The Iron Giant was just as good as I remembered it and was great seeing it on the big screen. I'm not sure if the two new scenes they added for the Signature Edition were necessary, but the movie is just so great that I don't even care.
I enjoyed The Martian, the story and the movie have quite a bit going for them. But I'm going to pull the oft-abused "but the book is better" because the nature of the story means the strengths are in the details - the math, physics, chemistry and the logic of why things are working out the way they are. They simply can't spend the time in the movie to explain all of this or it would be a boring documentary (I would love it) rather than a box office exciting film.
I was just as (if not more) relieved that Sean Bean survived the whole movie as any of the other story outcomes.
Project Elrond scene had me laughing on so many different levels. I was the only one laughing out loud in the theater.
I am listening to various NPR podcasts and Science Friday with Bobak Ferdowski with them talking about how well the science was done in the movie/book. It's fun hearing people just geek out about it.
The movie had me in suspense during the final scenes. I honestly felt that the outcome could have been bad. I also like how they didn't make it a psychological movie of Matt Damon possibly going insane being all alone, but him finding the humor out of bad situations and solving the problems given to him.
The project Elrond scene was much more funny in the movie than the book thanks to Sean Bean being cast as Mitch. I laughed hard. Much of the humor of Mark Watney was more subdued in the movie than the book, which was unfortunate for the reasons Ro pointed out.
Molly Lewis was complaining on twitter about the book, she thought there was too much "nerd macho power fantasy" going on. I tried to engage her but twitter is not made for these types of nuanced exchanges. Objectively, yes he probably should have died as the scale of the problem and the number and possibility of bad things happening was so very high. But as a story about how an impossible situation can be broken down into digestible and solvable sub-problems, I love the story for it. Plus there is a logic and reason to every small solution, no hand-wavy-make-the-problem-go-away stuff.
I was thinking about this over the weekend, to see if people would complain about the main role not being female. I honestly see no issues of a male being the lead role because it was based on the book and I didn't see how this was a issue about feminism.
It bothers me that people are trying to find an argument for feminism when I don't think there is any sort of argument of merit here. Could the author used a female instead? Sure, but he didn't. He was writing a book to see how plausible things would be based upon his research and being corrected as he wrote the book by many scientists that followed him.
I found this move to be, "FUCK YEAH, SCIENCE! LIFE! ENDURING FIGHTING SPIRIT TO SURVIVE!" and not the "nerd macho power". The females who were in the movie were performed/portrayed very well. Strong, commanding, smart, and not weak.
Cloud Atlas was kind of a mess. Watching Tom Hanks be bad guys was kind of interesting, but the stories didn't reinforce each other in a compelling way.
I liked the Martian. Reminds me of Apollo 13 (the film), just the right amount of drama + science to be entertaining.
I found Donald Glover's and Matt Damon's acting abit cheesy. Sean Bean was under utilised, but I'm glad they didn't find a way to kill him off.
What bothers me the most about this film is taking off from Mars. I know it's fiction, but realistically, how much fuel (rocket power) is needed to leave the planet's gravity?
Was that rocket big enough really? Interstellar was worst.
"Since Mars has less mass than Earth, the surface gravity on Mars is less than the surface gravity on Earth. The surface gravity on Mars is only about 38% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 38 pounds on Mars" Plus given that there is barely any atmosphere on Mars, it's not too crazy the crazier part is the space suits they are wearing are not nearly enough.
Re watched The Worlds End, a much better film second time round. You notice the symmetry and the nods that they make throughout the film to what Gary is like and how the group works. I still think its not the strongest of the Trilogy but certainly up there with them.
"Since Mars has less mass than Earth, the surface gravity on Mars is less than the surface gravity on Earth. The surface gravity on Mars is only about 38% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 38 pounds on Mars" Plus given that there is barely any atmosphere on Mars, it's not too crazy the crazier part is the space suits they are wearing are not nearly enough.
If that's the case, why don't we see Matt Damon bouncing around like a moonman?
"Since Mars has less mass than Earth, the surface gravity on Mars is less than the surface gravity on Earth. The surface gravity on Mars is only about 38% of the surface gravity on Earth, so if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 38 pounds on Mars" Plus given that there is barely any atmosphere on Mars, it's not too crazy the crazier part is the space suits they are wearing are not nearly enough.
