INTERSTELLAR (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

[tabuno]

There seems to be a pattern here. There may be commonality of these movies that Chris and Johann that they don't like while I love. Part of the greatness of both these movies for me was the journey, the experience of the feeling and emotions and the ride. I love science fiction, reading the cheap paperbacks of the 60s and 70s. Often when I read them, I lost myself in the stories as the rest of the world just fell away. Both these movies moved me in the same way and the length of the movie, the time didn't exist for me. I was enthralled by the sights, sounds of the movie as a fantastic voyage, kind of like when I was small and watched Fantastic Voyage (1966). I identified with the characters and I care about what happened to them in each of the movies. I was scared. I was excited. I was amazed. I was being transported into a universe that I will never experience in reality. Theses are the movies that are great because they involve me and offer me the most intense feelings and thoughtful imaginative explorations as well as offering up some of the most important simple themes about love and relationships that are so important to happiness. Perhaps I am simple minded without an eye for theatrical theory. Nevertheless a movie that can wash over and inside me to the core is a good movie. At some point movie criticism doesn't matter.

[Johann]

Thanks for the tips.
Chris Nolan has got serious skill as a filmmaker, but Interstellar is bad. Really bad. "Inception-like-convoluted-bad".
Is he just making a film for the hell of it? Just because he can get any budget he wants from Warner Brothers?
I think he should take a break from filmmaking and come back and dazzle us, because Interstellar is a dud to me.

Matthew McConaughey is just not believable as an astronaut, Anne Hathaway almost gets it right, but in the end, she's not believable either. Good call Chris: This is an M. Night Shyamalan-style movie, I expected Chris Nolan to be much more intense and cerebral. Here he just seems to be saying "Follow these characters! They are doing profound things in space! This is dramatic!"
The music is intrusive and all over the place, with weird esoterics at times. It's just a bloated movie with no soul. I literally felt nothing for these characters or the situations they're in.

[Johann]

Part of the greatness of both these movies for me was the journey, the experience of the feeling and emotions and the ride. a movie that can wash over and inside me to the core is a good movie. At some point movie criticism doesn't matter.

Tabuno, I'm happy you had a good experience. It worked for you. While waiting in the lobby after the movie, I talked to a young couple, I asked them what they thought of Interstellar. They both liked it. So the film does have fans. But for me, this movie didn't wash over me at all. I liked some of the freaky sfx shots- if they were in another movie, it may in fact be "stellar". This one just had no juice to me.
The 2001-inspired part toward the end, where Matthew is observing the dimensions was kinda cool, but it was definitely not enough to save it. I went in hoping for serious entertainment. What I got was a soulless exercise in modern moviemaking. I liked the design of the space suits, but I'm sure some NASA buff could nitpick the "reality" of what we were shown. This is the first time I've seen a movie that said the Lunar landings were faked- that they were made as government propaganda. Nolan seems to believe that to be true.

[Johann]

GODZILLA is this years blockbuster.
I rate it much higher than Interstellar, because it's not trying to be something it's not.
Interstellar seems to be a cross between Planet of the Apes, Avatar and Shyamanlan's Signs, with a little Matrix thrown in.

[Chris Knipp]

Shyamanlan's Signs has been frequently mentioned. And it's bad luck to resemble Shyamalan, whose career went steadily downhill.

[Johann]

Yes- it's really bad to be compared to Shyamanlana-ding-dong. The first thing I noticed was the cinematography- Nolan hired someone other than Wally Pfister.

tabuno- you mentioned Fantastic Voyage- I bought that one on DVD after Arthur C. Clarke said it was one of the "good sci-fi" movies. For it's time, absolutely. Interstellar is a lot like Fantastic Voyage in that the knowledgable crew are on a mission that can turn into a "no-going-back" scenario. But while Fantastic Voyage keeps you guessing on what will happen (even by crude 1966 standards), Interstellar doesn't make us care enough about the characters to put yourself in their place. When Matthew & Anne are having a heated exchange over where they find themselves all I could think was "You accepted the pilot's job, Matthew. Why should I care if you found yourself in peril, a long ways from home?" It seemed like the crew were in way over their heads, like a skeleton Star Trek crew on their first space voyage. What support do they get from the Space Administration? They are on their own the whole time. "Don't go gently into that good night" and "Rage against the dying of the light" is the theme, and we are reminded of it every ten minutes by Nolan.

What is the message here? What are we to leave the theatre thinking?
I was thinking "I want my money back!"

[Chris Knipp]

Duncan Jones's 2009 Moon and Sebastián Cordero's 2013 Europa Report deal with this sort of theme more convincingly and poignantly, as do other films those knowledgable about sci-fi can remember. See Armnd White's debunking of the praise for Interstellar in his review. Warning: like me he has never much liked this director (except that I think Memento is a thrilling stunt).

[Johann]

Armond nails it. He dissects the movie perfectly, way better than me. This is why Armond White is an important critic. He makes sound points, and he lasers in on what's onscreen.

