The Martian: A Review

So, there's a new Ridley Scott movie coming out starring Matt Damon. In fact, it comes out today. What a crazy random happenstance! Sadly it's not being shown anywhere near me so I can't do a release day review like I was hoping to...buuuuuuuuuuuuut I did, in my excitement about the movie, buy the original book by Andy Weir and devour it in 48 hours. For that reason and absolutely nothing to do with getting Google pings for The Martian, the new Ridley Scott movie with Matt Damon in it, I thought I'd let you know how the book is before you go off to see the movie adaptation with Matt Damon what was directed by Ridley Scott.

I hear there's this film based on this book...

OK, enough tomfoolery; to the review! I actually first heard about The Martian, book or otherwise, from our good old friend Randall Munroe, who writes xkcd:

This is the second most informative site I read.

Naturally I looked up the trailer and lo, it was awesome. Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing until the beginning of the month when I finally decided to buy the book before the film came out, cause I'm that asshole who likes going to a movie and whispering to my neighbour "actually, in the book, they did this..." in every scene. I go to the cinema on my own a lot now, no idea why...

The story is very simple: Mark Watney, a botanist and engineer on the third manned mission to Mars, ends up stranded on the planet and presumed dead after an evacuation during a sandstorm goes wrong. That's...it really. The book follows his, wait for it, desperate battle for survival (aw yeah, I'm a super original journalist) against the harsh Martian environment armed only with spare parts and lots of duct tape. Think of either the bit in Apollo 13 that the comic mentioned or that part in Castaway when he opens all the FedEx parcels to make tools, then spread it over 300 pages. It's awesome. Really, in retrospect, Watney's part was made for Tom Hanks, not Matt Damon, but y'know.

There's even loads of occasions for him to pee on screen again. 

Now, the premise of a scientist tinkering with pipes and machinery for a whole book either sounds like the best thing ever or your worst nightmare; but have no fear, Little Miss I-Hate-Cool-Things, cause Andy Weir has your back. In the hands of many writers, describing constant problem solving, no matter how life-or-death-high the stakes may be, would eventually stagnate into a tedious "he did this, then that happened" rhythm. Weir manages to counteract this, firstly, with a splendidly witty yet realistic character: Mark Watney is quite simply the most charming young man ever to get stranded in space. He can be rattling off back-of-the-napkin calculations about how soon his food is going to run out while simultaneously pondering the mammal-wrangling capabilities of Aquaman and how silly Dukes of Hazzard is. Weir has managed to create a character with all the background and knowledge he'd need to survive his ordeal while making sure he's as relatable as possible to the audience.

The long and short of it is he's wonderful; and I have a feeling a lot of that comes from Weir himself, who is the nerdiest human alive (a computer programmer born to a particle physicist and an electrical engineer, with a love of role-playing games) and simply adorable. Lookit him!

He looks like Stephen King got fused with a 19th century chimney sweep.

Watney makes all the big science jumbo digestible for us plebs, but even so a whole book of one guy tinkering might tire after a while. Weir has countered this by chopping up the big long sections of sciencing with what's going on back home on Earth. And what's going on is everyone is losing their collective shits, that's what. Imagine that reaction when someone realises they've left their pram at the supermarket, but exponentially larger.

"MY BABY!!!"

You might recognise this extract from the movie's trailer:

"If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do."

Every story has a moral to it, and The Martian's is certainly that when it really comes down to it, people can put aside their differences to help someone who is really in need. Yes, it's a bit hokey and sentimental, but... Yeah, it's just plain hokey. Even so, it's nice to see someone having a bit of optimism in their writing, and the parts of the book showing Earth knuckling down together to get Mark home are some of the most satisfying parts of the novel. We're all too bloody cynical and it's about time we enjoyed a bit of gultless pie-in-the-sky idealism; I take back the hokey thing. I'm sorry, Andy.

"S'alright, guv."

What about the meat of the book though? The science in a hard sci-fi novel has to be good; and golly, it is splendid in The Martian. I mentioned a minute ago that Watney acts as a bit of a filter for the audience to help understand everything that's going on, but that's really just a round-a-bout way of saying that Andy Weir should get a job as a lecturer. He's a wizard when it comes to explaining the complexities of biology, engineering, space flight, programming, and god knows what else. You'll finish the novel feeling like you could apply for a job at NASA (note: maybe don't) with the way he manages to gradually lay more and more complex information on you like a delicious knowledge sandwich.

