Movies

I can understand that actors and actresses want to make some extra money on the side with advertising gigs, but sometimes the result is more comical than convincing.

For example, actress Zendaya is now featured in Rolex watch advertisements with images of her as Dune’s Chani. It even has the slogan “Reach for the crown.”

Anyone who understands the Dune books and movies would know that Chani is a Fremen who has no use for ostentatious wealth. The last thing a Fremen would seek is a heavy, ornamental watch in the desert. The only riches for the Fremen is water.

Maybe Rolex would find a better fit with Stellan John Skarsgård and his Dune character Baron Harkonnen (below) for those times the Baron not taking a bath. The Baron seems like a Rolex kind of guy.

Zendaya is just following others here. Dune’s Timothee Chalamet is part of advertising campaigns with Chanel and Lucid Motors. And let us not forget that Omega was the official watch for NASA (below).

I just recommend that the stars and their sponsors show some awareness in their ad work.

With all eyes on the Moon mission, it is worth revisiting the musings of Frank Herbert as he provided one possible path for mankind.

While the Dune: Part Three movie is not set to premiere until December, the first trailer is out to prepare us for what is to come, and it is a powerful two-and-a-half minutes. You can see bits of our favorite characters as well as new ones, including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, and Isaach de Bankolé.

This is a mind-bending, beautifully crafted, yet bleak story about the will to power, where one man leads his followers in a war that killed sixty-one billion humans, sterilized ninety planets, and wiped out the followers of forty religions. From this wisp of a teenager in Dune: Part One, we witness him becoming the whirlwind that darkens the galaxy.

Frank Herbert explained his fears in the introduction to his story story collection Eye:

Dune was aimed at this whole idea of the infallible leader because my view of history says mistakes made by a leader (or made in a leader’s name) are amplified by the numbers who follow without question. That’s how 900 people wound up in Guyana drinking poison Kool-Aid. That’s how the U.S. said “Yes, sir, Mister Charismatic John Kennedy!” and found itself embroiled in Vietnam. That’s how Germany said “Sieg Heil!” and murdered more than six million of our fellow human beings.

What Mr. Herbert left for us is an amazing story that continues to live on in the careful work of Denis Villeneuve. He has created a piece of art that not only entertains us but also warns us, like all good story-telling.

One of the comments from someone viewing the trailer was:

[M]y grandfather had the original star wars trilogy, my father had lord of the rings, [I] have dune.

Fortunately, all of us now have all three.

The long-awaited second feature film of a book by author Andy Weir is almost here. After enjoying both the book and later movie-version of The Martian back in 2015 (yes, more than a decade ago), we are ready for his next film based on his 2021 book Project Hail Mary. Now you only have to wait until March 20th

Here is the movie trailer as well as the summary from the book cover:

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

Basically, this story is about a lone astronaut that survives his peers on a long journey to save Earth only to encounter a sole-survivor, spider-like creature that can help him save Earth. This story might remind you of a 2024 film called Spaceman with Adam Sandler about a lone cosmonaut who travels far from Earth to meet with a spider-like creature. This creature is the sole survivor of a sickness but still able to find a way for Adam Sandler’s character to save Earth.

I’m not saying you have seen this movie before, but..

If you are interested in the story and science behind it, you might want to listen to an interview with the author on the Planetary Radio podcast.Andy Weir probably goes too far into the science, but it’s a good chance to dig a little deeper into the background of his book.

On February 27th, a new movie called In the Blink of an Eye premieres on Hulu. It sounds like an interesting story told in three parts over thousands of years from primitive human life all the way to travel to a new planet. You can see the outline for yourself in this trailer.

While I did not see many movies showing up for 2026 in this realm, they tend to pop up like mushrooms when they are ready. That is fine with me. It also has the same director as WALL-E, which gives me hope.

So far the reviews are so-so.

RogerEbert.com states:

At just around 90 minutes, it often feels like the Cliffs Notes version of a 500-page novel. 

And Rotten Tomatoes has the TomatoReader at 16 percent based on 19 reviews. Richard Lawson with The Hollywood Reporter states:

There is so little texture to these character arcs that the actors are mostly just working in service of a blandly uplifting message. It’s as if they’ve all been commissioned by a well-funded science museum.

I still want to judge the film for myself. Plus, I like the cast that includes Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones, and Daveed Diggs.

You can wait for the perfect film, or simply take what is offered at the moment.