Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

TV Review: Patriot

Today is a rather special TV Shoutout, featuring Indonesia’s miniseries Patriot. This time, it’ll be more of a review.

What it is about: Patriot follows the story of 5 special ops soldiers tasked to rescue a village attacked and taken over by an international drug cartel.

What I have to say about it:

First of all, I have to give an overview about the state of Indonesian storied television. Basically, it’s atrocious, and I’m not even talking about CSI: Cyber or CW’s Beauty and the Beast level of atrocity. Our scripted series are almost completely consist of soap operas (our so-called “sinetron”) with complete disregard of any storytelling or technical principles that they’re so painful to watch (just try and watch this). Some stuff has been okay, but there’s been a recent surge in true serialized storytelling, particularly spearheaded by new channel NET. that hosted Patriot. Being a movie and TV aficionado that I am, of course I have to try see and support our local TV.

Seeing Patriot, it’s a definite massive improvement from typical Indonesia’s TV series. Patriot has a lot of things going for it. For instance, it has a great production value, beautiful scenery, and is almost movie-like in its approach. It still have traces of Indonesia’s trademark habit of over-relying on music to create emotions, but at least the soundtrack itself is pretty good and effective so I shouldn’t complain too much.

Each of the main cast are believable as soldiers, the bad guys as bad guys, even the villagers and extras are spot on. My personal pet peeve in Indonesian films is that a lot of times, the acting ability of the extras (the ones that speak for 5 seconds) are so horrendous they’d take you right of the film, but I don’t really have that problem with this series. I also rather enjoyed the villains. Panglima Timur (Aqi Singgih) is slightly deranged and borderline wacky, and the arrow-wielding Bunian (why can’t I find the actor’s name on the internet???) has this comic-book villain quality about him.

As for the story, Patriot immediately built pretty strong emotional basis for each of the soldiers, and they each are pretty badass. The plot itself throughout the series is rather simplistic and very linear, but it’s also a pretty breezy 7-episode miniseries so it still works. I would love to see the workings of the cartel more, I hope they’re saving it for potential season 2. The personal drama, however, maybe with the exception of Charles (Maruli Tampubolon) and his father (Dorman Borisman), are very typical. The drama of Samuel (Dallas Pratama) and his cardboard-personality girlfriend is particularly uninspired with terrible handling of the issue. The inclusion of veteran soldier Kapten Rustam is a very nice touch, though.

I have to say I’m a bit underwhelmed with the female characters in this show. Laras (Ranggani Puspandya), wife of Kolonel Bayu (Rizky Hanggono), has a special brand of feminine strength but her story is very limited, and the less I write about Karin, Samuel’s girlfriend, the better. I liked Indah, the villager of Mapu, but is disappointed with the treatment of her character. She is a strong, assertive female character when she’s on her own or with other women and children, but completely lost her assertive quality when she’s in the same scene with other male characters--or worse, became a walking plot device, especially with her attempted rape story.

I just want to point out this important thing: RAPE STORY IS (almost) ALWAYS A NOPE. Especially flirting after attempted rape? DOUBLE NOPE. No thank you. I want to tell every writer that rape is a lazy storytelling device, but that's another rant. (But seriously writers or wannabe writers, please read this, this, and this article to give you some perspective before you attempt to write any rape scene). 

Where you can watch it: The whole series is in its official Youtube channel, but is in Indonesian with no English subtitle.

Status: The 7-episode miniseries is already completed, and no official word if there’s going to be any season 2.

Review: Inside Out (2015)

Rating: 8.5 of 10

Have you ever wondered what’s going on in a person’s mind? Why do they feel sad, or happy, or bored, or elated? In the case of Inside Out, you don’t need to wonder anymore.

In Inside Out, our protagonists are the tiny workers inside Riley’s head. We have Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger all work alongside each other, each representing one emotion that Riley feels, depending on who’s taking the lead.  It’s a pretty simple premise--and one that allows for a pretty powerful emotional impact.

