Rhapsodies

At first I’d planned to put off watching this film since I’m generally very picky about what I see in the theaters these days but the main reason I wanted to see the Martian in the theater, other than a tradition I have with a good friend where we watch genre films then nit pic the hell out of them when we get home, was to show my support for author, Andrew Weir, who was responsible for such web comics as Casey and Andy, as well as the unfinished Cheshire Crossing, out of web cartoonist solidarity (and hopefully web cartoonist karma.)

Going to see it turned out to be a comedy of errors… I’d planned to see it last Saturday, combining the showing with all of my Northgate centric errands only to find out it was sold out and while frustrating I was really excited that a hard science fiction film like this was doing so well in the box office. After all if it’s continues to be a viable genre perhaps they’ll get around to doing the really epic stuff I want them to do.

So anyway… I finally got around to seeing this yesterday and what can I say.

Wow. Just &^#%ing wow.

This had everything I like in a movie an ensemble cast of people who are on the top of their game and it’s still barely enough. Regrettably most action film I know the writer tries to fluff up the hero by making everyone else stupid and it really gets on my nerves. In fact the only films I can name that fit my don’t make the cast stupid criteria is Apollo 13 and Day of the Jackal.

Anyway being the son of scientists I always like films that remember that Scientists are people and not the patronizing intellectual snobs that they are frequently portrayed as. So this group of professionals being human for better or for worse working miracles just as frequently as they made huge mistakes.

But back to the film Matt Damon leads an amazing cast including Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean , Chiwetel Ejiofor and many more.

Astrophysics isn’t my line so beyond the one about Mars’s atmosphere being dense enough to yield hurricane strengh storms there weren’t any scientific errors that I noticed so I loved all of the puzzles that Matt Damon’s character had to do in order to survive from making water to grow potatoes to recycling the pathfinder probe to communicate with earth. This movie had me gripping my seat all the way throughgh and I definitely plan to seeing it in the theater a second time.

Also the best use of a crucifix if film ever.