Theater Whore: The Martian

The Martian 9/10

This will have some spoilers. “I'm gonna science the shit out of this planet.” And he does! This is not Gravity. Its is not close to that film for a lot of reasons and I was happy for it. The Martian stars Matt Damon as a botanist stranded on Mars after a storm occurs and his crew is forced to leave him behind thinking he is dead. He's not and that sucks because he is stuck on Mars with enough food for a whole crew but not enough to, like, live forever.

The cast of this also includes Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Donald Glover, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. They are all really good and even some folks I didn't mention that have smaller parts. A lot of this movie is spent wanting Mark Watney played by Damon to survive. I laughed, I cheered, I screamed “Fuck!” when he did after something went wrong. Watney would spend parts of his days making video logs and complaining about the only music being available being disco which made the movie funnier.

Theater Whore: Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four 7/10

There will be some spoilers. I managed to dodge all the spoilers about this new Fantastic Four movie but managed to hear about all of the terrible reviews that it was receiving. When I wrote about this movie before it came out I said they already had a leg up on the other films because I was interested in it because I am not a fan of the FF whatsoever. This film managed to actually get me interested in the characters by going in a very different direction than the comics or previous films did.

It starts with a young Reed Richards in his science class being told by his teacher that what he wants to be can not be done. Just like real teachers do! He ends up befriending Ben Grimm while stealing junk from the junk yard that Grimm's family owns. They blow out all the power in the neighborhood. Fast forward years later and they have made another version of the device and are discovered by Professor Franklin Storm played by Reg E. Cathey. He invites Reed to help him create this machine on a larger scale since they have been working on something like it.

In Defense Of Fantastic 4 Reboot

I love pointless outrage. I like to think that I have mastered the ability to get upset about nothing. But the rage towards the reboot of The Fantastic Four film is funny. Most people are mad that The Human Torch is being played by a Black guy to which I reply “Its the fucking Fantastic Four...” meaning “Who gives a fuck?!” A little bit ago I defended Ben Affleck as Batman and this time I'm not gonna strongly attempt to defend a Black Human Torch so much as make you all realize that this isn't worth getting upset about.

There is this video that Max Landis, the writer of the second best superhero film Chronicle, made called The Death And Return Of Superman where the first thing he says is “Nobody gives a fuck about Superman.” That is how I feel about FF (I'm not typing their name a hundred goddamn times). This new movie is directed by Josh Trank who directed Chronicle which makes me far less concerned if this movie will be cool. Forget trying to convince people that a Black guy can be a fictional character. Getting me to even be interested in seeing a FF movie is far more remarkable.