An emotional movie about emotions? It’s almost a given, if you ask me, but Inside Out wrapped it all tightly with Riley’s journey. In that delicate age of 11, Riley’s loving-but-busy father had to move his family to another town. Away from the town that she loves, she has to move to a less-than-perfect home and go to a new school without her old friends. It’s a coming of age story that feels so real and intimate, because it’s the one that many of us had to live through at some point in our lives--and it hit us hard. My favorite moment is the scene in which Riley’s mother had a talk with her when she tucked her in, and I imagine it’s also the hardest hitting moment for parents and children alike.

But Inside Out isn’t as novel as some reviews led me to believe, mainly because I think Wreck-It Ralph did it first. Inside Out visualizes the workings of the human brain, just like Wreck-It Ralph did it with arcade games. Inside Out has Imagination Land and Dream Production Company, while Wreck-It Ralph had Sugar Rush and Hero’s Duty. Even the end lesson is basically the same; Joy can’t be meaningful without Sadness, in the same way heroes need villains. But both are great films, and it’s great we get to see such nuanced themes discussed in family movies.

TL;DR It’s not Pixar’s best (Wall-E, Up, Toy Story, and The Incredibles still take the cake), but it’s still a pretty powerful movie that may leave you needing for tissue.

Review: Oldboy (2003)

Rating: 9.0 of 10

Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik), a drunken and crass office-worker, was locked up in a mysterious hotel room for 15 years for no apparent reason. He was confused and desperate at first, and ended up just plain angry. When he eventually got out, with the help of one sushi-bar worker, he was determined to find out why he was held and the identity of his captor to take revenge.

Oldboy (actually based on a Japanese manga of the same name) is one of the most popular and acclaimed example of South Korean cinema in international stage, frequently listed as one of the best movies of all time and is firmly ingrained in the minds of modern cinephile. After earning cult status with Oldboy, Director Park Chan-wook eventually directed his first English-speaking movie, Stoker, in 2013 with Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska, and Oldboy itself was remade by Hollywood with Spike Lee directing and Josh Brolin as lead (with less critical acclaim). I can’t tell you the merits of those two films, but I can tell you that Oldboy is very deserving of its cult favorite status.

Lacking normal social skills due to more than a decade being confused and alone, it was clear that Dae-su was a changed man, forever scarred by the absurd circumstance of his life. Dae-su was volatile and dangerous, a far cry from his previous buffoon self, and Choi Min-sik was equally believable as both. With range not unlike Robert de Niro in his best years, Choi Min-sik frequently changes from incredibly cold and menacing, to incredibly sad and pitiful without a blink of an eye.

With the absurdity of its premise, Oldboy had a perfect tone. Definitely not a typical grim-revenge story, it managed to keep a degree of surrealness—palpable from the moment we see Dae-su nagging in the police station but cemented the moment the octopus-eating scene arrived—only grounded by the sight of violence and blood. Inventive and highly stylish in its violence, the film is definitely not for the squeamish, but the actual horrors was largely visceral and psychological instead of purely gross visual. Oldboy is also partly a detective tale and partly a coming-of-age story (whatever age that is), providing much more layers to a simple vengeance story.

TL;DR With memorable images and moments throughout, Oldboy is a fascinating, heartbreaking, and stylish work about revenge.

Review: Rurouni Kenshin Trilogy (2012-2014)

Overall rating: 9.0 of 10

Rurouni Kenshin, adapted from popular manga and anime of the same name (popularized in North America and Indonesia as Samurai X, referring to his cross-shaped scar), tells the story of one skilled assassin from Japan’s Bakumatsu Era who turned into a wandering pacifist, helping people along the way and vowed to never kill anyone again.

The live action trilogy consists of Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji kenkaku roman-tan (titled simply Rurouni Kenshin in the English world) which was released in 2012, followed by two-parter Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto taika-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: Tokyo Inferno) and Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no saigo-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends), both released in 2014. I just binge-watched all of them so it made more sense to me to do a comprehensive review of the trilogy. Besides, I just thought it’d be just a tad boring to read me raving about Takeru Sato (who played the titular character) three times over.

