Project Hail Mary, and not talking much at dinner after the movie
In this edition also: a graveyard of the unmentioned; and Kurosawa's autobiography
Yesterday I went to see the new Project Hail Mary adaptation. It was good! And I don’t have much more to say about it. It was an effective adaptation of the book, and a fun and visually striking movie in its own right. Ryan Gosling brings a lot of charisma and humanity to his role as Dr. Grace, the grade-school science teacher trapped in space. Apart from one scene in the middle climax where the drama wasn’t justified (why could they remote-trigger the ball drop, but not the winch rewind?) all the pieces fit together cleanly and tell a tight story. Like my friend Solariego said afterward, it’s two and a half hours, but it really doesn’t feel like it.
As much as I enjoyed it though, I was left afterward with very little to ponder or talk about. Why is that? I don’t think that it’s that the movie is bad, or unenjoyable: when we went to see The Bride, which I think doesn’t quite hold together as a movie despite doing a bunch of things well, we were left for days afterwards picking over its bones and thinking about what it did right and wrong. Nor do I think it’s that Hail Mary is too good: Marty Supreme, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Silent Friend are all great movies from this year that left me with connections aplenty to think about and talk about.
I’m a bit stumped here. I find myself tempted to say things like “well, maybe it’s because it didn’t have a Big Concept”, but I think this is just me hiding my incomprehension in words that I can’t define, or picking another synonym for the thing that I’m failing to explain.
And perhaps I should caveat that this could just be a me thing. Ars Technica put out a pretty extensive article discussing the linguistic issues of first contact and how they’re portrayed or ignored in the movie. So clearly someone else found some meat to chew on! Maybe I didn’t have the right receptors or thought-connections for this movie to light my sparklers.
Still I think that some movies are just talking about more than other movies, or talking in a way that is itself novel. That novelty, or at least novelty-for-me, is a big part of what I’m looking for in all media. A fun game is good, but a game that is fun in a way that I haven’t seen before is way better.
What do you think? What kinds of movies get you talking?
Here below the fold I lay out a graveyard of movies that I watched, and might have had something to say about, but did not get around to blogging about. Please take my silence on these movies as my own failure to sit down and write, and not a criticism on the movies. Most were great!
Winter in Sokcho: A girl in Sokcho, Korea has never known her French father, who left before she was born. A French painter moves in to the guesthouse she works at, and becomes the canvas for her feelings.
Un Poeta: A poet, alcoholic, and former professor struggles to put his life back together and bring a budding young talent to light.
Hoppers: Avatar, but for beavers.
The Bride: Frankenstein’s monster brings a woman to life to be his Bride. Little does he know she’s also haunted by the ghost of Mary Shelley.
Silent Friend: Do plants speak? Could we possibly understand each other?
Dust Bunny: Mads Mikkelsen, high-end hitman, refuses to take on the monster under your bed.
Rental Family: Brendan Fraser will pretend to be whoever you need him to be. Can false pretenses create real connection?
Oh, in other news I read Akira Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography. It was good! Thanks to Carl for the recommendation — if you’re looking for skilled designers to help you with your design issues, give Frog House a ring. Kurosawa recounts scenes from his life from earliest memories in the 1910s through to his directing Rashomon in 1950. And what a life! Walking hours in the morning to take kendo lessons from master swordsmen, witnessing the horror of the Great Kanto Earthquake, working as a painter in the silent film era. He saw and felt a lot, and lays it out for the reader with the sensitivity and awe for natural phenomena that would become characteristic of his directorial style.
That’s all I have for today. Until next time!