One of the keenest pleasures found in moviegoing is that of competence porn. A great comedy can flood your brain with endorphins, a solid horror movie can unnerve you days after you saw it, and the right drama can restore your faith in the essential decency of humanity. Even the much-maligned superhero genre can, when executed properly, provide viewers with something mythic. That’s all well and good, but I really dig films about smart people doing a particular job with intelligence and competence. Consider Apollo 13, a film I absolutely adore. On the one hand, I understand perhaps 25 percent... Read More

During a press conference in 2007, Matt Damon figured that he was all done playing amnesiac badass Jason Bourne. He said, “So all of that internal propulsive mechanism that drives the character is not there, so if there was to be another one then it would have to be a complete reconfiguration, you know, where do you go from there? For me, I kind of feel like the story that we set out to tell has now been told.” Damon said this while promoting The Bourne Ultimatum. It was something of a rarity in the world of franchise filmmaking, an ending. The third film in the Bourne series, it... Read More

The Martian is the movie we need right now. We live in an era of astonishing selfishness and decreasing selflessness. These days, fewer people study science and engineering during their college years. In fact, business is the most popular college major. Lots of us are taught that the proper trajectory in life is to get a well-paying job, get rich, and accumulate as much stuff as possible. Many of us are baffled by the idea of doing something for the common good, coming together for a singular goal. That’s the bad news. The good news is, people are fluid. We can change for the better.* We... Read More