By Susan Granger
Back in 1979, Ridley Scott stunned moviegoers with “Alien.” Now the visual storyteller returns to outer space with “The Martian,” a super-suspenseful saga of an astronaut accidentally stranded on Mars.
When a colossal dust storm forces the Ares 3 crew to abort their Mars surface exploration, Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain) orders a hasty evacuation, believing their crewmate, Mark Watney (Matt Damon) has been killed by flying debris.
But he’s alive, as satellite photography soon reveals. So it’s up to NASA director Sanders (Jeff Daniels) and his cohorts at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to figure out how to help Watney stay alive in the habitation module and rescue him before his food supply runs out.
Fortunately, Watney is a resourceful botanist and courageous problem-solver. After removing the shrapnel lodged in his torso, he’s faced with basic survival tasks and the necessity of perseverance while facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
“I’m gonna have to science the #### out of this,” he declares – and proceeds to improvise and innovate, showing a disarmingly acerbic sense of humor. But there are always unforeseen catastrophes.
Screenwriter Drew Goddard has adapted Andy Weir’s 2011 novel, as director Ridley Scott meticulously delineates Watney’s ingenuity in his struggle to endure. He’s a plausible Robinson Crusoe, tossing around geek speak terms like hexadecimals and orbital trajectories.
Filmgoers may recall Matt Damon did an uncredited “bit” as a stranded astronaut in “Interstellar” but, here, his charming, utterly convincing performance propels the drama on a desolate planet.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover and Macenzie Davis score as supportive scientists, while Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Sebastian Stan and Aksel Hennie comprise the Ares 3 team.
Reminiscent of solo tales like “Gravity,” “Cast Away” and “Moon,” it should certainly engender enthusiasm for the future of space travel, as NASA strives to send humans to Mars by the 2030s.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Martian” is an exhilarating 8 – an enthralling sci-fi adventure.
Looking for a date movie or a feel-good flick your mom would enjoy? “The Intern” is a mainstream comedy from writer/director Nancy Meyers (“It’s Complicated,” “Something’s Gotta Give”).
Seventy-year-old Brooklyn widower Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is at loose ends after his retirement. While he begins every morning with coffee at Starbucks and tai chi class, his days and nights are lonely.
Then he spies an ad for “senior interns” at a thriving e-commerce clothing startup, located in a nearby converted factory. Acing the interview, he’s assigned to 30-ish entrepreneur Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), Stylish and a stickler for detail, frantic Jules is overworked and overwhelmed by the conflicting demands of her job and her family.
Jules’ husband (Anders Holm) is a stay-at-home dad, caring for their precocious young daughter (JoJo Kushner), but he’s obviously becoming restless. At the same time, Jules’ investors are strongly suggesting that she hire an experienced CEO to run the company.
While briefcase-toting Ben amiably adjusts to the new technology and an entirely different workplace environment, his younger, Millennial cohorts (Adam DeVine, Christina Scherer, Zack Perlman, Jason Orley, Nat Wolff) learn from his respectful, avuncular wisdom and patient dedication.
Specializing in trendy, intelligent, female-centric comedies, Nancy Meyers’ light touch is empathetic and insightful. Her three-dimensional characters are faced with real-life choices, and her casting is spot-on: unobtrusively observant Robert De Niro understands Anne Hathaway’s inner struggle. Their engaging chemistry and generation-spanning camaraderie is apparent.
On a nuanced romantic level, DeNiro responds to Rene Russo, the company’s massage therapist, whom he takes on a unique “first date.”
On the Granger Gauge, “The Intern” is a sweetly accessible, sparky 7, a charming crowd-pleaser.
More than any other genre, the success of a horror movie depends on its effect on the audience. How does it manipulate emotions to scare you, utilizing color, sound, dialogue, editing, music and make-up?
Does it use psychology or rely on a series of brutalities for shock value? The best horror films – like Alfred Hitchcock’s ”Psycho” – are those that rely more on suggestion than graphic bloodshed.
Director of the first two “Hostel” movies, Eli Roth opts for violent carnage in “Green Inferno,” inspired by Italian director Ruggero Deodato’s grim “Cannibal Holocaust” (1980), in which ‘found footage’ of a documentary film crew reveals what occurred in the Amazonian jungle, concluding with the memorable line: “I wonder who the real cannibals are.”
Roth’s updated, politically incorrect version begins on a New York college campus, where Alejandro (Ariel Levy) stages a hunger strike for underpaid janitors. His interest then turns to saving the Amazon rain forest from exploitation by developers’ bulldozers.
Despite the skepticism of her roommate (Sky Ferreira), naïve Justine (Lorenza Izzo, Roth’s real-life wife) joins Alejandro and other clueless students on a mission, over the objections of her father, a human rights lawyer at the U.N., who gives her the phone number of the U.S. Ambassador to Peru – just in case.
When their small plane crashes, Alejandro, Justine and the surviving ‘do-gooders’ are captured and tortured by savages whose bodies are slathered with red ochre and chalk. Ironically, these are South America’s indigenous people, the ones that environmental activists are determined to “save.”
Leaving nothing to the imagination, Eli Roth vividly depicts dreadful eye-gouging and depraved genital mutilation, culminating in a feast, zooming in as the cannibals are chewing on roasted corpses.
FYI: After debuting at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival, this was in limbo due to its offensive content until producer Jason Blum/Blumhouse Productions picked it up, creating a new label, BH Tilt, at Universal.
On the Granger Gauge, “Green Inferno” is a gross, stomach-churning 2, proving, once again, that no good deed goes unpunished.
( Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