If that's the case, why don't we see Matt Damon bouncing around like a moonman?
the crazier part is the space suits they are wearing are not nearly enough.
Dude, if it were formed properly (there are material science problems still to be solved), a suit that's basically just spandex is totally fine even in vacuum of deep space.
The biggest problems with prototypes of those kinds of suits are:
1. Current tech means they have to be SO TINY before you put them on and so tight to be uniform enough pressure that the ordeal of donning one could take hours.
2. They don't quite shield enough radiation
3. Sweat evaporates out (fine), but then condenses on nearby surfaces in space (the thing you're working on, your own mask, etc..., fucking up your day.
the crazier part is the space suits they are wearing are not nearly enough.
1. Current tech means they have to be SO TINY before you put them on and so tight to be uniform enough pressure that the ordeal of donning one could take hours.
I saw no issue with the spacesuits. If I had to find a problem, it would be the lack of more advanced tech. Like a HUD. The astronauts seem to do just fine with lowtech solutions.
Mad Max Fury Road was just as enjoyable the third time though. The airplane screen was bad quality, and the picture was cropped to 4:3 ratio, but now I've seen it twice before I know what I'm missing.
My problem is that now I'm not sure what language was "edited for content". Is the line "He's a crazy smeg who eats schlanger" in the original?
I'm gonna watch it again after I rewatch all the originals.
I watched the original Mad Max again recently for the first time since I was a little kid. I've never actually seen the second one before. I mostly remember Thunderdome.
I watched Mad Max Fury Road finally. Great movie for spectacle and universe building. Nitpick I had was the few times I heard a British accent slip and some people just speaking with a plain American accent when everyone else was quite neutral or Australian accent. The acting wasn't universally strong but didn't need to be for this story.
The quagmire scene was so weird for me because the surround sound was excellent and captured the sounds of bird calls you here in Australian suburbs and in the country.
Yeah, I was just talking to Juliane about the accents, and how some drift around a bit. Nux slips into a British accent at points, but then he is so crazy it feels like he is doing voices in character.
And sure, the acting isn't always spot on, but even on the third time through, there was never a moment I wasn't thoroughly enjoying the movie and everything about it.
I watched "42" yesterday, as in the movie about Jackie Robinson. As stated previously, I'm a bit of a sucker for sports movies, particularly baseball movies. The film was definitely good, and the portrayal of Robinson by Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford as Branch Ricky was excellent. The Film also had two welcome surprises for me in its cast with John C. McGinley and Alan Tudyk, the later of which is particularly jarring when comparing his racist asshole character in this film with the good-natured Wash from Firefly.
Overall the film was good, but doesn't really bring a lot of new things to the table. The story of Jackie Robinson is of course important, but the movie overall doesn't bring a whole lot new to the table if you are already familiar with similar films, e.g. "Remember the Titans". Still worth a watch.
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Today I watched Gravity, and all I can say is "why haven't I watched this film sooner". I knew it was about space and it was critically acclaimed, winning several Oscars, but holy crap I did not expect this. The cinematography is astounding and I loved the very long takes and the interesting perspective shifts within scenes morphing from outside views all the way to first-person perspectives at times. It's also interesting how the camera basically stays next to, or even inside, Sandra Bullock's character for the entire film. I noticed only one hard cut where the perspective shifts dramatically for cut, and that is at the very end of the movie.
Anyway, just like baseball I like media about space. I count Planetes to one of my favorite manga for example. The topic of the film is also pretty near because the Kessler syndrome is something I actually am rather scared of. I also liked the film's portrayal of space very much, even after I am aware of the technical inaccuracies, some of which I noticed myself, e.g. the HUD in Bullock's helmet and the lack of inner layers beyond the space suit. I chose to think this film is in a near future where technology allows for these things.
The only thing I'm a bit ambiguous about is the use of the minority character Shariff Dasari. On one hand I like that they had a minority crewmember, but it is also kind of a form of tokenism and the "black guy dies first" syndrome movies so often suffer from. Considering the number of speaking roles, much less actual characters is pretty much minimalist (one could consider there are only three characters in the entire film, and it's kind of questionable about the third) this might however be necessary and marketing dictates that the main characters in an american film are going to be white. The acting of Bullock and Clooney is very good though.
Oh and one more thing: Did they really need to make it explicit that the russians blew up a satellite and therefore are ultimately responsible for all the shit that's happening in the film?
