Mars Needs Watney! The Martian Rules

 

All too often, when successful novels are adapted as movies, you lose the magic of the tone that made them special in the first place.

Not so with Ridley Scott’s triumphant depiction of Andy Weir’s smash debut novel, The Martian. The book was awesome, and Scott has wisely retained all the magic that made the book such an addictive best-seller, with spot-on casting and an escalating sense of fun. Marooned Mars astronaut Mark Watney is wonderfully portrayed by Matt Damon, keeping the character’s two most pivotal traits front-and-center – his humor and his inventive resourcefulness.

 

It’s easily Scott’s most crowd-pleasing and accessible film since Gladiator or Thelma and Louise, and it’s easy to see why the weekend box office was so strong. Left for dead on Mars after a freak accident, Watney has to deconstruct every environmental variable imaginable to increase his potential longevity, stopping just short of alchemy at manufacturing the food, air and water necessary to survive. The engaging first-person angle of the book is preserved through video log entries, which let Damon speak directly to the camera, as he plans, worries, free-associates and complains. His percolating isolation amid the vast red landscapes of Mars contrasts with the Apollo 13 team problem-solving back at NASA, and the dawning realization among Damon’s crewmates on Hermes (their amazingly designed and believable space vehicle) that their dead crewmate may still be alive. 

 

Changes from the novel are minimal at best, and every single cast member delivers beautifully, including a couple of Marvel vets – Michael Peña(Ant-Man) continues his hot streak and it’s nice to see Sebastian Stan (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) among the crew, along with a terrific turn by Jessica Chastain as the mission commander. Ridley Scott is at the top of his game here. He’s going to go down in history as one of the most influential science fiction directors of all time, effectively trumping both Gravity and Interstellar here, from a pure audience enjoyment factor. Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (Prometheus) is king of the cinema right now, with his work in both this and The Walk currently dazzling audiences. The real hero here is screenwriter Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods), who conducts a master class on how to economically adapt a book to film. It feels like everyone involved knew they were making something special and brought their A-game to the table. 

 

Perhaps The Martian’s greatest legacy will be in what it inspires. Like the book, this is a movie that embraces science and the imagination. The heroic superpower is math, and an understanding of scientific cause-and-effect. Astronauts and scientists are depicted realistically, as problem-solving visionaries who keep trying, regardless of their setbacks. The Martian feels like it could well rouse a whole new generation to pursue careers in science and space exploration. In this age of fervent science-denial and diminished vision, that’s just the kind of outcome our future needs. The Martian is a spectacularly good time at the movies

 

Bold Man and the Sea: All Is Lost

No matter how hard you try, every year it seems you miss a few pictures that you know are up there with the years' best. So with all the enthusiasm in the air for The Martian, it seemed like a good time to finally check out All Is Lost, the 2013 film about another shipwrecked individual, trying like hell to survive. Talk about being worth the wait. All Is Lost is a spectacular movie, and features a remarkable solo performance by the great Robert Redford.

Redford is simply Our Man, the lone character in the film. He's on a solo sailing voyage in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from Sumatra when he wakes up to discover a hole in his yacht, seawater pouring in. In a fluke of bad luck, he's collided with a drifting steel cargo container, and things go from unexpected to dire very quickly.

A huge part of the pleasure of this film is the intimacy the camera has with Redford. It has a remarkable you-are-there feel, as Redford quietly goes about his business using his knowledge and seamanship to make repairs and remedy his circumstances. It's a film that's nearly dialogue-free, in which we see resourcefulness trade places with anxiety on more than one harrowing occasion.

Great cinema gives you an experience and takes you into someone else's life in a way you've never imagined, and that's exactly what writer-director  J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, A Most Violent Year) gives us here. Collaborating with cinematographers Frank G. De Marco and Peter Zuccarini, Chandor creates a painterly, realistic sense of what it feels like to be on a boat in the middle of the ocean, miles from any other living soul. Storms roll in out of nowhere, and if there are special effects in All Is Lost, they're seamless, as it appears this film was shot entirely out on the open sea, which as Steven Spielberg will attest, can be an absolute nightmare. Redford is simply amazing here, his face beyond expressive in the most naturalistic way. Concerns ripple across his weathered face, sinking into dread. It's a story of the human experience bared raw, exemplified by one man's struggle to keep thinking and somehow just survive. That Redford wasn't nominated for his work here is an absolute travesty, as All Is Lost is a career-crowning achievement. At the age of 77 when this film came out, he continues to be a unique and compelling presence, doing his own stunts here that seem utterly foolhardy, more often than not, soaked to the bone.

The sound team (Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hyams received the films' only nominations) along with composer Alex Ebert, creates an eerie and atmospheric mix of wind and water, combining with the sounds of ever-weakening, strained equipment.

