Interstellar Review

Interstellar is a very hard movie for me to rate, due to many variables and just how ambitious it is. It has a lot of pros (without a doubt) but it also has some flaws that, while occasionally overshadowed by the weight of the pros, ultimately come back to hurt the film in the long run. The film was directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan (of Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception fame) and stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain. I would like to say that I am not an avid Nolan fanboy. I will not swear by him or automatically hail anything he puts out as a masterpiece or classic simply because he was the director. I do have faith in him though as a director and a writer and he has yet to make a bad film. I do happen to love most of his movies. With that little disclaimer aside, let's move on. The film's story is pretty simple. Earth is dying and Cooper (McConaughey) is sent to traverse a wormhole to find a new planet for mankind to inhabit. The plot proceeds slowly at first, gaining some traction once they go up into space. From there, it gets interesting and is not worth spoiling. The script was written by Nolan and his brother, with special input from theoretical physicist Kip Thorne. As is typical with Nolan's more recent movies, he tackles very big ideas and is not afraid to approach them. Unfortunately, with these big ideas and their added levels of science complexity, the plot sometimes gets lost in translation. While there are tidbits there to explain the science in layman, there were a few times where I was pretty confused as to why certain characters had to do certain things and what not. To be frank, it almost feels like the story, while obviously important to Nolan and still very good, was just a means to an end. That end is the visual style of the film. This is where the movie absolutely shines. The look of Earth was inspired by the 1930s Dust Bowl era, which is nailed perfectly. The family lives in an old farm house, ripped right out of this Dust Bowl setting, but is surprisingly home to objects such as laptop computers and gadgets that can take over observation drones. The look of space is the true visual treat here, however. These are images that you can feel. Going through the wormhole was just like going into hyperspace in Star Wars, giving me the closest sensation I can ever have to experiencing that original trilogy in theaters. The obvious comparisons will be made to Gravity, the space technical showcase that took home almost every technical award at the Oscars last year. These two films, which should not compared on a story level (Gravity had no story whatsoever), have no business being compared on a visual level either. Gravity's aim was to put you in a situation that you know people have experienced (working on the ISS and floating through space) whereas Interstellar's aim is to take you on a journey through theories about where space can lead us, allowing Nolan's visual ideas to take full form. Again, to spoil more of the visuals would be to spoil an essential part of the movie. As is common with Nolan films, the acting here is typically great. McConaughey continues his hot streak of performances with another good one. It won't get him any Oscar nominations or anything like that, but it serves the movie well and gives us a very relatable character to empathize with on our journey through the film. Michael Caine does his thing, and it was a pleasant surprise to see John Lithgow as the grandfather. I personally am not a big Anne Hathaway fan and so I really didn't pay attention to her when she was onscreen. I feel terrible saying this but you could have put any other large name actress (Natalie Portman, Sandra Bullock, or Rachel McAdams, to name a few) in the same role and gotten the exact same performance. Nothing special brought to the role, but it was serviceable. The real stars of the Interstellar show though are Jessica Chastain and Mackenzie Foy, who play Murph and Young Murph, respectively. Foy absolutely kills it as Cooper's daughter. I believe that it is her performance that sells us on the father-daughter relationship that we see literally traverse the boundaries of time. With that traversing comes Chastain. This lady is ridiculously good and it is one of the great sins of modern cinema that she is not more recognized. Any other actress would have played the part, but not nearly as subtly, destroying the real emotion the character feels. This would have made the movie feel overly sentimental and not nearly as investing. While I am hoping she gets a Best Supporting Actress nomination, it is probably just a hopeful dream. There are a few flaws to this film, ones that it can't escape, unfortunately. The most obvious one would be is that is a very long film. At nearly three hours, I kept checking my watch, especially near the end of the movie. While a film can be however long it wants and doesn't need to be a Patton-esque masterwork to justify a long run time, the ideas and characters at work in the movie have to be compelling enough to propel the plot forward enough to justify that running time. What happens in Interstellar is that the ideas that are developed and ran with only take the film so far. The ones that are underdeveloped and left behind could have been expanded on in order to keep the audience more invested during the run time. With that comes my second, and perhaps biggest, issue with the movie. About halfway through, there is this idea dropped by Hathaway's character that seems completely out of place and literally made me turn to my friend and say "Did this movie just take a 180?" At the risk of spoilers, I have to mention it. The astronauts are debating which planet to go to next, as they only have enough resources to check out one of a possible two. One of the planets apparently has Hathaway's lover, an astronaut sent before Cooper and his team to colonize the surface, trapped on it. There was no mention of this earlier in the movie, which makes Hathaway's character's heavy handed speech about love even more awkwardly placed. This idea is then under baked for the rest of the movie, being brought up a few times, just so the audience doesn't forget about it rather than becoming the central idea that is run with. Love across time is an interesting concept, but the movie's focus remains squarely on saving mankind, with the love angle forcibly shoehorned into dialogue, which was very distracting and hurt the overall flow of the film. One last gripe is that while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (believe me, I do it all the time), some of these sequences feel like they were literally ripped out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially a scene at the climax of the film where McConaughey traverses time. Regardless of these issues, Interstellar is still a great film, and one that absolutely demands to be seen in the theater. It is available in IMAX 3D, IMAX, or regular viewing. I saw it on regular viewing, and was surprised to learn I was watching a 35mm print. Anywho, this film is a faithful call back to the blockbusters of the 1970s. Unfortunately, the script eventually buckles under its own weighty ideas, complete with a healthy dose of plot holes. It is still a visual marvel and I recommend it to anybody with a hankering for escapism. My rating, according to the IMDb scale, is 8/10.

Gone Girl Review

In a year mostly deprived of compelling dramas, good action pictures, and funny comedies, Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, was a breath of absolutely fresh air. The main thought I had after walking out of the theater is that still, even in this day and age, a great story, great characters, and great directing can take a movie so far. And boy, does this film go to some far off places. It is the first film for David Fincher since 2011’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, still one of my favorite movies of all time. As Fincher has made more and more films, his direction has become more and more icy and detached. As bad as that sounds, it truly is not. It has worked perfectly in his last few films, as he is able to examine complex relationships where the characters interact with their own personalities, not personalities arbitrarily changed or created by the director. This works to his full advantage in a film such as this, one that is built on examining various complex relationships born out of complex characters. Fincher gives the cast their arena for the personalities to battle in, and he, along with the audience, sits backs and is thrilled by the fireworks. Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, who comes home one day to find his wife, Amy, missing. The question of whether he killed her or not is brought to the forefront of the story. Affleck, who I suppose you could say is on a bit of a hot streak, does a good job here. This is more of a personal preference thing but I don’t really think he is a versatile actor. Good, of course, but there aren’t many of his performances that are discernible from others. This is probably his best role as he examines a lot of different emotions at once and is able to balance them in a surprisingly nuanced way throughout the movie, whose plot is slowly, yet constantly twisting. However, the absolute star of the show is Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne. Mark my words; this is a star making performance. If she doesn’t at least get nominated for Best Actress at this year’s Oscars, I will riot or start disregarding the Oscars more than I already do. It’s hard to say much about her performance without venturing into spoiler territory but she absolutely knocks it out of the park. She was an electrifying presence onscreen and the emotions of the characters around her were frighteningly palpable. You paid attention when “Amazing Amy” was talking. Pike joins an ever-growing list of amazing performances by Fincher’s actresses, alongside Rooney Mara for her impeccable performance as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It is fantastic to see strong women personalities in the movies today. I put Pike’s performance up alongside ones such as the aforementioned Mara, Leila Hatami from A Separation, and Jessica Chastain from Zero Dark Thirty. Each of these women are perfectly portrayed and show strength, conviction, and absolute intelligence in the face of danger in a way that has not been seen in film for a long time. I’m so very excited to see more of these performances in the future. The film’s look and feel is classic Fincher and you can see shades of Dragon Tattoo here as well, considering Fincher is working with the Oscar nominated cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth once more. The darkness of the film’s lighting gives it a very chilling film-noirish feel to compliment its dark story and femme fatale. There is darkness in the relationships of couples today, possibly even more so than there ever has been. That darkness is concealed initially from the outset, but at the right time or given a certain circumstance, those clean and happy faces will start to erode and expose what truly lies beneath. That theme is the one most explored in this film. Given his history, Fincher was the perfect choice for this film and he handles these themes with the utmost precision and care. My only gripe about this film is that it is a bit too long. Clocking in around two and a half hours, there are certain parts that drag, if only for a little bit. In spite of this fact, the story is paced perfectly enough that as soon as we may be getting bored of a scenario, a new plot twist or deviation comes crashing through to grab us by the nose again and string us along.  This film is one of the very best all around movies of the year, as well as the best mystery thriller so far. I cannot recommend it enough and hope to see it win big at the Oscars early next year. My rating for it, according to the IMDb scale, is a 9 out of 10.

A Thought On The State Of Visual Entertainment

I recently finished the first season of HBO's new series True Detective. It definitely is the best show on television right now, easily the best written show since Breaking Bad. The quality of the writing, acting, and directing has become typical of HBO over the years. It actually got me to thinking and I came to this conclusion: The real good visual entertainment is on television right now, not in the movie theaters. I am not quite sure of the reason why this is, but I can definitely speculate on why. One possible reason is because of my generation. We are usually very impatient and can barely sit through a movie that is just over two hours long, unless it is something that is very simple to understand, a la The Hunger Games or The Avengers. Enter TV, where you can get your comedy, drama, crime, action, etc. fix that you normally would at the movies in a fraction of the time. The advent of Netflix has definitely spurred this along, as somebody can get a quick episode in before work or class and not have to worry about catching at it's regular time slot or remembering to record it to their DVR. These are only a few possible reasons, because, honestly, I don't know the answer. Now, another question I had was "When did this advent of amazing television start?" Over the past fifteen years, we have seen some of the greatest dramas grace our television sets, with some of them being far better than the films that were coming out during that time. This new wave of great television started way back in 1999 with the airing of the first season of The Sopranos. Considered by many to be the greatest television series to ever air, it has since been surpassed, in my opinion anyway. But without The Sopranos, we have no Breaking Bad, True Detective, The Wire, etc. Tony Soprano is directly responsible for the advent of complex anti-heroes as the central characters of these shows, and many others, for that matter. Walter White, Jimmy McNulty, Rustin Cohle, Omar Little and the rest of the memorable characters are all a result of the genius of Tony Soprano. In my opinion, The Sopranos is definitely the most groundbreaking show of all time, even though it can no longer be considered the best. Now, the industry's focus seems to be getting the good stuff on television. This is evident in the amount of big names that are becoming more and more attached to new series. Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, two of the most acclaimed actors in recent years, rule Washington together as Frank and Claire Underwood in the Netflix original series, House Of Cards. Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey showed us darkness in True Detective. Again, McConaughey has been gaining a large following ever since he broke free of his romantic comedy typecasting and really showed his chops as an actor, with it all culminating in an Oscar win for Best Actor for his film Dallas Buyers Club. On a side note, True Detective is going to bring in two new stars each season and will feature a different story, so it will be interesting to see how this anthology approach attracts other big names in the business. Woody Harrelson has been doing the same thing since he was exposed to my generation in the film Zombieland. The point that I am trying to make with all of this blabbing is that, quite simply, audiences are not pulled to film as they were a few years ago. While I think that this is a natural up and down process in the industry, especially as the visual entertainment medium keeps evolving, it is undeniable right now that TV is the king of the entertainment world. With channels like HBO, Showtime, and Starz able to film series with quality picture, writing, and acting, it really is no surprise. HBO, to be quite honest, has churned out the best shows of all time. There is a standard that they have for themselves and their tagline, "It's not TV, it's HBO" is actually a very accurate statement. During The Wire, The Sopranos, Game Of Thrones, True Detective, Boardwalk Empire, and the rest of the HBO shows, it never once felt like I was watching a television show. It's very hard to explain, and this may sound very odd, but I can at once tell the quality of a television show based on the quality of the camera used to film the series. You can tell that shows like Arrow, Smallville, Scrubs, The Walking Dead, etc. are all television shows because of the quality of their picture. Not that these are bad shows, I actually really enjoy all of them, but they just don't meet the standard of HBO. I really don't mean to sound like a fanboy (even though I am because HBO has made almost all of my favorite television series), but it simply is the truth. Again, TV is king right now, but that could possibly change in the coming years. If Hollywood is smart, they will scale back the rate of their productions, as I feel like the film industry has over saturated theaters. Somebody pointed out to me that during the time when The Godfather was released in theaters, new movies would come out maybe once a month. Now, we are seeing slates of new films every week. Sinking money into tent-pole films that fail miserable at the box office (The Lone Ranger, for example) can only be done for so long. While Disney could definitely afford the failure of that film (they own Marvel, also known as the cash cow's cash cow), it goes to show that the more expensive the production doesn't necessarily mean the better the film. In the coming years, we are seeing the return of Star Wars, Marvel continuing its Cinematic Universe, and Superman and Batman meeting on the big screen for the first time. It remains to be seen if these movies and other great indie dramas can revive interest in the film industry. I hope all of you are well, forgive me if this post seemed very scatterbrained but it was just a random thought that I had early this morning. For my next post, I think I am going to continue with the plan of reviewing either Nevermind by Nirvana or Ten by Pearl Jam. If I don't do that, I will most likely review each episode of the first season of True Detective, as it is only eight episodes and I intend to go through it at least two more times before the year is out. Thanks for reading and check out True Detective!

My Favorites (Movies)

When it comes to media, I generally hold that the area I love the most is movies. This has been the case ever since the first Monster Madness feature on Cinemassacre.com, hosted by James Rolfe, who is famous as The Angry Video Game Nerd. Hearing him discuss the history of the films just sucked me in and has become something of an obsession for me. The night the Academy Awards are broadcasted is like a second Christmas to me, even though they usually fill me with unconsolable rage most of the time. It's hard to pinpoint why I love movies so much. Maybe it's because they allow us to escape reality for a few hours, maybe it's because we can get so invested in the characters that we find ourselves feeling for them, despite the fact that they don't exist, etc. I believe that one of the reason why movies are so profound for many people is simply how much we try to make real life like the movies. There is a great quote that mentions how art tries to imitate real life, but, far more often, real life imitates art. This is such a true statement. Just look at how simple lines of dialogue from films have entered our very way of life. Many a movie quote make up the way I talk. It's to the point where I quote films without even thinking about it. We fall in love with these worlds so much that we try to bring them into ours to spice it up even further. Ok, enough philosophical stuff for now. I would list my top 10 favorite films but the bottom half is always changing so I will just present my top 5. My all time favorite film is the masterpiece GoodFellas. Made by my favorite director, Martin Scorsese, this is an absolute triumph for filmmaking. I can't think of any time in my life where 2 and a half hours went by so fast. This movie is what I like to call pure film. It's that simple sensation where you just get sucked into the film and suddenly, it's over. You look at your watch and just say to yourself "Where did all that time go?" It's a very rare thing but it's amazing when it happens. GoodFellas is one of those times. This film is essential viewing for everybody everywhere. My second favorite film is another Scorsese picture, Taxi Driver. This dark, gritty film is a fantastic look at how a morally ambiguous character can draw you into the film. I will go more depth about this later, along with my other favorite movies. Third is the Scorsese classic, Raging Bull. Amazing central performance by Robert DeNiro (as expected), and, coincidentally enough, this movie actually saved Scorsese's life. More on that in a later post. Fourth is the Scorsese gangster classic, The Departed. As you can tell, I really love his movies. This is another movie that has that pure film element. Could watch it over and over again. My fifth favorite film is the David Fincher cult classic, Fight Club. This is an amazing and polarizing film that demands repeat viewings. I fall in love with it every time I watch it and it is a very profound film, full of life changing ideas and philosophical questions. Many people are thrown off by the title of the film, but I assure you, it is far more than that. Well, that's just a little about my one true love in life. I hope all are well and I will start off the real blog with an album review, I think. It may be either Nevermind by Nirvana or Ten by Pearl Jam. I have yet to decide. Till next time!

My Favorites (TV Shows)

When it comes to TV shows, I find it a lot easier to rank my all-time favorites for some reason. A TV show is a funny thing. It is amazing how people can become so invested in their favorite shows that it literally can ruin their day when something bad happens on the show. Perhaps I will examine this later on. My top five all-time favorite TV shows, in order, are The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, and Arrested Development. It is my firm belief that The Wire is the greatest television show in history. I do plan to examine this show very in-depth later on as there is so much to love and discuss. Such an incredibly deep show. I must admit, I have a little bias towards the show because it is also my favorite show of all time. There is enough in The Wire to fill a hundred blog posts about so I just want to open the floor for discussion. The Sopranos was an absolute groundbreaker and is, without question, a masterpiece. Deep characters, great story arcs, and a very organic sense of story progression all come together to create the world of Tony Soprano. That show is also worthy of it's own special series of reviews. Breaking Bad and Game Of Thrones are the most recent shows on this list but they are still absolutely amazing. Arrested Development is still the funniest show I have ever seen, maybe the funniest thing ever. AD is a testament to how great characters can really make a show memorable. Well, that's just a little about my TV show background and I will definitely get back around to The Wire in the future!

My Favorites (Music)

To help get the ball rolling, I figured that I would list out some of my favorite musical artists. It is pretty difficult to rank favorites but I have been certain for sometime now that my two favorite bands are Nirvana and System Of A Down. I can remember the first time I ever listened to Smells Like Teen Spirit. Up until that point, I wasn't really a big music lover and was just content with whatever was popular or on the radio. As soon as I heard that song, however, my entire perception was changed. I suddenly looked at music not as an entertainment platform, but a serious artistic one as well. I soon had almost every release Nirvana had ever put out and started actively going out of my way to look for new music. A few years later, I discovered System Of A Down. Ironically, the first time I listened to them, I couldn't stand them. The lead singer's ridiculous voice and the cacophonous guitars just sounded like noise. This was the song "Attack," off of their album "Hypnotize." I gave it some time and eventually found Chop Suey! and Sugar on Youtube. Both of these songs, especially Sugar, were far more to my liking and I gave them another go. Like Nirvana before, I soon had every single System song I could get my hands on. Eagerly awaiting a new album from them, I pull out the collection every time and again to tide me over. I will definitely go in depth more about these bands and their albums in the future but I just wanted to get the basics out there now. A few of my favorite other bands are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, The Black Dahlia Murder, Biggie Smalls, 2Pac, Rage Against The Machine, Sublime, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Pixies. In reality, I like pretty much every genre of music, yet am very picky about bands within those genres. Generally speaking, my favorite genre is rock, along with all the sub genres that accompany it. I will post album reviews every so often but would also love to get suggestions on new bands or songs that I should listen to!

Introduction

Hey all!

My name is Zachary Heller and I am currently a student at Central Michigan, studying Broadcasting and Cinematic Arts. I have long been a lover of many forms of media. Movies, music, television shows, books, etc. but have rarely been able to discuss many of these with a lot of people at once. I hope to get some great new insight and to expose new and exciting media to people who read my blog. I will organize a few posts, such as a systematic discussion of The Wire, musical recommendations, and various movie ones throughout the years. I hope that everyone jumps into the conversation and finds something new to enjoy in the world of media!