Movies this week

The Martian
This was more fun than I expected. It was nearly a week ago but J and I are still wandering around the house singing Starman. Most excellent use of a song. The movie was completely predictable of course, but it didn't hit too many false notes for me. I enjoyed the smart aleck responses, I enjoyed the declaration that Mars was going to fear this man's botany powers, and I was happy to finally see something with Jessica Chastain in it. It isn't a life changing movie, but it wasn't filled with fools, in fact there wasn't even the one, and I was quite happy to spend $2.25 on it.

Spectre
J and I have been waiting to watch Spectre for months. Except for the joy of uninterrupted Daniel Craig for 2h 38 min there is little to recommend the movie. It turns up fantastically foolish dialogue- for example at one point Moneypenny tells Bond "You have a secret, something you can't tell anyone because you don't trust them". No shit. Any other really basic words that you'd like to explain to us in the middle of what's supposed to be a spy thriller? So boring. Once you've seen Daniel Craig in a swimsuit every movie without that is a wasted opportunity. There might have been one joke that worked, but in general the dialogue fell flat. Also there were too many flashbacks and throwbacks to previous movies, we heard about Vesper Lynd and Le Chiffre more than there was exposition about the villain of the piece. It seemed kind of a waste of Monica Belluci, to give her so little to do in the movie. Could no one come up with an independent story-line for this movie. Also this train hurtling into Morocco was most suspicious, seeming to carry only spies, and wealthy Europeans on vacation, the two being inter-changeable I suppose. So nice of them to take the movie to North Africa and throw in a black driver at least.