Interstellar has no cinema. It's got no juice. And that annoys me, because I know Chris Nolan can deliver quality cinema. Like Inception, he didn't seem to step back from his own movie and see how it's hollow. He was satisfied enough to release it, but Jesus, with the production design he has and the tools at his disposal, how is he not achieving landmark film status with each new effort? He admires Kubrick? I wonder exactly how much he admires Kubrick. Because Interstellar doesn't shove the medium forward or give us glorious imagery like Kubrick did.

[Chris Knipp]

You seem even harder than Armond on Intersteller, harder on it than I am -- bitter like an abandoned lover. You've been a great fan of Nolan and you feel betrayed by his failure. I did engage with its content, even if it is a failed effort in the end. I totally agree that Armond, at his best, is a laser beam who cuts to the essentials and he's an essential critic. His extreme biases are part of who he is and maybe may be necessary to a truly distinctive critic.

Nolan is no Kubrick. Who is? Kubrick is a giant among filmmakers.

[Johann]

You're right. I am a jilted lover. I demand more from Chris Nolan. After The Dark Knight trilogy, he should've cranked it up way more, and delivered something truly stark.

[tabuno]

Johann's comments make a critical response elusive because it seems his comments are just subjective statements without much in the way of explanation. "No juice"? "It's hollow"?

Interstellar seemed full of visceral, immersive sensory period or dense environmentally dusty polluted scenes, sharp modernistic scenes that evoked a backdrop that heightened the actor's performances and dialogue that brought forth both intense emotional feelings. Just because this movie didn't incorporate the required stock characters or clique subplots that often accompany blockbusters doesn't mean this movie didn't have juice. Interstellar was like a crisp, brilliant drink of refreshing ice, cold water that splashed down one's throat with satisfying satiation. It was full of exciting moments of humanity, loss, and sacrifice, hewing with delightful closeness to actual quantum mechanical plausibility regarding time travel.

[Johann]

Johann's comments make a critical response elusive because it seems his comments are just subjective statements without much in the way of explanation. "No juice"? "It's hollow"?
Interstellar was like a crisp, brilliant drink of refreshing ice, cold water that splashed down one's throat with satisfying satiation.

Wow- I've never had a brilliant drink of water. But I love your passion in defending it. That's what we do here- say what we think and defend it. I will admit that Interstellar looks and feels light years better than most movies out there today. Nolan is a craftsman. But when I said it has no juice, that it's hollow, I meant it. I understand your passion for the movie- we don't see many movies that put us in space and time like Interstellar. I'm saying that with the tools at Nolan's disposal, he could've really made something that rivals Kubrick's 2001. I felt nothing for the characters for two reasons: 1. they seem awfully cocksure about their careers 2. the "humanity" they express when the going gets rough inspires pity to me, not empathy.

The dustbowl special effects seemed fake and phony. But the Inception-style effects of the earth rising up on all sides- THAT was well done. It's hollow because what is the resolution to the story? 2001 ends mysteriously. (and positively, imho) Interstellar?
If food runs out and we have to leave planet earth, is this how it would play out?
I can think of a better plot than that.

[Chris Knipp]

Critically Inception and Interstellar fared about the same, whereas Nolan's greatest successes were The Dark Night and The Dark Night Rises. If it's any comfort to you, tabuno, for me Interstellar has more "juice" than Inception, which left me completely cold.

[tabuno]

This amazingly shot movie displays in dazzling cinematography the richness and depth of science fiction imagination while at the same time offering up a crisp visual and audio film experience of time distortion, space travel as well as coping with our now changing global environment in heart-felt personal terms. This movie explores the depth of space travel, its risks, the sacrifices in epic proportion. The movie's length was timeless as one was transported into the world of imagination fulfilling the ultimate movie goal of immersing the audience in ways that are impossible through the written world, allowing the movie screen and sound effects in effect to bring the absorbing sights and sounds of what one only once have been mental images in one's mind. Interstellar successfully accomplished with perfection the experience of emotions, important human values, and the thrilling of adventure. I find no flaws or imperfections in this movie. Personally, this movie surpasses Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in its visual depiction of space travel, the connection between life on earth and in space juxtaposed, the soaring music, and its hard core science fiction implications.

My November 7, 2014 capsule review:

Interstellar (2014). This moving includes an amazing emotive “long-distance” parent-child interactive relationship, with a dual storyline, ground breaking visual effects, and a solid scientific-based space exploration and personal survival of the human race theme. Interstellar is solid story telling with its dramatic, not overly stylish Hollywood gloss and glamour and Ann Hathaway’s under-stated surprisingly diminutive stand out performance. The overall direction and performances in this movie are introspective and authentic in their approach instead of big screen stereotypical theatrics to wow its audiences. Some might complain about the extended dialogue, but there really is a more satisfying exchange of relevant thoughtful ideas during this movie that are interspersed among amazing special effects that are leading edge for our literal time and space. What makes Interstellar so markedly ground breaking is director’s Christopher Nolan’s leap with this movie in its freshness and significantly different visual presentation, its tight editing and retention of the human relational importance while also presenting to dual track story outline in seamless and meaningful power way. [Reviewed 11/7/14].

[Johann]

This movie explores the depth of space travel, its risks, the sacrifices in epic proportion.Personally, this movie surpasses Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in its visual depiction of space travel

I like the first sentence you wrote a lot.
The second sentence makes my jaw drop.
Did we see the same movie, tabuno? :)