Hidden Figures

DB
Jul 9
2 min read

Three incredible women are given the limelight - and it should've been even brighter.

Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) enjoy a breather away from the offices of NASA - from Hidden Figures

Here's what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...

MOVIES

Hidden Figures

Movie summary: Three female African-American mathematicians play a pivotal role in astronaut John Glenn's launch into orbit while dealing with racial and gender discrimination. (IMDb)

Hidden Figures is a good film that could've been great with a few tweaks, although the lead trio of Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe are blameless due to their excellent performances, even if Spencer is given slightly less to do than the others thanks to her character having less personal drama to deal with outside of their work at NASA.

And it's the non-NASA stuff that pulls Hidden Figures down somewhat as, while nice to flesh out the women a little, does feel like it takes away from the racist and sexist problems they had to deal with in their working lives and could've been more fully developed.

It doesn't ruin the film by any stretch, but losing that screen time to their personal lives means that the problems they had at NASA are dealt with a little too quickly and cleanly to be seen as serious problems in the first place, which I imagine is the opposite intent the people making this movie had.

Hidden Figures is a very comfortable watch, dealing with serious issues only lightly and spending more time than really needed on their personal lives, rather than the incredible efforts they went through to be recognised as the world class talents they were at NASA. [6/10]

GAMES

Baldur's Gate 3

Larian's support of this game post-release has been incredible, including a photo mode which I thought I wouldn't use at all and now spend at least twenty minutes every session messing around in.

Hitman: World of Assassination

I'm glad I'm playing through this again as there's a new level (new to me at least) between Mumbai and The Ark Society that I got to try out for the first time, although it's not quite up to the standard of the 'full' levels.

Also currently playing: Heaven's Vault, Microsoft Flight Simulator

TV

Frasier, Season Five

I had the second half of the season to round out and thoroughly enjoyed doing so, especially when that half-season includes one of the greatest TV episodes of all time in the form of "The Ski Lodge".