The scene where Glenn struggles not to admit that he can't accept a woman as an equal has that eerily poker-faced quality we associate with sci-fi movies from other time periods that congratulate themselves on being "advanced." (Almost every film's values become campy if you wait long enough.) This kind of genial joshing isn't enough to sustain an entire movie, but it has its charms, mainly because everything onscreen seems to have been put there not to score points or wring cheap laughs, but because somebody involved with the production had an itch that needed scratching. "Space Station 76" is one of those viewing experiences where you're often not sure if the artists are kidding, and if so, about what. "Space Station 76" is too comfortable with its near-plotlessness, its 94 minutes feel padded, and there are moments where it runs out of gas (rocket fuel?), yet the tone is so special that it turns what might've been aesthetic crimes in another film into misdemeanors. The movie is a relic that was made just a couple of years ago. The starship footage is presented without sound, presumably out of respect for scientific accuracy, even as the characters smoke cigarettes, fetch food from futuristic automats, and tell robots to make them Harvey Wallbangers. The TV series "Space: 1999"-forgotten now by everyone but Martin Landau completists-seems seems to have been a visual influence, along with " Silent Running," " Logan's Run," the 1970s TV versions of "Buck Rogers" and "Battlestar Galactica," and anything else with jumpsuits. Misty and Ted's daughter Sunshine (Kylie Rogers) buddies up to Jessica, who wants to have children but can't and looks perpetually bereft as a result. Misty is secretly having an affair with Steve ( Jerry O'Connell), a horny man-boy whose wife Donna ( Kali Rocha) just had a baby. She's all but quit having sex with her husband Ted ( Matt Bomer of TV’s “White Collar”), a technician who lost a hand in a space battle and replaced it with what looks like an aluminum mitten. The chipper Misty ( Marisa Coughlan) downs Valium the way other people eat Tic-Tacs, repeats '70s self-help slogans, and prides herself on her ability to "cook" (i.e., choose which items the station's automated chefs will put in the food machines). All would've been right at home on a '70s soap opera. The gallery of supporting characters includes company employees, significant others, and one small child. When Glenn finds out that his new lieutenant is a kindhearted woman named Jessica Marlowe ( Liv Tyler), he's so deflated that the filmmakers might as well have put a Sad Trombone noise on the soundtrack. He promoted his last second-in-command to a plum job so suddenly that the whole station is speculating on his motives. He's deep in the closet, too, which explains why he grimaces all the time and snaps at people. The title spacecraft's skipper, Captain Glenn ( Patrick Wilson), is an alcoholic sexist. The script preserves the era's retrograde sexual politics along with its groovy designs.
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