The biggest accomplishment these movies achieved, aside from hiring the right director for obvious reasons, was casting Takeru Sato as Kenshin Himura the Manslayer Battosai. Kenshin Himura was a difficult character to get right. He was a small, unassuming, baby-faced, soft-spoken person who had the weight of all Japan on his shoulders and swordsmanship skill of a god. Not only Sato looked exactly like how Kenshin would look like in real life, he was able to play just about every range of Kenshin’s in the most unobtrusive way, from Kenshin’s trademark goffiness, kindness, to his restrained composure, deafening sadness and powerful regret, and the bombastic rage that he eventually let out. Every once in a while he lets out quiet words of wisdom that are so excessively true your heart breaks, because you know it took a great deal of pain and mistakes to be able to say them.

The rest of the casts were great too, each one of them dissolved nicely into the characters that we have come to know and love from the manga and anime (I never read the manga, admittedly). Animes in particular are difficult to adapt into live action because animes in general operate in a wholly different reality. Jinei Udoh’s and Shishio’s powers weren’t exactly realistic, for example, but director Keishi Ohtomo was able to make them at least plausible. Even small things like clothes, hair, and behaviors of characters from animes might be harder to translate from animation into live action but Rurouni Kenshin was able to bring them come to life with grace.

The film was also absolutely beautiful to watch. The colors and cinematography were absolute striking, and so was the fighting scenes. Each of the fights are fluid, absolutely clear and delightful to watch, and definitely captured the magic of samurai fights that we have come to expect.

But the truth is, the three movies weren’t created equal. The first movie did a great job at introducing and sucking us into its world, for reasons above. TL;DR It was a great origin movie of a compelling character, surrounded by a hoard of interesting supporting characters. But more intellectually, what I really appreciated from this particular movie is that they hit the tone right with the violence. They were dirty, they were bloody (not overly so that it’s unwatchable) but enough to bring home the fact that killing, no matter the cause, is an ugly thing to do.

I found Kyoto Inferno to be the weakest installment. Shishio was a brilliant arc in the manga and anime, partly because they spent considerable amount of time building into the arc. The movie had such little time to tell its story in comparison that it was understandable that it would not have the same effect, but TL;DR I also found the film to have problematic pacing, and it felt particularly heavy and overwrought.

That said, The Legend Ends was brilliant. It started as the slowest of the bunch, and I appreciated the change of pace (without resorting to spoilers I'll just say it was refreshing to see someone who looks down on Kenshin for once). I have to say it built up nicely into the climax though, so don’t worry, it was every bit as intense as the others and the fights were every bit as exciting. TL;DR The Legend Ends was a very focused movie, especially compared to Tokyo Inferno, and that’s why I found it to be the best.

If I had to assign individual ratings for each film, I maybe would give them 9.0, 8.0, and 9.5 respectively (and a completely unscientific overall rating of 9.0). Collectively, they were such a great adaption that if you’re a Rurouni Kensin fan by any means, you maybe should watch them.

Rant: What prevented Glee from being a truly great television.

I have a love/hate relationship with Glee. It's one of my only guilty pleasure in the true guilty-feeling sense (I also love some non high-brow TV shows like Teen Wolf, but my love for them is always unashamed), but Glee is the only show which I might feel like scrubbing my brain afterwards and just pretend I didn't watch them.

I think Glee had bad reputation just because it's set in high school and it features singing pop songs (or in some cases, butchering songs) in ubiquitous environments. It just seemed so uncool for people above 20 y.o. who are finally capable of making well-reasoned decisions in life (unlike 100% of the characters in Glee), but Glee's downfall for me is not even about trademark Ryan Murphy's lightning fast nonsensical plots and antics—I've taken it as part of Glee's charm even though it is an acquired taste—but because for me Glee was always just so damn close to being truly compelling television. In its heart, Glee is about outcasts finding their way in the world, following dreams, overcoming odds, tolerance and equality. And Glee was always great at telling compelling teenage-related stories when it remembered its heart. When it’s bad it’s bad, but when it’s good it’s really good and I think a lot of people missed it because of the stigma that the show carries.

