Closed up my vacation today. Back on the airplane, blogging. Incidentally, just watched Ant-Man again, and yeah Paul Rudd buoys the film and the writing and style are top-notch, but even after watching it four or so times, Michael Peña steals the show every time his enormous cheeser fills the frame. The final scene kills me every time (especially having caught the references to a “sublime” Rothko and Luis’ preference for neocubism). On to the Martian now with about three hours left.

Whoa! (this blog is live!) Michael Peña is in this one too. And Sebastian Stan? Calling it now - The Martian is an alternate reality for the MCU. Matt Damon confirmed for Adam Warlock? (this cast is absurdly stacked btw)

I was going to post some more serious trip thoughts here but I think I’ll let that one go into another post. The tone mismatch was a bit too much for me to take myself seriously, and I really didn’t want to omit my praise for Michael Peña. So that being the case, I’ll just sort of catalog the fun stuff that’s been swimming around my head for the past few hours. I’d also offer a disclaimer and say that most of this probably owes to the post-vacay wave of euphoria and/or the delirium brought on by having about an hour and a half of sleep in my system since Tuesday Morning. Lord help me as I battle jet lag on top of exhaustion.

In any case - I’ve read the first chapter of this book, and so far Matt Damon (who, full disclosure, I love both on-screen and off) is doing just as well as Mark Watney as the reviews would indicate. Congrats, Matt! You’re great. Also you made a potato grow on Mars, I think.

Jumping around, I’m slightly bummed that I couldn’t head to Boston with Ian and Mike, but I’m also glad that that means I won’t need to purchase new legs - having averaged over 22,000 steps a day (roughly estimating?) really isn’t great for the whole having-sufficient-cartilage thing.

Wait! Technical mistake in the movie!! Mark Watney, at roughly 38:37 into the movie (I think the play timer counted the pre-movie ad as part of the same runtime so give or take a minute or so), is shown using what looks like a stock GoPro Hero 3 (maybe 4? On the one hand, it’s the near future, so it could be a 7 or 8 or whatever, but on the other hand, it’s also owned by NASA, who Congress loves to outfit with old and/or cheap nonessential equipment). The angle depicted in his mission recording is far narrower than the Hero’s ultrawide angle. It’s not the right camera! My suspension of disbelief is, well, suspended (not really).

WHAT? SEAN BEAN? Who the hell approved this budget?