August Film Club

Hey everybody!  It's August already and that means we have entered the last month of our Summer Film Series on Space.  A big thank you to everyone who made it out to see Europa Report.  We had a good turnout and great discussion and of course, great food.

For the month of August we have two more space related films: Hidden Figures and Prometheus.

Thursday, Aug. 15th at 6:15pm
Hidden Figures (2016) directed by Theodore Melfi

Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder.  It is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about black female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race.  The film stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions.  The film also features Ocatavia Spencer as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as NASA engineer Mary Jackson, with Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell, and Mahershala Ali in supporting roles.  The film holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Odie Henderson, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "I've been a computer programmer for 29 and half years, so I suppose I would be a tad biased toward a film that uses FORTRAN as a means of exacting socially relevant revenge.  In Hidden Figures, the FORTRAN punch cards coded by Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) prove that she is not only qualified to be the first employee supervisor of color in the space program, but that her "girls" (as she calls them) have the skills to code the IBM mainframe under her tutelage.  Hopefully, Hidden Figures will inspire women and people of color (and hell, men too) with its gentle assertion that there's nothing unusual nor odd about people besides White men being good at math.  Under its great acting, bouncy Pharrell score and message is a film that's as geeked about math as a superhero film is about its comic book origins.  So much so that it does my mathematician's heart proud.  This is one of the year's best films."

Thursday, Aug. 22nd at 6:15pm
Prometheus (2012) Directed by Ridley Scott

Prometheus is a 2012 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof and starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron.  It is set in the late 21st century and centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as it follows a star map discovered among the artifacts of several ancient Earth cultures.  Seeking the origins of humanity, the crew arrives on a distant world and discovers a threat that could cause the extinction of the human species.  While originally planned a direct prequel to his 1979 film Alien, Scott has stated it is instead merely set in the same universe as that film, sharing similar elements and ideas. The film currently has a 73% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded it 4/4 stars saying this in his review, "Ridley Scott's Prometheus is a magnificent science-fiction film, all the more intriguing because it raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers.  It's in the classic tradition of golden age sci-fi, echoing Scott's Alien (1979), but creating a world of its own.  I'm a pushover for material like this; it's a seamless blend of story, special effects and pitch-perfect casting.  Noomi Rapace continues here the tradition of awesome feminine strength begun by Sigourney Weaver in Alien.  Noomi Rapace wears a cross around her neck and believes life ultimately had a divine origin.  Her boyfriend, Charlie Holloway, accuses her, a scientist, of dismissing centuries of Darwinism.  Charlie digs at Elizabeth, suggesting the existence of aliens disproves her beliefs.  Her obvious response: Where did they come from?  This puzzle is embedded in an adventure film that has staggering visuals, expert horror, mind-challenging ideas and enough unanswered questions to prime the inevitable sequel."

I hope you can make it out for these wonderful films!