Forgot to add that Mad Max Fury Road's soundtrack is great. The people behind the sound recording and music are top notch. For some reason I want to see what it's like in Bullet Town and Gas Town. I can't help but be reminded of living in the wheat belt (country area where you have very large farms) for a short while. To get from the house I was living in to my neighbours, it would take 30 minutes by car. To grab some shopping like basic milk and groceries, it was an hour and a half drive into town. To get petrol, there was a station an hour in the other direction. I didn't know where the ammo shop was because we didn't need to use the gun, I assume somewhere in town. The imagery of the movie where you had to drive ages to get a network of post-apocalyptic essentials is similar to living in the outback.
There was a line where Furiosa spoke of being stolen as a child. I'm not sure how much that was intended to be related to Australia's "stolen generation" but I interpreted the line's duality as social commentary.
I watched "42" yesterday, as in the movie about Jackie Robinson.
I quite enjoyed 42 during its initial release. I was unaware of the entire back story, only that Jackie Robinson was the first non-white man allowed to play in MLB. I felt it was a bit slow at times however in my scores I would put it above Remember the Titans. (Possibly because I like baseball more than American Football).
Thanks to a ConnectiCon panel, I finally got around to watching O Apóstolo. It's a Spanish stop-motion horror movie about an escaped convict who enters a village full of people who aren't who they seem to be.
The film is very atmospheric and wonderfully creepy. You can rent it from the filmmakers' website by tossing them a few bucks!
The photo is me last Sunday at Wadi Rum, the location of all the outside Mars shooting for the film. It was so crazy to have visited "Mars" just before seeing the movie, as I recognized quite a few locations and angles. Also, because I knew what to look for, I spotted some vegetation in the shots that hadn't been digitally removed from the final movie.
Forgot to add that Mad Max Fury Road's soundtrack is great. The people behind the sound recording and music are top notch.
This is my go-to music for driving if I need some added focus.
I love the music from section I like to call "Furiousa and Max become a team" as they drive out the other side of the canyon, shooting motorbike Bantha Raiders out of the air. The rest of the sound seems to fade out and let the music swell and take over. It's just majestic.
Comments
I was just as (if not more) relieved that Sean Bean survived the whole movie as any of the other story outcomes.
I am listening to various NPR podcasts and Science Friday with Bobak Ferdowski with them talking about how well the science was done in the movie/book. It's fun hearing people just geek out about it.
The movie had me in suspense during the final scenes. I honestly felt that the outcome could have been bad. I also like how they didn't make it a psychological movie of Matt Damon possibly going insane being all alone, but him finding the humor out of bad situations and solving the problems given to him.
Molly Lewis was complaining on twitter about the book, she thought there was too much "nerd macho power fantasy" going on. I tried to engage her but twitter is not made for these types of nuanced exchanges. Objectively, yes he probably should have died as the scale of the problem and the number and possibility of bad things happening was so very high. But as a story about how an impossible situation can be broken down into digestible and solvable sub-problems, I love the story for it. Plus there is a logic and reason to every small solution, no hand-wavy-make-the-problem-go-away stuff.
I was thinking about this over the weekend, to see if people would complain about the main role not being female. I honestly see no issues of a male being the lead role because it was based on the book and I didn't see how this was a issue about feminism.
It bothers me that people are trying to find an argument for feminism when I don't think there is any sort of argument of merit here. Could the author used a female instead? Sure, but he didn't. He was writing a book to see how plausible things would be based upon his research and being corrected as he wrote the book by many scientists that followed him.
I found this move to be, "FUCK YEAH, SCIENCE! LIFE! ENDURING FIGHTING SPIRIT TO SURVIVE!" and not the "nerd macho power". The females who were in the movie were performed/portrayed very well. Strong, commanding, smart, and not weak.
I found Donald Glover's and Matt Damon's acting abit cheesy. Sean Bean was under utilised, but I'm glad they didn't find a way to kill him off.
What bothers me the most about this film is taking off from Mars. I know it's fiction, but realistically, how much fuel (rocket power) is needed to leave the planet's gravity?
Was that rocket big enough really? Interstellar was worst.
The biggest problems with prototypes of those kinds of suits are:
1. Current tech means they have to be SO TINY before you put them on and so tight to be uniform enough pressure that the ordeal of donning one could take hours.
