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billdyj
Reviews
Range 15 (2016)
Seriiously lowbrow, over the top, non politically correct but funny
This is the kind of movie that will either get good reviews or really get trashed, and I think it depends on the person looking at it. Those who think of military people as these saintly people, who piously go fight our wars with Jesus on their minds, etc, are gonna hate it. Likewise those who can't see broad farce and see all kinds of micro aggression's and the like are going to hate it.
For me, as lowbrow and over the top and so forth it was, it was funny, because the humor in it is not meant to be hateful, it is gleefully poking fun at everything and anything, including themselves, and I think it likely represents the dark, out there humor that veterans, especially combat veterans, seem to have. I saw a podcast recently talking about Chris Kyle (American Sniper fame), and his platoon leader and CO said the movie made him out tot his seriously, saintly person when he was a funny, full of hell kind of guy, as good a soldier as he was...if you are easily grossed out, offended, think the military are all soldiers of Christ on a sacred crusade, I don't recommend this, but it you can laugh at people laughing at themselves, it is funny as hell.
The Martian (2015)
Blew me away
This is one of the more memorable movies I have seen, in some ways it is very hard to describe how good I felt it was. Matt Damon shows what I always thought about him, that he is an intelligent actor able to give any role that special touch. He is playing a very intelligent character and he does it seamlessly. He also gives the character a sardonic sense of humor, which means this is not cold or pure hard science. Likewise, when he finally interacts with the rest of the crew of his ship, the interplay is what you would expect.
The movie is a rare thing, it is a hard science fiction movie that has the human touch, the casting was fantastic and you see the humanity.It has touches of Apollo 13 where the nerds with the pocket protectors and slide rules pull off a miracle, but it also has a lot of the human emotion, humor and at times sadness, that make it real. John Campbell, considered the founder of modern SF, said that science fiction was not about the technology, but about how human beings react to it, and that is the core of this movie. The fact that the technology here is not star wars level, but technology that either does or potentially could exist in the near future, and it makes it come off as something that might happen.
It is also nice to see a movie where the heroes are not all white nerdy guys, plenty of those, but plenty of other people, the mission is commanded by a woman, women play major roles, and you have a lot of non white people as scientists and such. I think that helps give the feeling of awe the movie generated in me, that it was a mish mash of people working to have this happen.
The movie is long, yet it didn't seem like that, and where you have a movie where a single character is on the screen most of the time and it doesn't drag, that says something. The filming is well done, and this has elements of a lot of Ridley Scott's work, though I personally think it is his masterpiece, if this is his last movie it is a doozie.