I found the backstory in Gravity very affecting. I can see why it would bug, but it really didn't bother me. I thought the movie was more about her deciding that she still wants to live, despite having lost her child, than it was about the technical things she had to do to survive. It wouldn't have packed the same punch, for me, without that element.

This may also explain why I liked it more than The Martian. Which I thought was great! But it didn't grab me on an emotional level like Gravity did.

That's one of the great things about The Martian -- he's just an awesome scientist who got an amazing opportunity that goes horribly wrong.

Exactly!!!

Well, there's something to be said for lowered expectations. I saw BvS this afternoon, and it wasn't the utter steaming pile that the bulk of the reviews led me to believe. It does look like it was edited by a toddler with ADHD, but the underlying story mostly holds together even if motivations are opaque for a couple of characters. And I thought all the performances made the best of the mediocre writing they had to work with, excepting Jesse Eisenberg's which was just as tic-filled and nonsensical as everyone's been saying. Of particular interest to me were the facts that Clark/Superman was not as relentlessly scowly and brooding as people said (although the movie never allowed him to speak in his own defense), and that Batman's paranoid hostility was clearly shown to be an overreaction born out of his own trauma and not the high moral ground.

I have spoilery questions I'd like answered about BvS: Do B and S actually fight? Who wins? Is WW in the movie for more than 10 seconds? Does she beat the crap out of any fools? Thank you. That's all I really care about!

Zen, they actually fight; Batman wins thanks to judicious use of Kryptonite; Wonder Woman is probably in the movie more than Lois or Alfred; and while I wouldn't say she beats the crap out of any fools, I think you will find what she does do satisfyingly awesome.

Thanks, Matt! Good to know.

From the Department of WOW-thats-amazing-typecasting:

Anya Taylor-Joy, the lead of The Witch, has just been cast in the New Mutants movie....

as Illyana Rasputin.

Guess she's not afraid of being typecast?

Enjoy capsule movie reviews of Hellraiser, Exam, Talvar, Star Trek: Generations; As Above, So Below; Star Trek: First Contact, The Final Girls, Rocky, Spy, Inside Llewyn Davis, What We Do in the Shadows, Meet the Patels, Trainwreck, Advantageous, Tomorrowland, and The Big Short.