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Speaker 1: percent off.

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Speaker 2: Our Oscars theme may be over, but we do have

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Speaker 2: another Best Picture nominated film up for our Wednesday archive drop.

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Speaker 2: It's The Martian from Ridley Scott. This is an adaptation

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Speaker 2: of the Andy Weir novel, and yes, it is inspired

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Speaker 2: by this weekend's big release project, Hail Mary. I don't

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Speaker 2: know if you remember this review if you heard it

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Speaker 2: originally here on film Spotting when the film came out

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Speaker 2: in October twenty fifteen. The premise of my setup is

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Speaker 2: basically that this movie is just incredibly satisfying, and I

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Speaker 2: can't imagine anybody not liking You don't have to love it,

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Speaker 2: you don't have to think it's a masterpiece. You don't

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Speaker 2: have to think it deserved to be a Best Picture nominee.

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Speaker 2: But it's hard for me to imagine anybody watching it

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Speaker 2: and being deeply dissatisfied with it, and I look at

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Speaker 2: Letterboxed and I gave it four stars. Josh Larsen gave

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Speaker 2: it four stars. Sam Van Halgren rated it twice and

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Speaker 2: gave it four stars. Why can't there be more movies

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Speaker 2: that deliver this particular kind of pleasure so satisfying? There's

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Speaker 2: that word satisfying. Other friends here on letterbox well, Matt

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Speaker 2: Singer let me down a little bit, mcguy veron Mars

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Speaker 2: three and a half stars, David Simms, I really enjoy

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Speaker 2: it when Ridley Scott has fun. Four stars. Even Mike DiAngelo,

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Speaker 2: who seems a little bit hard to please sometimes, gave

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Speaker 2: it four out of five stars. On letter Boxed, though

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Speaker 2: there is well David Erlic he did, and I love David.

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Speaker 2: Two stars in space Literally everyone can hear you tell

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Speaker 2: and tell and tell and not show for two hours

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Speaker 2: of tedious science porn in crap three d Abba, though

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Speaker 2: maybe that's the problem. He saw it in three D.

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Speaker 2: I didn't see it in three D. I gave it

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Speaker 2: four stars. I wonder how many stars you gave it.

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Speaker 2: Let's revisit The Martian from October twenty fifteen.

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Speaker 3: I guarantee you that at some point everything's going to

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Speaker 3: go south on you, really, and you're gonna say, this

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Speaker 3: is it, this is how I end.

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Speaker 2: It's Amanda Marcus dead.

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Speaker 4: We have to go now.

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Speaker 3: You can either accept that or you can get to work.

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Speaker 2: The last time it was my turn to do one

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Speaker 2: of these intros, the film was Black Mass which I

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Speaker 2: knew going in. Neither of us Josh cared for. So

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Speaker 2: I challenge you to come up with one thing you

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Speaker 2: liked about the movie.

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Speaker 4: You're a mister positive.

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Speaker 2: Indeed, turns out that was a challenge. Even your compliments

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Speaker 2: were backhanded. I'm going to recycle this conceit for The Martian,

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Speaker 2: but with a twist. Unless you think I was just

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Speaker 2: in too much of a hurry to come up with

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Speaker 2: something a little more clever, I mean, come on, after all,

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Speaker 2: The Martian is a movie about an astronaut abandoned on Mars,

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Speaker 2: forced to survive on his creativity, intelligence, and sheer determination.

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Speaker 2: Surely I could have compelled myself to try a little

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Speaker 2: harder while sitting comfortably at the coffee house a few

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Speaker 2: hours ago, eating a scone and drinking a Horchata latte

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Speaker 2: while Matt Damon's Mark Watney got by on potatoes grown

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Speaker 2: in his own Well, maybe best we don't talk about that.

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Speaker 2: Let me say this. I walked out of The Martian

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Speaker 2: thinking something I rarely think, walking out of a movie.

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Speaker 2: How could anybody not like that? Not going to make

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Speaker 2: your top five or ten films of the year list,

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Speaker 2: not going to rush back to the theater and see

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Speaker 2: it a second or third time, Not when you're going

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Speaker 2: to run out and buy on Blu ray the second

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Speaker 2: it's released. Fine, I can get behind all of that.

