The Martian

How often do you watch a movie, and leave the theater thinking, "wow, I'm inspired?"
"The Martian" blew me away.
It's about a botanist Mark Whitney (Matt Damon), on an outer space mission who gets stranded on Mars after a sand storm. His team evacuates to avoid any potential danger, and leaves him behind in frantic agitation. They are sure he is dead when they leave.
Now it is up to Whitney to use his scientific skills to survive, based on the limited supplies of his spaceship. How he does that is truly engaging to watch. I can safely say that I could understand his experiments, despite having flaky chemistry knowledge.
The movie also addresses NASA and how it must deal with one of its astronauts being left on Mars. The marketing director of NASA calls it a "shitstorm for NASA's reputation".

*****Spoiler Alert******
Eventually the director of NASA commissions a survival package (with food and other supplies) to sustain Whitney until he can be rescued, and Whitney's team comes to know that he's alive.

The movie is funny, adventurous and packed with great action and fantastic acting. Matt Damon should get an oscar for his performance.

The movie succeeds at not only being funny, but inspiring, much like "Remember the Titans", except with better special effects (and a cooler story line in my opinion...).

One of my favorite parts of the movie is the end, when Whitney says, "many people ask me whether I thought I was going to die. Of course I thought I was going to die. But at that point, I had two choices: I could either accept that, or get to work. And I got to work. Any questions?"
And every student raises their hand....

I feel like if I were there, I would be one of them.

The Martian is a film that raises a lot of questions, and goes above and beyond to show that as human beings, we have a LOT of potential for growth and survival.