I just can't say enough about this film. I love nautical stories with a passion, but Chandor and Redford have given us a piece of cinema here that feels more like a dream. It's truly unique,and completely human, and you will find your blood running cold and your heart sinking, and then some. All Is Lost is just tremendous, and I'm kicking myself for missing it in the theater. This is one of the finest man-against-nature sagas I've seen, and an unforgettable story of a small human spark, trying like hell not to go under. Very highly recommended.

Swords of Anarchy: The Bastard Executioner

Don’t hold it up next to Game of Thrones. When sizing-up Kurt Sutter’s new series The Bastard Executioner, the familiar clang of swords may make it hard to avoid drawing comparisons – but that’s hardly fair, given the unique place Thrones occupies in the pop culture firmament. It’s better to look at Executioner for what it is – the next chapter in the pulpy universe of Sutter’s brand of outlaw standard-bearers. 

 

After seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy, you have to hand it to Sutter, to find the moxie and drive to jump headlong into an even more ambitious serial TV universe, the 14^th Century of King Edward III. With opening titles showcasing a stark montage of steely torture equipment, dripping blood, Sutter makes it clear he won’t be shying away from the brutality of the middle ages. 

 

Bastard Executioner is less focused on the familial schemes of Throne-ish aristocrats and more on the oppressive boot heel those in power grind down upon the peasants – in this case, Welsh villagers just trying to live simply and raise families. The plot owes some generous tips of the helm to Braveheart, a film that informs large swaths of Executioner’s inhabitants. The hero is Wilkin Brattle (Lee Jones), a former soldier who lay down his sword after a mystical near-death experience on the battlefield. Now he’s found love and looks forward to his lovely wife’s delivery of their first child. Braveheart and Josie Wales fans know where this is headed. 

 

The local Lord of the land, Baron Ventris (Brían F. O'Byrne of Oz) is taxing the locals through the nose, abetted by Stephen Moyer (True Blood) in Sheriff of Nottingham mode. When Wilkin and some aspiring rebels decide to stick it to the Ventris tax collector, the aristocrats respond as expected. Katey Sagal is back in her hubby’s universe, this time as a witch with a Slavic accent that’s full Maria Ouspenskaya in The Wolf Man: “Whoever ees beetin by a Verevolf and leevs, becomes a Verevolf heemself.”

 

Nearly the entire enterprise rests squarely on the shoulders of Australian newcomer Lee Jones, as Wilkin Brattle – a deliberately named character of the same bodice-ripping evocation as Hell on Wheels’ Cullen Bohannan – those names! Jones is beefy and energetic and has great physicality – his arc in the pilot swings as wildly as his broadsword, and for me, the jury is still out on his acting chops – and where his character’s potential lies given the masquerade role he quickly comes to adopt. 

 

While the pilot is all over the map, it’s never boring. There are frequent moments of genuinely shocking violence, and FX has clearly given Sutter free rein to appeal to the legions of Anarchy fans who they hope will follow him. Sutter has a great sense of pulp, and likes to set up the audience for big reveals, dealing out the plot like a ferocious soap opera. He’s traded one family of outlaws for another, and he’s making no bones about the fact this story is set in a cruel, cruel age. The pilot had its share of clunky moments, but I’m definitely intrigued enough to see what kind of medieval outlawry Sutter has up his bloody sleeves.

Deakins + Villeneuve = Blade Runner Sequel Excitement

I was a massive fan of Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners, a staggering thriller with the ever-surprising Jake Gyllenhaal. One of its biggest assets was the mesmerizing cinematography of the great Roger Deakins.

Well, the Toronto International Film Festival is unspooling this week, and there's plenty of love for Villeneuve's latest film, Sicario, a drug cartel thriller starring Emily Blunt - also lensed by Deakins. Sicaro just showed up in the #1 spot on Entertainment Weekly's Must List: "If you enjoy stunning cinematography," is the opening line of their rave. It's also the director's third R-rated film in a row.

Why is this doubly exciting? Because these two cats are rolling up their sleeves to tackle the Blade Runner sequel, that's why. They are both clearly at the top of their games, and with the enthusiasm we've been hearing about the script, I think we're in for a visually stunning, hard-edged chapter in the long-awaited Replicant saga that's actually fit for adults.

Now I've just got to get around to watching Enemy...

The Desperate Hours: Nightcrawler

There once was the great tarnished golden age of the antihero – it was called the seventies.

Clockwork Orange, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The French Connection, and of course, Taxi Driver. 

We don’t get them too often these days, but when we do, they tend to make an impact. I’d put Fight Club on that list, and Breaking Bad. 

I’d also put Nightcrawler. And if you’re misty for those edgy bygone days, thinking they don’t make ‘em like that anymore, you owe it to yourself to give Nightcrawler a spin.

 

Jake Gyllenhaal is Louis Bloom, a desperate loner living in his car, who’s created an elaborate internal architecture of himself as focused entrepreneur. He’s just not sure what of. 