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Speaker 2: But a bad movie, boring, unentertaining, unfunny, not well shot

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Speaker 2: by director Ridley Scott and DP Darius Volski, who shot

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Speaker 2: Dark City and Scott's Prometheus, and he also just released

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Speaker 2: The Walk not well acted by Damon and Jeff Daniels

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Speaker 2: and chewtel edg Four as NASA directors, and Jessica chess

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Speaker 2: Stain and Michael Pania, among others, as Watney's crew members.

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Speaker 2: The Martian is unhatable? What am I missing? Josh? What

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Speaker 2: did you dislike about The Martian? And I'll even spot

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Speaker 2: you A potential answer is its utter inoffensiveness, in fact,

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Speaker 2: its downfall. Say what you will about Prometheus, a movie that,

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Speaker 2: despite its surface level similarities and shared director. I have

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Speaker 2: no desire to dwell on during this review. It had

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Speaker 2: grand ambitions. Some people loved it, some people like you

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Speaker 2: mostly loathed it. But it provoked passionate responses. So the

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Speaker 2: Martian aims high enough or too amiable.

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Speaker 4: It's a crowd pleaser for sure, yeah, isn't it. I mean,

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Speaker 4: this thing is probably going to stick around and be

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Speaker 4: amidst the Oscar talk because it does hit all those buttons,

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Speaker 4: and it hits them well. I liked it better than this,

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Speaker 4: but usually the Oscar Winner is about a three out

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Speaker 4: of four star movie for me that I appreciated, and

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Speaker 4: I'm not surprised to see it win because it is

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Speaker 4: so crowd pleasing. The Martian no better than that, I

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Speaker 4: think does work in those ways. If there's something that

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Speaker 4: holds me back a little bit, maybe it is to

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Speaker 4: the degree that it is crowd pleasing towards its end,

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Speaker 4: or the way it amps that element up, because I

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Speaker 4: very much think one of the strong qualities of the

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Speaker 4: film is its optimism. It can do spirit, the way

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Speaker 4: that Damon's Mark Watney is just going to get the

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Speaker 4: job done no matter what else happens. He's not going

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Speaker 4: to sit around thinking about it or philosophizing about it.

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Speaker 4: He's going to get the job done, and that infiltrates

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Speaker 4: into the entire spirit of the film. I do think

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Speaker 4: when this expands in the scenes where NASA, the NASA

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Speaker 4: engineers and scientists and executives back on Earth are trying

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Speaker 4: to put together a rescue plan for him, and the

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Speaker 4: entire globe gets in on this and they begin watching

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Speaker 4: and cheering him along, I felt it got a little

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Speaker 4: we are the worldish in a way that put me off.

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Speaker 4: I mean, by the point even the Chinese Governmental Space

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Speaker 4: Agency is willing to lend a hand, You're starting to

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Speaker 4: get in a little wishful I think, you know. I mean,

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Speaker 4: everyone's just politics hands around the globe to get this

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Speaker 4: guy home.

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Speaker 2: Though, if you think about it, just for one second,

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Speaker 2: if you see this whole movie in some ways as

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Speaker 2: a reality TV show, and it is right, it's like

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Speaker 2: being a Big brotherhouse. It turns into that on him

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Speaker 2: all the time, whether he has an audience or not.

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Speaker 2: He's talking as if he has an audience, and when

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Speaker 2: we get the whole globe behind him, just feel like

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Speaker 2: this would be one galvanizing incident that maybe the whole world.

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Speaker 2: Could you know what?

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Speaker 4: That's what the movie wants you to believe, And it's

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Speaker 4: certainly that's why you go out feeling so good, because

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Speaker 4: it does make you believe it. But I think there's

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Speaker 4: I think that's worth questioning and maybe even puncturing, because

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Speaker 4: it seeps into earlier parts of the film too, even

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Speaker 4: into things like these Martian vistas that Scott shoots so

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Speaker 4: much jestically, and it has this arid sepia color scheme,

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Speaker 4: but still they're not necessarily threatening areas.

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Speaker 2: That scar that we're worried about.

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Speaker 4: They are more that they have the feel of territories

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Speaker 4: that should be explored, if not conquered. So there's a

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Speaker 4: very manifest destiny feel to this film that perhaps some

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Speaker 4: people could find troubling. I think that's an element that's

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Speaker 4: worth questioning, and I think it does get amped up

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Speaker 4: towards the end. But really I was enthralled by this thing,

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Speaker 4: and it's not the type of science fiction that I

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Speaker 4: usually go for. I am more the philosophizing type. I

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Speaker 4: love Solaris, I love two thousand and one, A space Outysey,

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Speaker 4: I even love The Fountain, one of my favorite Aronofsky films.

