Spaceman

Scott Dikkers, co-founder of the satirical newspaper The Onion, tries his hand at movies with underwhelming results. Shot on a shoestring budget, Spaceman is about a four-year-old boy kidnapped by aliens--cleverly shot as an homage to the abduction scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind--who crash-lands back on Earth 25 years later after being trained as a killing machine. Needless to say, he has trouble fitting into human society--initially failing as a grocery clerk before moving on to become a Mafia hitman. Technically very rough, Dikkers' only occasionally funny comedy comes off as artificially stiff as its title character. In fact, watching Spaceman while listening to the director talk about its making on the DVD's second audio channel is much more interesting than viewing the film by itself. For that reason, the disc should be marginally considered for collections catering to film-school students or serious indie movie buffs. (T. Rich)