Figure It Out

Project Hail Mary is a movie about guys figuring it out. I mean “guys” in the very general, genderless way here. Some of the guys are ladies. One of the guys is an alien made of rocks. One of the guys is a dude named Carl who is in the movie for like 15 minutes total and might still be my favorite character in the history of cinema. My point is that… look, let’s not get too hung up on the verbiage right now. 

The main guy is a science teacher played by Ryan Gosling who is sent to space to save the planet because the sun is dying and no one really knows why or how to stop it. That’s a problem. The whole movie is about everyone trying to figure that out. There are also a bunch of little sub-problems, too, stuff that develops from unintended consequences of one part of the plan or a disaster related to another or even just the natural progression of triage, where you deal with the most pressing issue first and then reassess and see what needs to be done next. That’s all that happens for about 2.5 hours. Some guys identify a problem, they figure it out, they move on to the next thing. It’s awesome. 

The movie is based on a book by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian, another classic in the genre of figuring it out, albeit one with significantly more disco and potatoes. These kinds of movies are always a blast when they’re done well. Yes, sure, it can be fun to watch a tactical mastermind reveal in Act III that everything you just watched and assumed was unrelated chaos was actually part of a genius plan, but there’s something so endearing about watching a capable but reluctant knucklehead get into a series of binds and have to wriggle out of them before everything falls apart. It helps when the knucklehead is a charisma bomb like Ryan Gosling. It also helps when he has an adorable alien buddy. This is kind of the premise of The Mandalorian, too, for the record, although the Mandalorian does not have heartthrob blond hair and wire spectacles dangling off his face. Yet. Consider this, LucasFilm.

I think what sticks with me most about movies like this is that, hey, a lot of us are capable but reluctant knuckleheads trying to deal with stuff. There’s real power in remembering that most of that stuff is just a set of problems we haven’t figured out yet. And that sometimes figuring it out is a multi-step process where things go wrong and you have to step back and start over. I’m a big proponent of the Figure It Out strategy, in general, whether what I’m figuring out is dinner or, like, driving a minivan with a joystick. It makes big stuff feel manageable and small victories feel important. I don’t particularly want to do any of it in space, but very few of my problems involve the cosmos right now, so I think I’m good on that front. 

I made this all a little bigger than I planned on when I started typing it. I set out to tell you how much I enjoyed the movie and how cool it is in a world of superheroes to see a schmuck in space save the world. The theater was packed and a few people cried. I might have been one of them. When I was getting ready to head home, I dropped my cell phone on the floor of that van I drive with a joystick. I had to get a reacher stick thingy I keep in there and slide the phone around until it was against the door so I could tip it up on its side to grab it with the stick and fling it onto the seat next to me. It took a few minutes, but I figured that out, too. 

“I’m just like Ryan Gosling in that movie,” I thought, like a knucklehead, as I pulled out of the parking lot. 

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STUFF I CLICKED ON

— Noel Murray wrote a good blog about a weird thing happening in the new shows set at colleges

— Kelsey McKinney explained the Bachelorette debacle in terms that even I — a person who does not watch reality TV or know any of these people — was able to understand 

— important David Roth blog: “Suburban Homeowner Starts, Loses Fight With Enormous Jack Reacher Star Alan Ritchson”

— Amanda Mull on "monitoring the situation"

— good interview with Drew Goddard, who wrote the movie versions of both Project Hail Mary and The Martian

— Spider-man trailer good

— genuine lol at this section of my favorite bird blog: “One loud woman asked what we were looking at, and when someone replied quietly 'red-headed woodpecker' she scoffed. She literally scoffed. 'I see those all the time.' Me too, you nickel-plated bitch, but it’s still fucking dope to see one.”

— The White Lotus is casting everyone 

— Walton Goggins and Marion Cotillard in a retelling of The Book of Job, yes, sure

— I don’t have to explain why I was looking up the kid who played the caddy in the original Happy Gilmore movie but guess what: he’s a scientist now!

— I just learned about the Germans using a word that means “hobbyless” as a devastating insult and I gotta say, I dig it

— eulogy for the Mall of America Hooters

— it’s been a couple weeks but I am still thinking about Japan’s mystery pipe 

— “An Adrenaline Junkie Millionaire’s Quest to Become a Cocaine Kingpin”

— “Sharks in the Bahamas Are Full of Cocaine, Caffeine, and Painkillers”

— “Sex garden to ‘break taboos’ at Chelsea flower show as gnome ban ends”

— here’s a local news report abouBEAR BEAR LADY THERE’S A BEAR

Okay, that's it for this week. Please share and subscribe and try to figure it out.