'Interstellar' Nolan Fans Member Reviews

Christopher Nolan's 2014 grand scale science-fiction story about time and space, and the things that transcend them.
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I thought I was ready to post a review, but I just...can't do it right now. I'll do it tomorrow....but for now...DAMN! :twothumbsup:

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dafox wrote:RottenTomatoes can go jump off a cliff /10
Exactly. Those negative RT reviewers actually enhanced my love for this movie because they lowered my expectations.

Boy, that sure was foolish. I just left an IMAX showing and couldn't say anything but "Wow". Where do you even begin on an analysis of such a masterpiece? Of such a mind-blowing experience? The fact of the matter is there's nothing like this movie to compare "Interstellar" to. It is a new brand of science fiction that I've never quite experienced before.

On one hand, it is full of references to 2001, Close Encounters and other sci-fi classics. At the same time, it feels like the spiritual successor to 2001 that we've always wanted but no movie has ever been able to deliver. "Interstellar" did it, folks. This has every kind of sci-fi element I've ever wanted in a film, and in doing so it's unlike anything else from the genre.

This film is a trendsetter and a milestone achievement. I can't get over how AMBITIOUS it is! The scope is massive, the risk is off the charts and the ideas are all-or-nothing. I absolutely love this aspect of it more than anything else. Does it hit nothing but home runs? Is it flawless? Of course not. But it's highs are sooooooooo high when it does hit it right. In an era where movies are plagued by unoriginal sequelitis, this sort of daring direction should be applauded and celebrated.

To wrap it up, Nolan outdid himself with "Interstellar". This is my favorite film of his and I didn't expect that going into it. It's a grand, epic, daring and original film that will leave you breathless and smiling. 10/10 :twothumbsup:

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I just got back...4*/5...I'm still tryin' to get my head around something that happens toward the end of the movie, and probably will for some time...LOVED Hans Zimmer's score...all the performances are good, especially Matthew McConaughey's...I'm a father, and have a daughter, and much of the movie really resonated with me...

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Best movie I have ever seen holy shit.

5/5 10/10 A+

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Hello to all,
I've been reading everyone's posts almost daily ever since the The Dark Knight but never felt necessary to post anything until now, and the reason behind that is Interstellar. What a daring and beautiful movie. An achievement!

Where to begin? From loving Nolan's films from Memento, The Dark Knight to Inception, I came in with high expectations for this film. What stuck me about this movie was not the film, but a positive change in direction for Nolan as a director. For whatever reason, there was growth in Nolan as a filmmaker. In this film he leaps bounds by his own standards and was able to infuse interstellar with all the things he had learn in past films and apply them gracefully into one cosmic film. Unlike past films, this film didn't feel formulaic, it had a heart in the center of it all, and by that i mean it tugged all of our human emotions (Despair, love, betrayal, fear, etc) Nolan's ability to make smart, complex, thoughtful, but bold and visual empowering films has been on of the main reasons I believe he is the front runner in movie Cinema today. Visually this movie is stunning. Some of the best sequences shown on this film are breathtaking and are cinematic breakthroughs in the visual arts (Wormhole entrance, Crash scene in space, and Cooper in the fifth dimension). There are brilliant scenes of wonder that are orchestrated in this movie, and are executed to perfection (The Eerie silent sound of space) and (the docking sequence).

Although much praise from me will go to Nolan, this film does have flaws. As other reviews have stated, the movie does over rely on exposition dialogue. Sometimes its necessary in any film, but in this one I felt it was overly used and some scenes do drag. But this does not take away from the movies achievement as an OVERALL rounded film. For those critics that are basing their negative reviews solely that, are negating themselves from the magic. From the bold. The beautiful. The Haunting. 90 percent of this film works, and that 10 percent should not dictate whether a film is bad or good.

Lastly, this film works in three acts. And those segments can be clearly introduced on the film, where one begins an one ends. The weakest has to be act two, not because it isn't good, but because it doesn't match the intensity of the third act, or the embracing family bond from the 1st. So it will be judged unfairly.

Besides that, I am stuck in wonder, feeling like I should not go gentle into that good night....

Four and a half stars out out five!!!! Close to a Masterpiece...

