Movie review: Project Hail Mary

based on an Andy Weir book

My wife and I had not seen a movie at a cinema in TWELVE weeks. So we went to an Easter Monday matinee of Project Hail Mary at the Spectrum 8 Theatre in Albany.

I should note that the Artemis II crew was still in space at the time. Did that influence my enjoyment of the film? I dunno. But I liked it a lot. And so did a lot of folks.

From Slate: “Project Hail Mary is now Amazon MGM’s highest-grossing movie ever and the highest-grossing movie of 2026 so far. And the new movie, from Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, isn’t going away anytime soon: Audiences are clearly falling for Ryan Gosling’s teacher turned astronaut and the crablike alien he makes his friend, ensuring that the movie earns not just good reviews but the kind of word of mouth that will keep it in theaters for weeks to come. (The movie received a near-perfect A grade from the audience-polling firm CinemaScore.) At a time when it can feel as if only franchise films ever rake in hundreds of millions at the box office, Project Hail Mary really might have seemed like a long shot, but it’s found a way to connect.”

Yeah. I saw trailers for the new Mandalorian film and some other franchise that day, and I thought, “Meh.”

Teacher

The story starts in a junior high classroom, with Ryland Grace’s (Ryan Gosling) students concerned about the Earth’s sun dying. He answers honestly but not without hope. Then he discovers, to his disbelief, that the powers that be believe that HE is a large part of the solution.

Despite his jousting with the project director, Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), he finds himself in space, just trying to figure things out, doing sciency stuff to try to save his world.

But then he meets an unlikely companion, Rocky, “played” by James Ortiz, who was born in Albany, NY, in 1984. The interaction between Grace and Rocky, as well as the flashbacks between Grace and Stratt, propel the joy and the seriousness of the situation.

I never read the book by Andy Weir on which the movie was based. Here are the Top 10 Differences Between the Project Hail Mary Book and Film. Based on viewing a number of videos, even the science geeks, such as Hank Green, weren’t taken out of the film by a few science mistakes, most notably the centrifuge thing.

I loved the Sandra Hüller character. I’d only seen her in heavier fare, such as The Zone Of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall. She’s serious here but with a twist. Ryan Gosling is just right as the VERY reluctant hero. Lionel Boyce, as Carl,  Grace’s security handler, was fun.

The movie brought me joy and hope, and that ain’t nothin’.

Sunday Stealing – What Don’t We Know?

Boys In The Band

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week’s meme was stolen from Ken and Dot’s All Sorts. This blogging duo was asked to share things about themselves that their readers may not already know. Their answers have been used as the basis for this week’s questions.

Tell Us Something –  What Don’t We Know?

1. Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

No, but I have never mourned that fact.

2. What foreign language did you study in school? How much of it do you still remember?

I took three years of high school French. The first year, I was pretty good, but I got worse and worse in the succeeding years.

Yet when my wife and I went to France in May 2023, I remembered enough basic phrases for the locals to think I was at least trying. And reading French was even easier.

In our Paris hotel, the television stations were some from France but also the UK. But as we traveled farther west, almost all of the TV was in French, some of it dubs of American programs.

3. What recipe did you most recently prepare? Where did you get the recipe, and how did it turn out?

Lasagna, described here. It’s really difficult to screw up Betty Crocker.

34th state

4. What song have you listened to over and over and over again?

As seen above, my church has had the theme “Tell Me Something Good” from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. And every time I see the bulletin, I think of the song Tell Me Something Good by Rufus, featuring Chaka Khan, whose birthday and year are the same month as mine. It was written by Stevie Wonder. I love that song.

But if you mean songs on repeat ever? That is a WAY too long list. And there’s usually a story behind it, such as “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas.

5. Are there currently any pets in your household? Are you considering adding another? 

Stormy the cat is it. No, she’ll be the last one.

6. As an adult, have you ever performed with a drama group? (Student productions don’t count.)

Boys In The Band in Binghamton in 1975

Godspell in New Paltz in 1976

Plus roles in some plays at church, including Our Town (1984), Once On This Island (2020), and a couple of others.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

The 1992 Mainstream #1 Rock Tracks

an influential 1835 hymnal

The 1992 Mainstream #1 Rock Tracks were the songs that were getting airplay on mainstream rock stations, regardless of format (singles, album cuts, etc.).

Remedy – the Black Crowes, eleven weeks at #1M, #48 pop

How About That – Bad Company, 6 weeks at #1 M, #38 pop

Hotel Illness – the Black Crowes, 6 weeks at #1 M; did not chart on the pop charts, but it was released as a single. Probably unrelated, Hotel illness family ‘too traumatised to holiday again.’