First season was generally loved by critics and fans, and it remained its best season. It was a unique blend of a teenage dream—a dream that we can all fit in, and we can reach greatness—and a brightly-lit, tounge-in-cheek satire. Rachel was the epitome of Glee: talented, driven, and misunderstood. Others fit in nicely too, from a jock who struggled to not be the mean bully that everybody expected him to be, a stuttery gothic girl, a church girl overlooked but destined for stardom, a kid in a wheelchair, a closeted gay, and even jocks and cheerleaders who eventually found home in Glee club and in each other. The interactions between the losers and the popular, and how they later overcame their differences was what Glee is all about. They felt like family and it was all that mattered. Glee was never without its more questionable aspects however, like Will's wife faking her pregnancy, but hey it's Glee we're talking about so it comes with the territory. Things got rocky later on, as second season rolled and it started to pay more attention to elaborate popular songs, and less on actual storylines. It never quite reached the heights of season 1 again, but Glee always had its moments of brilliance. And then sometimes it threw it all away, then found them again, and lost it again, then it came back—you get the gist. Glee always trailed the line between greatness and awfulness, and maybe there's no place it rather be.

Disclaimer: I do watch Glee from time to time but I am in no way religious about it, so I haven't watched every single episodes of Glee but I watched quite a lot of them. And yes, sometimes I skip some episodes on purpose because some of them are just bad and I just can't with it. And I critic because I love them, so please don't be mad at me for being passionate! These opinions are my own, and this rant is always intended to be a mere opinion piece. Also, spoilers ahead.

I have a list in my mind of things that prevented Glee from reaching its true potential. I try to keep them broad and general, because there were always a thousand plots going around Glee at any one time (good and bad) and it's just counterproductive to complain about them all. So here it is:

1. The Rachel Berry Problem. Glee loves Rachel Berry. I have no idea why. I did say that Rachel Berry is the epitome of Glee, and at certain level it was true, but it quickly went out of hand. Glee gave Rachel everything. She was selfish, and everybody shone a spotlight on her, said she was special, pat her in the back, and handed everything to her in a silver platter just because she demanded for it. It happened over and over again it was not even funny, and in the last season she was only worried about her future for a few minutes and guess what: eventually the only choice she had to make was between accepting a Broadway part that she forgot she auditioned for, or coming back to NYADA that accepted her again just because she asked for it. In the end, I don't even think Rachel learned anything at all aside from how amazing she is and how she deserves everything in life.

2. The Asian Girl Problem. I feel sorry for Tina. Remember that storyline in season 2 in which Tina wanted to be the lead but everybody's like, "Let Rachel have it. She's in senior year and she needs it more than you, you can have it next year," but guess what? The time never came. She was always sidelined in favor of the other girls until the end. It always seemed odd to me because she seemed to have, "I'm not gonna put up with your s**t," attitude. She's a true team player and the show rarely rewarded her for it. There was also rarely an episode in which her ethnicity isn't mentioned in one way or another, that you start to think that maybe it's part of why.

3. New kids of season 3: The Glee Project winners a.k.a extras. There was a show called The Glee Project and yes, I watched 2 seasons of them. It was a reality-show/competition type spin-off series that aimed to find the next star to appear on Glee. They were told that the winner would get 7 episode arc on Glee (that's A LOT) and maybe a gateway to stardom. It was not. Technically they weren't wrong, because they pointed out that the show wasn't technically a competition but rather televised casting process. And they get their prizes alright, but they never got the chance to really shine on Glee. Most of their roles involving being a walking label who spouts one or two sentences each episode and smile while other people sing. You definitely started to feel sorry for the winners because they were basically glorified extras. Other non-winner new kids on Glee were also treated barely as part of the group that it becomes useless fare to talk about them.

The reason I talked about The Glee Project was because they quite made a big fuzz about finding new kids but ended up not using them as much at all. Also, by that time I was a bit frustrated with Glee that the thought of having fresh infusion of blood excited me, but sadly I was misguided. It was such wasted opportunity.

