Film Review: The Martian (2015)

Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is a very smart man in a very bad situation. A member of a manned mission to Mars, he was struck by a piece of debris during a storm which separated him from the rest of his crew. Believing that Watney had been killed, and faced with the agonising choice between leaving him or being stranded themselves, his crew left and started their long, mournful journey back to Earth. Fortunately, Watney survived. Unfortunately, he's alone on Mars with limited supplies, no way of contacting his crew or NASA, and no means of escape. Faced with the prospect of a long stay on a dead planet, with eventual starvation the most likely outcome, Watney would be forgiven for giving in to despair. Instead, he becomes a regular Robinson Crusoe on Mars (though not the actual Robinson Crusoe on Mars) and uses the tools at hand and his scientific know-how to try and survive, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him.

Film Review: Interstellar (2014)

When Eames (Tom Hardy) said "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling" in Christopher Nolan's Inception, it may have seemed like little more than a throwaway quip, but that no longer seems to be the case. Nolan seems to have adopted it as a personal credo, since that sentiment is all over his latest project, Interstellar. Nolan returns to science fiction with a story that leaves dreams, Gotham and the Earth itself behind for the far reaches of space. It sends a small group of scientists, and audiences, on a journey that involves intergalactic travel, wormholes and a crisis that threatens to destroy all of humanity. It's epic filmmaking on a galactic scale, full of wonder and ambition, but the bigger canvas brings Nolan's flaws into sharper relief.

Film Review: The Monuments Men (2014)

The core argument of The Monuments Men is one that is provocative in the abstract, though less than compelling as the driving force for a lavishly produced war drama. In telling the true story of art scholars who went to the European Front to find, identify and protect great works of art stolen by the Nazis, co-star, co-writer and director George Clooney reframes the conflict as not just being between conflicting ideologies. It was also a battle for history, and the Nazi effort to steal art - and, later in the war, to destroy it - was an attempt to rewrite the very history of the world. In that context, the efforts of the Monuments Men to protect the past seem important, even noble, rather than something flip or insubstantial when compared to the death happening around them.

You've Got To Accentuate The Positive: What's Good About The 2013 Oscar Nominations?

It's very easy to be cynical about the Oscars, especially since at their worst, they're little more than a smug, self-satisfied display of onanism practiced by people who already have too many reasons to feel pleased with themselves. This year's ceremony could potentially be even worse thanks to the presence of host Seth Macfarlane, a man who is the very embodiment of smug, self-satisfied onanism. At their best, though, the Academy Awards act as a celebration of the pageantry and magic of the movies, and even a disastrous slate of nominations can provide for plenty of discourse, and a car-crash of an awards ceremony promises to be great fodder for the rubberneckers of the world.

Film Review: Promised Land (2012)

Steve Butler (Matt Damon) is a very calm, measured man. He has to be. As a representative of a corporation that specialises in the mining and production of natural gas, it is his job to convince people to sell the drilling rights to their property. In essence, he has to persuade them that any hope they might have of eking out an existence any other way is now non-existent, that the life of the American farmer has died, and selling is the only way forward. With his partner Sue (Frances McDormand), Steve goes from dying town to dying town, promising salvation whilst smoothing over any tricky questions people might have about how safe the extraction process (a dirty business known as "fracking") actually is. You don't convince people to give up their old way of life by being argumentative or difficult: easy-going is the way to go.

Film Review: The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Robert Ludlum only wrote three novels featuring the character of Jason Bourne (1980's The Bourne Identity, 1986's The Bourne Supremacy and 1990's The Bourne Ultimatum) yet the character has had a remarkably virile literary and cinematic afterlife. Following the success of Doug Liman's 2002 film adaptation of the Bourne Identity (which admittedly bore almost no resemblance to the original novel) and with the permission of Ludlum's estate, Eric Van Lustbader revived the character for a subsequent five novels, with a sixth due later this year, continuing the story of the character far beyond what his creator intended.

Film Review: Contagion (2011)

It is perhaps only fitting, given its story of a deadly pandemic and the efforts of scientists and officials to contain it, that "clinical" is the only appropriate word for Contagion. It sets its stall out very early on when a business woman named Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a trip to Hong Kong, falls ill, then dies coughing and spluttering. The seizure that marks the beginning of the end of her life is treated in a cold, distant and silent fashion that is deeply unnerving, as is the scene in which her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) is informed of the tragedy. There's something painfully real about the efficient, calculated way in which the doctor informs him of the news, as well as Mitch's complete inability to comprehend what is happening to him.

Film Review: True Grit (2010)

In Henry Hathaway's 1969 version of True Grit, Deputy Marshal Reuben "Rooster" J. Cogburn, played by John Wayne in an Oscar-winning performance, is introduced to the audience when he helps unload a group of prisoners from the back of wagon. When one stubborn prisoner refuses to move, Cogburn knocks him off, to the delight of the crowd that has gathered to watch. It's a fun scene that sets up Rooster as a prickly rogue, but one who gets the job done. In the new adaptation of Charles Portis' novel, Rooster (Jeff Bridges) is introduced when Mattie Ross (Haillee Steinfeld) finds him occupying an outhouse, having relocated there from a saloon, and he drunkenly informs Mattie that he will be in there some time.