Interstellar (2014) Review

rating: *****

the story: An astronaut goes on an epic journey.

review: Outside of Memento and The Dark Knight, my favorite Christopher Nolan film has long been Interstellar. That seems like weird wording, but they are three distinct achievements, and so at least for me it makes sense. The conventional logic always picks Inception as Nolan’s best high concept, but for me Interstellar is infinitely better. It’s not just a piece of clever filmmaking. It may be Nolan’s best emotional investment.

2001: A Space Odyssey effectively began a whole new genre. It’s often overlooked as such but Star Trek: The Motion Picture pioneered efforts to solidify the astronauts in trouble genre. The Hollywood Solaris remake revived it, and of course in recent years there have been so many that many of the more recent ones, including worthy contenders like Ad Astra and High Life are actually obscure. But the best of them, arguably the best overall, is Interstellar.

This is Nolan reaching as far into the profound as he has so far been willing to go, at least as far as the sweep of history 2001 meant to be, toward Terrence Malick, Tree of Life territory. A lot of Nolan’s movies are allegories for his criticisms of conventional modern thinking, what we keep telling ourselves we shouldn’t be doing, what’s so wrong with the world. Here he aims himself at the abject nihilism of our future prospects, chief among them what happens to a planet pushed to its environmental brink, and whether or not humans are capable of adapting.

He pursues this by telling a story about a man and his daughter, a man who goes on an epic quest, and the daughter who doesn’t want him to go, a man who sees wonders, and a daughter who sees wonders, too. About how these wonders are strangely interconnected. 

Matthew McConaughey had just reached his peak of critical approval. He had a one-two punch with True Detective on TV and Dallas Buyers Club in the movies. Suddenly he had his choice of the best material. His charisma has often been taken for granted, his stereotype seen as a big dumb hunk of beef. Yet the career I see is one filled with fascinating choices, full of unbelievable diversity. That’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say, but out of all that Interstellar, for me, somehow stands heads and shoulders above all of it. And his best scenes are wordless, are McConaughey crying at seeing his children, growing up, on a screen.

The bond he shares with his daughter, in particular, portrayed at three different ages, Jessica Chastain in the middle, is of course the heart of the movie. The message their bond sends is often overlooked. Especially if it’s a Disney movie, we’re often told the younger generation has all the answers, but this is a movie that acknowledges how progress can be made through generational ambition, how the dreams and the bonds forged between a father and daughter can change the world.

The splendor of movie magic finds its poetry in an infinite bookshelf that allows them to communicate through time. It feels like Nolan channeling Shyamalan, and maybe this is the precise moment in which they finally meet. I love them both. They are both treasures of the medium. I don’t mind observing this.

The sheer spectacle of the cast alone is worth noting. There’s McConaughey and Chastain, of course; Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon! Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Timothée Chalamet, David Oyelowo, Wes Bentley...I officially ran out of space in the number of labels Blogger let me add, that’s how rich this cast is. Some roles are larger than others. Every one of them is worth admission.

It is a transcendent experience. For me, that’s the height of cinema, the ability to reach well beyond the normal, not merely some beautifully told tale, but one that’s a truly singular experience, that could not be duplicated in another medium, that uses all the available tools to maximum effect, a convergence of epic talent and vision.

The very strange thing is that Arrival is very much at the same level and tells much the same story and is as tall an achievement, and I don’t much think of them as rivals, and they were in theaters within two years of each other. That’s pretty stellar.

WW84 (2020) Review

rating: *****

the story: Wonder Woman learns and helps others see the danger of wish fulfillment.

review: Sometimes, I admit, if a movie receives overly glowing praise I start to look for reasons other than the movie itself. It goes the same for negative reviews, of course. Generally I will outline all the reasons I did, or didn’t, like a movie in my reviews for this very reason, total transparency. Wonder Woman was a movie that received glowing reviews, in large part, I always suspected, because it was what people thought the DCEU should be like. I hate message reviews. If you like a movie, like it for its own merits. So I kind of put off watching it for a while, and maybe as a result of all this I wasn’t overly wowed by it. 