4. Old kids of season 3: Living In New York Watching the series finale, it was pretty clear that the show was always about the original kids (unless you're Blaine, because Glee loves them Blaine too). At season 3, it wasn't extremely clear to me what the show was trying to be after the big shake-up of graduating kids. To be fair, I guess the show itself wasn't sure either. I'm pretty sure the only reason we get to NY was because the show was afraid of letting Rachel Berry go.

I think the show suffered because it tried to tell 2 stories at once: the new kids (the ones haven't graduated) and the old kids. The fact that it couldn't choose hurt its chances at telling great stories on either of them, and left me disappointed with both.

6. New kids of season 4: What's up with the triangle? Glee came back with 4 new kids: Marley, Ryder, Jake, and Kitty. Three of them were in a love triangle (or love "square" if you count Kitty's deviousness as real love), and it was unengaging. I shouldn't complain about the new kids when I crave for them in the previous season, but the problem was that these kids weren't very good characters and were downright boring by Glee's standards. I quite like Ryder (played by Blake Jenner, winner of 2nd season The Glee Project) and his dyslexia, but for the most part they were normal kids pretending to be outcasts (trapped in a boring love triangle) and they never really gelled with the show.

7. New kids of season 6: Too little too late, The disappearence of Jane Hayward, and Are we a team with The Warblers? If there was one thing that Glee season 6 pulled off, it was the new kids. They embody the wide-eyed hopes and dreams that the original kids of Glee used to have, and it was fun to watch it all unfold all over again. The only regrettable thing was that we only had such a short time with them (6th season is a shortened season of only 13 episodes, and even then the kids didn't get legitimate storyline until halfway into the season). Roderick-Spencer bromanship was nice, so was Mason's coming of age and Madison's blessing and serenity, but it was a little bit too little too late, especially when we talk about Jane! Jane started off the season with guns blazing and winds blowing: she fought her way into Dalton Academy and The Warblers, lost, but rose again and get herself transferred to McKinley to join the New Directions.... only to not be heard of again. She was such a fighter in the first episode, but she was never given her own storyline to showcase herself in later episodes, not even when The Warblers joined New Directions (her reaction was limited to a quick one-sentence remark).

And speaking off The Warblers, the joint New Directions-Warblers came soooo far from the left field that it had not one iota of believability. If it were given time to build up and develop across several episodes of the season, it would be a marvellous arc, but the actual execution was pretty bad. It took place in exactly one episode, I believe? The Warblers were even barely in frame whenever they were in a group together, that it never felt real that they actually joined. And are we pretending that no former members of The Warblers sang anything at Sectionals and were okay with it? I know that the show is about New Directions, but the show just threw any sort of believability out of the window by that point. The heart was in it in season 6, but the execution was lacking that it left me wondering how a perfect season would be like.

8. Old kids of season 6: We never let go of anything. I was tired of the old kids by this time, I even skipped the wedding episode because I just don’t want to see them again. For me, their arc already ended and there were not much that can be gained by revisiting them. It was only by the time its 2-part finale aired that I understood that the show was never about the new kids, or even the club. It was about several kids and one teacher who happened to find their way to each other's life, and changed each other's life. The finale was pure nostalgia and wish fulfillment, but by that time it wasn't even a negative. It was perfectly sweet and bookended the series nicely. Glee is the world where the people you meet in high school are the only people of worth you'll ever meet in your life: it maybe not the most realistic, but it was the world that it lived in. In Glee, nobody’s ever has to let go, and who doesn't want to live like that?

Glee may have lost its steam. By this time, most people maybe don't know or don't care that the show has shown it last episode (it actually has the lowest rating of Glee's season finales), but for me Glee will always be remembered as that show that was always almost on the verge of greatness. Farewell, and good riddance (I never know which one to choose).

Trailer: Pitch Perfect 2

Despite for my love for everything dark, I'm unashamed in my love for Pitch Perfect. So here's a trailer for the sequel! Out May 15th 2015, starring Anna Kendrick, Hailee Steinfeld.

