Getting Outside Our Element

Science is awesome.  Take the recent discovery of gravitational waves as an example.  Even if you are not a science person you can still take a moment to appreciate how cool it is that we have learned so much about our world and yet are still always learning new things.  This idea is what makes science fiction movies captivating to their audiences, as people cannot help but love learning new things.  However, for those of you that are not 100% into sci-fi does not mean that movies about science can't appeal to you.

Based on the novel by Andy Weir,  The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott (2015) is a perfect example of how movies can use science as an important part of the plot without going over our heads and totally geeking us out.  Unlike movies such as Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, The Martian does not rely on the audience's understanding of basic astrophysics and space-time.  Instead, this movie uses its scientific elements as a catalyst for the action without overloading the viewer with information.

The Martian portrays a team of scientists who have traveled to Mars to collect data for research.   After a disastrous storm, the team assumes that one of their men, a botanist named Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon), must have been killed, forcing them to leave his body behind so the rest of the team can return to Earth and complete the mission.  However, Watney survived the storm, leaving him stranded with only the supplies brought to Mars by previous missions and no means of return to Earth.  To stay alive, Watney must use his botanist skills and other scientific knowledge to survive long enough to be rescued.

Via Slant

The movie successfully appeases both our geeky side and the side that craves adventure, as we watch Watney's struggle to survive and his team's attempts to make a heroic rescue while the rest of Earth watches anxiously.  In his battle against the harsh Martian climate, Watney records daily journals to send to NASA, in which he incorporate humor and optimism that keep the film fun to watch, rather than purely a man-vs-nature story.

Via MTV

As the audience, we do not get bored of watching Watney's character meander around his shelter while he comes up with a plan, as the movie gives us a break from Watney to explore both the happenings aboard the spacecraft carrying the rest of Watney's team and those at NASA monitoring Watney.  This look into how the most important people of a highly regarded government agency handle such a tough situation also provides comic relief to the viewer, despite the severity of the consequences that could result from a wrong call.

The seriousness demanded by the action of the movie alongside the comic relief offered by a variety of characters make The Martian enjoyable to watch because we do not get tired out by the events. Likewise, the many fields of science exploited throughout the movie serve to not only keep us engaged as they hold the plot together, but also to inspire by commanding respect after seeing how useful and crucial knowledge can be.

What Is So Captivating About Unrequited Love?

Do you believe in soulmates?  Is there such a thing as true love?  Is there such a thing as fate?  Do you believe in love at first sight?  

Whether we want to admit it or not, we have probably all either been asked or at least thought about these questions.  Our opinions about an idea as complex as love have likely adapted as we have experienced more of the world, and will continue to change as we get older.  With Valentine's Day only a few days away, these complicated questions seem to be haunting us at every corner.  So what better way to try and answer them than with a movie, in which we can experience another person's relationship without any of the heartbreak that is potentially to follow. 

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Marc Webb's 2009 film (500) Days of Summer tackles many of these questions in classic romantic comedy fashion, with the twist of a non-chronological sequence of events.  The movie takes the classic "boy meets girl" story and writes it so the audience gets to see attitudes about love that cover the spectrum from cynical to overly optimistic.  The movie tells the story of Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel.  In a sentence, the hour and a half long film could be summarized by saying that Tom falls for the beautiful and enigmatic Summer, who fails to love Tom back.  Of course, this would be a horrible generalization, as the importance of the movie lies not in who ends up with whom, but how the characters deal with their feelings.

Tom's character, who writes slogans for greeting cards, falls head-over-heels for a girl he believes to be out of his league.  And she is.  But not for some ethereal beauty, or overwhelming popularity, but because Summer seems to be playing a different game.  While his infatuation leads to wanting a long term relationship, Summer seeks out a causal fling.  The two are unable to agree what love really is and how to appease it, causing them to argue often.  

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After many fights over the definition of their relationship and what the future holds, the couple eventually grow apart, leading the characters in opposite directions.  Tom goes spiraling into depression, while Summer is more than happy to be on her own.  However, as time progresses, it seems that both Summer and Tom were somewhat wrong about their individual approach to love, allowing them to validate the other's actions.  

When the two reunite down the road, they are able to see that their actions obviously had a greater impact on the other's perception of the world than they could have imagined.  The movie forces us to realize that regardless the outcome, relationships have a way of changing our minds because we must learn from other people to make them successful.  Tom is able to become less naive, while Summer is able to be more open with her heart.  This movie makes for the perfect Valentine's Day story because it leaves us on a happy note, even if it is not necessarily the ending we wanted.  It also incorporates humor, a cute story, and an incredible soundtrack, making it the perfect movie for any time of the year.  

Via The Odyssey

Rules Are Made to be Broken

A common theme throughout this blog is the importance of a good plot.  Good plots keep us engaged by giving us enough information to know what is going on, but constantly keeping us asking questions, making inferences, and paying close attention to see if we were right.  The best plots are the ones that blow our minds when we reach the end of the movie.

David Fincher's 1999 film Fight Club is one of those movies that has you questioning the events throughout the duration of the movie, but when we reach the end, leaves us amazed at how seamlessly all of the events came together.  Fight Club is one of the most frequently quoted movies of the 90s—think about it... even if you have not seen this movie, you still probably know the first rule of fight club—but the reason these lines became so iconic in the first place is because of their context.

Via The Odyssey 

The film portrays a man (played by Edward Norton) who narrates the mundane events of his life as a product recall specialist.  Right off the bat, we see that there is something off about this character, as his insomnia and inability to cope with his frustration regarding consumerism lead to his attendance of a multitude of support groups for diseases he does not have.

One day while on a flight for business, the narrator encounters a man called Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) with whom he is immediately intrigued by.  Meeting up after the flight, Tyler and the narrator engage in a strange conversation in which Tyler demands the narrator hit him as hard as he can, eventually leading to the two getting into a fight.  However, the experience is more about the satisfaction of hitting someone than the pain of being hit back, so the pair begin a fighting group for men to alleviate some of their stress.  This eventually grows into Fight Club, a selective, underground group led by Tyler and motivated by his avant garde theories on life.

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As his participation in Fight Club allows the narrator to break out of the monotony, we as the viewers begin to notice strange similarities between the narrator and Tyler, until finally the action brings us back to where the movie began and we remember that we have been watching a flashback. Everything makes sense at this point, but it does not happen until the final scene of the movie.

So why wait so long to tie everything together?

The beauty of a bookended plot is that it forces us to go back in our minds and recall details from the beginning of the film that seemed negligible at first, but now make sense as to why the director decided to include them.  In Fight Club, these details include things like the narrator's insomnia and the coincidences which brought the narrator and Tyler together.  When the final scene brings all these details together, the audience is able to have the same epiphany that the narrator has without having been in the loop already.  The careful crafting in the plot and the thought-provoking statements often rattled off by Tyler make this film a cult classic that will not get old no matter how many times you have seen it.