2. They don't quite shield enough radiation
3. Sweat evaporates out (fine), but then condenses on nearby surfaces in space (the thing you're working on, your own mask, etc..., fucking up your day.
My problem is that now I'm not sure what language was "edited for content". Is the line "He's a crazy smeg who eats schlanger" in the original?
I watched the original Mad Max again recently for the first time since I was a little kid. I've never actually seen the second one before. I mostly remember Thunderdome.
Great movie for spectacle and universe building.
Nitpick I had was the few times I heard a British accent slip and some people just speaking with a plain American accent when everyone else was quite neutral or Australian accent.
The acting wasn't universally strong but didn't need to be for this story.
The quagmire scene was so weird for me because the surround sound was excellent and captured the sounds of bird calls you here in Australian suburbs and in the country.
And sure, the acting isn't always spot on, but even on the third time through, there was never a moment I wasn't thoroughly enjoying the movie and everything about it.
Overall the film was good, but doesn't really bring a lot of new things to the table. The story of Jackie Robinson is of course important, but the movie overall doesn't bring a whole lot new to the table if you are already familiar with similar films, e.g. "Remember the Titans". Still worth a watch.
------------------
Today I watched Gravity, and all I can say is "why haven't I watched this film sooner". I knew it was about space and it was critically acclaimed, winning several Oscars, but holy crap I did not expect this. The cinematography is astounding and I loved the very long takes and the interesting perspective shifts within scenes morphing from outside views all the way to first-person perspectives at times. It's also interesting how the camera basically stays next to, or even inside, Sandra Bullock's character for the entire film. I noticed only one hard cut where the perspective shifts dramatically for cut, and that is at the very end of the movie.
Anyway, just like baseball I like media about space. I count Planetes to one of my favorite manga for example. The topic of the film is also pretty near because the Kessler syndrome is something I actually am rather scared of. I also liked the film's portrayal of space very much, even after I am aware of the technical inaccuracies, some of which I noticed myself, e.g. the HUD in Bullock's helmet and the lack of inner layers beyond the space suit. I chose to think this film is in a near future where technology allows for these things.
The only thing I'm a bit ambiguous about is the use of the minority character Shariff Dasari. On one hand I like that they had a minority crewmember, but it is also kind of a form of tokenism and the "black guy dies first" syndrome movies so often suffer from. Considering the number of speaking roles, much less actual characters is pretty much minimalist (one could consider there are only three characters in the entire film, and it's kind of questionable about the third) this might however be necessary and marketing dictates that the main characters in an american film are going to be white. The acting of Bullock and Clooney is very good though.
Oh and one more thing: Did they really need to make it explicit that the russians blew up a satellite and therefore are ultimately responsible for all the shit that's happening in the film?
For some reason I want to see what it's like in Bullet Town and Gas Town.
I can't help but be reminded of living in the wheat belt (country area where you have very large farms) for a short while. To get from the house I was living in to my neighbours, it would take 30 minutes by car. To grab some shopping like basic milk and groceries, it was an hour and a half drive into town. To get petrol, there was a station an hour in the other direction. I didn't know where the ammo shop was because we didn't need to use the gun, I assume somewhere in town. The imagery of the movie where you had to drive ages to get a network of post-apocalyptic essentials is similar to living in the outback.
There was a line where Furiosa spoke of being stolen as a child. I'm not sure how much that was intended to be related to Australia's "stolen generation" but I interpreted the line's duality as social commentary. I quite enjoyed 42 during its initial release. I was unaware of the entire back story, only that Jackie Robinson was the first non-white man allowed to play in MLB. I felt it was a bit slow at times however in my scores I would put it above Remember the Titans. (Possibly because I like baseball more than American Football). I thought Gravity had an entirely forgettable plot and story. The main showcase was the technical aspects of film making and actors being able to act. It has been for a few months now.
The film is very atmospheric and wonderfully creepy. You can rent it from the filmmakers' website by tossing them a few bucks!
Juliane and I talked about it on the podcast:
SFBRP #286 – The Martian
The photo is me last Sunday at Wadi Rum, the location of all the outside Mars shooting for the film. It was so crazy to have visited "Mars" just before seeing the movie, as I recognized quite a few locations and angles. Also, because I knew what to look for, I spotted some vegetation in the shots that hadn't been digitally removed from the final movie.