Review: Ex Machina (2015)

Rating: 9.0 of 10

Caleb Smith (Domnhall Gleeson, of Harry Potter’s Weasley fame), a young programmer and employee at Blue Book (a Google-like company), was chosen by lottery to visit his boss’ (Oscar Isaac) house in the middle of nowhere. That’s not the end of story, of course, because he was actually invited to perform modified Turing Test on an AI or Artificial Intelligence (played by Alicia Vikander) that Nathan, the boss built.

Written and directed by first-time director Alex Garland (writer of 28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go, Dredd), Ex Machina is visually rich and has an understated sense of suspense throughout the movie, that I’d propose as proof of talent for his hand in directing as well as writing. The visual of the movie really was suspended a lot by the exquisite natural locations, its dastardly gorgeous house, and juxtaposed beautifully with the clean lines of technology around it.

For those unfamiliar, Turing Test is a test in which a human interacts with a machine, and only if he or she cannot distinguish the machine’s response as human or not, then the machine can be considered as true AI. Ex Machina discusses a lot about the how, why, and other philosophical musings around AI--not an uncommon circumstance in a sci-fi movie, but it is quite unique because it doesn’t lecture or present itself in an unnatural way. It’s just that; A discussion. It does have a love story, but in the way that enriches the story instead of traps it. Ex Machina felt like a truly smart movie that doesn’t look down on its audience and more so than not, Ex Machina answers itself in a truly compelling way.

Alicia Vikander was perfect as Ava the AI, as the kind that exudes innocence and raw emotion appropriate for her character. Gleeson and Isaac also perfectly portrayed two programmers on the verge of great discovery--one as the inventor and one as an unassuming component of the test--and the interaction between them was just fascinating to watch. 

There were also other crazy brilliant stuff in it, like the impromptu dance scene. (Not gonna say anything about it, and I’d say don’t Google it because you’d really don’t want to be spoiled. Just watch the movie and come back to me.)

TL;DR In the end, Ex Machina is truly a thought-provoking movie because not only it’s a great thriller built around brilliant science-fictional discussion, but also because it felt real. Aside from her flashy skeleton, Ava really felt like she might be the next Google project a decade from today. Maybe she will be.

Review: People Like Us (2012)

Rating: 8.0 of 10

People Like Us is story about one Sam (Chris Pine), a twenty-something salesman who had to come home for his father's funeral who he hated, and discovered that his father had another family and another daughter (Elizabeth Banks) that he knew nothing about.

Imagine the brattiness of Captain James Kirk from 2009's Star Trek (who Chris Pine also played), put the character in a funeral and family drama, and basically you'll get something exactly like People Like Us. The lead character Sam was something that all of us like to hate: an alpha-type, cocky, over-achiever, money-chasing salesman who would put a bulldozer through a church and the books of law if it fit his needs. Elizabeth Banks' Frankie, meanwhile, was something of a different breed: a single mother struggling to meet her needs and put her life in order.

People Like Us is a simple story about people trying to connect with each other. No gimmicks, no obvious twist-and turns (aside from the core premise); it's just one of those quietly engaging films about people who have no idea why they're doing what they're doing. We get to slowly understand the father and what his family went through his life, as we get to know Sam's mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her past, his job, Sam's childhood, and Frankie's life in general. Those details, scattered throughout the movie like a puzzle of life, put layers into the characters in a seemingly obvious family drama. It put a sense of earnestness in an otherwise heavy-handed film.

TL;DR Written and directed by Alex Kurtzman (yes, that Alex Kurtzman. Roberto Orci, his screenwriting partner also wrote in this film.), People Like Us is not a perfect movie, but it's a surprisingly layered one. In all honesty, your enjoyment of this movie might depend on how much you tolerate Chris Pine's Sam (Olivia Wilde is still underused, though), but if you like family drama it's not a bad movie to spend your time with.

Review: The Martian (2015)

Rating: 9.5 of 10

Space is dangerous, but it's also endearing.

Never the fact has ever been more apparent in the movies, than in The Martian. Set in the near future, The Martian is about a group of astronauts in the early days of human exploration on the Red Planet who were forced to leave because of a heavy storm--leaving one of its members, Mark Watney (Matt Damon), on the surface. For months, intelligence and ingenuity were the only things keeping him alive until he could be rescued.