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Speaker 4: So those are the kind of movies that generally appeal

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Speaker 4: to me when it comes to science fiction. I'm also

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Speaker 4: not a guy. It'll take me a while to get

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Speaker 4: a handle on a socket wrench. You know, that's not

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Speaker 4: my natural affinity. I can figure it out, but you know,

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Speaker 4: give me a little while. And so a movie that's

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Speaker 4: based on just prack to Cole, yeah science, they're playing

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Speaker 4: science but also just doing the work and around worrying

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Speaker 4: about what it all means. You know, I thought that

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Speaker 4: Scott and Damon, you know, his performance has a lot

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Speaker 4: to do with this, made it compelling every second that

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Speaker 4: it was on the screen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you. I love procedurals. I feel like

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Speaker 2: I talked about this recently on the show, but went

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Speaker 2: back through my notes and maybe I'm misremembering. Movies about

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Speaker 2: process I think fascinate a lot of people. They really

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Speaker 2: fascinate me, even when, and maybe especially when they're about

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Speaker 2: processes that are completely foreign to me. As you just said,

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Speaker 2: don't know my way around a socket wrench, certainly don't

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Speaker 2: know my way around botany or any type of astrodynamics.

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Speaker 2: So a lot of the science turns out it's mostly

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Speaker 2: duct tape you go, you know, yeah, well that's a

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Speaker 2: nice little nod to the practicality that this movie espouses.

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Speaker 2: I also love movies about problem solving, and that ultimately

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Speaker 2: is what this movie is about. A character does verbalize

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Speaker 2: it at one point, but it's solved one problem. Another

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Speaker 2: one's going to develop, probably, but you just keep solving

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Speaker 2: them until there are no more problems, hopefully. And my

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Speaker 2: loan complaint, if I was going to try to answer

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Speaker 2: my own prompt there, is that it does run into

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Speaker 2: the issue a little bit that most really detailed, deliberate

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Speaker 2: procedurals run into, which is it devotes so much time

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Speaker 2: to the process that when the plot has to kick

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Speaker 2: in in the end, so the movie can you know, end,

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Speaker 2: our hero does either have to make it back home,

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Speaker 2: be rescued, or die trying, it really has to compress

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Speaker 2: time to get there, which also does kind of violate

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Speaker 2: the spirit of the whole movie up to that point.

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Speaker 2: It's day by day by day, moment by moment, and

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Speaker 2: then all of a sudden seven months later, and I

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Speaker 2: feel a little bit lost by that, or I feel

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Speaker 2: like it does, as I said, violate the spirit of

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Speaker 2: the movie.

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Speaker 4: Fair question two. One thing I didn't quite feel as

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Speaker 4: directly as I thought maybe we needed to. Was the

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Speaker 4: passage of time. There's a section where all of the sudden,

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Speaker 4: Watney looks very different.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, aftads later.

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Speaker 4: Instead of that being gradual, you know, it hits us.

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Speaker 4: So I think that's a fair critique too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I do appreciate as well. And you mentioned this

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Speaker 2: with the more philosophical sci fi movies you get behind

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Speaker 2: like a lot of cinephiles, I would say I feel similarly.

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Speaker 2: But I really appreciate that this movie ends up being

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Speaker 2: quote unquote existential, I think, and it does offer some

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Speaker 2: profound moments without ever having to strain for it. I think,

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Speaker 2: true to the procedural nature of it, Wattney's existence on

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Speaker 2: Mars alone is sufficient, that's sufficiently existential to make you

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Speaker 2: think about a whole host of really serious thing. His

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Speaker 2: simple survival on Mars really is grand enough, I think.

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Speaker 4: And he doesn't have to vocalize it. I think you're

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Speaker 4: absolutely right. One of the sequences that captures that well.

