The Martian (2015)

This was one of the few films that I had seen in advance of the Academy Awards last Sunday, and I did not expect to like it much.  That is in many ways a reflection of how I felt about movies in general this past year, exemplified by me that Mad Max not only got a goodly number of nominations, including one for Best Picture, and  it was the take home winner of the most awards.  Really?  Anyway, I was completely wrong about The Martian.  I really like it, even though it was much longer than I would have thought entirely necessary.  Even the length was not a problem for me when all is said and done.

The reason I was so negative about this movie is that I hated Gravity and did not enjoy Interstellar, the two space movies that have garnered Oscar attention over the past couple of years.  If you fall into that category too, give this one a try.  Matt Damon is an astronaut who gets accidentally left on Mars by his peers (okay, that sounds bad, but they were completely justified in thinking he was dead, it was a galactic storm, and they had to high tail it out of there).  He is wounded, and has to perform serious first aid on himself (shades of the scientist in Antarctica who had to diagnose and treat her breast cancer while waiting for a ride home).  He knows that his chances of survival are not ideal, but he works on establishing communication with NASA, growing food for himself, and figuring out a possible route off the planet.  He is charming and upbeat and funny, and the Mars landscape is fascinatingly beautifully rendered.  My favorite space movie since Apollo 13.