Rankings of Films:
1)The Dark Knight
2)Inception
3)Interstellar
4)Memento
5)Insomnia
6)Batman Begins
7)The Dark Knight Rises

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For those of you still uninitiated with Interstellar, the new shrouded-in-secrecy film by genius and innovator Christopher Nolan, stop reading here. It is the personification of discovery, an eyes-wide-open love song that dares to ask what if and to open doors to places both new and unexpected. As Christopher Nolan himself has said to the press, this film, perhaps more than any other of his, relishes in its untold story. There are the expected Nolan twists and turns, but so much of the meat and bones of the story has been lovingly withheld that spoiling seems rude. Interstellar is in a constant state of evolution and metamorphosis, with distinct phases that differ in look, structure, and theme. Although Nolan recycles core sci-fi tropes, the context and presentation deepens and expands them past familiarity, using them as thematic devices that uplift and still surprise. The more familiar you are with the genre, the more you might see things coming (though there are some nobody will), but Nolan’s stellar triumph is in how he synthesizes his film’s many moving parts into a clear, absorbing gospel of time, life, and love. It’s an unfortunate mark of timing that Boyhood, an amazing film that mourns the uncanny delicacy of time’s passing, came out only a few months prior, since Interstellar chases a similar ambition less effectively but still with resonance. Nolan uses time like a Death Star, and it is terrifying.

Interstellar is a profound evolution for Nolan not just as a filmmaker but as an artist. He plays with new forms of cinematic expression, has never been more confident or as audacious, and asks big questions while he finds increasingly stunning ways to wow. No film in 2014 is as joyously cinematic: Interstellar is worth celebrating.

What I can say -- or rather what I will -- is this: Interstellar is a science fiction film taking place in a not too distant future. It’s science fiction in the classical sense, taking existing speculative science and spinning it into narrative orbit. Earth has become a planet-wide dust bowl with crops failing and the population on the brink of ruin. It’s a fatalistic vision of Earth’s future that, in the hands of a filmmaker known for his over-seriousness, shockingly becomes a fable of optimism and hope. Using the last resources on Earth, an expedition is set to travel through a newly discovered wormhole, with detailed plans to ‘test out’ multiple planets that can possibly sustain life. Grounding Nolan’s voyage between galaxies is a gorgeous father-daughter story that’s a metaphor for all human connection and love -- a huge statement that might seem like folly if it wasn’t brought to life by two amazing performances by Matthew McConaughey and Mackenzie Foy. I expected McConaughey to wow, and he’s better here than his Oscar-winning turn in Dallas Buyers Club, but I was pleasantly surprised at the nuanced and heartfelt performance by Foy-a rarity amongst child actors. The cast is excellent, namely Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway along with many others. They are the human heart in a film that could have been intellectually paralyzing, and they pump blood into Interstellar’s icy veins.


The striking production design rejects the sleek futurism of Minority Report and has the live-in grit of Star Wars or Alien. It’s a textured world, and everything Nolan and his elite team of artists (production designer Nathan Crowley, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema) do is to make the future feel as real as the present. Function over form is the film’s mantra, although the designs are destined to be iconic. This is perhaps best shown in the film’s sarcastic robot TARS, which is best described by saying the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey joined Cirque du Soleil, which is somehow both funny and cool. Nolan’s portrayal of a wormhole visualizes space and time with the splendor of gods, making it, along with a few other set pieces, instantaneously stand tall with the best moments of sci-fi spectacle in the history of the cinema. They’re the sort of metaphysical sights that would spark Stanley Kubrick back to life and give a standing ovation. It’s as important to see Interstellar in IMAX as it is to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm. It sings on the big screen.

In a stroke of aesthetic genius, instead of zooming the camera in, out, and around mind-melting vistas of space, water, and ice, Nolan places his camera onto the wings, roofs, and decks of space ships. There are three main types of shots in these big sequences: a wide shot far back enough to show a breathtaking scale, shots that feature parts of the ship at various angles, or shots from the point of view of the cockpit. No matter how otherworldly or abstract space becomes, and it at times does resemble the drooling visions of a surrealist, the human element – us -- is always in view. The purpose behind Nolan’s first-person camera perspective goes even beyond a human context and into the realm of pure visceral thrill. By anchoring the action through human eyes, Interstellar becomes less like Gravity’s deadly space ballet and instead simulates the feeling of barreling down a cosmic rollercoaster. The effect is often exhilarating, although a minor quibble is that editor Lee Smith does let these shots linger to the point of distraction. Hoyte Van Hoytema’s earthy cinematography and measured framing enhance the textured feel of Interstellar, and it is a frighteningly felt two hours and forty-nine minutes. Hans Zimmer’s organ, religious-like score elevates scenes that otherwise wouldn’t hit as hard as they do, which isn’t a flaw as much as a sign of skilled collaboration.