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Speaker 4: And this goes to Damon's performance, which maybe we should

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Speaker 4: talk about. You know, there's just something inherently can do

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Speaker 4: about the guy in matter of fact, to me, playing spoken,

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Speaker 4: and you know, the Departed shows us that something of

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Speaker 4: a ruse, that he has other layers, but for the

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Speaker 4: most part, that's his persona fits so perfectly for this,

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Speaker 4: and maybe too perfectly. There's maybe a way in which

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Speaker 4: which he doesn't let us into. That hardened exterior shell

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Speaker 4: is so formidable here where he's not gonna crack at

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Speaker 4: all no matter what he faces, and maybe we could

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Speaker 4: say I'd like to see a little bit more of

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Speaker 4: the inside. But we get one moment where I think

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Speaker 4: that existential nature, again without being plainly spoken, comes down

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Speaker 4: on us pretty hard. It's after there's a breach in

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Speaker 4: the research station where he has holed up and he

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Speaker 4: has to essentially put a sheet of plastic between himself

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Speaker 4: again more duct tape and the Martian atmosphere, the lethal

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Speaker 4: Martian atmosphere. A storm comes by and we hear the

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Speaker 4: wind sucking in and out that plastic, so it's making

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Speaker 4: this flapping, popping, howling sound, and it's a brief shot

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Speaker 4: of Watney trying to ignore it, trying to perform another task,

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Speaker 4: and at one point he just kind of stops and

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Speaker 4: lets out this low moan, and it's one of the

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Speaker 4: lasting scenes in the movie for I think, because it

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Speaker 4: again suddenly gets at what he's really feeling way underneath.

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Speaker 4: But in the manner of this, just trying to go

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Speaker 4: about and do his regular work.

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Speaker 3: Right, Let's do the math. Our service mission here was

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Speaker 3: supposed to last thirty one souls for redundancy. They sent

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Speaker 3: sixty eight souls worth of food. That's for six people.

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Speaker 3: So for just me that's going to last three hundred souls,

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Speaker 3: which I figure I can stretch to four hundred five rations.

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Speaker 3: So I got to figure out a way to grow.

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Speaker 4: Three years worth of food here.

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Speaker 3: On a planet where nothing grows. Luckily, I'm a botanist.

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Speaker 2: The script was written by Drew Goddard, who was part

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Speaker 2: of the team behind Lost, and he co wrote and

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Speaker 2: directed the very meta Cabin in the Woods, And that's

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Speaker 2: a film that obviously really dissected before our very eyes

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Speaker 2: the horror genre. And at the end of the film,

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Speaker 2: when I saw his credit pop up, I was wondering

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Speaker 2: what drew him to material this ostensibly straightforward, And maybe

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Speaker 2: it was just that that it is pretty straightforward. Maybe

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Speaker 2: it was a paycheck. Who knows. He did his job well,

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Speaker 2: though it did occur to me that one potential little

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Speaker 2: subversion to this genre. And I do think obviously there

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Speaker 2: is a rescue genre that this movie fits into. Is

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Speaker 2: the way there is nobody waiting for Mark back on

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Speaker 2: Earth except NASA people and other crew members. But they

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Speaker 2: see him as more of a colleague, a fellow professional,

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Speaker 2: not so much a family member, even though those lines,

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Speaker 2: of course are sometimes lord, but that whole notion of

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Speaker 2: professionalism and being part of a crew is something this

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Speaker 2: movie devotes a whole lot of time to. And so

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Speaker 2: we get Watney up there on Mars, never pining for

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Speaker 2: his wife or his born or unborn kids, nor do

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Speaker 2: we see them thinking about him and pining for him

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Speaker 2: to return. Our interest in him getting back to Earth

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Speaker 2: isn't caught up in anything emotional. I love that it's

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Speaker 2: just about the achievement of it. We're caught up in

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Speaker 2: him simply accomplishing the task, him simply solving the problem.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and that diverges from Apollo thirteen, which otherwise the

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Speaker 4: movie very greatly resembles. Obviously, that's historically based, so you

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Speaker 4: have the families that we know were there this movie.

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Speaker 2: This movie isn't historically based.

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Speaker 4: This has not happened in that Okay, so I told

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Speaker 4: you science, you got to get out a little bit more. Yeah, so, yeah,

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Speaker 4: I think that that is a key point. There's one

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Speaker 4: reference where he's preparing a goodbye letter to his parents,

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Speaker 4: which I think is helpful in just giving us some

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Speaker 4: context that he didn't just emerge from another planet. This

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Speaker 4: is a guy with some roots on Earth. But it

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Speaker 4: does push then the idea of the colleagues as family

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Speaker 4: because he is abandoned. We shouldn't give away how but

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Speaker 4: he is abandoned by a crew that was on Mars

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Speaker 4: with him early on in the movie's opening scenes, and

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Speaker 4: they do essentially become his family, especially when they learn

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Speaker 4: that he has survived and they want to be part

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Speaker 4: of the rescue plan. They're not informed of it right away.