The Martian, for me, was an important movie because it showed what being an astronaut really is about. Space is a dangerous thing, and the movie never downplay on that, but The Martian also puts space in an endearing light that makes us never wonder why did we ever go to space in the first place. Because the answer will always be: why not? Why not be the first? Why not find out, for the greater human race? For anyone intimate with space travel, when Watney gave lecture about being an astronaut and basically says, "When you're up there, at some point you're gonna think you're gonna die and maybe you will," you know that it's 100% true but you also know that doesn't mean you don't wanna go up there in a heartbeat. It's hard to depict a balanced portrayal about the dangers of space, but The Martian nailed it.

Science is also definitely the hero in this film, which is a surprisingly rare occurrence in popular fiction. Not only did Watney repeatedly was shown applying basic science concept to solve his problem, the film also pretty accurately depicted the workings of NASA; how astronauts, ground control, and teams of scientists work hard and thoroughly to reach a common goal. Aside from being very capable, scientists and astronauts in this film were also pretty humorous--and it's important because real scientists love their jokes too, but are almost never depicted as such. It's a very science-positive movie and I appreciated it.

At one point in the movie, Matt Damon's character, who was a botanist exclaimed, "Mars will come to fear my botany powers!" asserting his conviction to grow food on the surface of Mars--something that hadn't been done by any humans before, ever. That, among many other scenes in the movie, was a clear example of the giddiness, humor, and determination of scientists existed in the film.

But in the very core of the movie, The Martian is about human’s determination to live, that everyone can relate to.

The Martian also nailed it with the casting. Matt Damon has the perfect charisma and cockiness about him, but I mostly want to commend the casting choices for the other characters. The most prominent members of the space crew were women (Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara), and at least half of other supporting characters were of minorities (of African, Chinese, Mexican, and Indian descent). Hollywood movies about space can too frequently feel a bit jingoistic (with NASA obviously being an American organization), but The Martian never felt like that the slightest. From the start, The Martian is a humanistic effort.

Directed by veteran director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus, Black Hawk Down), The Martian looked beautiful, and the movie flowed beautifully as well. The threats were terrifying as hell, and there were no fake or newfangled technologies so everything stayed grounded. But despite all the hardship Watney was against, it’s a strangely hopeful film.

TL;DR The movie is an obvious bait for people like me--who loves movies, space, and science in the equal amount--but it's also a damn good thriller about survival that everyone could enjoy.

Music Shoutout: Mark Ronson - Uptown Special

No one could escape the popularity of Uptown Funk. No one. Hand delivered to us by featuring artist Bruno Mars, it was one of those popular singles that came out of left field--entirely unexpected in today's music climate, but devoured by all.

English musician, DJ, and record producer Mark Ronson is the man behind the album, Uptown Special. And Uptown Special is nothing if not a groovy work of art.

In actuality, Uptown Funk is my least favorite song of the album (I know, right?). Not because it’s a bad song--it’s an excellent song--but because for me, that particular song aims for “flashy” in the ways that the other songs from the album don’t try to be. The rest are less flashy (but in absolutely no way are less funky) and they show how meticulous the actual production were.

A smoothie of R&B, funk, and soul with contemporary touch, Uptown Special is filled with guest stars of famous and lesser names alike: Bruno Mars, Stevie Wonder, Mystikal, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow, Keyone Starr, Jeff Bhasker, and Ronson treated each of them as crucial ingredients in each of their songs--but never outshines the song itself. 

Highlights of the album, excluding Uptown Funk. for me are I Can’t Lose (ft. Keyone Starr), In Case of Fire (ft. Jeff Bhasker), and the many versions of Crack In The Pearl. While the album was definitely derived from aforementioned genres, it’s amazing how versatile and ageless the album is, but I definitely think the album is best consumed in its entirety. Basically if Mark Ronson is a curator of talents, then Uptown Special is a museum that you can dance into. Weird analogy, I know, but I’m perfectly okay with that.