Oscar-worthy?

Nominated for an Academy Award (and favored to win) in the Best Foreign Language Film category (and already a Golden Globe Award-winner), the brutal and relentlessly bleak Hungarian film Son Of Saul (Samuel Goldwyn Classics), set in Auschwitz in 1944, is definitely not for the faint of heart. Just when you thought you may have heard every possible depressing Holocaust story configuration, along comes this grim story about one man's mission to give a boy a proper burial.

The titular Saul (Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian Jew detached from the horrors of his morbid job as one of the sonderkommandos (Jewish concentration camp prisoners tasked with disposing of corpses following their demise in the gas chambers), finds a new purpose in life. A boy is discovered barely still breathing among the dead bodies in the "showers." A Nazi doctor is summoned to the scene and after declaring the event a rarity smothers the boy and orders an autopsy.

Saul witnesses it all and takes it upon himself to hide the boy's body while searching for a rabbi to perform a makeshift funeral. Even though he is childless, Saul calls the dead boy his son as if to give his task a greater purpose. However, the other sonderkommandos have a different plan for Saul. They need him to assist in what will turn out to be an ill-fated uprising.

Saul's quest is agonizing. Watching him traverse the camp, dragging bodies to the ovens, shoveling ash into a lake, sorting and collecting the belongings of the dead, ushering people to their death, is excruciating. Particularly since his deadened emotions have returned as he attempts to complete this meaningful act.

When all is said and done Son of Saul is an impressive feature-length debut by director and co-writer László Nemes. Röhrig's portrayal of Saul is indelible, the kind that remains with you long after the credits have rolled. Son of Saul is now playing in theaters.

Ridley Scott, director of The Martian (20^th Century Fox), has a long history of making movies about travel in outer space, and its consequences, beginning with 1979's Alien. This time out the only evil and violence being perpetrated on an unsuspecting astronaut is being done by his fellow man.

Astronaut and botanist Mark (a fit Matt Damon) spends 561 sols (Martian days) alone on Mars. That wasn't the way his mission began, but his crew mates, including Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain), made a hasty retreat from the planet during an especially brutal storm in which they believe that Mark was killed by flying debris.

They were wrong, of course. What follows is the inventive methods Mark finds to endure his terrible fate; and later communicate with NASA in order to arrange a rescue. The dueling perspectives: Mark's array of skills called into play as he navigates life on Mars, alternating between preparing to die and fighting for his survival, and that of the arrangements being made on his behalf back home, are exciting, if a bit "sciencey." Also, the film's final scene smacks of a NASA recruitment video.

The Martian, has an unexpected sense of humor about itself (it won a Golden Globe Award in the Best Motion Picture – Comedy category). The laughs are there on the surface (including a few too many about disco music), making the almost two and a half hour length more bearable. Damon, who won a Golden Globe and is nominated for an Academy Award for his performance, is quite charming and good. With Mars in the news at the time of the film's theatrical release, regarding NASA's discovery of water on the Red Planet, the timing of The Martian landing in our sphere is especially fortuitous. Blu-ray special features include more than an hour of extras, such as a gag reel and several featurettes.