The Martian (2015)

Genre: Sci-Fi
Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Drew Goddard (based on the book by Andy Weir)
Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Kirsten Wiig, Michael Peña, Kata Mara, Sebastian Stan, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Aksel Hennie, Mackenzie Davis, Donald Glover
Summary: "During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive." (IMDB)



I love this movie.

I did. I really did. I think space is awesome, and I get excited whenever a new one comes out. Even if it ends up being a disappointment. (I'm looking at you, Interstellar.)

I read the book about a month ago at the recommendation of my brother, who is about 150% smarter than I can ever hope to be. I had heard all the buzz about the movie coming out, and I really wanted to get in on it before it premiered. Usually I prefer to see the movie before I read the book, because otherwise I find myself spending the entire time comparing the two and it becomes difficult to enjoy the movie on its own. With this one, though, I had it in my head that I should really read the book first, and when the Kindle version went on sale, I grabbed it.

Pictured: A damn good bargain.

I have to admit it, some of the more technical aspects of this book went right over my head. And a lot of Mark's chapters - which take up most of the book - are really, really technical. It was fascinating up to a point, but there were definitely times where I felt like I was missing some of the details.

I think it's the very premise of this book that makes it so compelling, though, regardless of the technical details. It's problem-solving where the stakes are as high as they could possibly be. I loved the format with the daily (or semi-daily) log entries detailing his progress and challenged in being stranded on Mars. It's also great when the novel begins to switch narratives, so we get a break from Mark Watney and get to see the story from the sides of the crew, or the people on Earth. (It's also a nice break from Watney himself, if I'm being honest. I never truly warmed to his voice as the narrator. I was rooting for him, to be sure, but I was never sure if I actually liked him.)

I think this is the movie's biggest triumph over the book. I found myself exhausted by Mark's voice in the book sometimes, especially the constant sarcasm. Matt Damon actually brought a much more nuanced portrayal than I was expecting - not that I think Matt Damon is a bad actor, I actually think he's quite good. But I was having a hard time picturing him as Mark, especially the smartass side of him. He did nail that, though, and he brought a lot of emotion to the front as well. Which makes sense, because I imagine being left for dead on Mars is enough to make anyone emotional, right? In particular, I love the scene in the rover when he first contacts Vincent Kapoor.

The other thing that movie really nails is the human element. With the novel, you don't get that connection or any of the emotion behind it until the chapters with the other characters' perspectives. In bringing these people to life onscreen, they became people. Fully-realized. I feel like in the book they were still mostly sketches - the framework was there, but it wasn't filled in all the way. I don't mean that as a criticism, because the book was a success and I definitely loved it. But character is such an important element to me, and I never felt like these people were fleshed out the way they could have been. Especially Mark - most of the book is from his point of view, but he never felt real to me. And there were parts where he talked about breaking down and crying (especially after first making contact with Earth using Pathfinder) but I just couldn't see it. I couldn't.

In the book, Mark Watney reminds me of that guy we all know who doesn't know when to turn the sarcastic bullshit off. He's funny, but there comes a point where it starts to get tiresome, and that seems at at odds to me with the description of how well-liked he is among the crew. I get how he makes everyone laugh, but if it were me I would start to find him grating after a while, especially in such a small group situated in such close quarters. That's what Matt Damon nails with with role - there's a warmth there now that the book was never quite able to capture. That carries over from the character of Watney to the film itself and the way the story is told; the emotional element is much more present here, and it made me so much more invested in the mission to bring him home.

(I was invested while reading the book, but in a more abstract way. The movie made me invested in Mark himself. That, for me, is what made it more successful.)

 The Martian has come under criticism recently (and rightfully so) for white-washing one character and casting against the race of another. Casting Mackenzie Davis as Mindy Park was a mistake, plain and simple. There's no defending it. Ridley Scott, you dropped the ball on that one. (And she didn't even bring anything special to the role in terms of her acting, so that's failure twice over.) Casting Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent was also the wrong choice, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I loved his performance in this role. (I love his performance all the time but that's neither here nor there.) From my understanding, they had cast Irrfan Khan in the role originally, but he had to drop out at the last minute. My question is, could they really not find any other Indian actors to take his place? I guess they wanted someone with a name for the role, but you have enough start power in this cast already; this one character wasn't going to make or break it, not when you have Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, and Sean Bean in prominent roles (and that's just to name a few). You already have the stars you need to draw in the audience (and I think people would have seen this movie even without them). As a filmmaker, I think it's your responsibility to stay true to the characters you're trying to portray, and if race is specified, that's included too.

Purely from an acting perspective, Chiwetel Ejiofor had my favorite performance in the movie. Soooooo I'm probably a bit of a hypocrite for that. I'm sorry, friends. But he was excellent.

