... simply the worst film I can think of at the moment.Comparisons to David Lynch's early work are unfair blemishes on his reputation. Surely the only ways in which this film resembles 'Eraserhead' are that it's low-budget and shot in B&W.There is no content or depth in this film, it is just a long set of scenes loosely strung together, held together by one running joke. What is that joke? Others have commented on it here -- professor Hess's birthday.There is nothing else. Period.Note that the lack of special effects isn't an issue. Tarkovsky's 'Solaris' and Godard's 'Alphaville' both satisfactorily represented space travel with limited technology, as does 'The American Astronaut'. The problem is that there's nothing for the space travel scenes to bind together -- the film is empty.It was difficult to believe that the film was *only* an hour and a half long. It felt like an eternity. There was a constant trickle of audience members leaving all through the session. Well, that was at MIFF, maybe the viewers were a little more discerning than the usual crowd. I stayed because I felt that there must be at least an attempt at redemption at the end. Sadly, no. Just a continuation of that joke.Maybe I'm just spoiled by the likes of Bela Tarr, Wim Wenders, Mike Figgis, Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick and other mind-alteringly talented directors.Then again, maybe there's a simpler answer -- that this film really is devoid of all worth.

..................all the artsyness/stylish directing and "off-beat" humor in the world couldn't can't save this extremily slow, irritating, and pointless flick. The scene where the main character is in the bathroom and the guys are dancing outside of his stall had me laughing hard, but that was the first and last time I laughed. I just can't believe there was only one other negative review on this site. ...................WARNING! I would think this would be a shockingly unwatchable film to most people...

If you're lucky perhaps one out of a hundred movies will change the way you look at film making - for me The American Astronaut was such a movie. From the very first scene your already thinking "What the hell is this?" Now this question doesn't necessarily dictate that the viewer is enjoying themselves, but once that thought occurs it is undeniable that they have just stepped into a completely unique world.The only way for me to describe what this movie is like is to say: it is as if the director Cory McAbee - hell bent on making a stew that had never been tasted before - went into his kitchen - went through his cupboard pulled out a cup of musical honey for an unexpected sweetness, some robust western beef, a very carefully measured amount of comedic spices, a thick film noiry broth and put them all together in a pot. Not everyone will like this stew - while your eating it you may find that one moment you absolutely love it and nothing before or after has or will taste as good, then you take another spoon full and you wish you'd never started eating in the first place, but when you take yet another you can't imagine what it was you disliked.I for one loved the movie - It was the dancing cowboy in the beginning that got me. That image really hammered down what this movie was going to be - and that is: exactly what you don't expect it to be.As for direction - I absolutely loved the way it was shot. It's very minimal as far as lighting goes, you can almost actually see where the lights have been set up. I remember in the bathroom scene when the two cronies are dancing you can blatantly tell how the light kit has been arranged because of the obvious shadows. We accept this very obvious lighting, because, though it seems very rushed and in your face, you know it's actually very carefully planned and stylistically consistent.Over all the editing didn't bother me and flowed quite nicely. There was one particular cut when they flash to the workers that bothered me. It was very quick and such a specific moment that I almost feel silly mentioning it, but it didn't seem to have any flow with the other cuts and seemed unnecessarily disjointed. It reminded me almost of one of my first editing projects I did on I Movie - just one of those moments that makes you go - "Ooh ouch." But other then that moment, the editing didn't faze me.The music is so unusual - I have to comment on it. Sometimes it just doesn't match the action at all. There may be vague hints like in "The Girl with the Glass Vagina" you think "Okay I'll accept that he's singing about Vaginas- it's Venus the planet of women - there's lots of those there." but by that point your brain is pretty much mashed potatoes anyway, having sat through nearly the entire thing. I love that the songs take you out of the absurdity for a moment only to bring you to a level even more surreal then before.Over all I really enjoyed the American Astronaut. It was like falling down the long dark halls of my subconscious with a faulty flashlight, and I loved almost every flicker.

Okay, I saw the movie at the Red Vic in the Haight/Ashbury of San Francisco...a perfect setting for an off-beat film where movie-goers can watch a flik from a flea-bitten (j/k) couch while eating' good and cheap confection. Maybe this sounds like an ad for the movie theater, but I find such a setting perfect for how I would categorize American Astronaut: as a couch swallowing, camp/cult SCI FI flik.With its punkish music, it is a caricature of solar system space travel reminding me of Rocky Horror; but yes, it had the disconcert of Eraserhead. It all began on a f'd up bar on an asteroid. And while the ending was perhaps unsatisfying, it ended when I needed it to end...kind of like a Phillip K. Dick novel.I'm giving the movie a very high grade because it was made on the cheap. It made me laugh hard. It left a lot of room for personal interpretation. It is a social commentary. And it was quite disturbing, especially in its view of men and women existing separately.Oh yeah, it definitely had some commonality with The Queen of Outer Space...though crasser. For some reason, I was wondering if SCI-FI had a category called Kitsch SCI-FI. I looked up kitsch and must say that there is nothing kitsch about American Astronaut, especially the low budget spaceship because we really don't yet inhabit the solar system and glossy Star Trek space boats are extreme imitations of truth while even an Einstein cho cho train elaboration is more relativistic to our Earth...or at least way REALer than than captialistic star boat Enterprise.Ultimately, it all felt gay no matter which way you look at it..."Not because he wants to wear it, but because he gets to wear it." It's one of our pseudo hero's funniest lines as I remember it from the movie. I'd own this film if I could find it.