Interstellar

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan









A lot of digital ink has already been spilled over this movie, so I'll keep my review fairly short.

I didn't want to like it, and I'll probably spend most of my time here pulling apart the things I didn't like. That being said, I actually liked this movie despite myself.

Things I didn't like.
-- It was too long. It was too short. Either way, it wasn't the right length. At nearly three hours, it definitely tested my patience. But there was so much in the movie that didn't feel developed enough (such as when Topher Grace's character showed up out of nowhere). Each of the three acts - Earth, Travel, Tesseract - could have been a separate movie in-and-of-itself.
--It took itself so darn seriously. I could feel the science-y pretentiousness oozing out of several scenes. For a science-fiction movie, it didn't have enough fun. (Exception: the robots - see below.) I'm not saying it needed to be "campy," but it might have benefited from someone telling the Nolan brothers to get over themselves.

Things I liked.
--The robots were the most unique and original element of the film. Fascinating design and execution. Just when you think there's no new ideas about robots in science fiction, along comes CASE and TARS.
--The imagery and cinematography were top of the line. Each shot was gorgeous.
--Matt Damon was an genuine surprise to me. I'd managed to avoid all spoilers, so I was shocked when he showed up. I was even more shocked when his character started to develop, but I'll save that for another time.

Jonathan and Christopher Nolan deserve credit for developing an original science fiction movie (aside from a few nods to "2001" here and a wink at "Alien" there). Without trying to sound like a cranky old man, I feel that sci-fi movies tend to be sequels, rip-offs, re-boots, or just plain copy-cats of prior work. In most cases, the prior work was better, and only in rare cases - the recent "Planet of the Apes" films jump to mind - are the newer works anywhere in the same league as the originals. "Interstellar" manages to be new while maintaining the feel of a classic.

Another sign of quality in "Interstellar's" favor is that I keep coming back to it in my thoughts and conversation. I keep wanting to discuss it and dissect it (both the good and the bad) and, who knows - maybe I'll watch it again.

Leap Year

Directed by: Anand Tucker

Written by: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont










The premise is remarkably simple and saccharine: Hot-to-trot city girl decides to follow her boyfriend to Ireland to propose to him on leap day.  Along the way, she meets a down-and-out country boy who teaches her that she doesn't really want what she thinks she wants.  She is conflicted, then, about who she truly loves, has an epiphany, and they all live happily ever after.

Given that synopsis, you'd predict that this movie would be a gagger.  And, to an extent, it is.  But, it wasn't as horrible as I had thought it would be.

The movie had two major weaknesses holding it back.

The first: a plot so transparent it could be used as glass.  This is a necessary evil in the rom-com genre, but it definitely made the movie feel longer than it needed to be because you could see every event in the plot coming several minutes ahead of time, and every minute in the interim between the moment you saw it coming and the moment it actually arrived was generally irrelevant.

The second: Amy Adams.  This movie could have been better with just about anyone - including an inanimate cardboard cutout - in the main role.  Whether it was a flaw in the writing of the character or in the way Adams tried to portray her (or, most likely, a combination of the two), there was very little to like about the main character.  As an audience in a movie like this, we're supposed to root for the main character to find true love.  But in this case, she was so absolutely not-endearing that I found myself hoping that there would be a twist in which the male lead would just abandon her on the side of the road.  (Alas, it didn't happen.)

This was a pretty standard rom-com, and it definitely was held back from being rated even "decent rom-com" by these major issues.  I don't feel like spending any more time re-living this film here.