All Things: Directors

INTERSTELLAR Review

I deeply admire what Nolan tries to accomplish on a macro-level with Interstellar because only he has the ability to do it. All other filmmakers, no matter their talent, are shackled to pre-established brands, making the adaptations easily accessible for an international audience, and reluctantly tacking on 3D. Nolan gets to work from an original screenplay, shoot in IMAX, and do things like use the theory of relativity to create easily understood dramatic stakes in a picture that celebrates space travel. Buried beneath the poor dialogue, bland characters, and narrative leaps, Interstellar has a beautiful and noble goal. But burdened with so many faults and contrivances, Nolan’s sci-fi epic never achieves escape velocity.

Rating: C-

Read more at http://collider.com/interstellar-review/#doYU4SQO8KPZM5rH.99
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This reviewer was found dead at the hands of the Nolanati shortly after publishing...
 
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Wow...there are a few shots where the make up appliances look terrible. It's amazing how poor the practical fx have been throughout. Of course it's all cgi anyway.
 
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Just saw Interstellar in 70mm IMAX at Universal. Freakin' incredible. Ordering the score now. Christopher Nolan is my hero.

Now bring it, JD.
 
NastiMarvasti said:
Just saw Interstellar in 70mm IMAX at Universal. Freakin' incredible. Ordering the score now. Christopher Nolan is my hero.

Now bring it, JD.
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Oh I will get around to seeing it eventually. And I will be fair. If I like it I will say so. But too busy, with too many other good movies backed up right now. Hell, I still haven't seen Gone Girl.
 
I bought tickets to see it in 70mm tomorrow afternoon. Super ****ing excited, both because of the movie and because I'll actually be GOING TO THE MOVIES. I think this will only be the 5th or 6th time all year, honestly. It's ****ing depressing.
 
Here's the thing. Even if you absolutely hate the movie, I can't imagine someone seeing it and not at least appreciating the different film experience that comes with seeing a Nolan flick. It makes you think long after the credits have rolled. It ain't "just another movie that you forget about tomorrow" which is the same reason I haven't been going to the movies as often in the last couple of years.
 
adgy-san said:
I bought tickets to see it in 70mm tomorrow afternoon. Super ****ing excited, both because of the movie and because I'll actually be GOING TO THE MOVIES. I think this will only be the 5th or 6th time all year, honestly. It's ****ing depressing.
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NastiMarvasti said:
Here's the thing. Even if you absolutely hate the movie, I can't imagine someone seeing it and not at least appreciating the different film experience that comes with seeing a Nolan flick. It makes you think long after the credits have rolled. It ain't "just another movie that you forget about tomorrow" which is the same reason I haven't been going to the movies as often in the last couple of years.
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See NM that's exactly the reason WHY I rail so much about Nolan's movies. GUESS WHAT. It's just a movie. Not an 'experience'. That's the side effect of youse guys being snookered into buying the emperors new clothes. What do I mean? Ok, saw Batman Begins. Struggled to get through it. TDK...better, but almost entirely due to a legacy defining performance by Ledger, so dark that it could be included in his cause of death. TDKR was a laffable, overlong mess. With Bane's comical voice affect, Bale's 'oooh scawy' growly voice, and EVERYONE knowing Batman's secret identity. Entertaining and entirely forgettable. JUST LIKE MOST MOVIES. And Inception. A mess within a mess within a mess. Once again...marginally entertaining(and horrifyingly overlong) and COMPLETELY forgettable. Nolan's movies(to me) have almost NO rewatch value simply because they are so busy trying to be MORE that they wear on you. And I am the KING of rewatching stuff. I keep reading a lot of warning signs about this flick too...overreaching, overlong, etc. I just wish Nolan, in his unending dissertation on what film is, could be bothered to stop hitting us over the head with his deep thoughts and actually try to entertain. Inception is no better or worse than Avatar, which is the worst case of an 'auteur' trying to school us poor dumb humans but at least that movie had a sense of some fun. Nolan wants to live in both worlds. Applying arthouse Danish(or whatever he is) values to a tentpole popcorn movie. Which is fine. But, and maybe it's perception, he does it in such an overbearing joyless fashion that you almost can't help but feel insulted. Not trying to entertain, but teach us foolish Americans. In the end...just a movie. Not an event. That's the mass hysteria speaking.
 