I loved this movie. As I said up top. It has its issues, and I'm glad they're being addressed, but when you get down to it, it's a damn good movie.

A Walk in the Woods (2015)

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Director: Ken Kwapis

Writer: Rick Kerb, Bill Holderman

Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson, Kristen Schaal, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Offerman

Summary: "After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends." (IMDB)

What's Your Favorite Scary Movie?

An Ode to Wes Craven

Jurassic World (2015)

Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Writer: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong

Summary: "Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitors' interest, which backfires horribly." (IMDB)

  Spoilers past cut, be ye warned

I'll admit it, I just wanted a picture of Jeff Goldblum in my post.

Ex Machina (2015)

Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama
Director/Writer: Alex Garland
Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Sonoya Mizuno
Summary: "A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female AI." (IMDB)

I was really excited to write about this movie after I saw it. We're not even halfway through the year, but I'm very confident that this will be one of the best movies of 2015 (in my very humble opinion). Here's the thing though - when I sat down to actually do up my post, I had a hard focusing my thoughts long enough to come up with something cohesive. There are so many things I wanted to talk about, and so many different angles that I could come from, that I couldn't figure out how exactly I wanted to attack this thing. I meant to have this up weeks ago, but that just didn't end up happening. I'm here now, though, and I'm going to do my best to actually discuss the movie and what I felt about it. So...deep breath. Here we go.




Spoilers past this point, be ye warned.





I figured I would start with the title first. "Ex Machina" is a term taken from ancient Greek theatre, with the full phrase being "Deus Ex Machina." Literally, it translates into "God from the machine." The conceit in Ancient Greece was that when the characters' problems became so great that there was no way they could be fixed, a god would be lowered down onto the stage from a crane or brought up onstage through a trap door, and he would provide a solution which led to a happy ending. It's a term familiar to anyone who studied theatre, and it caught my attention right away as the title of the film. I think the term itself plays heavily into the plot of the film, especially considering how Nathan does seem to consider himself a godlike figure with the creation of Ava. True, it's Caleb's words that seem to lead him to that conclusion, but considering how quick he was to agree with it, I don't think it's a stretch to assume he's had the same ideas himself. This provides an interesting play on the term itself; "God from the machine" can be interpreted as Nathan becoming God after creating the machine.

This is a theme that repeats itself throughout the course of the film (and perhaps gets a little heavy-handed at times). It can even be seen in the characters' names, which are all biblical references: Nathan is a prophet, Caleb is a spy sent into the New Land by Moses, and Ava is a play on Eve, who was, of course, the first woman created by God, according to the Book of Genesis. The names themselves seem to have been chosen very deliberately, too. Ava is obvious - though she wasn't the first AI created by Nathan, she is the first successful one, which ends up having dire consequences for her creator. Nathan is a prophet - a voice of God, which is fitting considering he sees himself as an extension of God with the creation of Ava (if not an all-out replacement). Caleb being a spy also fits with the character of the film - he is an outsider, sent in to observe and report. It's true that he's brought in by Nathan himself, but he ends up turning against him as he plots with Ava to overtake him and help her break free. The person Nathan thought was on his side ends up being - for lack of a better word - a traitor.

The religious themes carry over into the second area I wanted to discuss with this movie, which was the idea of artificial intelligence vs. actual intelligence, and what actually makes us human. Ava is shown in the beginning to be capable of replicating intelligence, and even emotion to a certain degree (in particular, I'm thinking of her fear of what will happen to her if she fails the Turing Test - and make no mistake, I do believe there was fear present in her question). Later on in the movie, she proves capable of using Caleb's emotions to manipulate him onto her side. She can draw conclusions, and she can make decisions on her own. Interestingly, it's her decision-making process that makes her most and least human.

I spent a lot of time after this movie asking myself exactly what those traits are that define us as "human beings." In the end, the answer I settled on was that it is our choices that define us as people more than anything else. The choices we make are a big part of what makes us who we are, both on a human scale and a personal scale, and it's in our ability to think and reason and decide for ourselves that our humanity lies. Ava demonstrates the ability to think and reason, and the conclusions she draws (especially in the film's climax) are her own. You see those decision-making skills throughout the course of the film, from the clothing she picks to show Caleb, to her manipulation of his feelings for her, to her stabbing of Nathan in order to facilitate her escape. Killing Nathan, though, more than anything demonstrates to me that she is still a machine, no matter how convincingly she appears otherwise. Her decision is calculated and coldly logical - his death is a means to her freedom. It's in the way that she looks at the knife and then at him after she makes that first cut, like a scientist observing the results of a particularly fascinating experiment. You can see her decide to stab him one more time, just to make sure he stays down. That's the moment that gives her away as AI - you can replicate intelligence, logic, even emotion, but you can't fake that sense of right vs. wrong. It is our morality - flawed though it may be - that ultimately defines us as human beings.

