Movies

Melt Face Molly Drop said:
Interstellar slander will not be tolerated.
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I hate the ending of Interstellar* but still love the movie. Really I have enjoyed everything Nolan has released since Momento, I think Nolan’s biggest flaw as a screenwriter is just going about 30 minutes too long on most of his films. I feel like if he would just leave off those extra bits he would be one of my favorite directors but he always attempts to push things beyond which just mucks thing up just enough. I am a person who appreciates visuals quite a bit and am willing to overlook him sticking the landing if I am visually awed by his cinematography.

*Intersteller should have ended when Mcconaughey decides to sacrifice himself to the black hole in an attempt to save humanity. If the movie ended there It might have been an all time sci-fi film for me but the stuff with going through the black hole and and then becoming some ghost steering his daughter then physically surviving and being reunited with his family was just sappy and ridiculous. I think there was another path that would have been much more satisfying. Even still the movie is so incredible outside that it’s still a film I’ve watched multiple times.
 
AndySlash said:
i am definitely excited to see oppenheimer but there is the one scene in a few of the trailers where matt damon says 'why?! how about because this is the MoSt ImPoRtAnT tHiNg To EvEr HaPpEn In ThE hIsToRy Of ThE wOrLd!!!' that utterly tempers that excitement every time i see it. unless nolan is subverting expectations here i am assuming it is being said with 100% sincerity and it's just sooo corny in it's delivery that i cannot take it seriously. and it made the trailer as something meant to sell the film!
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They certainly lean on Damon to bring his Martian lighthearted charm to the movie. It works more often than not.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
*Intersteller should have ended when Mcconaughey decides to sacrifice himself to the black hole in an attempt to save humanity. If the movie ended there It might have been an all time sci-fi film for me but the stuff with going through the black hole and and then becoming some ghost steering his daughter then physically surviving and being reunited with his family was just sappy and ridiculous. I think there was another path that would have been much more satisfying. Even still the movie is so incredible outside that it’s still a film I’ve watched multiple times.
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Yeah, it is sci-fi after all, so we must suppress the idea of what is considered "ridiculous" -- but also, contained within the ridiculousness is some plausibility with respect to time, space travel and in turn time travel that's worth exploring. The ideas are heavily entertained here, and that's what I appreciate about it. We will likely never know in our lifetime if some of Einstein's, Hawking's and other's theories hold water, but seeing it teased out on the big screen was exciting IMO.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I hate the ending of Interstellar* but still love the movie. Really I have enjoyed everything Nolan has released since Momento, I think Nolan’s biggest flaw as a screenwriter is just going about 30 minutes too long on most of his films. I feel like if he would just leave off those extra bits he would be one of my favorite directors but he always attempts to push things beyond which just mucks thing up just enough. I am a person who appreciates visuals quite a bit and am willing to overlook him sticking the landing if I am visually awed by his cinematography.

*Intersteller should have ended when Mcconaughey decides to sacrifice himself to the black hole in an attempt to save humanity. If the movie ended there It might have been an all time sci-fi film for me but the stuff with going through the black hole and and then becoming some ghost steering his daughter then physically surviving and being reunited with his family was just sappy and ridiculous. I think there was another path that would have been much more satisfying. Even still the movie is so incredible outside that it’s still a film I’ve watched multiple times.
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This didn't sit well with me when I saw it in theaters, but as I've sat with it over the years it actually feels like the sort of big-swing speculative sci-fi plot element that I'd have really loved in, like, a 70s Frederik Pohl novel. So I think it might work better for me on rewatch.
 
kvetcha said:
This didn't sit well with me when I saw it in theaters, but as I've sat with it over the years it actually feels like the sort of big-swing speculative sci-fi plot element that I'd have really loved in, like, a 70s Frederik Pohl novel. So I think it might work better for me on rewatch.
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Agreed and echoes my sentiment above. I love exploring those ideas instead of keeping it a mystery (kinda how Inception ended)
 
kvetcha said:
I feel like my Nolan rankings are kinda weird:

1) The Prestige
2) Dunkirk
3) The Dark Knight
4) Memento
5) Batman Begins
6) Interstellar (need to rewatch, only saw it once in theaters and I was sitting in a front corner seat at a full-fat IMAX theater)
7) Inception (never really cared for this one, feels like Paprika but not as good)
8) The Dark Knight Rises
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I am close to this

1) The Prestige
2) Dunkirk
3) Interstellar
4) The Dark Knight
5) Momento
6) Tenet
7) Inception
8) Batman Begins
9) The Dark Knight Rises
10) Insomnia


I really enjoy all the Batman films even Rises, I think Tom Hardy is bad ass and that opening sequence is incredible. The Dark Knight is fantastic mainly due to Heath Ledger it would probably be my favorite Batman movie if they scrapped the last 30 minute with the Two-Face stuff and Tim Burtons Batman films didn’t exist. Momento isn’t nearly as good now as it was when I was in my late teens and the idea was still fresh but it still interesting visually which says something since it was shot for barely anything. Inception and Tenet are a bit of a mess from a plot standpoint but they are so visually brilliant and the sci-fi is so dense it leave me thinking about them well after the end credits roll. The Prestige is pretty much perfect all the way around.
 
