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.

Film Favourites: Blade Runner

The Film

Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner is, like any good film, esoteric, weird as hell, and an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel; in this case Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. It's everything you would hope for in an epic sci-fi noir movie, even down to the inexplicably austere police chief's office.

"This room hasn't changed in 80 years; we just added more monitors."

The Plot

Harrison Ford is Rick Deckard, a no-nonsense Blade Runner (android bounty hunter) and winner of Best Private Investigator Name three years running who has been tasked with hunting down 4 extremely dangerous replicant (this universe's name for androids) fugitives, led by the supremely talented Rutger Hauer as Nexus 6 Combat Model Roy Batty.

Here we see the full range of Hauer's acting ability.

The replicants have returned to android-free Earth in order to try to extend their stunted 4 year life span. What ensues is a hunt through gritty future-Los Angeles streets where lots of people die, many, many extremely quotable lines are delivered, and the very serious tone of the movie is undercut surprisingly regularly with sudden and jarring moments of unexpected slapstick.

Seriously, you would not expect this guy to still be sinister after some of the adorable faces he pulls.

The Critique

Really, I can't stress enough how silly this movie can be. I got the joyous opportunity to see it in the cinema for the first time very recently (thus this post, actually) and it reminded me how unusually out of place much of the comedy is in the context of the film's world. This is meant to be super grungy dystopia with lots of discarded newspaper and midgets and shit, and yet we end up with androids who run around naked and consider headbutting themselves through walls a viable means of taunting.

"Heeere's Joh-noh-flehbleh..." *collapses*
Smart move, Roy.

You'll also notice that most of my screenshots seem to be focussing on Rutger Hauer, and the simple truth is that he's the only really good actor in the whole movie; everyone else is fine, sure, but they can be a bit flat... Deckard says everything in a slightly disgruntled voice, Rachael (Sean Young) does not move her face, like, at all, and Pris (Daryl Hannah) acts akin to a curious child with all the emotions mixed up wro- oh wait. Replicants don't have fully developed emotions. OK, we'll let them off.

All of them...

Despite some stunted acting, which you may consider a blessing or a curse (I think I've just managed to convince myself it's a good thing), every character in the movie feels fascinatingly unique and fleshed out; particularly when many of them only get a matter of minutes in the whole run time. Edward James Olmos' origami-folding Detective Gaff has about 5 lines across 3 scenes and yet he feels like a complete part of a breathing world. Which, now that we're on the subject, is fucking gorgeous. 

Visit Los Angeles; where you'll never have to worry about scrap paper or steam shortages again.

The attention to detail is brilliant as well (I'd sincerely recommend having a peruse of the countless IMDb factoids about the set design once you've watched the movie), with the sets, costuming and even the made up language all melding together to create a believable future world full of noodles and pipes. That, plus some now iconic film techniques (cool ass eye glimmer, represent), makes for a completely bespoke experience, and is, along side the great characterisation, subtle exploration of human mortality, and amazing soundtrack, the reason why this movie is and always will be one of the best ever made.

It's fucking stupid, but we love it.

It's Special Because...

This is one of my dad's favourite movies; I think it's between this and Apocalypse Now for his top. My brother hated it the first time he tried to watch it. I remember his words very vividly after he tried our old VHS copy of the first Director's Cut (yeah, there's like 8 versions now): "It's too dark too see anything and the sound is weird," or something to that effect. Naturally, I saw this as a challenge and sat through that awful, awful video on our big old CRT TV that would leave a big green splodge on one side of the screen and a purple one on the other. It was grainy, the sound had kind of warped a bit (when your soundtrack is 80% synth, that's not a good thing to have happen), and it was generally a poor way to see the film first time. 

And yet, I still enjoyed it. Not long after, the 2007 Cut was on Film4; I watched it again and I fell in love. At long last my dad had someone who could finish off the sentence when he inexplicably started spouting William Blake, or groggily reply with "Painful to live in fear, isn't it?" when he decided to burst into your room in the morning, growling "Wake up! Time to die!"

He really likes quoting this movie...

Best Enjoyed With

No distractions, a quiet room, and a band of friends who love every second of it as much as you. Nothing beats that moment when you all silently mouth those immortal lines together in the dark. Blade Runner is most definitely a world best shared.

Top 5 "Oo, That Might Not Be Shit" Movies of 2015

Happy New Year everybodily! I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas and spent much time and money getting cataclysmically hammered, as is tradition. Let's all hope 2015 is an amazingly awesome year full of joy and other such sappy guff what like that.

And flying time trains; just like Back to the Future III promised!

