete Guide to The Killers, Fly Me to the Moon, and space spectaculars
In which Vanessa discusses the Frank Sinatra-esque Brandon Flowers, Elliot reviews not the Frank Sinatra song, and we share our starry-eyed favourites.
The Killers: Rebel Diamonds
This Las Vegas act delivers showmanship and appeals to nostalgia with ease, Vanessa finds.
On Thursday night, together with Friend of the Incomplete Guide (if any more pop up, I will probably shorten that to FIG), Jess, and my husband, I attended the final night of The Killers’ Rebel Diamonds tour at the O2 arena in London.
Their opening act, Travis (part of the Brit-pop wave that also propelled Coldplay to popularity), dropped the fun fact that The Killers had attended one of their Vegas gigs before forming, and now Travis was opening for them. It felt like there was a note of bitterness in Fran Healy’s voice, in part a generic frustration that most gig goers weren’t up to date with their more recent output, despite him singing the praises of this tour.
However, they got good crowd engagement with the front row, who seemed like repeat attendees, and the rest of the crowd for their hit singles “Why does it always rain on me?” (potentially the summer anthem), and “Sing”. The delicate rendition of “Flowers in the Window” was touching, particularly accompanied by Fran’s relating it to the raising of children.
After a short break, it was then time for the main act: The Killers.
Just over 20 years ago, they released their first album, Hot Fuss, but they opened with a more recent offering: “My Own Soul’s Warning”, from the 2020 album, Imploding the Mirage. While it wasn’t an album I was familiar with - having dropped out of listening to popular music circa 2017, when I stopped commuting by car - the sound was unmistakably The Killers.
It was evident in the set list: while the earlier albums dominated, with 5 songs off the debut, Hot Fuss, and 6 songs off of their sophomore effort, Sam’s Town, none of the other songs sounded out of place or like a big departure from their synth-and-guitar sound and Brandon Flowers’ signature soaring tenor.
Flowers’ practised manner of hosting the gig was no doubt influenced by the number of shows performed in rapid succession, but there is a debonair aura to him that reminds me of the Cary Grants and Frank Sinatras of yore. Of course, the sharp suit jacket helps in that regard, but so probably does his unshakeable faith as a Mormon - a “friendly” proselytising bunch, if there ever was one.
Breaking up the setlist about halfway through, the band launched into a cover of Erasure’s “A Little Respect”. It’s clear that the band respects the artists that came before and influenced their style significantly. The respect is returned to the fans too: they went viral in the UK for airing the outcome of the EURO semi-final game England played against the Netherlands.
They’ve also notably kept the experience entertaining for themselves, by varying up the setlist - as mentioned in the article, the bombastic finale was “Mr Brightside”, while for us the encore was finished by “When You Were Young”, a song we were worried might not make an appearance when it had been left off the main set.
While I’m unsure if I’ll stream all of the material that’s new to me, particularly their post-pandemic albums had some fantastic ethereal numbers that I’ll enjoy playing in the background while working, for instance. It’s nice to find new things, though to reiterate, they’re still the same good old Killers of yore.
You can listen to the gig highlights in our Rebel Diamonds Spotify playlist, which clocks in under 30 minutes.
Fly Me To The Moon
This is an absolute mishmash of a movie. There is a lot going on, and structurally it is all over the place, but I will admit I had a lot of fun, maybe a bit more than anyone else in my cinema, but that’s fine. Fly Me to the Moon is the latest in AppleTV+’s genre of ‘a slice of history made slightly more fantastical than it actually happened’ movies, (I’m thinking Tetris and Blackberry from last year).
Scarlett Johansson is Kelly Jones, an advertising and publicity guru, using unethical but effective methods to help rejuvenate marketing campaigns to make a reputation for herself. She’s hired by the mysterious Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson, chewing the scenery) to help NASA sort out their image problems and sell the space race to help get Apollo 11 over the line. Kelly finds herself up against, and eventually trampling over Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), to get NASA out of their rut and into the public realm.
Greg Berlanti is on directorial duties, his last major motion picture being Love, Simon, so whilst there is rom-com experience on show here, the romance is the clunkiest stuff in the film. The screwball duo of Johansson and Tatum has great chemistry, but their rivals-to-lovers arc is arguably the weakest aspect of the story. Kelly’s techniques, ranging from product endorsements to personalised tours for key senators, infuriate Davis. He’s a military man, and is treating the expedition as such an operation, hating the commercialism that Kelly enforces and wins him finances and power with.
