The Martian

Short review, this one. For no real reason, other than I saw it more than a month ago and it's kind of drifted from the house of fog inside my brain. It has the distinction of being the last film I saw in Japan (possibly last in both senses of the word). I reckon I'll miss the Japanese cinema-going experience, but more of that in future entries.

So, The Martian. Not brilliant, but comfortably watchable. Light and simple with some sombre moments. And some funny ones, mainly from Damon, who holds it together (and he has to as he's on screen for huge chunks of the running time).

The procedural stuff on the planet and at NASA was quite cool. It lent a little faux authenticity (oxymoron?) to the film.

There was one show-stopper. A great passage to Bowie's 'Starman' - basically a music video with a stonking budget and more than a little poignant coming so soon after his death.

One more thing to note. The 'language of cinema' showed it's weary feathers here. At one point, Jeff Daniels says something like, "So he's got enough food to last him 200 days......as long as nothing goes wrong". Cut to Damon opening an airlock and you don't have to be a film scholar to know what happens next. Of course, this signposting occurs in loads of films, I'm just getting a bit chivied with it.