Project Hail Mary, 2026 - ★★½
I did not know this was a comedy going in, I thought it was going to be in the same vein as The Martian so tonally I was ambushed. Two things held me back in this movie: One is the tiresome trope of the disgraced/loser/renegade/loner guy who turns out to be the only one who can save the world. The other is I guess the equally tiresome trope of the alien creature that learns english in 5 mins and is immediately cracking jokes and acting like a wisecracking Disney sidekick. I get why people find it funny and heartwarming but for alien encounters Arrival is more my speed.
My wish for the sequel is blast Gosling and his pet dog out the airlock and put Sandra Hüller in charge.
Film Club
Film Club movie picks
Walker, 2012 - ★★★★
“Another manifestation of non-narrative quotidian is the “walking” film”, as Paul Schrader put it in his book Transcendental Style in Film. This film by Tsai Ming-liang, literally titled Walker, is about a monk (actor Lee Kang-Sheng) who, practicing a kind of meditation, walks extremely slowly through the streets of Hong Kong.
There’s an almost surreal quality as you’re focusing intently on the slow-motion pace of the monk, the busy street life going on around him begins to seem like it’s filmed separately in time-lapse.