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kvetcha said:
This didn't sit well with me when I saw it in theaters, but as I've sat with it over the years it actually feels like the sort of big-swing speculative sci-fi plot element that I'd have really loved in, like, a 70s Frederik Pohl novel. So I think it might work better for me on rewatch.
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Melt Face Molly Drop said:
Agreed and echoes my sentiment above. I love exploring those ideas instead of keeping it a mystery (kinda how Inception ended)
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I think if they really wanted to go down that road there was a better way. Even if we see him become alien/future humans ghost tool; after crossing over the event horizon, that helps shape his daughter into the savior of humanity, I still think him waking up surrounded by his family was a bit hokey. They could have shifted perspective or something to show that humanity was saved without that scene. It feels like he gets to have his cake and eat it too which feels too soft.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I think if they really wanted to go down that road there was a better way. Even if we see him become alien/future humans ghost tool; after crossing over the event horizon, that helps shape his daughter into the savior of humanity, I still think him waking up surrounded by his family was a bit hokey. They could have shifted perspective or something to show that humanity was saved without that scene. It feels like he gets to have his cake and eat it too which feels too soft.
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I could probably have lived with him not reuniting with his daughter, but either way it felt like more of a gut punch than if he hadn't got to reunite with her. He got to see face to face what it looked like to miss your family's entire life. It would have been an easier pill for him to swallow IMO had he not gotten to say goodbye. Maybe Nolan shot an alternate ending that we'll get to see for its 10 year anniversary next year.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
*Intersteller should have ended when Mcconaughey decides to sacrifice himself to the black hole in an attempt to save humanity. If the movie ended there It might have been an all time sci-fi film for me but the stuff with going through the black hole and and then becoming some ghost steering his daughter then physically surviving and being reunited with his family was just sappy and ridiculous. I think there was another path that would have been much more satisfying. Even still the movie is so incredible outside that it’s still a film I’ve watched multiple times.
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I was too busy geeking out on noticing that the scene is Nolan combining two Jorge Luis Borges stories (I wrote my thesis on Borges)- "The Aleph" and "The Library of Babel"...
 
Ponman2003 said:
Woah. If it ended there, I'd probably walk away thinking, well that wasn't a very smart thing to do. Lol.
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But he has a choice. The movie is essentially about him sacrificing himself and his relationship with his children to save humanity for them. At that inflection point he can either go home and spend humanities last days with his family or he can give himself so they have a chance. He chooses the latter whether his efforts were wasted or ended up saving the human race doesn’t matter with his story. He made the choice.

I love 2001: A Space Odyssey I have seen it multiple times. I had no idea what was happening at the end of that film (until I read Arthur C Clark’s book companion many years later) the open-ended nature allowed for me to think about it and theorize what had happened in a way that made the full film much more enduring than had they just come out and showed dude ended up in a alien zoo.
 
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Melt Face Molly Drop said:
Does Borges get any credit or how does Hollywood circumnavigate ideas that feel similar?
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In this case, I later ran into an interview (I think it was the NY Times) where Nolan was asked if Philp K Dick inspired Inception (I'd say a good chunk of heady Hollywood sci fi is inspired by Dick), and he said it was actually Borges (which made me happy to know my weird little observation was actually right). Inception and Interstellar don't retell anything from Borges' stories, more like he's taking the ideas and sticking them into a more sci-fi action setting. In Inception, it's all the themes of dreams within dreams, time dilation, mirrors, labyrinths, and things like that. In Interstellar, its a bit more specific- one story is about a place from which you can see all space and time, and the other is about an infinite library. It's what I would call "good stealing," where you take old ideas and put them in new contexts with new forms, riffing rather than just ripping off.
 
Saw Oppenheimer this afternoon. There’s a lot I love about it. It’s admirable how this slow, dialogue heavy drama is a big summer blockbuster. I don’t know how a wide wide audience will accept it all, but I enjoyed much of it. There were some parts I felt a little disappointed with, but overall it was a pretty great experience. I’m still unraveling my thoughts completely. There’s a nice point in the third act where the film shifts into a slightly different focus and it just flies by with how it’s edited and how sharp the dialogue is. At points some of the writing is a little much though. Oh but that score! I loved it. It reminded me the There Will Be Blood score in some ways.

I’m pretty meh on Nolan overall, though he had some good films. This one is similar in ways to some of his previous work, but it also really stands apart. It feels more important in its message than anything he’s done before.
 
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