Thursdays at the Theater: The Clock Strikes XII

Hello there once again Holy Trinity students! I hope these past couple of weeks treated you right and that you did not get too fat off of all the sweets you hoarded either through trick or treating, or keeping them for yourself because you didn’t get very many visitors this year. A lot like me and my family, who only got about 50 kids this year in a rather large neighbourhood, so we could keep those delicious Hershey’s mini-chocolates they sell every October all to ourselves. We were sad about not getting too many young faces to step onto our doorstep, but once the sugar rush kicked in we forgot all about it.

So, I’m just going to go over what’s going on this week very briefly because I want this to mainly be a review for The Martian, which I KNOW came out last month, but it is definitely worth talking about.

Of course, Spectre, the new James Bond film opened last week and won big at the box office with 73 million dollars on its opening weekend. This is roughly 10 million less than Skyfall, but Skyfall ended up making over a billion dollars so I think it’ll be fine. Plus, fall and winter releases typically don’t have the big box office numbers like summer movies do, at least not on opening weekend. Everybody’s too busy, and there are few exceptions to that. However, that’s all going to change once the last Hunger Games film comes out on the 20th, and seeing as the last film made 120 million opening weekend, and Catching Fire before it made 150 million, both opening in November, you’re probably going to see that record broken by a decent amount. I am super excited to see it, looking at it like one chapter closing in time for another to begin for a different franchise on the 18th once The Force Awakens releases. Peanuts also released last week, and made substantial bank as well with 45 million dollars. What adds to its success is that it was critically acclaimed, unlike Spectre which received mixed reviews, even though Spectre made almost 30 million more dollars.

I’m going to be honest guys, this is a sort of dry spot in the movie season aside from the few notable ones I’ve already mentioned, so the movies releasing this week are, of course, ones you’ve never heard of: The 33 which is about the mining disaster in Chile a few years back which should prove more than interesting; a drama starring Aaron Eckhart called My All American about true life events in which Freddie Steinmark overcomes the odds of being ‘too short’ to play college American football but he gives everything for the game he loves; and finally there’s Love the Coopers, a comedy film starring Alan Arkin and John Goodman about a family who get up to chaotic hijinks at Christmas (I mean, WHAT ELSE WOULD THEY DO!?). Look, The 33 actually looks pretty good, but the other two I really could care less about. My All American just seems a little too generic for me and Love the Coopers gives me horrible flashbacks of Four Christmases. Oof!

Why are you still a month away Star Wars? WHY!?

Well, with that done, time to move on to The Martian, a film based on the best-selling novel about an astronaut-botanist named Mark Watney in the 2030s who becomes stranded on Mars after an evacuation gone wrong. The bigger problem is that nobody knows he’s alive. Faced with almost impossible odds being on a planet where nothing grows, Watney must utilize every last ounce of his courage, humor, persistence and his ingenuity in order to survive until somebody can rescue him.

I’m sure that a lot of you have found this movie being shown everywhere during the month of October, and honestly, for good reason. This film is not only Ridley Scott’s best since, I’d say, Gladiator, but it’s also been the best we’ve seen from Matt Damon for a little while. This is a movie that is so well crafted and so well thought out that it feels like it would actually happen in real life. What helps is that the movie is extremely accurate on a scientific level. It only cheats a couple of times in order to make the story more interesting, but in my mind it all works because the movie almost manages to convince you that this actually happened when, of course, it didn’t. This is a movie about hope, about how one person is worth any risk. That one human life is invaluable, and that as human beings we have the responsibility to set aside whatever complications and issues we may raise in the face of something like this and focus on bringing a good man back home where he belongs. All of the characters feel real and have depth, nobody is a cartoon. This movie avoids the trap that other movies fall into by making the corporate head out to be the villain. Everybody in this film acts like a real person, not a caricature that fills out a quota that the plot requires to move forward. Everybody contributes something, everybody pitches in to make the story flow and it works beautifully.

None of this works, however, if the direction isn’t solid. For the past 15 years I feel Ridley Scott’s been in a bit of a rough patch as he hasn’t really done anything since Gladiator that I feel is particularly special or unique until this movie. He makes sure that his actors deliver their best performances, that the camera is steady and shows everything that’s going on, and most importantly he is able to build suspense and tension tremendously whenever things go wrong for Watney, which on an uninhabitable planet is bound to happen. And it’s surprising how funny this movie is as well. They could have had Matt Damon play this mopey character who was always depressed and cynical, but he is portrayed as such a positive man that you can’t help but love and feel sorry for the guy. You want him to go home, and this never even happened! It’s not real! Like I said, this is a fictional story that takes place in the 2030s, and I can now see why the novel has gained so much traction. It is such a great story, and really speaks volumes about how far people should go to rescue somebody far away, and it pulls it off seemingly effortlessly.

Brace yourselves though, because this movie does feel a little long. It is 2 hours and 20 minutes which is short compared to other films, but you can still sense how long it is. However, I found myself not caring as I was so enveloped in the film. For that reason, I’m giving The Martian 4.5/5 stars. I recommend that you see it, it definitely deserves all of the money it’s making. I mean, this movie has stayed in the top 3 at the box office ever since its release as of the time of me writing this, and knowing that it’ll eventually cross 500 million dollars is great. Be aware though, there are a couple of f-bombs, it’s PG-13 for a reason, and there is a bit of blood at a few points, but aside from that I think that this is definitely the movie to see if you haven’t seen it already.

That’ll do it for this installment of Thursdays at the Theater. I would like to thank you for reading and if you have any thoughts, leave a comment expressing them. If you want to keep up to date on everything we’re doing here, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and on Instagram. We have a lot of great content on here, so follow us and know instantly what we’re doing and when we’re doing it. I hope you all have a great day, goodbye until next time, and stay strong Titans!

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