This should be fun.

Popcorn-15-Scary-Movie.gif
 
jerseydevil said:
See NM that's exactly the reason WHY I rail so much about Nolan's movies. GUESS WHAT. It's just a movie. Not an 'experience'. That's the side effect of youse guys being snookered into buying the emperors new clothes. What do I mean? Ok, saw Batman Begins. Struggled to get through it. TDK...better, but almost entirely due to a legacy defining performance by Ledger, so dark that it could be included in his cause of death. TDKR was a laffable, overlong mess. With Bane's comical voice affect, Bale's 'oooh scawy' growly voice, and EVERYONE knowing Batman's secret identity. Entertaining and entirely forgettable. JUST LIKE MOST MOVIES. And Inception. A mess within a mess within a mess. Once again...marginally entertaining(and horrifyingly overlong) and COMPLETELY forgettable. Nolan's movies(to me) have almost NO rewatch value simply because they are so busy trying to be MORE that they wear on you. And I am the KING of rewatching stuff. I keep reading a lot of warning signs about this flick too...overreaching, overlong, etc. I just wish Nolan, in his unending dissertation on what film is, could be bothered to stop hitting us over the head with his deep thoughts and actually try to entertain. Inception is no better or worse than Avatar, which is the worst case of an 'auteur' trying to school us poor dumb humans but at least that movie had a sense of some fun. Nolan wants to live in both worlds. Applying arthouse Danish(or whatever he is) values to a tentpole popcorn movie. Which is fine. But, and maybe it's perception, he does it in such an overbearing joyless fashion that you almost can't help but feel insulted. Not trying to entertain, but teach us foolish Americans. In the end...just a movie. Not an event. That's the mass hysteria speaking.
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Ok, now that you've released the Kraken...

Joyless and not entertaining to me is a popcorn flick that's on par with watching someone playing a video game. The Avengers and Man of Steel were boring movies for me that I had a hard time sitting through. Don't you think that in an industry where most movies are formulaic that it's a little refreshing to have a guy who will at least try to make something that we can't predict the ending of? I don't want everything to be brainless. I actually like when the director treats me like a smart person and doesn't dumb everything down to "crash, bang, zap, explosion, explosion within explosion". It's more than just him being pretentious. He's different. He makes different movies. You know when you're watching a Christopher Nolan movie. You are pretty much wrong in all of your assessments of his movies (ok fine, you're entitled to your opinion...I guess) and specifically about Inception. There is not a hair out of place with that movie so calling it a mess is a gigantic leap. And the biggest difference between that movie and Avatar is that Inception is actually original. Avatar was Dances With Wolves in space and with an inferior script. To say that a movie can't be an event and is only just a movie, is an insult to all the movies of the past that we all grew up watching like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or 2001, or even The Matrix. Yes, they're movies but they're movies that live on for generations, that make you think, that are talked about, that define the art form and in turn define our culture. No one is saying his movies are going to save us from extinction but can you honestly tell me that Inception and The Dark Knight and Memento aren't imitated and talked about today and won't continue to be in future generations? There are directors admitting to taking some of the ideas from his movies for their own. Look at Sam Mendes in Skyfall. And let's not forget that he is the main reason there are more and more directors focusing on practical effects these days as opposed to the CGI-for-everything technique which plagued the early 2000's. Michael Bay of all people had an office building floor built on stilts for Transformers 3 so he could tilt it side to side like a certain other film. Yes, Nolan didn't originate that idea but he certainly helped bring it back and expand upon it. And this is what I'm saying: you might not like the movies but you can't deny that they have a place among the most unique and defining films of this generation.

And he's English, not Danish.
 
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