THE MARTIAN: Look at Those Cavemen Go

Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Drew Goddard
Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Benedict Wong, Mackenzie Davis, Donald Glover
Runtime: 144 mins.
2015

The Martian doesn't have the imagination of Insterstellar. It doesn't have the visceral pleasures of Gravity. It doesn't have the depth of philosophy or breadth of scope that 2001: A Space Odyssey boasts. But it does have one thing: Sam Rockwell.

No wait, I'm thinking of Moon.

To figure out what The Martian has, I've found myself thinking a lot about what it doesn't. The movie follows the plight of Mark Watney (Matt Damon), an astronaut who is stranded and presumed dead on a routine mission to Mars. He must find a way to survive in increasingly unlikely circumstances, while also figuring out how to get NASA to send a rescue mission. On the other end of those 54.6 million kilometers, every facet of NASA is busily working on the logistics, ethics, and publicity angles of such a rescue mission. But mostly the logistics, because everyone in this movie is basically a good person.

SELMA: An Impressive Movement

Director: Ava DuVernay
Writer: Paul Webb
Cast: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Wendell Pierce, Common, Tom Wilkinson, Oprah Winfrey, Tim Roth
Runtime: 128 mins.
2014

I saw Selma a few weeks ago and tried to start a write-up, but nothing materialized. Then the Oscar nominations happened. Among the many reasons to be annoyed, perhaps the most pressing is the absence of Selma from all but a very few categories. No nods to Bradford Young for cinematography, no nods to Ava DuVernay for direction, not even a nod to David Oyelowo for what is clearly one of the most chameleonic performances of the year. I won't take any time now to complain about the Academy. Instead, watch this video interview with DuVernay in which she perfectly characterizes the issue in a matter of minutes.

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/27/selma_director_ava_duvernay_on_hollywoods

In my reviews I typically like to dig into the minutiae of my positive and negative feelings toward a film, and connect that to a discussion of the quality, or at least the success of a film. Does the movie accomplish what it sets for itself to accomplish? Does it hinder itself, or trip over its own feet in any way? Criticism is a hard conversation for many reasons, foremost among them being the need to approach a work on its own merits, rather than what you as a subjective viewer want to see. Then there's the semantics of whether a film being good means it is important, or entertaining, or challenging, or airtight, or inspired, and so on. The simple and endlessly complex answer is: It just depends.