Rocket man

Doubleheader double feature

This day was so busy that I'm only now--on my Monday lunch break--writing my post. Mets, still playing meaningful games, were rained out on Friday, meaning that they played a day/night doubleheader Saturday. Since I was going to the regular-season finale on Sunday--and since I was still hoping to be attending 2 postseason games next weekend (a hope since dashed)--I had no choice but to: (1) go to movie 1, (2) rush home, (3) speedwatch (i.e., watch on the DVR at about triple speed) game 1, (4) rush back to theater for movie 2, and (5) rush back home to watch game 2, this one at regular speed, not quite ever catching up to live.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's hard being me.

The Martian

Crit

Well, you can try to resist Matt Damon's potato-eating grin, but if he doesn't make you believe everything about the science you don't understand (or simply not care about it), you're a better Earthling than I. This is grade A Ridley Scott manipulative entertainment, and I say that as a very good thing. The special effects are useful--even the 3D, which puts visual screens in our face while characters sit comfortably at the normal depth of field--and everyone in the cast nails it, but this is a big movie about one little man. I saw that some reviewer called Damon "our James Stewart," and I nearly swallowed my tongue, but having seen this, I find that absurd proposition almost apt.

Sicario

Crit

That was weird: a sizable percentage of a fairly large 5:20 audience got a real kick out of violent and extremely creepy deaths--I won't say I was in the minority in not being under the impression that this is a comedy, but the minority that did laugh a lot at what we conventional sorts would call inappropriate moments was larger than I'm comfortable contemplating.


The film I saw was hard to watch and excellent--Emily Blunt kicks some serious butt as the FBI agent with an inconvenient conscience, co-opted by CIA/military antidrug cowboys (Josh Brolin as cowboy in chief), and Benicio Del Toro is as good as he's even been, as an agent many of the baddies know as Medellín and whose character ultimately resolves itself into something very close to another mysterious figure from the film in which the actor first came to the attention of many of us.

Trailers

• Joy--As the person who didn't love Silver Linings Playbook, I'm also not the person not particular thrilled to see David O. Russell reassemble his repertory company of Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro.
• The Revenant--Jeremiah Johnson bent on revenge. González Iñárritu directs Leo.
• Concussion--The movie the NFL really, really, really, really, really doesn't want you to see. Really. With Will Smith.
• In the Heart of the Sea--Based on the Essex disaster, source of an American novel about whaling you may have read. Directed by Ron Howard.
• The Forest--Set in Japan and based, I assume, on a Japanese original--has all the ear-and-other-body-part-marks of a Japanese horror flick. Stars Margaery Tyrell, aka Natalie Dormer.
• Spectre--Just a teaser, but what more do you need? Best news is that Christopher Waltz is back, as is Naomie Harris as Moneypenny.