INTERSTELLAR (2014) - Christopher Nolan

[AndyDursin]

Christopher Nolan's first post-BATMAN film offers Matthew McConaughey (plus Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastian) in a sci-fi adventure looking something like a futuristic CONTACT. The full trailer is now out below.

What do you want to wager the answers to the universe...are right here inside of us!

[Monterey Jack]

Always up for a new Nolan movie...shame we'll be getting the usual Zimmer Drone for a soundtrack, though.

[mkaroly]

Hans Zimmer again...UGH!!!!!!!!

The ending will either be a twist ending or openly ambiguous.

Still...maybe it will be worth seeing.

[AndyDursin]

The ending will either be a twist ending or openly ambiguous.

Yeah that's what I meant...the answers were within you all along! lol

[DavidBanner]

This doesn't look like an Inception or that kind of thing.
Maybe a little like Contact, which Matthew McConaughey was in as well.

Looks interesting.
I'll wait to see what the initial reaction is.

I do like the music I'm hearing in the trailer, for what it's worth.

[AndyDursin]

Interstellar (2014): Earth's population pretends the planet is dying in order to get Anne Hathaway to leave the solar system

-Andy Levy on Twitter

lol

I noticed her role in the film was totally neglected by that trailer, even though she has 2nd billing

[Paul MacLean]

The trailer piqued my interest until it turned into When Worlds Collide.

The trailer music isn't awful..tho it's possible this may not reflect what the final score is going to sound like.

[Jedbu]

Christopher Nolan has a new film? I'm there.

[AndyDursin]

Watching it again, I don't think that's a particularly good trailer. I remember seeing the GRAVITY trailer last year and people had a strong reaction to it. If Nolan's name wasn't on this, that trailer -- by itself -- isn't all that compelling.

[Mike Skerritt]

Watching it again, I don't think that's a particularly good trailer. I remember seeing the GRAVITY trailer last year and people had a strong reaction to it. If Nolan's name wasn't on this, that trailer -- by itself -- isn't all that compelling.

I love that there's a classic Nolanderp moment right in there; the bit where Caine and McConaughey are talking and Caine is like "oh wait there's a giant rocket right in the next room." That's Big Movie Nolan in a nutshell. He wants a neat moment but has no regard for logic.

[Paul MacLean]

That's Big Movie Nolan in a nutshell. He wants a neat moment but has no regard for logic.

Those kinds of plausibility gaps are why much of Nolan's work drives me insane.

Oh, and I found out the trailer music is actually Dario Marianelli, not Zimmer.

[Mike Skerritt]

Those kinds of plausibility gaps are why much of Nolan's work drives me insane.

Oh, and I found out the trailer music is actually Dario Marianelli, not Zimmer.

Yep. V FOR VENDETTA. I think the track is "Evey Reborn."

And I still can't believe, like literally cannot believe, the plot of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES with the police containment, the city deserted, etc. To the point where I have to wonder if he conceived it as some sort of black comedy.

[AndyDursin]

I'm not the world's biggest Nolan aficionado though the DARK KNIGHT RISES didn't bother me at all (I liked the film a whole lot) as it is still, fundamentally, a comic book film requiring a suspension of disbelief on a number of levels. Something that pretends to be a "serious" thriller like INCEPTION, though, is a different matter entirely -- that's where I have a larger problem. I don't even think MEMENTO hangs together as a narrative to say nothing of the ridiculousness of THE PRESTIGE.

Too bad Marinelli doesn't score this picture...but hopefully South Park will get another episode to rib Zimmer's music at least!

[DavidBanner]

I find Christopher Nolan to be an extremely talented storyteller. He does like to complicate his narratives, but I don't think they're that hard to follow. Similar to comic books, his stories tend to require a certain amount of suspended disbelief, and tend to follow their own internal logic.

Memento works as an exercise both in reverse narrative, and frankly, in utter nihilism. I think it holds together quite well even after you know the closing twist - as the more you know, the more about the main character really comes out.

Insomnia is a little less successful, but it does have some truly inspired moments, and a great, creepy performance by Robin Williams.

I agree that The Prestige does not hold up under repeat viewing. It's a beautifully constructed puzzle box, but once you see how the magic trick works, as it were, the game isn't all that interesting. I will say that it gave David Bowie a nice cameo and there are beautiful shots - particularly the image of all those hats...

Inception is a really interesting movie to me, and it actually does hold up under repeat viewing - something I tested recently. I've long been fascinated by the concept of a dream within a dream within a dream, and this was a beautiful way to explore that notion.

Nolan's Batman movies are a narrative of their own. They're a bit long and ponderous, but they all have wonderful moments, some of them more than others. Batman Begins probably shows the most invention, while The Dark Knight has the performances of both Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart - and both movies have some great sequences of Batman and the villains in action. If anything, these two films put the entire Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman experience in a decidedly less favorable light. Watching the Tim Burton Batman after Nolan's Dark Knight really doesn't help the Burton film at all. And yes, the Burton film was the monster hit of 1989 - it doesn't make it a particularly good movie. Watching it recently, I was struck by how little sense the 1989 movie made, and how badly it had aged. Nolan's last movie, The Dark Knight Rises, has a series of internal problems that undo its own logic before it comes to an end. The opening hour is actually great stuff, and I'd argue that things are going well all the way up to the point that Bane completely takes over Gotham. After that point, we seem to be watching a different movie where all the internal logic has been thrown out. I'll give Nolan points for using the old "Death or Exile/Death BY Exile" joke, but everything in the final hour of the movie seems to violate all the internal logic that had previously been established. This was a case where way too many moments of "HUH???" completely took me out of the movie. That said, like all the other Nolan movies, it was beautifully shot.

I'm looking forward to seeing what he's done with Interstellar. He's a master craftsman and an interesting storyteller. He's one of the few filmmakers we have left who actually puts a lot of thought into his movies (the last hour of Dark Knight Rises notwithstanding). With a JJ Abrams movie, a huge spectacle becomes a series of handheld shaky cam moves and flares, for no other reason than that Abrams wants you to think the scene is "urgent". With a Brett Ratner movie, there's never a sense of what the movie is about or what story is being told. With a Nolan movie, you always have a strong throughline and usually a few interesting things to think about on the way out. And he's also one of the very last people in film to actually still be shooting ON FILM. (And yes, Abrams is shooting his Star Wars reboot on film as well - we'll see what that actually looks like when it finally hits theaters in late 2015 or mid 2016...)

[Mike Skerritt]

I'm not the world's biggest Nolan aficionado though the DARK KNIGHT RISES didn't bother me at all (I liked the film a whole lot) as it is still, fundamentally, a comic book film requiring a suspension of disbelief on a number of levels. Something that pretends to be a "serious" thriller like INCEPTION, though, is a different matter entirely -- that's where I have a larger problem.

My problem is that you and I know it's fundamentally a comic book film, but Nolan doesn't. I mean of course he does, but he wants to have his cake and eat it too. I would disagree that there is a line drawn in the sand between the TDK trilogy and INCEPTION; I think he sees TDK very much as "serious" films and approached them that way in every respect, between the performances, the music, the photography, the overall tone. At the same time, he's talked about wanting to make "epic" films. He likes the canvas of these big blockbusters. But somewhere in there he got caught between his ambitions for TDK and the reality of the source material. I just wish he'd fully embraced one or the other. That said, there are things I like about BATMAN BEGINS and a lot that I like about TDK -- it's hard to argue for a bigger MVP to a movie made in the last 25 years than Ledger though, that movie would DIE without him.