As plot-driven as Interstellar seems on its surface -- and accusations the film is an extended science lesson are obnoxiously overblown -- the broad story is only a gateway to the subconscious. Why the film works is its devotion to activating an elemental, primal response, and it uses the same stylistic tricks as Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout), and Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris) to do it. Fire and ice are played off each other in a stunning use of crosscutting between Earth and a distant planet, an artistic masterstroke that supports one of Interstellar’s most immense and important moments. Nolan wrangles with man’s basic nature, arguing our survival instinct as a species is at once a liberating virtue as well as a fierce limitation, and for the first time in his career, he assembles his film according to symbolic association rather than escalating plot. Even if the audience didn’t consciously register the implications of Nolan’s visual lyricism, they certainly felt it. It’s a stunning moment of pure cinema that left my theater, as well as myself, breathless. The scale is both shrunken and limitless, able to engage the weightiest of ideas on an intimate, felt level. Rather than just being a film, Interstellar is an experience, and exploiting primordial impulse is a powerful reason why.


This sequence unlocks the inner workings of Interstellar as a whole, revealing a film with a poetic logic that washes over you as it fires off every neuron in your head and tugs at every heart string. Humankind becomes a metaphor for science as science becomes a metaphor for humankind, like turning Newton’s third law of motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) into poetry: you have to leave something behind to go forward. In Interstellar, Nolan made a film that looks backwards and forwards, that’s about time, that’s about humanity at its best and at its worst, that’s about God, and that’s about the expanse of mankind from our birth to our far eventual future. Nolan seems aware of the many risks his latest film takes -- especially as it barrels forward into a third act that’s at constant risk of alienating the mass audience -- but he has the courage to take leaps of faith even if he might stumble. Nolan does stumble. It's a film destined to divide. There are flaws, and they are noticeable. But, largely, Interstellar escapes them- it's an experience that gloriously transcends traditional criteria like few films can. Just like the characters in his movies, Nolan nobly invites audiences to take that the leap with him. Interstellar launched my heart and mind into space at a gravity-defying velocity, overwhelming as much as moving, and it wasn’t hours after seeing it did I realize I had just experienced a reckless, mad masterpiece.

A+

-Vader

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Ok, so this is my first review here. Keep in mind that I just saw the movie and am still digesting it.
So, hard facts. Rating: 8.5-9/10, or a solid ''A," if you're in a good mood. Beautifully filmed, definitely something that will stick with me for a long time to come.
It's really hard to review this movie without going into spoiler territory, so here's the short version. Go see it, highly recommended.

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Cooper: We will find a way, we always have.

Interstellar is truly a sci-fi epic journey!

10/10

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I watch 2 times here on Portugal , for me no movie is perfect , but mostly all the masterpieces of cinema need to be watch a few times in order to understand the theme philosophy etc.... the thing about this movie is Nolan focus all in time and love and it is brilliant . Score sometimes its like a fucking clock . One thing is for sure "InterStellar" its a Landmark of cinema and once again Nolan made a blockbuster to make people think and talk about the movie for years to come .

9/10

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I watched it yesterday, I don't think I've ever been more excited for a movie before in my life. I went with 5 other people, and I've hyped them all up to the extreme.

Spoiler free btw, spoilers will be marked.

Things I loved
The directing of course is masterful as always, one thing I was curious about was Hoyte van Hoytema as DP, and I thought he did an absolutely incredible job. The score, holy freaking crap, the score is magnificent, I loved it, and I can't wait for it to get released, Zimmer never disappoints. Some very powerful scenes, and with that said, McConnaughey gives in my opinion his best performance yet, I really hope he will other films with Nolan. Rest of the cast is great especially Damon, freaking loved his character too. I also think that this has the most memorable scenes in all of Nolan's films.

Stuff I didn't like
I wasn't a huge fan of the dialogue at times, I thought there was a bit too much exposition at times, also there was a scene where
Murph throws her paper away and kisses Topher Grace, I thought that was totally unnecesarry
Plus I thought that Topher Grace's character was totally unneeded. I can also see why some people would've liked to see the last 10 minutes get cutted, but I personally didn't have any problem with it, I think I'm still trying to figure out the end of the film.

Overall
So pretty much after the film, we talked for about an hour about the film, and it was only positive things, my cousin said it was the best film he has ever seen, we pretty much all loved it, and I did think it lived up to all my expectations.

Rating: Either, 8.75 (which I gave Inception) or a 9 out of 10. But it needs more viewings, as does every Nolan film :gonf:

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