Well, I was certainly wowed by WW84. Absolutely. This is the kind of confident achievement I expected from the first one, a bold statement that also works as a full spotlight for Wonder Woman herself. So yes, it works on at least two levels.

I suspect part of why people in general aren’t wowed by it is because it hinges itself on a message that seems to fly in the face of all current logic. It seems to say that getting what you want, and perhaps even deserve, might inherently be a bad thing. Most of the people casting wishes in the movie are asking for seemingly good things. Well, as the old saying used to go, careful what you wish for. Funny enough, the movie even references the equally old curse of the monkey’s paw, a magical solution that comes with a terrible price. Genie magic traditionally comes with the same catch, which Disney’s two versions of Aladdin are careful to explain, too.

Yet when Wonder Woman does it, it might actually seem like a bad thing. We’re in a strange era of empowerment at the moment. Somehow in order to be seen as worthy, everyone has to fit into some sort of stereotype. Wonder Woman is of course a woman, and as such empowerment should simply mean she’s a powerful woman. I mean, right?

Except this is a woman who embodies truth, not power. She literally spends the whole movie fighting bad guys while simultaneously going well out of her way to rescue bystanders. Her idea of heroics isn’t to collect all the laurels (I’m almost sad that from the point we next see her she’ll have acquiesced to being a public figure) but merely to do the right thing.

Her rival in the movie has a similar attitude until jealousy leads her to forget it. That’s telling, too. The villain is motivated to make a success of himself. Both of them quickly lose sight of what they stand to lose well before they hold any real power as they pursue that “better version” of themselves.

The opening scene itself is edifying. The young Wonder Woman is so caught up with the idea of winning a competition that she overlooks both the fact that she is by far younger than her opponents and that her shot at victory only happens because she takes a shortcut, even if the opportunity presented itself by accident and not design. We never really see how she overcomes impatience except that in the present she has spent some sixty years leading a lonely life of little outward acclaim and convinced she’ll never love again. And maybe it’s the idea of patience itself that’s the point.

Patty Jenkins is a miracle of visual splendor in a movie that in a lot of respects looks like something we’ve seen as far back as Superman: The Movie. Yet she never once settles for something less than extraordinary. The whole movie pulses with vigor, packed with deliberate, calculated intention.

Gal Gadot and Chris Pine have even better chemistry this second time around, Gadot that incredibly rare idea of a humble superhero, Pine the movie star who never shies away from taking a backseat. Kristen Wiig, who never quite became a movie star despite killing it in Bridesmaids, pulls off her expected (and superhero movie trope) goofy origin mode into an increasingly credible threat. Pedro Pascal, who has become a geek darling thanks to The Mandalorian, is the best ‘80s throwback with his bad hair and cheap but flashy suits. Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen of course remain perfect elder Amazons.

Even the name of the movie was well-calculated. “WW84” can of course be extrapolated as “Wonder Woman [in] 1984,” but also “World War 1984,” or even simply “World War 84,” by which the movie acknowledges Wonder Woman’s WWI origins, and the wars that happened, and nearly happened, in the time between. It seems somehow forgotten that in 1984 the Cold War was in fact still happening. I don’t think that’s Reagan being depicted as president, meanwhile, or doesn’t have to be viewed as such. The nuclear race was raging long enough that just a few years later the most famous single comic book story (Watchmen) hinged itself on the apocalyptic outcome everyone had dreaded since at least the ‘50s.

It’s the kind of experience that isn’t about superheroes being cool. It isn’t a movie set in the ‘80s that tells you so by steeping itself in ‘80s music. It’s a movie set in the ‘80s, drawing on that time period for certain elements but is otherwise a movie about what makes Wonder Woman unique, what makes her special, what makes her, at last, worthy of starring in big budget movies. 

And you wonder what took so long. This isn’t an entry in the DCEU, this is its own experience, fitting in with things we’ve already seen, but most concerned with showcasing a vibrant new take on an increasingly well-worn genre, in which we think we’ve seen it all. If WW84 is any indication, we certainly have not. The best may in fact be yet to come. And WW84 is now in the conversation for the best we’ve yet seen.