No.172 : The Martian (2015)

The Martian at the IMDb

As my regular reader will attest we’re not fans of the tent pole film here at the Definitive Article Movie Blog. We avoid the obvious and search out the niche films that you’ve never hear of, or have no interest in ever seeking out. We don’t deal in absolutes however, so I thought we’d have a look at ‘The Martian’ which has become my favourite Definite Article film.

Quiet at the back! We’ve never covered ‘The Shining’ or ‘The Warriors’ and on a Google search on the highest profile IMDb film that we’ve reviewed, the result the passable but hardly stellar ‘The Impossible’; so why ‘The Martian’? Well, it’s just so damn good and immersive. I must have watched it about four times and every time I’ve been suckered in early on, on E4+1 or similar and stayed for the duration. It’s like ‘Clear and Present Danger’ in that its structure demands you watch for just another five minutes, and another and another and before you know it, two hours have passed, and your pizza has dried up.

The film is based on Andy Weir’s book which I read and enjoyed having watched the film. The book is superior in that it delves deeper into the science and avoids the large gaps that the film inevitably has to, to ensure a two hour run time. The film is however a triumph in translating the book and in making the science accessible. I just hope that one day they release a ten hour version of the film so that all the tiny details can be explored.

Anyway, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a botanist astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars after he’s thought dead when a storm causes his crew to evacuate in a hurry. He survives though after his blood and an aerial spike block the hole that stabbed him through his health monitor and caused his crew to think him dead. His quandary is that he has no way to contact NASA and it will be four years before a rescue mission can be sent, and he only has food for one. His resolution is to science the shit out of things and he proceeds to do so in a variety of plausible if slightly fortunate ventures, that include salvaging the ancient Pathfinder equipment that is luckily close by.

That’s not to say its an easy ride, as the harvesting of a crop of potatoes takes the best part of an hour with every success well earned and enjoyed by the audience. Meanwhile back on earth a cavalcade of celebrities, including Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig, try to came up with a way to bring our man home against a soundtrack of disco favourites.

Towards the end the progress is on fast forward somewhat with Watney’s 3600 mile journey to the new launch site and his trip back to earth covered with indecent haste. I imagine the editor must have had a nightmare though, as the early work in setting the challenges had to be offset with the eventual payoffs.

I liked the NASA stuff with the internal politics and budget concerns as much a threat as Martian storms and potato blight. Some bits were a bit on the nose with Donald Glover’s explaining a slingshot to NASA bigwigs seeming somewhat unlikely - I’ve heard of them and I’ve only seen Star Trek. Director Ridley Scott was obviously aware of the need to keep his audience informed and for that reason I can accept the conceit.

I always enjoy the crew of the Hermes scenes the most with the camaraderie and the unquestioning sacrifice for a lost colleague the kind of stuff that always gives me the gulps. Who knows in the real world if they would risk the lives of many and spend the billions of dollars to give one man another what? 50 odd years at most? I’m glad they did in the film - the scenes of the crew being reunited and the world gasping as one were excellent, and as big a ‘oh yeah’ as when Rocky Balboa chopped the big Russian down.

Well done ‘The Martian’ your definitive crown is well earned.

THE Tag Line : A Mars for 581 days will help you work,rest and make a good film  -  90%

No.171 : The Dirt (2019)

The Dirt at the IMDb

I’d read the book ‘The Dirt’ a few years back and rally liked its sleazy, grimy feel, so I was looking forward to this Netflix produced movie version. It’s pretty good but not a patch on the book, which leaves you needing a shower after reading a few pages.

The film follows the book closely and uses it’s same narrative devices with characters breaking the fourth wall to explain situations or to give opinions on the events unfolding. In the book the band members all write separate chapters and often contradict each other on key events. This is harder to show on film, so at times it does seem a bit of an unstructured mess - that’s not always a bad thing as the chaos and mayhem intended come across vividly.

The film opens with a young Nikki Sixx leaving his family for the rock and roll lifestyle. He’s wearing a Judge Dredd t-shirt from the ‘Judge Death Lives’ story line that post dates the timeline being shown - I hope someone got fired for that howler!

After the usual round of trashy gigs and failed auditions they end up with the starting line up for their band ‘Motely Crue’ - sorry can’t find the umlauts. After five minutes of struggle the band are soon playing stadium gigs and are behaving very badly.

There are some funny scenes with them trashing hotel rooms and sniffing ants with Ozzie Osbourne and oh so many groupies. There are more tits on show here than in the RSPB annual survey.

The band soon starts to fracture with their relationships with each other and their partners failing, leading to break ups and fall outs. They all get sober and fall off the wagon before splitting up and then reforming. It’s basically every rock band bio-pic that you’ve ever seen.

The cast is pretty good with most of them unknown to me apart from Mick Marrs who was played by Ramsay Bolton and their manager who was played by Gale Boetticher off ‘Breaking Bad’ - that’s were the drugs came from!

The Netflix description says the film is “Unflinching” and that’s true - the band come across as a shower of self centred dicks with few redeeming features. That’s good in terms of it being an honest piece of work but you have very little invested in them - a tour bus explosion wouldn’t have been a bad thing!

Of course as a bio-pic you have to stick to the facts and that is done to the smallest detail with the closing credits showing real and recreated images of the same event. It’s good they went to that level of detail with the authenticity, but they could maybe have delved a bit deeper into the band’s motivations and the consequences of their actions. Still you don’t watch a Crue bio-pic for some deep naval gazing.

There was a decent budget in play with the costumes and sets all well done. There were limits however, with the stadium shows looking a bit light and Tommy’s rotating drums cage just being a couple of metal bars over his head.

I liked that real people such as Ozzie and Heather Locklear were shown and there were some genuinely funny moments. I especially liked the A&R man turning to camera to say ‘Don’t leave your girlfriend with Motely Crue - they’ll fuck her”.

There were a couple of bits that took you out of the story such as when the voice over tells you certain characters aren’t going to be shown in the film - I don’t know why that was needed as it wasn’t billed as a documentary. Still I guess it’s in keeping with the book’s ‘warts and all’ approach.

I did think that the bands struggle to the top was a bit quick and they missed out the best story from the book where they all bought breakfast burritos before going home so they could stick their dicks in them to prevent their girlfriends smelling the groupies on them. I guess smelling of a McMuffin was fine!

Overall this was a good effort. It wasn’t quite as sleazy as I‘d have liked with the band looking a bit clean cut in places. They did however not shirk from the sex and drugs, with the rock n roll also present although they didn’t do my favourite Crue song ‘Wild Side’.

Well worth a look on you lock down Netflix odyssey.

THE Tag Line : Needs More Dirt!   73%