Fate has him stumble into a late night accident being filmed by an independent news photographer – whose key skill seems to be a willingness to cross lines and keep filming, no matter what. Bloom, a natural at unblinking fixation, quickly realizes, “I can do that.” He’s found his calling. Grabbing a cheap video camera and police scanner, he starts trolling nocturnal Los Angeles looking for the near aftermath of accidents – or crimes – anything where the whiff of violence and blood still lingers in the air. Fresh video can be a commodity – the more shocking the better. It gets ratings, and Bloom is obsessively determined to shoehorn a place for himself in the video underbelly of local TV news. He’s figured out the formula: footage is king – and there’s nothing he won’t do to get it.

 

Gyllenhaal reaches a whole other level here, disappearing into Louis Bloom. It’s a hypnotic, disturbing performance. He’s in virtually every scene, and it’s insane that he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar. He’s like a driven David Cronenberg character and Gyllenhaal has created one of the most unsettling and single-minded film characters in American film since De Niro gave us Travis Bickle. 

 

Writer Dan Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy, Real Steel) takes the director’s chair for the first time here, and knocks the cover off the ball. Gilroy’s family breathes movies – his brother Dan directed Michael Clayton, and his father is Frank D. Gilroy, Pulitzer Prize winner for The Subject Was Roses. Gilroy’s wife, Rene Russo, co-stars in the film as the local news producer that Bloom zeroes-in on. Conspiring with editor (brother) John Gilroy and the great cinematographer Robert Elswit (Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) Gilroy serves up one of the most visually arresting and heart-pumping films I’ve seen in a while. Made for less than $10 million, Nightcrawler looks astonishing and establishes an unforgettable atmosphere of wee-hours stillness, where things happen in a heartbeat that very few are up and moving to witness. 

In this age of increasing hypnotic devotion to our screens and news entities that know blood entrances, Nightcrawler has plenty to say about our culture of unblinking voyeurism, about crime, law enforcement, and the increasingly blurry line between observer and participant. In a culture that has its sociopathic moments, is the unhinged loner still an aberration? Nightcrawler is unmissable cinema. You’re going to need a long hot shower afterwards, but it’s a stupendous modern film, that wears its tarnish well.

It Follows peels out...then runs out of gas

It Follows has built up a considerable rep. I kept hearing it mentioned in the same breath as The Babadook and The Guest, both of which I loved. So I had to take the plunge.

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, It Follows is a twist on the long cinematic horror history of the bad things that happen after teenagers have sex. Jay (Maika Monroe, of The Guest, coincidentally) has a consensual sexual encounter, only to find herself stalked by an unknown supernatural force.

It's an interesting premise, and Mitchell does a phenomenal job of creating a really unique mood. The era is intangible - modern here and distinctly retro there. Old thrillers play on tube TVs like Laurie Strode's house in Halloween. Though what sets It Follows apart is the notion of possession as a metaphor for sexually transmitted disease. Jay and her friends are believable, naturalistic characters, and Mitchell does a great job of shooting in the bombed-out wasteland of Detroit, the abandoned neighborhoods creating a near documentary atmosphere of paranoia and dread. The performances are great and the opening scene is a doozy.

But as great as the elements are, the film didn't sustain for me, and really lost me in the third act. I was pretty well hooked, but the "rules" of Mitchell's horror conception weren't consistent and got sketchier as the finale grew more protracted. He's definitely got director's chops, and made a hell of a nice, fresh horror thriller for a paltry $2 million (and grossed around $15 mil). You can't help but champion his resourceful inventiveness and I'm definitely anxious to see what he does next.

I just wish It Follows had spent more time on the script - and on delivering a satisfying climax that felt worthy of its fresh premise.

A Big Day at D23!

Disney has the biggest toy box in town these days, and at this weekend's big D23 Expo in Anaheim, they opened the lid and gave us a glimpse into the future of all things Disney.

Yesterday we all learned a bit more about Finding Dory and Toy Story 4, plus a look at a myriad of other animated projects.

But today was all Star Wars. While we learned a bit more about Marvel's Civil War and Doctor Strange, there was a veritable avalanche of Star Wars revelations. 

Every Disney theme park will soon have its own "Star Wars Land," undoubtedly with a functioning cantina. 

We feasted our eyes on the new Drew Struzan poster art for The Force Awakens, as seen above.

We learned that Mads Mikkelsen (!) and Alan Tudyk will both be appearing in Rogue One.

And while news of the theme park presence was probably the biggest reveal  of the day, the most attention getting was certainly the announcement that Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) will be directing Star Wars: Episode IX, as previously rumored during last month's Comic-Con. "This is not a job or an assignment," said Trevorrow. "It is a seat at a campfire, surrounded by an extraordinary group of storytellers, filmmakers, artists and craftspeople. We’ve been charged with telling new stories for a younger generation because they deserve what we all had — a mythology to call their own. We will do this by channeling something George Lucas instilled in all of us: boundless creativity, pure invention and hope.”

D23 comes on the heels of a week that's seen lots of Force Awakens product leak well in advance of September 4th's Force Friday event, so we're really starting to get a sense of the feel and scope of this new era of Star Wars - and that scope is vast indeed.