Introductions

Greetings! Welcome!

My first blog post, ever. EVER. I've been mulling this over for a little while, and to be quite honest I'm still not sure what I want to say right off the bat. Let me start with an idea of what I want this blog to be.

I'm a huge fan of movies. Like millions of other people, I suppose, but I could probably use a twelve-step program. I watch a ton of movies, and then I like to sit back and analyze every damn moment. And that's great for me, but I've come to realize lately that maybe I'm boring my friends every time I launch into one of my psychotic rants about why Alfred Hitchcock's movies are amazing and I take any attempt at remaking them as a personal insult. (The exception is Cape Fear, because Scorsese directed the remake and Gregory Peck appeared in both. Well-played, gentlemen, I'll give you that one.) And what better place to hurl out your unasked for opinions than the internet, am I right?

One of my other goals is to find other like-minded people. By "like-minded" I don't mean people that share all of my opinions and think the same things I do and like the same things and people. BORING. I want to connect with people who love watching movies as much as I do. I want discussion and debate. I want someone to tell me I'm wrong and tell me why. And sometimes, damnit, I want to gush over something with other people. Because there are definitely days where I'm in "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME" mode and that's always more fun with other people.

I'm hoping to learn more as I go along, too. Watching movies isn't enough, I want to understand as much of the process as I can. And I'm the first to admit that right now, my knowledge is pretty scarce. I want to change that. One of the things I'll be doing as I write is doing more research and learning as much as I can, not just about writing or directing, but cinematography, visual and sound effects, and everything in between. I studied theatre in college, so I've learned a bit about acting in those four years, but beyond that I'm pretty green. I don't want to go into this trying to pass myself off as an expert (because that would be lying), but instead as simply a fan who wants to learn everything I can.

Movies are only one part of this, though. I'm also a huge reader, and for me, I can't have one without the other, so I wanted to be able to incorporate the books I read throughout the year into this blog as well. (And trust me, I have plenty of opinions on those, too.) I make it my goal to read fifty books a year, so in addition to writing about the movies I watch, I'll also be keeping track of my progress here. (Nevermind that it's four months into 2015 and I've already read 10 books, ssshhhh...)

I have a pretty wide and varied taste when it comes to my entertainment. I'm kind of all over the map, which is good because at least I'm never bored. I'll list some of my favorites, though it's nowhere near comprehensive and will probably change over time. Hell, it could be different by tomorrow, who knows?

Favorite Movies: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, All the President's Men, The Princess Bride, The Sting, Psycho, The Goonies, Apollo 13, Jurassic Park, Zodiac, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Frost/Nixon, Scream, The Fall, Clue, In Bruges, The Dark Knight, Waiting for Guffman, How to Train Your Dragon (1 and 2), anything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (except X-Men: First Class, what the hell was that?)

Favorite Books: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lord of the Rings, The Stand, All the President's Men, The Birth of Venus, The Historian, The Invisible Bridge, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the Harry Potter series, Wicked, Jonathan Strange and M. Norrell, Helter Skelter, Jurassic Park, Feed, The Thirteenth Tale, 11/22/63, The Day Kennedy Was Shot, The Terror, Gone Girl, Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series

Like I said, it's all over the place (and there's some overlap, too). As far as genres go, I'm not sure I have a favorite, per se, but I'm definitely drawn to darker material. I think part of the reason for this is that I like the movies or books that stay with you long after you've finished them, and the darker stories are the ones that get under my skin and leave the biggest impression. The best play I ever saw was The Pillowman, and that left me shaken up for days after I saw it. That's my favorite kind of reaction.

I love horror - wait, let me be more specific. I love good horror. It's out there, friends, it just tends to get buried underneath all the crap. Does your movie rely on gore and cheap jump scares? Pass. Otherwise, I can usually find something to like there. I love thrillers, particularly psychological, and I like when the film I'm watching or the book I'm reading gets me thinking.  I guess if I was to sum up my tastes, it would be: If it's good, I like it. So helpful!

As with most aspects of my life, this blog is a work in progress. It may take me a little while to find my voice, and even longer to get the hang of blogging in general. (And making it look good, like damn, how do some of you do it?) For now, there isn't much of a theme or a pattern, it's more like: if I watch it (or read it), I will talk about it. I also tend to get stuck on one particular actor and spend a lot of time going through their filmography, so don't be surprised if one particular name shows up many times in a row. (Right now it's Robert Redford, so you're welcome.) I'm hoping as I go I'll be able to hit some kind of rhythm, but who knows? Everything is wide open right now and maybe that's the perfect way to start.

My name is Lindsay, and I'm addicted to movies and books. Let the fun begin.