Thorn In My Pride – the Black Crowes 4 weeks at #1 M, #80 pop

Human Touch – Bruce Springsteen, 3 weeks at #1 M. #16 pop

Even Better Than The Real Thing – U2, 2 weeks at #1 M, #32 pop

Again Tonight – John Mellencamp, 2 weeks at #1

One – U2,  2 weeks at #1 M, #10 pop

Sting Me – the Black Crowes, 2 weeks at #1 M, did not chart pop

Rest In Peace – Extreme, two at #1 M #96 pop

The rest were #1 for 1 week, Mainstream

Let’s Get Rocked – Def Leppard, #15 pop

Digging In The Dirt – Peter Gabriel, #52 pop

Keep The Faith – Bon Jovi, #29 pop

The Robinson brothers

From Wikipedia: “The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is the second studio album by American rock band the Black Crowes, released on May 12, 1992… The album’s name derives from the full name of the Southern Harmony, an influential 1835 hymnal compiled by William Walker…

“It was a record for an album to feature four album rock number-one hits (previously set by Tom Petty in 1989, with three). The album itself reached the top spot of the Billboard 200 album chart, propelled by the success of these singles.”

I never owned the album, though someone had given me their previous collection, Shake Your Money Maker. The only albums I own from the songs represented above were Us (Gabriel), Human Touch (Springsteen), and Achtung Baby (U2).

Incidentally, I’m fond of One by Johnny Cash from the 2000 album American III: Solitary Man.

Binghamton-adjacent

Rev. Alphonso Whitfield

These are random Binghamton-adjacent pieces.

ITEM: An old friend from high school sent me a clipping from the Broome County Office for Aging’s Senior News. Specifically, on page 15 of the February 2026 issue was a story titled LOCAL HISTORY. “In observance of Black History Month this February, we are privileged to dedicate this issue to celebrating the profound and essential contributions of Black individuals in shaping Broome County.”

Four people were highlighted. “Gentleman” Joe Taylor (1923-1995), I might have met but did not know. My father, though, absolutely knew him. The well-regarded boxer, after retirement, opened Gentle Joe’s restaurant on Susquehanna Street.

Dr. Beverly Housten Dorsey (1925-2023) was married to Beverly R. Dorsey, MD (1922-2011) for about 60 years. One black doctor provided a sense of community pride, but two? Wow! Beverly Housten’s resume is astonishing.  My great aunt Deana Yates, my maternal grandmother’s sister, did some cooking, cleaning, or sewing for them.

Midgett S. Parker (1925-1999). His first name was pronounced Meh-JET. I didn’t know he was a chemist. But he was a leader at Trinity AME Zion, which I attended for many years.

Alphonso Whitfield (1903-1999) became “a charter member of the Interracial Association,” where my father worked in the 1960s.
He was a preacher at the AME Zion Church. He and his wife, Constance, were my godparents. My parents became the godparents of his grandson, Walter Jones. Alphonso and Constance’s daughter, Marcheta Hamlin, I wrote about at length HERE. I remember annual car trips to Utica to visit my godparents, when Rev. Whitfield was serving there.

13 Gaines Street?

ITEM: One of my friends from grade school sent me this Zillow listing, purportedly for 13 Gaines Street, and wondered if it was the house I grew up in. No, I lived at 5 Gaines Street.

But Gaines Street was only a block long, between Oak and Front Streets, so I knew the houses. That did NOT look like 13. I went there quite often because  Lawrence and Dorothy Greene lived at 13, and we would get each other’s mail. Per the Binghamton City Directory of 1960, which I accessed on Ancestry, one or both of them worked at Ansco. And their son, Danny, would play in our yard periodically. But 13 was smooth and green and white.

Finally, I called the listing agent. The address SHOULD be 1 AND 3, not 13. THAT makes sense. It’s the house next to 5 Gaines that a tree crashed into. The red corner convenience store his gone in favor of a parking space, and the yellow house to the left represents newish construction on Front Street that wasn’t there 30 years ago.

Remarkable

ITEM: I came across online on International Women’s Day, Remarkable Women From Binghamton Who Made History. One of them I’ve known all my life. “Born in Binghamton in 1940, Frances M. Beal, better known as Fran Beal, is a feminist and peace and justice political activist. Beal was a founding member of the SNCC Black Women’s Liberation Committee, later called the Third World Women’s Alliance. Fran Beal is most well known for the book she wrote, which is called ‘Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female.'”

She’s my mother’s first cousin, daughter of Ernie Yates (my maternal grandmother’s brother) and Charlotte Berman Yates. I wrote about her HERE. Even though she’s been living in California, she’s still famous in her hometown, as I discovered HERE

“The Missouri Compromise!”

Maine statehood

“Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, overturning the Missouri Compromise and permitting the spread of slavery to the West.” HCR wrote that the repercussions of that 1854 action included the creation of the Republican Party by 1856. When he ran for President in 1860, Lincoln picked Hannibal Hamlin of Maine to be his running mate.

So, the Missouri Compromise was the beginning of much anti-slavery fervor, which helped define the issue before the Civil War. 
Ramblin' with Roger
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial