I forgot to address this initially.

I wouldn't go as far as to say Interstellar is worthy of a 10/10, but I will opine that it is by far the most underrated major release of last year.

This is a goddamn good movie, and the only reason people hate it is because of their absurdly unreachable (and deeply misguided) expectations of Nolan's movies.

He does not make some sort of deeply psychological absurdly cerebral films. He makes very mainstream movies that are slightly more self-serious and intelligent than the average.

Stop treating Memento like the rule. It's the exception.

If you accept that Christopher Nolan is not Darren Aronofsky, you might find that you're more capable of actually enjoying his movies.

Stop treating him like some kind of hyper-intellectual filmmaker, and accept that he's closer to James Cameron than he is to Paul Thomas Anderson.

For that matter, this is something that can be said about a lot of filmmakers. If you accept the director's work for what it generally is, instead of what you want it to be, you'll enjoy your one hell of a lot more movies.

Memento was pretty mainstream, too.

Don't get me wrong, I love Memento. It took risks that you'd only ever see out of an indie studio. But, despite being so unconventional, it did very well in its limited theatrical release. The only thing that made it inaccessible to mass audiences is the fact that the studio didn't have enough money to build a bigger audience.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Interstellar aside from misguided expectations for Nolan. You included a lot of arguments here that I guess are in response to something someone said on some other website, at some other time?

I was disappointed in Interstellar because while it may be more intelligent than your average sci-fi blockbuster, it has problems with pacing, serious problems with dialogue and characterization. It fails to really follow through with the interesting ideas it raises, falling back to platitudes and hand-waving. It loses focus on what's interesting in its premise (the middle third of undiscovered worlds, intrigue, peril, and the despair of mistakes leading to increasingly large temporal disconnect with Earth is by far the best part, IMO) and spends way too much time inching its way toward and spelling out a conclusion that we saw coming 20 minutes before.

I'm fine w/ Chris Nolan. I like most of his movies. If Interstellar had been 45-60 minutes shorter, and just not taken on some of the lofty questions it apparently had no interesting or novel way to answer, I probably would have enjoyed it just fine.

Also, TARS for President 2016 etc. etc.

Also, this thread better be here some time this summer after the release of DRAGON BALL Z: RESURRECTION F

OH YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA^8000

And the Oscar for Feature Film That's Actually Great If Watched In a Group goes to...

I'd like to +1 this.

I almost always have some problems with the dialogue in Nolan's films because some of it is just downright awful. For the worst example see absolutely everything Michael Caine was given to weep through in The Dark Knight Rises.

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Yeah, everything you just said describes all of his movies.

There is nothing wrong with Interstellar that isn't wrong with every Nolan movie.

I didn't entirely dislike Nightcrawler.

Then you didn't not dislike it enough.

I saw Grand Budapest Hotel two days ago. I liked it. Not to sound pretentious or anything but it felt like a movie; Throughout I genuinely wanted to see what happens next, how things get resolved and what the characters will do. So kudos to the story and set-up because it didn't feel like I was slogging through scenes.

I don't see Wes Anderson movies (except this one ofc), but I've seen the flack he gets. Justified? I dunno. I also don't how things work back scene with Wes directed projects, but it seemed like the actors enjoyed their roles. William Defoe, Jeff Goddamn Goldblum, ****ing Harvey Keitel. I liked Ralph Fiennes and his flair. Everything seemed so unabashedly heightened including, unexpected to me, moments of brash violence.

Just saw Birdman. I thought it was a fantastic play.

Writing & acting was top notch (although I'd expected it from Keaton & Norton).

What I don't understand is that the first 10 pages of user reviews on IMDB, sorted by 'most helpful', are almost completely negative. Are Americans really so hooked on the Hollywood formula that they balk on anything even slightly unconventional or 'artsy'? Yet, compared to many European films, Birdman is rather straightforward. Would these be the same folks who'd probably diss an Ingmar Bergman film for being (say) "unrealistic and boring"? I'm reminded of Gene Siskel arguing to Roger Ebert, in so many words, that a Tarkovsky movie would have been better if it was more like a Hollywood movie. Or the lady that told Ebert that the frog scene in Magnolia "makes no sense" and ruins the movie. Ugh.

I had not heard of the director of Birdman before (Iñárritu), but apparently he also made a film in 2007 called Babel. I might see that one too.

As for Wes Anderson: I absolutely loved Rushmore (and the soundtrack even moreso), but I can see how those might criticize him for focusing too much on form at the expense of substance.

Please explain the frog scene in Magnolia to me, Jones.

Can't say it much better than Roger Ebert. It was put in to smash the expectations of people like that Jane person Ebert was talking to.

There's no explanation for it, which is the whole point. What makes PTA movies so enjoyable is that the joke is on the audience. Realizing this makes the frog scene hilarious. I'm not sure if I have enough of the stomach for this kind of thing, though, when he has a character murdered to achieve the same effect ("There Will Be Blood", "Boogie Nights").

Here's a story about Boogie Nights:

The Exorcism of Emily Rose - I've had this film on DVD for what must be nearly a decade but never bothered to watch it until a couple of days ago on Netflix. It revolves around a trial where a priest is accused of negligence in the case of the titular girl dying sometime after the priest had performed an exorcism on her. She was succumbing to a mystery illness and as science failed to provide any relief, she and her family became convinced of demonic possession and requested the exorcism. The prosecution claims the priest got her to forgo the medicine which would have eventually cured her, while the defense is trying to prove that he was acting in the girl's best interest. The defense attourney starts experiencing some weird things while working on the case. The movie is based on a real case in Germany in the 1970s, but as I looked into that case it turned out it would be more accurate to say the movie was merely inspired by it.

It was pretty good. I felt like it left open to interpretation whether Emily Rose was really possessed or suffering from psychosis, and whether some of the others involved like the priest and the defense attourney were also haunted by demons or whether all that was psychological in origin as well. As I said wrt. Birdman I like when movies do that. I rate this movie a solid 7/10!

Just watched Interstellar, and it was fantastic. A movie that managed not to spoil its plot in the trailers, and lived up to the hype.

If you really believe that, then the joke is on you.

I believe that. I also believe the joke is on me, but that it is being played by Antony.

...then again, I should probably re-watch "Boogie Nights" and "There Will Be Blood" before spouting too much non-sense.

Not a movie, but I just watched the episode of Next Gen in which Wesley learns to use the Force, in order to extract his mother from her own personal universe that exists as a projection of her own thoughts, before it collapses on itself.

[/spoiler]

10/10

That's a good one. I always like the TNG episodes where reality is ****ed and no one knows what's going on.