"Mmm, science."

Right, I think I should stop there. This book is fun, interesting, and even surprisingly touching at points. The science is understandable but meaty, and Andy Weir is wonderful. That is all.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler (A Book Review by Someone Who Can't Review Books)

Hello one and all! Today, I am attempting to dip my toes into the world of book reviewing by taking on my recently finished copy of Yes Please by the one and only Amy Poehler.

I was going to teach you how to make these delicious parcels of deliciousness:

It's what's on the inside that counts guys. And on
the inside is a warm hug of tastiness.

But then I forgot to take any pictures in the process of making them and then I ate them all, soooooo yeah.

You are everything I aspire to be.

I first picked up Amy's Yes Please whilst I was waiting in a Waterstones' Costa Cafe for a friend - I didn't have enough time to go back to my flat, but I certainly had a fair bit of time to kill. I had been aware that Amy's (yes, I am going for first name basis because we are there, so deal with it) book had very recently just come out, and I did have every intention of reading it - although maybe in a few months/year when it had been re-released in paperback and going for £2 in Fopp. However, I made the rookie mistake of picking it up to read whilst I waited, got three pages in, laughed out loud five times and knew I was going to have to shell out full price for it, because there was no way I was leaving Waterstones without that book in my bag.

Context Schmontext

Initially I was worried I might not understand much of her book - I'm familiar but not overly familiar with her work. I am aware of her through Tina Fey (whose book Bossypants I need to read), I am aware of her on SNL and her show Parks and Recreation, the latter of which I haven't actually watched, but fully intend to. Thankfully my worries were unfounded as, despite her references towards these various shows she has worked on, she gives enough context surrounding whatever experience she is discussing to set the scene without me feeling like I'm missing out on vital information just because I haven't seen an episode she is talking about.

I wish I could pull of those kind of beanie hats, but I can't. I just can't.

Yes Please is a book which I like to refer to as as a 'non-book'. It doesn't adhere to a specific structure, it jumps about space and time like no-one's business and is not a literary thinker. You'll be able to tear through it pretty easily. Not that there's anything wrong with that! Sometimes you need to just put down War and Peace and enjoy a funny book by a funny person. She gets personal - she talks lovingly of her children, of her parents, her childhood and of her job - but not too personal, as the only mention of her recent divorce with Will Arnett is brief and non-specific. She writes about some unpleasantness she has encountered, like the long process of being able to accept that she did something wrong; she was an asshole and it's time to admit it. She also speaks of her inability to sleep, but as far as discomfort goes, that's about as uncomfortable it gets. Not that one can blame her for perhaps not wanting to fill a book with her darkest times, but it does get a little, "Okay, your life is (seemingly) perfect, we get it." at times. But that's a minor nit-pick on my part.

Is there any look you can't do?

If you are a fan of her work, or just of comedy as a whole, you're in for a treat. Poehler writes a lot about her time at SNL and on Parks and Recreation, even dishing out little biographies for her Parks and Rec colleagues (Favourite time on set, What you might not know, Favourite thing about them etc). Various famous names pop up for guest slots, even a chapter written by Seth Meyers!

I'm going to wrap things up there guys because:

A) I don't want to give away any more of the book, you should really just go read it.

B) Reviewing books is hard and clearly something I need way more practise at.

  

What's to Come - 2015 Sort-of-Resolutions

Hello one and all! Dear faithful readers, I shall be honest with you right now; much like dear Benjamin, I am not going to be setting up a real post today, but instead I am weaselling out of my blogging duties with a post about what kind of posts you might expect from me in the new year. I am of course simply posting in reference to myself, I have no idea what Ben might have planned for 2015, and I am excited to see what he comes up with.

Films

Computer Generated Goodness.

Despite being a film student, I feel like I slacked a bit on my film watching duties in 2014. I don't know if it's the procrastinator inside me viewing film-watching as a form of work or studying, but I didn't really venture outside of the films I was required to watch for uni. Of course I did watch some, I love films and I wrote about them here, but I think I could have been better. Even the films I did watch, I sometimes opted out of the heavier thinkers for the shittiest film I could find so I'm going to up the ante on my film watching activities. I feel like I'm perhaps selling myself a little bit short here, so have a disclaimer: I love watching films! I did watch some bloody fantastic films in 2014! I want to watch more bloody fantastic films in 2015, and so on and so forth for the rest of my life!

