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Way OT: Interstellar - Printable Version

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Way OT: Interstellar - Hulk01 - 11-11-2014

Well, my epically bad year for movies didn't improve this weekend.  Interstellar arrived, with a deafening—more on that later—thud, causing me to scratch my head when I wasn't catching my nap. (The fellow to my right reportedly chuckled at my snoring. And during the early film, not an omen for a good review.)

So what went wrong here?

The director Christopher Nolan made this space epic, of course, knowing  he would be compared to the man who many regard as his era's greatest director, Stanley Kubrick, who directed 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Knowing that, Nolan also knew what many viewers found missing in 2001.  Many viewers insisted that Kubrick's movie had no more heart than Hal, the sociopathic robot that Anthony Hopkins used as his model for Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of The Lambs.

To give his movie heart, Nolan chose the theme of a father-daughter relationship and the bigger message that love matters more than matter. At one point, the beautiful physicist played by Anne Hathaway—imperfectly, to many ears and eyes— lip syncs this by saying that love might be a force that transcends time. (Her stilted dialogue sounded like Caroline Sessions in my fifth grade play.  I later read Hathaway took seven months just to get into her character.  No wonder; who is her character?)

So Nolan sends Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) into space reluctantly, away from his young daughter Murphy who insists he not go. Once out there, Cooper feels tormented by her absence when his head isn’t ringing from the We-Gotta-Win-That-Oscar score composed—apparently over the din of jackhammers outside his studio—by Hans Zimmer.  (At one point, I felt like asking my companion what one of the actors said, but decided that she would answer something like “B, C, C sharp, B flat—and lots of organ music.”) 

At long last, however—80 years and almost three hours of film—Cooper and his daughter reunite in the film’s emotional climax.

And what happens?

He and his now-aged daughter catch up on those 80 years by chatting for maybe two minutes.  And then she insists "no parent should watch his child die" and that he should return to the physicist wearing Prada. How have you been, what was space like, did you know how much I have missed you?

No, better get back to that brunette.

And Nolan gets it wrong. His contrivance—“no man should watch his child die”—isn’t the sentiment at all. I know this from two close friends who have lost children in the last decade.  Their agony is expressed in the actual, well-known sentiment, "No parent should have to endure outliving a child.” A parent’s grief is not from watching a child die. It’s in trying to live every day after.

Why did Nolan contrive this? Because he gave himself no choice. After all those spectacular hours in space, he and his audience could not watch his movie collapse into a father and child walking through wildflowers and framed against sunsets while they reflect on their time apart. (Plus can Nolan even direct that scene?)

So he decided to convince us that the Old Saw That Isn’t—“no parent should see a child die”—justifies a brief hello to a dying daughter and Cooper’s immediate return to canoodle with some actress in a worm hole who has demonstrated no affection for Cooper at all.

(And by the way, what’s his rush? Time won’t pass out there anyway, will it?

Nolan aimed high; he was going for The Big Movie. To lend it the needed profundity, he quotes Dylan Thomas at least three times, which was three too many: “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Those words were the poet's entreaty to his father, a man going blind, to continue to live fully despite his loss. But in a movie supposedly following this theme, Cooper sees the light leaving his daughter’s life and decides he’d better rush back to the brunette and help recolonize her planet.

Really?

I guess Nolan missed the meaning of the poem as completely as he missed what it means to lose a child. (It’s likely he thought that going boldly into the dark sounded apt for a film about zipping into black holes.)  Rejecting the poet’s advice, the father and daughter so thoroughly resign themselves to her death that he hops a plane back to a black hole rather than spend another second talking about what they have missed and felt.  Forgot raging against the dark, Cooper! Hurry and go see if you and the snazzy physicist, who still cannot figure out who she is, can’t get something going.

And one more word about the overpowering score.  The movie isn’t merely loud.  It is shattering loud; there are reports that destroyed a set of speakers at an Imax theater in San Francisco. 

Yes, the science is interesting when it’s comprehensible, although the idea that an astronaut would need to explain a worm hole to the astronaut chosen to lead the mission into that hole is, of course, ridiculous. Yes, the Hunk has become a damn good actor.  And yes, the movie may give you some faith in miracles.  You can live on earth for 80 years and age 80 years like Murphy, for example, or you can age just a few minutes, like the NASA head played by Benjamin Button Michael Caine.

The movie, in short, is like the planet it tries to leave: a mess.

Thanks to the cool special effects and Gravity-like camera work, it’s a lovely-looking mess at times—like my bedroom if you hung a couple Renoirs above my bed—but a mess. Nolan wanted do what Kubrick didn’t, but he couldn’t. Like 2010, he just doesn’t seem to have the heart.  Or, it sure seems to me, much respect for his viewers’ intelligence.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - GoodGrief - 11-11-2014

Between Bain ("schwarraschwarraschwaraaschwaaara, BATMAN!"), Ken Watanabe in Inception, 40% of Interstellar (including at least one crucial scene), it's clear that Christopher Nolan overestimates the abilities of his audience's ears. My theory is that he has exceptionally sensitive ears that perfectly filter out extraneous sound, and also knows his scripts word-for-word. So he listens to the movie, understands all the dialogue perfectly, and says, "We're good!"

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Bruce Wang - 11-11-2014

I disagree.  Interstellar travel must involve Stanford somehow.  So not OT.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Hank 91 - 11-11-2014

Every time I see one of those mind-numbing Matthew McConaughey Lincoln commercials I age about 80 years, so perhaps the movie isn't that unrealistic.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Hulk01 - 11-12-2014

I'm a Matt M fan--even the Lincoln commercials.  And is there anyone else who thinks he looks remarkably like Adam Scott?