Tatum is actually quite understated in this role, with a guarded performance and rewarding the audience for their patience with Cole’s layers being peeled back as the journey towards Apollo 11’s launch hangs forebodingly over him. Elsewhere, Jim Rash is on fine and flamboyant form as Lance Vespertine, a joyously finicky and controlling director. Ray Romano is also delightful in his role as Cole’s deputy, Henry, starting as a clunky nerd and eventually being brought out of his shell with a lot joy and laughs. The charm in this film isn’t artificial, it’s real.
The story progresses to an inevitable endgame: as the public and government get more invested in America’s impending space race triumph, the moon landing must be seen as a success, and Jones is tasked with putting together a potential fake moon landing to broadcast.
It's a clever conceit but it's simultaneously played for farcical laughs and a dark conspiracy. It’s tonally confused, with the script unable to commit to the fun farce of faking the moon landings to protect the sanctity of the spectacle, and yet hoping we're enjoying the deceit of the charming characters from the NASA end.
Usually a movie like this ends with a caption of what happened to the people involved, but it's all made up, despite being based on real ideas. There's something very interesting and funny about dragging nerds and the military into the populist sales space, but the film is more interested in trying absolutely everything.
It is funny in places, and looks every bit the $100m spent on it, but I honestly can't recommend it on the big screen; you will have a great time watching at home instead. I already liked NASA, I didn’t need it to become part of a shadowy farce.
Fly Me To The Moon is in cinemas now
An Incomplete List of Films about the Moon
Fly Me to the Moon is the latest offering to show us the moon, but the space race has become a frequent theme of the big screen in recent years. Some highlights include…
1. Hidden Figures (2016)
Hidden Figures is one of those comedies that seems to be repeated on Channel 4, Film4, or E4 every few weeks, but you can see why. Crowd-pleasing and charming: groups of black women mathematicians working for NASA during the pivotal years building up to the launch of Mercury-Atlas 6, one of the crucial steps in the space race.
We get to see comedy and romance in their home lives, as well as the stark political and societal structures they battle to overcome in their working days, full of triumphs and tribulations. Starring Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, alongside Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons and Kevin Costner, this is the space race made accessible for all.
2. First Man (2018)
Back when Damien Chazelle made good movies, he followed up La La Land with this strange and cold thriller about Neil Armstrong in the years building up to him becoming the first man on the moon.
Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy star, showing how Armstrong treats the project as a military mission, unable to express himself in an emotionally healthy way, too invested and utterly detached from his personal life. Cold and calculated, but gritty and achieving tension through fantastically physical production design, this was criminally under-seen at the time, but really holds up, putting the human face on humanity’s biggest achievement.
3. Apollo 11 (2019)
Vanessa and I were lucky enough to see this documentary in IMAX when it launched, and I’d now compare it to Let It Be/Get Back. Todd Douglas Miller seems to have poured all of his time into this, taking a stunning amount of archive material and cleaning it up into glorious 4K film. It looks like it was filmed yesterday, but, obviously, it wasn’t, it was filmed in 1969. It’s not in real time, but it’s paced carefully to replicate the feeling of watching the voyage, and the sheer amount of footage and its utter intimacy are stunning.
4. Moon (2009)
Turning from the realistic to the fantastic, Moon is the directorial debut of David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones. Very much an acting showcase for Sam Rockwell, it’s worth pointing out that this also uses Kevin Spacey effectively. Had Rockwell turned down the role, Paddy Considine reportedly would have filled his spot, which would undoubtedly have made for a different movie in this claustrophobic set-up that brings up the moral ambiguities that the space exploitation race can engender.
5. Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon (2011)
The sixth series of Doctor Who has its detractors, partly because the blockbuster opening two-part adventure set around the moon landings was so damn good and set up too many mysteries. The climax of Day of the Moon, in which the Doctor uses the moon landing as a moment seared into humanity’s consciousness to eradicate the memory-alternating Silents, is just absolutely dynamite.
What gigs and film screenings have you been to recently? Is there anything you want us to selfishly share our opinions on? Share your ideas in the comments, or reach out to us on socials. You can find Vanessa on most platforms as @NessaOfTwoEvils, and Elliot on most platforms as @Wengle. Thanks!