Interstellar

We all know that Anne Hathaway has come a long way since getting herself sexed into a gang in the movie Havoc but why is it that only female directors and You Won't Like Me When I'm Ang Lee can convince her to get topless in a movie? Is she waiting until she's 35 and no longer getting offered qualities roles before she does so again? Does she visualize Meryl Streep clotheslining her with a Gucci bag every time she gets undressed? And was this the first thing on my mind when I went to see the movie Interstellar last night? Well the answer to the last one is no! But the first time I saw her wearing a turtle neck covering up those wonderful assets it completely took me out of the movie and I all of a sudden found myself in an uncontrollable rage; thankfully though it wasn't long after this that Christopher Nolan mercifully put Jessica Chastain on the screen and that helped calm me back down a bit. 

I will say that from a technical standpoint this movie looks and sounds amazing as quite a bit of it was shot on 70mm film; and at this point you should expect nothing less from Nolan. But what sets this film apart from his previous work is that pretty much everything you have ever heard of or studied in Astronomy or Physic class is on display in this film. I'm not saying that it's all accurate, I'm just saying that you get unique visuals and experiences with theories and both natural and unnatural phenomena like you never have before.

The first act of the movie seems a little rushed or a bit over edited as scientist and ex pilot Cooper (McConaughey), with the help of his young daughter Murphy, stumble upon a secret NASA station in the middle of nowhereville USA. It is here that he is instantly recruited to lead a crew of astronauts on a mission to find a planet that can sustain human life as this one (Earth) has turned on its own inhabitants and is slowly taking away our ability to grow food and have breathable air. It is through the use of a wormhole that has randomly appeared next to Saturn that they plan to get to another galaxy and hopefully return so they can transport humanity to their new home.

Once the second act kicks in and Nolan does his customary split action sequences where multiple story lines run parallel with one another and seemingly climax together, you begin to worry if this is simply a mashing of Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity and Danny Boyle's Sunshine as some of the action scenes seem to be completely inspired by these films.

It's not until the third and final act starts that you finally see Nolan make his unique and rather daunting footprint on the genre that is the science fiction action film. I won't sit here and say that what he presents on screen has never been done before in the land of Sci-Fi but I will say that I have never seen it done on this kind of a scale before. I give him major props for bringing some of my astronomical daydreams to life and for allowing me to see on a 100 foot screen something that I never thought I would see visually outside of my own head; and to be honest, quite a few things I would have never come up with on my own as well.

Nolan continues to put the rest of Hollywood on notice that he is here make both intelligent and entertaining cinema that doesn't rely on either reboots or re-imaginations to do so. And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a nod to the actors in this film for being able to draw from humanity's most basic and visceral emotions to get us to find a connection with them in this distant world. You see yourself coming to the same decisions and making the same mistakes they do as they struggle to survive.

I rate this movie as unbelievably FRESH!