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The Martian
An astronaut is stranded on mars due to natural occurrence thought to be dead but using his skills and personality he tries to survive and reconnect with Earth.
Matt Damon is an interesting actor. He is the only actor who is the closest to Dicaprio in terms of career and high profile nature than any other actor. Someone like Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt are famous due to their looks and high profile celebrity that they have created. Johnny Depp kind of became a default movie star in early/late 90s when there is no one else to occupy that vacuum and Brad Pitt had some celebrity but it sort of blew up with his marriage to Angelina Jolie. Its really Matt Damon and DiCaprio who are popular because of movies and not just because of celebrity. Even George Clooney is famous among Hollywood circles for transition from Tv to movies. So his Tv friends would rather root for him than some movie star who got lucky with Titanic.But he is not this major box office draw. He is celebrity famous. You gotta be handsome and do perfume ads in Europe to be famous.
Matt Damon has worked with all the high profile directors like Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan , Gilliam etc. His career sort of rivals that of DiCaprio but there are two problems. 1) Matt Damon doesn't have a titanic in his resume 2) His acting skills are not suited for epic filmmaking. This heavily handicapped his consistency. You will not be hired by Innaritu to make Revenant if you look like Matt Damon. Because no one will believe him as a frontiersman because he shows up at Jimmy Kimmel shows and dances on Ellen. I can understand the need for him to do that because lot of people don't know this but Bourne identity sort of made Matt Damon relevant and his career was on a downward spiral up until that movie.
Then why does Matt Damon has only 170K tagged pictures on instagram where as DiCaprio has 2 million tags on instagram ? whats wrong with this picture ? well machismo, misogynistic roles and association with top directors consistently is whats missing. Matt Damon just doesn't fit in period roles. Especially 19th century or early 20th century roles.More over he does not have a manly screen presence required for dramas like DDL or Bale. So it sort of puts him completely in a different plateau than DiCaprio. He doesn't have a single role like Patrick Bateman or Jordan Belfort. I think the more important point is that he cannot be an anti hero with his screen presence and dialogue delivery.
I clearly remember during the 2014/15 Oscars this movie and revenant are being campaigned for by 20th century fox. Martian sadly was considered more as a well done commercial movie with positive message and revenant was an unflinching prestige picture.So even fox kinda given this movie second priority and of course having a commercial director like Ridley Scott doesn't help.All this points aside this movie is well done space drama with burst of positiveness. This movie is much more about the personality of astronaut played by Damon and teamwork to get one man safely back to earth. Its well done with no risks except jumping right into the story rather than setting it up. By the time the movie starts we are moments away from taking off and its pretty refreshing to see a movie not taking time of introduce the characters.
It always surprises me to see how accurate the executives in Hollywood are. They know whom to attribute the success of a movie to. For example, they know that the success of Logan has everything to do with James Mangold, so fox gave him reigns to make ford v Ferrari with 2 of the biggest stars right now. They know that Mad max success has nothing to do with Tom Hardy and everything to do with direction and visuals of the movie. So he wasn't being offered 100 million dollar epics.He had to either hop on the anti hero superhero band wagon with venom or make interesting projects. He started doing both. Think about it, a guy who had revenant and mad max in the same year, is doing a movie with Josh Trank. How crazy is that ? They know that the box office success of aviator/gangs of New York/ departed/ inception/shutter island/wolf of Wallstreet/revenant is solely due to Dicaprio. So, for the most part if a project is being made of the scale of these I don't think studios would even wanna give it to anybody. They either wait for DiCaprio or shelve the project. So actors like Matt Damon/Christian bale are right behind him in the pecking order and they get leftovers. So, they either have to choose to wait for projects he has turned down or go in a completely different direction. Luckily Damon doesn't suite most of those parts. But Bale suits them but Bale decided to pursue a thespian career with sprinkles of prestige risky movies. Damon, since he is not a thespian is doing movies with well written scripts and action movies in between.All these sort of handicapped him from being consistent. I think it is absolutely possible to be as successful as DiCaprio without having titanic under your belt. Will smith between 1997 and 2010 is the prime example.Its just that hollywood is too scared to take chances in establishing stars through auteur route and instead choose to put them in giant popcorn movies like battlefield/John Carter/King Arthur and see what sticks.
So all in all its a good movie with heartwarming scenes and perfect casting in Matt Damon. But it doesn't take much risks.Its performance at 2015 oscars aside the message of team work and ignoring the differences is well conveyed. Supporting cast on space has nothing much to do but the cast on earth is very good. A simple way to explain this movie even though its a blockbuster is martian is like a fruit juice where as movies like the dark knight or wolf of wall street or revenant are more like drugs. You know they are bad for you but you can't help yourself but use them.And also something like frozen movie gives you happiness or a well made comedy.But you get the same thing by chatting with old friends or eating your favorite food or visiting a new place. Where as a cocktail of misogyny + masculinity + thrill + criminal behavior mix is something very rare. You can't get that in a Disney ride. You need something that only some movies can give.
