Interstellar Mania in 3...2...1

If you've been on the internet at all in the last half hour you're likely to have seen a tidal wave of Interstellar reviews. The embargo broke on Christopher Nolan's first feature after his release from Batman prison today at 11 AM. The film makes it debut in theaters on Friday November 7th in a variety of formats but see it in IMAX 70 MM because it is epically large and immersive that way.

If you've been putting up with The Film Experience for any length of time you'll know that yours truly, Nathaniel, is not the speediest critic. My interest in screaming "first" is practically less than nil which can be a disadvantage online but it's not who I am. Never cared about it. Never will. Time is a flat circle, yadda yadda yadda. My review is forthcoming at some point. It was meant to go up today but I caught a cold so I may surround myself with screenings and kleenex rather than writing. To Be Determined.

Let if suffice to say for the moment that I liked it and it might well be my favorite Nolan since The Prestige (2006) though it should be noted again that I am not at all indicative of public reaction when it comes to the Internet's Chosen One to whom I am relatively cool. I'm still parsing my thoughts on it but I found it endearing in some of the exact same ways that I normally find his films offputting. Go figure and we'll get to that later. The Oscar Prediction charts are fully updated in all categories.

P.S. It seems people are freaking out about the non-spectacular early RT score already. T'was ever thus with Nolan films

"Malkolink Malkolink Malkolink!"

NY Daily News truly absurd photos of John Malkovich recreating famous images of Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, and less glitzy iconic art, too, like Piss Christ and American Gothic
Slate great piece on why we need less reboots and more original genre fiction - interesting points made that aren't just the usual bitching
Pink is the New Blog Channing Tatum inviting fans to be part of Magic Mike XXL
The Film Stage an interview with director Pawel Pawlikowski on his Polish hit Ida
Interview talks to the director of Wild Tales, which I loved at TIFF, Damián Szifrón
Shark Robot Avengers as cold cereal t-shirts. The best ones are clearly Thorrios and Loki Charms 'bifrosted!"

 

In Contention another reason to love Virginia Madsen besides that immortal wine monologue from Sideways - she loves the classic Network. She loves it lots
Variety Looks like it's Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell and Taylor Kitsch as the four leads directing by Justin Lin for True Detective Season 2. Vaughn is a crime boss, the rest are cops. I love Farrell but this does not excite me as much as the promise of Cary Fukunaga directing Harrelson, McConaughey and Monaghan but we'll see
Twitter ...if you must know my general feeling on Rachel McAdams
Variety Julie Delpy's next effort as a triple threat is a French language comedy called Lolo. She's asked the very funny actress Karin Viard to co-star
Awards Daily Freida Pinto's latest vehicle, Desert Dancer, will open the Santa Barbara Film Festival
Rope of Silicon Interstellar is Chris Nolan's longest film yet. This always worries me with directors. If your films get progressively longer it's often indicative of hermetically sealed bubble trouble. Or believing your own hype and forgetting about the actual story you're telling.
Coming Soon ... speaking of. New stills from the film
The Film Stage listen to the score for Gone Girl
NY Daily News Rumors abound that Quentin Tarantino wants Viggo Mortensen for Hateful Eight. So weird that no cast is in place yet given that we've already had a teaser

Today's Must Read/Watch
Extension 765 Steven Soderbergh is goofing around with Raiders of the Lost Ark - it's now a black and white silent - to teach film staging

I value the ability to stage something well because when it’s done well its pleasures are huge, and most people don’t do it well, which indicates it must not be easy to master (it’s frightening how many opportunities there are to do something wrong in a sequence or a group of scenes. Minefields EVERYWHERE....

Oh and remember that time when people were talking up a Costume Design nomination (which of course didn't happen) for Fantastic Mr Fox? Now there's coverage of the costumes for The Boxtrolls. Hey costume designers are needed on stop motion films.

Awardage
In Contention Casting Society of America nominations and honors. The weird part is that Rob Marshall who just generally casts big stars whether or not they're right for musicals, is being honored. But on a happier front, for the TV Pilot honors Looking was nominated and that show was definitely well cast.
Variety The Cinematographer's Guild are honoring a handful of folks too

P.S.
I had myself a final getaway last weekend to Fire Island before I am chained to the computer and Oscar coverage for the next four months. While I was there I met Robert Chang who was a lot of fun and we argued* about this article he wrote on Hunger Games and Gary Ross's use of breaking the 180 line. It's an interesting argument but it personally drives me crazy when directors break rules largely because they can. It always looks sloppy to me. Still the argument is interesting that it's only used for emotional reasons rather than action reasons which is where you usually see it. What'cha think? Maybe if there was only that and the action sequences were actually well filmed I'd like it.

* I know you're probably not supposed to debate film theory when you socialize with the gays on Fire Island but I am who I am.

Thoughts I Had... While Looking at Posters for Three New Musicals

You know how this works. Thoughts as they come to me without self censorship to speed up the blogging... 

Musical No. 1 INTO THE WOODS

• This is how I look in the morning when I accidentally fall asleep with a wig on
• "Be careful what you wish for" - they pay people to write these taglines you know but why not save money on the budget and just use song lyrics. It doesn't get much better than Sondheim lyrics. Wouldn't "Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell..." be more intriguing / and delightfully faithful.  Say what you will about Les Miserables (2012) -- and you have -- but one of the best things about its very successful campaign ($441 million plus worldwide) is that they just used song titles for their character posters
• "Be Careful what you wish for..." as Meryl climbs out of the poster at you, also adds an unfortunate meta layer. Be careful that you ask for Meryl Streep to be in every moviee because she WILL be!
•  Meryl looks a bit like "Yoga Jones" here, yes?
• How much would they charge The Witch for a mani/pedi?
• Christmas. UGH. I am impatient. I used to L-O-V-E going to movies on Christmas day. Now I want all holiday movies to open on Thanksgiving.
• Since The Witch is Rapunzel's mother, we can directly compare her to Donna Murphy's Mother Gothel in Tangled if we'd like... 

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BYO YNMS: Interstellar, November Man, Nightcrawler,Child of God, Cantinflas

Is it just me or are the trailers all coming in huge bundles lately? Space 'em out a little bit PR peeps, why don't you? Herewith, some I missed writing up so that you don't miss them. Bring your own Yes No Maybe So action to the comments.

I'm purposefully not watching Interstellar since I wrote up the first teaser and I only needed the cast list to convince me to see it and I don't want to know any more before seeing it. That said, I miss Anne Hathaway like forrealz muchly so it wasn't an easy decision. Five trailers after the jump

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Yes, No, Maybe So: Interstellar

Christopher Nolan's space-travel epic Interstellar finally reveals something of its plot (the Earth has depleted its natural resources. "time to die," a replicant might say but Michael Caine aint having it and suggests space travel instead.

In the first non-teaser trailer we get quick glimpses of the biggest names in the cast and spend lots of time with Matthew McConaughey, a former engineer with two kids, one named after Murphy's Law (but I don't quite remember Murphy's Law this way, do you?)

trailer breakdown after the jump

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