Buzzfeed wrote an article of 24 Movies You Probably Missed This Year so I endeavour to view all of them, thoughts on them pending for Pop Culture Cynic, 2015. Yaknow, after I watch them. Film4 also has a list of 50 Films to See Before You Die. This list features more classic films, so I have seen a fair chunk of them already, but I aim to polish off the rest of the list. I'll probably find some more lists to crawl my way through, but by all means, if you have a film you think oughtta be watched, do let me know! 

Music

I couldn't find a non-cringeworthy representation of music,
so I just rolled with it.

This year I introduced the topic of music blogging to Pop Culture Cynic way back in May, and I really enjoyed it! So I do aim to do more posts about music, however I'll probably need to refine the way I talk about it. I know how to talk about film and television because it's what I do at university every day (the quality of my posts may not indicate that, so I do apologise), but talking about music is still something I need to get better at rather than just saying, "Yes, this is a good song, listen to it!" which is the basis of a lot of my musical themed posts. So do bear with.

Cooking(?!)

The way this person is cutting their pepper is going
to keep me up at night.

Okay, so cookery posts are nothing new here, Ben has been offering up tasty blog posts to keep your hungry bellies filled. Hell, there's even a whole tag dedicated to Food which both myself and Ben's posts feature in! However, the difference is is that Ben shows you how to make a delicious treat, I talk about delicious treats I probably ordered online, because talking to people on the phone makes me wanna kill myself. Especially hairdressers. Hairdressers are at the top of my "speak on the phone and get reduced to a crippling awkward mess and wanna kill myself" list and I have no idea why. Anywho. Moving on. I feel like this gives you kind readers an inaccurate representation of myself, because I actually do cook. Quite a lot. And I think I'm not half bad either. So I definitely want to dip my finger into the cooking post pie.

Books

I feel like there's a pun here and I just can't think of it. 

I used to read so much when I was younger. I would start a new book every other day. I loved reading then and I still do now, but I have slowed considerably in my book reading. So much like my film watching, I wish to regain my ability to read a lot in a year. So once I begin to read more, I'd also like to talk about those books, but much like my music reviewing skills, that'll be something that takes refining. So do persevere, I feel like I could have some good stuff to say about books. 

So those are the three main things you may expect from me in 2015, but the biggest thing that I'll be working on is the overall quality of my posts. I know things got a little rough towards the end of the year - balancing university, a part time job and trying to write posts for here got pretty tough, and it was The Pop Culture Cynic that suffered. I'm doing one less module next semester than I was in the first semester, so hopefully I won't be quite as horrifically busy and actually be able to spend time working on stuff that you guys are going to enjoy.

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and I wish you all the best for 2015! See you next year!

Life

I literally started two different posts to put on The Pop Culture Cynic this evening, but my brain is so fried from various different things that I can't really string together a coherent sentence let alone an insightful review of the film and the TV show I was going to look at. So what am I going to write about now? I'm going to take a note out of Ben's book and fill you in on what I've been up to as of late. Sure, maybe not as good reading as a film review, but at least it'll help you guys to get to know me a little better rather than a semi-faceless reviewer on the other side of your computer screen.

University

Flashbacks to two years ago.

As some of you may or may not know, I study theatre and film at university. My current projects are as follows: a film essay discussing independent cinema vs Hollywood mainstream using a film of my choice as the case study (I went with Boys Don't Cry because I hate myself), coming up with an idea for a ten minute film, another film essay, a drama essay of a close reading of a play that I've not read yet and a ten minute screenplay. I do upload the films that we made as exercises during the week to YouTube if you want to check them out - my channel mainly consists of my films from second year (we don't talk about first year, eugh) and these exercises that I mentioned not a moment ago. These exercises are just to help us get familiar with the new editing software that we get to use in third year and to help us think about things like continuity and editing a bit better, so don't be expecting epic stories or anything.

Rosemary's Baby

So having finished reading Rosemary's Baby and having never seen the film, I thought I could do a cool 'novel versus film: fight to the death' type review. However upon viewing the movie, my grand thoughts of a paperback and big screen showdown was thoroughly dashed as the film is one of the single most faithful adaptations to the original source I think I've ever seen. So this will probably just play out as any regular review, boo hiss.

I'm getting such strong E.T vibes. 

A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life.