An astronaut is stranded on mars due to natural occurrence thought to be dead but using his skills and personality he tries to survive and reconnect with Earth.
Matt Damon is an interesting actor. He is the only actor who is the closest to Dicaprio in terms of career and high profile nature than any other actor. Someone like Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt are famous due to their looks and high profile celebrity that they have created. Johnny Depp kind of became a default movie star in early/late 90s when there is no one else to occupy that vacuum and Brad Pitt had some celebrity but it sort of blew up with his marriage to Angelina Jolie. Its really Matt Damon and DiCaprio who are popular because of movies and not just because of celebrity. Even George Clooney is famous among Hollywood circles for transition from Tv to movies. So his Tv friends would rather root for him than some movie star who got lucky with Titanic.But he is not this major box office draw. He is celebrity famous. You gotta be handsome and do perfume ads in Europe to be famous.
Matt Damon has worked with all the high profile directors like Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan , Gilliam etc. His career sort of rivals that of DiCaprio but there are two problems. 1) Matt Damon doesn't have a titanic in his resume 2) His acting skills are not suited for epic filmmaking. This heavily handicapped his consistency. You will not be hired by Innaritu to make Revenant if you look like Matt Damon. Because no one will believe him as a frontiersman because he shows up at Jimmy Kimmel shows and dances on Ellen. I can understand the need for him to do that because lot of people don't know this but Bourne identity sort of made Matt Damon relevant and his career was on a downward spiral up until that movie.
Then why does Matt Damon has only 170K tagged pictures on instagram where as DiCaprio has 2 million tags on instagram ? whats wrong with this picture ? well machismo, misogynistic roles and association with top directors consistently is whats missing. Matt Damon just doesn't fit in period roles. Especially 19th century or early 20th century roles.More over he does not have a manly screen presence required for dramas like DDL or Bale. So it sort of puts him completely in a different plateau than DiCaprio. He doesn't have a single role like Patrick Bateman or Jordan Belfort. I think the more important point is that he cannot be an anti hero with his screen presence and dialogue delivery.
I clearly remember during the 2014/15 Oscars this movie and revenant are being campaigned for by 20th century fox. Martian sadly was considered more as a well done commercial movie with positive message and revenant was an unflinching prestige picture.So even fox kinda given this movie second priority and of course having a commercial director like Ridley Scott doesn't help.All this points aside this movie is well done space drama with burst of positiveness. This movie is much more about the personality of astronaut played by Damon and teamwork to get one man safely back to earth. Its well done with no risks except jumping right into the story rather than setting it up. By the time the movie starts we are moments away from taking off and its pretty refreshing to see a movie not taking time of introduce the characters.
It always surprises me to see how accurate the executives in Hollywood are. They know whom to attribute the success of a movie to. For example, they know that the success of Logan has everything to do with James Mangold, so fox gave him reigns to make ford v Ferrari with 2 of the biggest stars right now. They know that Mad max success has nothing to do with Tom Hardy and everything to do with direction and visuals of the movie. So he wasn't being offered 100 million dollar epics.He had to either hop on the anti hero superhero band wagon with venom or make interesting projects. He started doing both. Think about it, a guy who had revenant and mad max in the same year, is doing a movie with Josh Trank. How crazy is that ? They know that the box office success of aviator/gangs of New York/ departed/ inception/shutter island/wolf of Wallstreet/revenant is solely due to Dicaprio. So, for the most part if a project is being made of the scale of these I don't think studios would even wanna give it to anybody. They either wait for DiCaprio or shelve the project. So actors like Matt Damon/Christian bale are right behind him in the pecking order and they get leftovers. So, they either have to choose to wait for projects he has turned down or go in a completely different direction. Luckily Damon doesn't suite most of those parts. But Bale suits them but Bale decided to pursue a thespian career with sprinkles of prestige risky movies. Damon, since he is not a thespian is doing movies with well written scripts and action movies in between.All these sort of handicapped him from being consistent. I think it is absolutely possible to be as successful as DiCaprio without having titanic under your belt. Will smith between 1997 and 2010 is the prime example.Its just that hollywood is too scared to take chances in establishing stars through auteur route and instead choose to put them in giant popcorn movies like battlefield/John Carter/King Arthur and see what sticks.
So all in all its a good movie with heartwarming scenes and perfect casting in Matt Damon. But it doesn't take much risks.Its performance at 2015 oscars aside the message of team work and ignoring the differences is well conveyed. Supporting cast on space has nothing much to do but the cast on earth is very good. A simple way to explain this movie even though its a blockbuster is martian is like a fruit juice where as movies like the dark knight or wolf of wall street or revenant are more like drugs. You know they are bad for you but you can't help yourself but use them.And also something like frozen movie gives you happiness or a well made comedy.But you get the same thing by chatting with old friends or eating your favorite food or visiting a new place. Where as a cocktail of misogyny + masculinity + thrill + criminal behavior mix is something very rare. You can't get that in a Disney ride. You need something that only some movies can give.