Family Film Night

Steve cued up the film The Martians and invited anyone who hadn’t seen it yet to spend the evening watching with him.

I am always available for a film – any film, especially genres with which I haven’t had very much experience. Good to expand my film repertoire. If a film has some suspense, I like to read the reviews before hand. I have enough anxiety in real life that I want to miss any tension that is artificial. If the protagonist is going to die, just let me know it up front. I had no time to do this, but partway into the film, I could remember having read a review of this movie in the newspaper. Ah. Calming.

The film was produced by Twentieth Century Fox. When I was young that name seemed progressive. Yes … the twentieth century. The film opened I wondered why they don’t change their name to Twenty-First Century Fox to keep up the times. And then I thought they need to be cheered – still keeping a company afloat after so many years.

I like sitting in films at home with the family. If there is a question you can whisper it, or make a comment, or laugh longer and see that someone beside you is loving the joke as well. Good to be with friends.

I wanted to know why the word Sol 1, Sol 2, etc. appeared on the screen as Mark Watney (Matt Damon) was making a video tape of his life on Mars. Everyone made good guesses. No one knew.

I had to go to the internet today to discover that Sol is the “term used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on Mars. A mean Martian solar day, or “sol” is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds.

So sci-fi, a lot of subtle wit and science used speak about and solve problems. What was there not to like about that evening with the family at the movies?

Arta