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Stymie - 11-12-2014

Maybe Adam Scott when he turns 45....

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - oman - 11-12-2014

Stanley Kubrick is the greatest director, unlimited by any particular era.

And alright alright alright regarding being a Matt M. fan.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Bruce Wang - 03-29-2015

I will add a movie to Hulk's point that the 2014 movies were epically bad.  Now that they are coming to home video, I'm making my way through the Oscar nominees and have liked none of them so far: Boyhood, Gone Girl (good until the bad ending), or Birdman.

I couldn't even find a 2014 thread on the best movies so decided to post this here and bring it back to the original post.  Last night I watched Whiplash.  I only watched to the end because of JK Simmons's brilliant performance.  You just wanted to see what he would say and do next out of morbid curiosity.  I liked the theme: the pursuit and cost of greatness.  I hated how it displayed this setting for greatness: the world of music and jazz, in particular.  It's portrayal of jazz and what makes great music and musicians defies reality to the extent that I felt Interstellar portrayed the laws of physics more accurately.

They should have given the Best Picture Oscar to Edge of Tomorrow.

On the bright side, I'm very excited about 2015 and have not seen American Sniper or Kingsman yet.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Hulk01 - 03-29-2015

Yes, some watchable movies to end the year.  But 2014 may end up being remembered as among the worst.

I liked Birdman best of this ordinary group, but it would not have been a Best Picture contender in many other years,

My bet is that few people even remember Boyhood five years from now.  It lasted almost as long as my boyhood and wasn't nearly as much fun.

Whiplash was Officer and A Gentlemen but with less sex and fewer sidebars.  Or maybe it was the first half of Full Metal Jacket absent the berated victim's collapse and revenge.  That movie just doesn't hold up for me now.

Foxcatcher, ditto.  It proved Steve Carrell doesn't have to be goofy. 

I do not to see the Jake Gyllenhahl movie.
Far from a great movie according to all accounts, but my standards have fallen out of necessity.

It's so bad right now that the last two movies Steph and i have seen have been Paddington and Cinderella--and without taking children or grandchildren. 

On a related subject, we've become fans of the BBC TV show The Spy. Seven episodes so far.  It requires that you like modern British humor, but worth catching if you do.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - oman - 03-29-2015

I thought Boyhood should have been best picture, until I saw Birdman, which was fantastic.

Boyhood is going to easily stand the test of time, just as Dazed and Confused has -- Dazed and Confused captured a time almost perfectly and Boyhood captured time perfectly.  I don't think the Before _____ flicks are as good as Boyhood or Dazed, and I'm actually partial to Slacker and Waking Life.

I'm still flustered if I meet anybody, especially a guy, aged 45-55 who didn't get a kick out of Boyhood.  Those two kids in the final scene were my kids, and that flick was one's life going by.  The only argument that can be made I guess is that it didn't fulfill some peoples view of what film should be but it certainly did what art is supposed to do.

The Jake G. movie was certainly worth seeing.  Arguably best actor.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - washingtonismoney - 03-29-2015

the best picture was A Most Violent Year.

2014 movies - Mick - 03-30-2015

I thought Boyhood was highly overrated, but I can't abide any of the actors from that film; not Hawke, Arquette or the kid whose name I won't even waste the time to look up.

Really liked Imitation Game, enough to look up the actual story.  I thought Gone Girl was superb.

I couldn't stand Birdman, though I might have liked it 30 years ago.  And I really wanted to like it.  Same with Noah.  Ugh.

I thought Whiplash was extraordinary when JK Simmons was chewing up the scenery.  The younger actor was pretty good, and his drumming to my unsophisticated ear was excellent.

Fury was better than I thought it was going to be (yes, I know, wholly unbelievable...it wasn't a documentary).

I thought Jake G. deserved best actor.  outstanding performance.  Not really my kind of movie, but I did like his work. 

I wanted Chef to be better.

Liked American Sniper, wasn't crazy about it, but closer to three stars than 2.5 stars. 

I thought Interstellar was ok.  I never look to those kinds of movies to have anything meaningful or even accurate to say, so I'm never disappointed.
  Thought the same about Guardians of the Galaxy, actually liked the humor in it a bit better.  Liked the X_Men movie a lot.

Didn't see:
[i]Foxcatcher,
Hobbit
Apes
Spiderman 2
Into the Woods
Divergent
Night at Museum III
Selma
22 Jump Street
Theory of Everything
Unbroken[I]

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - oman - 03-30-2015

Wow. 

Although I thought Chef should have been better too.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Hulk01 - 03-31-2015

Agree re A Most Violent Year.  Weird I forgot about, but the movie didn't scream for attention.  The two leads were just right.

Loved it.  Thanks for the reminder.

Re: Way OT: Interstellar - Renaissance Man - 03-31-2015

I saw almost everything of note last year.  I gave up on trying to understand what makes a movie award-worthy long ago.  I thought Birdman and Boyhood both had merit but were overrated. Simmons was great in Whiplash.  My favorites of the past year were Begin Again, Imitation Game, Edge of Tomorrow -- one of the rare instances where the movie was better than the book (although the book's title, All You Need is Kill, was much better, and the video release, Live, Die, Repeat is an improvement over EOT, but still weak) and Guardians of the Galaxy.