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Speaker 4: I will say, you know, thinking about things that maybe

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Speaker 4: didn't quite work. The whole NASA handling of the information

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Speaker 4: and what to let out, the whole pr angle of

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Speaker 4: this film to me felt like a little bit of

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Speaker 4: wasting time or force, like they were trying to generate

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Speaker 4: some drama beyond what else they had, because essentially, you know,

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Speaker 4: they're worried about the world blaming NASA for leaving this

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Speaker 4: guy behind.

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Speaker 2: I think that's all legit. I felt for all that not.

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Speaker 4: If they I mean, if the particulars of what we

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Speaker 4: see of how it happens. Again, we won't give away

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Speaker 4: the details. But if they had let that out, no

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Speaker 4: one we would have been singing we are of the

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Speaker 4: world a lot sooner.

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Speaker 2: No, I think the movie did address that, and it

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Speaker 2: all made sense to me, at least the pr point

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Speaker 2: of view. You touch on a moment though for me,

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Speaker 2: that is one of two really standout moments in the movie.

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Speaker 2: And as much as I'm talking about how it doesn't

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Speaker 2: strain for profundity or doesn't strain to be overly emotional,

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Speaker 2: there are, along with many laugh out loud moments, and

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Speaker 2: I did laugh out loud multiple times in this movie,

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Speaker 2: there are emotional moments in poetic moments. And I joked,

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Speaker 2: of course in the setup, that I can't imagine anybody

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Speaker 2: hating this film or even not liking it. So after

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Speaker 2: I wrote that setup, I went to Rotten Tomatoes to

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Speaker 2: see if there are any dissenters, and sure enough, of course,

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Speaker 2: there are a few of them. One of them, Stephanie Zahik,

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Speaker 2: wrote in The Village Voice that as elaborate and expensive

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Speaker 2: looking as the Martian is. It's almost totally lacking in poetry,

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Speaker 2: and I guess it depends on your definition of poetry.

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Speaker 2: It's definitely not two thousand and one or Solaris or

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Speaker 2: even Interstellar or Prometheus. But that moment, that low mown

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Speaker 2: moment when something bad has happened and he hears the

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Speaker 2: wind howling and he knows that his life depends on

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Speaker 2: that tarp. That dread really comes through in that moment

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Speaker 2: in Damon's performance, knowing that as far as he's come,

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Speaker 2: as long as he has survived, he's done the unthinkable

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Speaker 2: to survive this long. He's no longer in control of

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Speaker 2: his own destiny, and you know what, he probably never

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Speaker 2: really was, but he thinks he is. There's a bit

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Speaker 2: of that hubris about him after a while, that he

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Speaker 2: is kind of conquering and colonizing this planet and that

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Speaker 2: no longer is in play anymore. And so that moment

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Speaker 2: is really powerful. And I think there's another one even

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Speaker 2: more powerful. It's when he's communicating with NASA for the

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Speaker 2: first time, and I think it's Edgiophor who writes to him,

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Speaker 2: we've been watching you since day fifty four, and this

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Speaker 2: is now forty or fifty days, I think after day

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Speaker 2: fifty four, and it's another subtle but emotional breakdown type

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Speaker 2: of moment that Damon has. And yes, we of course

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Speaker 2: expect to watch a character finally communicating with someone back

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Speaker 2: on Earth and maybe getting a little bit emotional, or

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Speaker 2: in other films like this, if they were communicating with

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Speaker 2: a loved one, clearly they might have a breakdown moment

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Speaker 2: like that. But with Damon, it's not just a cry,

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Speaker 2: it's something from the gut. It's an existential yelp, just

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Speaker 2: at the knowledge that the whole time he thought he

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Speaker 2: was alone in the universe, it turns out he wasn't.

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Speaker 2: And I found that very moving as well. So I

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Speaker 2: love that the movie makes time for those types of

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Speaker 2: moments and that they have that bit of nuance to him.

