The Martian (2015)

Jack and I really enjoyed this long (2:14), special-effects laden story of an astronaut stranded on Mars in the near future. There are no lulls, as the action flashes back and forth between the red planet, our planet, and the crew of the spaceship. Matt Damon (last blogged in The Monuments Men) is as charming as ever as our hero, who keeps a video diary so he doesn't have to talk to a volleyball to let the audience know what he's feeling.

On the spaceship we have Jessica Chastain (most recently in A Most Violent Year), Michael Peña (last in Gangster Squad), Kate Mara (last in 127 Hours), and Sebastian Stan (not blogged but had a small part in Rachel Getting Married, played Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and was one of the sons in Ricki and the Flash), and they alternately banter and work. In the serious NASA crew on earth the heavy hitters are Chiwetel Ejiofor (Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave), Jeff Daniels (last in Looper), and Kristen Wiig (most recently in The Diary of a Teenage Girl). Notable cameos come from Donald Glover (after his 89 episodes of Community he played one of the MCs in Magic Mike XXL) and Mackenzie Davis (20 episodes starring as a computer geek in the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire) as computer geeks.

Ridley Scott (last blogged for Prometheus) directs from Drew Goddard's (wrote some things I haven't seen and nine episodes of Lost) adaptation of Andy Weir's book. Many of the best lines are taken straight from those pages, e.g. "I'm going to science the s*** out of it." That line, which is in the trailer, is why I was eager to see the movie. On another note, it's a really good ad for duct tape.

Harry Gregson-Williams' (last in the blog for Monkey Kingdom) score can be streamed in its entirety from this link (which has some stopping and starting at the beginning, and is supplemented by a fun selection of disco music, some of which is listed here.

Despite the mother who brought into our small theatre a toddler who alternately whined, cried, or sang with joy until removed after an hour's time (I stormed out and hissed at an employee, to whom I later apologized--Jack said he was "caught in the crossfire"--and someone from management asked them to leave), we had a great time. It has been playing for four weeks now but is still available in 3D, though we didn't spring for it. Rotten Tomatoes critics and audiences are loving it as we did, averaging 93% all.