FILMUSIK LIVE: MISSILE TO THE MOON

Top Down: Rooftop Cinema

FILMUSIK LIVE: MISSILE TO THE MOON
DIRECTOR: RICHARD CUNHA
US, 1959

Portland’s Filmusik presents a new, original soundtrack conducted live by composer Scott Ordway with orchestra and live voice dubbing. In this wonderfully absurd sci-fi tale—definitely not made by rocket scientists—scientist Dirk Green catches a couple of escaped convicts hiding out in his backyard rocket ship and forces them to help pilot his ad-hoc flight to the moon. As plot thickening would have it, another scientist and his fiancée happen to climb on board at launch time too. After Green dies in a freak accident caused by a meteor shower, the makeshift crew finds there is cheesy life on the moon after all: oddly ambulatory rock-monsters, the sinister female ruler Ledo and her scantily clad moon-babes, and awesome giant spiders that look like they may have been made by inspired, but only moderately gifted, third graders. (78 mins.)

Sponsored by Artists Repertory Theatre, whose 2011/12 season opens September 6 with “Gods of Carnage.”

BAND: EDIBLES