I'm a creature of habit; I can't help it. I get up in the morning, put the kettle on, feed the captives, clean my teeth. I like routine. That means when I do something that has the potential to be a yearly occurrence, I'll likely take that opportunity. As such, in a follow-up to 2014's of the same ilk, I've gathered together a bunch of films coming out in 2015 that I'm penning into my diary as possible sources of enjoyment or, after the outcome of some of the items on last year's list, the least disappointment. Seeing as I'm already a week late on this post, let's not hesitate any further. Here we go!

5. Wild (Release: 16th January)

I'll let you in on a secret: I pick all of the films for this list by going onto the "Coming Soon" section of IMDb and scrolling through the whole year. It gives me a general outline of some of the stuff I might be interested in, but sadly there's a lot that'll be announced later in the year or that's simply been omitted that I won't spot as a result. As such, don't consider this list a definitive account of everything I want to see: it's the taster board of the year to come. Despite that, I think I've still found five movies coming out this year (in the UK, anyhoo) that look genuinely interesting either as a result of unique story, the presence of a director/actor who's recent work I've enjoyed, lots of those squiggly award logos at the beginning of the trailer, or any mixture of the former.

The Palme d'Or: The PornHub logo of wanky cinema.

So the first new release of the year that has piqued my interest stars Reese Witherspoon (who looks way different to what I remember her like in Legally Blonde a mere...14...years...oh god, I feel old) in Wild, the new film by Jean-Marc Vallee, director of Dallas Buyers Club (where we got the unique pleasure of watching Jared Leto dress as a woman and slowly die). Technically this came out last year, but it's global commercial release ain't till 16th January, so as far as us common Joes are concerned it just got released.

This movie looks pretty standard as far as a plot of a "true story" film goes: someone suffers a horrific ordeal and decides to go on a life-altering journey to re-find themselves; cue personal struggle and uplifting montages. What makes me a little more interested in this one than any other coming out this year is the pairing of writer and director.

I've not been so excited about writer/director duos since this guy started doing both. Oh, wait...

Dallas Buyers Club was pretty darn good, and any person in their right mind would be buzzing to see what Vallee was up to next; but the addition of Nick Hornby (writer of the novels-cum-movies High Fidelity and About a Boy) as the writer gives me high hopes for how good this movie is going to be at really getting you to care about its characters. Many a heart string shalt be plucked when this one comes out, methinks, and I don't doubt I'll be one of them.

4. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Release: 20th February)

I see me some squiggly award logos!

This one's been making the rounds of film festivals all over the shop in the past year and won't be seeing a proper release until next month, but I want it NOW. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter looks absolutely fascinating. It follows a Japanese woman who mistakes a copy of the Coen brothers film Fargo for a treasure map and decides to go find the bag of money buried in the snow in the movie.

Little does she know that they actually dug it back up and fed it to Peter Stormare as his payment.

I love Fargo. That would be enough for me to want to see this film. But the fact that it's both an independent movie and has all like Japan stuff in it just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. This movie is designed to ensnare hipstery wankers like me, and I'm totally cool with that.

The trailer and synopsis give very little away about what's actually going to happen to the titular Kumiko (played by Rinko Kikuchi; Pacific Rim's Mako) whilst on her journey, but it does a stellar job of building a foreboding and unwelcoming atmosphere. I have a feeling this movie ain't gonna be the cheeriest romp ever.

And not one giant robot to be found.

Understated, ponderous and oozing with potential; even if it doesn't blow my mind I have a feeling Kumiko will at least be memorable.

3. Chappie (Release: 6th March)

After Elysium turned out to be a bit of a wet fart of a movie (albeit a fun one), Neil Blomkamp looks to have got his awesome District 9 momentum back with his new film about a humanoid CGI mo-cap creature that is unfairly ostracised by the human community: Chappie. The difference here is that it's a robot instead of an alien.

Your mind right now.

Voiced and mo-capped by the beloved Shartlo Copley (the main guy in District 9 or, alternatively, the mental one in The A-Team), Chappie looks like the most adorable mix of Robocop and Number 5 ever imagined and the film appears to approach similar questions to those movies too. What if we were to start relying on robots in our armies and police forces and what if a robot were to develop the ability to feel?

And, of course: "How much can we rip off the design of the ED-209?"

Just from the two trailers currently released at time of publishing it looks like we're in for the full shabang of Blomkamp staples: civil unrest, shady government organisations, military forces that can't be trusted, thinly veiled metaphors for racial discrimination. In short: this movie is going to rock the balls off that awful monster in that one Transformers film; which, incidentally, also appears to be the only robo-sci-fi Chappie doesn't seem to have lovingly taken themes and inspiration from. It feels like the greatest Frankenstein's creature of Robocop, Short Curcuit, Ghost in the Shell and iRobot (the book, not the film. Ew.) ever created.