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Speaker 4: Damon has a really good moment too, near the climax,

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Speaker 4: where he has sort of a gut level teary reaction

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Speaker 4: to something. I put it up there with Matthew McConaughey's

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Speaker 4: similarly tiary moment in Interstellar. What I really like, also,

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Speaker 4: though about this film and Goddard's screenplay in particular, is

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Speaker 4: the way it has a lot of fun skirting profundity

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Speaker 4: as well. And I think of the scene where we

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Speaker 4: sneak up on Watney as he's watching a rerun of

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Speaker 4: Happy Days. We notice he's twirling a crucifix and he's

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Speaker 4: deep in thought and you.

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Speaker 2: Start for a second, Oh, here we go contemplating his

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Speaker 2: place in the universe.

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Speaker 4: He's going to give us some real, meaningful bit of wisdom.

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Speaker 4: And he just suddenly pauses and says, the problem is water.

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Speaker 4: It shouldn't come up as a surprise at that point,

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Speaker 4: but that is how this guy thinks. What is the

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Speaker 4: practical problem?

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Speaker 2: I need to say. Yeah, I think Damon is really

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Speaker 2: good in this role. I think there is a certain

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Speaker 2: dead pan quality to Watney, and at the same time

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Speaker 2: he can ham it up for the camera at times

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Speaker 2: as well. He does that very well. The dialogue too,

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Speaker 2: from Goddard throughout it feels like Aaron Sorkin without the

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Speaker 2: flashiness of Sorkin. And I say that as someone who

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Speaker 2: generally likes Aaron Sorkin's dialogue. But it's never hear about

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Speaker 2: the words or how they're said, but it's still I think,

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Speaker 2: very sharply written. And speaking of Sorkin, we could praise

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Speaker 2: different performances. But just thinking about Aaron Sorkin, I couldn't

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Speaker 2: help but watch Jeff Daniels and think about the HBO

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Speaker 2: series The Newsroom, which I did watch, and just the

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Speaker 2: way Daniels, very good actor, calibrates his performance here and

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Speaker 2: plays someone very similar to the character he plays on

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Speaker 2: The Newsroom, a guy who is the boss who's working

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Speaker 2: with a lot of younger people, is frequently exasperated or

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Speaker 2: should be exasperated. But he does just alter it a

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Speaker 2: little bit. He alters his persona a little bit so

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Speaker 2: that the smugness that does come through with his character

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Speaker 2: on The Newsroom, a smugness that comes from the way

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Speaker 2: that he walks into every room assuming he's the smartest

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Speaker 2: guy in the room. But he also probably is the

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Speaker 2: smartest guy in the room. Here he's surrounded by some

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Speaker 2: of the most brilliant minds in the world. So Daniels

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Speaker 2: just dials it back a little bit, and there's a

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Speaker 2: more vulnerable side to him, despite the fact that he

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Speaker 2: does have an all business problem solving exterior. I really

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Speaker 2: like Daniels here.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he's good. I did not have a

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Speaker 4: problem with his performance in the NASA scenes, and I

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Speaker 4: also did not have a problem whenever they would switch

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Speaker 4: it to the engineers or scientists doing their work, which

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Speaker 4: again is drawn directly from Apollo thirteen. But I loved

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Speaker 4: those sequences as well, and this proves to be a

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Speaker 4: worthy air to that really good film.

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Speaker 3: And how to say, Mark Watney, we need the Hermi's crew.

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Speaker 2: We either have a high chance of killing one or

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Speaker 2: a low chance of killing six.

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Speaker 4: Are not risking their lives. It's bigger than one person.

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Speaker 2: No, that's not boy. I think that was one of

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Speaker 2: those reviews where Josh and I walked out of the

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Speaker 2: screening and had to go immediately to the studio there

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Speaker 2: at WBEZ and record our review. Not one of our

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Speaker 2: longer film Spotting conversations, but a fun one for us

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Speaker 2: because it was a fun movie. We hope you enjoyed

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Speaker 2: that conversation that was from the Film Spotting Archive, and

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Speaker 2: you get access to that Film Spotting archive as one

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Speaker 2: of the benefits of being a Film Spotting Family member

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Speaker 2: along with bonus shows, a weekly newsletter at free shows,

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00:21:50,285 --> 00:21:53,845
Speaker 2: early access to events, and more, and you can learn

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Speaker 2: more at Filmspottingfamily dot com. This conversation can serve no

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Speaker 2: purpose anymore, but bine