And just to top it off, we're going to get to watch Hugh Jackman finally fight the robots he trained to box years ago. Score!

Here's the link to the second, very different, trailer.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road (Release: 15th May)

This poster actually smells of gasoline and burned flesh. HOW?!

I didn't like the original Mad Max. By my modern, desensitised standards it felt dull and rather lifeless for an Australian apocalyptic action film that was exceptionally over-hyped to me. Never watched the third one, but Road Warrior was pretty good. Anyhoo, there's a new one coming out this year, Mad Max: Fury Road, and boy does it look sweeeeeet. 

By order of the Court of Awesome, henceforth all films shall be required to contain desert car pole-vaulting.

Despite obviously being a Mad Max movie, Fury Road somehow managed to also channel the same sense of psychotic abandon and danger that I last felt while playing Borderlands; a game which is about an entire planet of maniacal murderers driving about in stupid cars and beheading each other. A planet. That's like six Australias or some shit. Also they've replaced that terrifying anti-semitic guy with the muscle-bound Adonis that is Tom Hardy; hoorays all round for that casting choice.

Ladies, start your engines. *vroom*

Explosions. Stupid car chases. Sexy people causing both of the former. Cool setting and costuming. Sure, it's not going to be a ground-breaking piece of art; but if all goes well, we might just see the live action 18-rated version of that bit in The Lego Movie when Emmet uses his own head as a spare tyre. That's good enough for me.

Add crunching neck sound effects at your own discretion.

For me, the real clincher will be how much of the stunts are physical effects and how much they choose to magic up with a compyater. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Here's the trailer:

1. Inside Out (Release: 24th July)

How could I not put this on my list? A new Pixar film written and directed by the guy who did Up? Sign over my first born son, cause I'll be going to see Inside Out enough times to have to sell him into slavery the moment he comes out.

"Sure, he's cute, but can he build a pyramid?"

Now I'll admit, the story following the adventures of the feelings that live inside the head of a human being certainly isn't that original. Two times come to mind in particular: firstly, one of the best Beano strips ever; The Numskulls; something which I do not take kindly to being imitated so brashly. More worryingly though is the second example: this animation by Walt Disney made back in 1943 called Reason and Emotion. It was Academy Award nominated short about the battle between emotion and reason and how being at all emotional is very wrong and that we should obey our superiors for the sake of the war effort to stop the highly emotional Hitler. Also, just so you know, women can't be trusted because they're too emotional and whatnot.

It really is a terrible cartoon.

Of course we've come a long way since those days, but the fact that a major studio would decide to make a film that so closely resembles a part of their past that they really shouldn't be proud of is still somewhat worrying. That and the advert does seem to stray a little too closely into the tired and frankly offensive gender stereotypes I thought we'd started to grow out of. Either way, the ad does appear to show the kind of humour and meaty characterisation that we've come to expect from Pixar, so if anyone could handle this kind of hot potato it'd be them.

They're so ruddy adorable!

If you liked Up, then do yourself a favour and pencil this one in. And don't be afraid to demand your money back if your shoes ain't squelching with tears by the end; I'm expecting no less.

Honorable Mention - Pixels (Release: 14th August)

Why would someone make such an awesome poster for such a guaranteed awful film?

I'm sorry to finish on a downer, but I need to mention this film, simply for the soul-crushing disappointment I feel every time I hear something new about it. The first time I head about Pixels was when the absolutely epic poster art started to circulate, and I was all like "Woah!" and "This'll be so awesome!" and stuff. A movie directed by Chris Columbus and based on a wonderfully imaginative short all about video game characters wrecking shit in the real world? And it has Peter Dinklage in it? How could it possibly go wro-

No. No. NO NO NO NO NO!

Yup. Written by the genius minds behind such classics of modern cinema as Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy (films so loathsome I've omitted even italicising them or linking to their IMDb pages) and starring the anal prolapse that was in the former films, Adam "Really-Does-Deserve-All-The-Hate-He-Gets" Sandler, Pixels is going to be a disaster. Turns out the story is an ever so original tale of aliens mistaking old video games as a declaration of war and inexplicably deciding to attack the Earth with said game icons, leaving the fate of the planet in the hands of a ragtag bunch of gamers. That is the most mind-numbingly unoriginal plot I have ever heard.

Also, Futurama totally already aced it.

This movie could have been great. It could have been another Scott Pilgrim or Wreck-It Ralph (both good enough to get two links to their IMDb pages). An ode to the glory of gaming that doesn't just use it as a shorthand for pulling in geek money. But alas; it is being made by some of the most consistently awful film makers of our generation. And Chris Columbus for some reason. A moment of silence, if you please, for a great film that will never be.

Any movies you'd like to see this year? Let us know!

Film Favourites: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

OH, RRRROCKY!

The Film

The Queen of cult movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an adaptation of Richard O'Brien's sensuous musical about...sexy aliens I guess? I've known no-one who liked this film the first time they watched it, and yet most will always find themselves drawn back into this fabulously weird world. It must be Tim Curry's eyes.

There's nothing I wouldn't do to that man...

Some Short Films for Your Enjoyment

In Ben's previous blog post he highlighted how difficult it is to juggle doing university work and writing high quality posts every week for you lucky readers to consume, so I thought I'd reiterate that a little bit before I reveal what today's post is going to be, because I know y'all are gonna groan whilst rolling your eyes. So, yeah, I agree, it's difficult trying to put a lot of work into university whilst simultaneously trying to put up a decent post on this blog once a week. That's about it actually. On with the post!

I'm cheating a little bit this week by combining university work and putting a post up - winning - by going through some short films that I think you should have a look at; how does this relate to my university work? Because my course is awesome and watching short films actually constitutes as work. I watched 'Avengers Assemble' last night which equalled as doing work. Well, watching that was work, but that's for another post. As per usual, I'll be linking to where you can view the respective films in their titles and this isn't presented in a top five structure, so surely it counts as something new and not at all another list article, right? Oh bugger off, lists are cool - and so are short films! No longer bound by conventional narrative that feature length films often adhere to, short films are left to their own devices and what beautiful devices they are.

Film Favourites: Jurassic Park

Even the poster gives me tingles.

The Film

From back in the glory years of Steven Spielberg before A.I. and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ruined his winning streak, Jurassic Park is either one of your favourite movies or you are an evil alien from the planet Killjoy in the galaxy of Funlessness and we must now burn you. With fire.

The cow had it easy...

It's "About Time" I Reviewed This *wink*

Richard Curtis movies are an odd bunch. They're funny, full of character, oh-so-British and yet they all feel so similar. The timing of my post a few days from Valentine's Day (here's some cards if you need them) might suggest what the common, far too heavily trodden theme of his movies is. That's correct: love. Who doesn't love love, right?

"I love escalated Milwaukee whale's vagina". One-liner movies confuse me.

Top 5 "Oo, That Looks Good" Movies of 2014

The new year has arrived at long last; we only had to wait 365 days or so for it. And with the new year comes the long wait for the inevitable wave of summer blockbusters that arrive every June with the timing and grace of only the most punctual and voluminous menstrual sloughs.

There is never not a good moment to use this image.

Summer this year seems to be set to flood us like so much body-temperature uterus lining with a veritable smorgasbord of exactly the same movies over and over again. With lots of lasers and jumping and looking seriously into the distance, sci-fi and alien invasion seem to be the aim of the game, so be prepared for, well, lots of sci-fi and aliens; along with the obligatory kids animated movie sequels and another superhero movie, because we're totally not tired of them yet. Yay.

Why can't we all just wait patiently for Ant-Man?

That said, there's still plenty to be excited all through the year so, without further ado (or adon't), I give you my top 5 list of movies that, as the title suggests, make you lean over to your mate in the cinema and shout-whisper, "Dude, we need to see that." Let us begin with:

The World's End: Not Quite the End for Pegg and Frost

I always feel bad whenever I decide to review a movie that it turns out I like. Reviewing anything you enjoy feels like a cheat; you end up biased in your criticism and just spend the whole thing fawning over it's unadultered epicness instead of, you know, actually saying something worthwhile.

Attempting to explain everything good about David Bowie descends into guttural screaming and a voiding of all bodily fluids.

I'd already decided to review The World's End before I started watching it, and I whole-heartedly regret my choice; this film is awesome. With Edgar Wright back on the writing and directing helm of the last in the fabulously named "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" after Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's disappointing solo effort Paul, The World's End is a funny, painfully self-aware, hyper-violent and utterly charming sci-fi flick that is exactly the same as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz in all of the right ways. Plus, it's all entirely a build up to the post-apocalyptic wasteland in the Sisters of Mercy Song, This Corrosion.

Who'd have thought something so epic could come out of the Sisters of Mercy, eh?

Seeing as I've already let the cat out of the bag as to my overall opinion on this movie, I'm going to restrain myself for as long as possible and talk about the few criticisms I do have of possibly the weakest film out of an overall impeccable trilogy.