INTERSTELLAR Fails to Take Off

Ever since Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey, considered by many critics to be the greatest film ever made, the space film has been the ultimate test for the accomplished auteur. Any good space romp is expected to be a tour-de-force of technical prowess, with existential themes that address the meaning of life. Space is the deep darkness against which human life exists on earth, and there is no larger canvas for a filmmaker to work on in terms of creating all-human-life encompassing manifestos.

So things can run into some problems when the filmmaker in question is Christopher Nolan, whose successful run of Batman films led him to create what he saw as his visionary dreamscape masterpiece Inception. That film set the tone for his newest offering, Interstellar, a meaning-of-life-all-space-films-Nolan-ever-saw-packed-into-one mess that manages to make a sliver of sense only because the majority of the film involves characters explaining it to us.

Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, an ex-NASA pilot who never got the chance to make it into space and is now a farmer in the soon-to-be future, where humanity's ravenous need for iPods has given way to a lack of food across an entire planted marred with dust storms. Technology is a thing of the past, and the dwindling population on Earth doesn’t have much of a future with food supplies becoming scarcer. Cooper’s young daughter Murphy begins to experience supernatural events in her bedroom, events that are interpreted as a mysterious code. Soon Cooper inexplicable finds himself as the much-needed pilot for a space mission to another galaxy through a wormhole, and off the film goes.

Giving specifics regarding what happens throughout Interstellar is unnecessary other than to say they are generally uninspired. Boring planets are explored by boring characters accompanied by boring robots that make boring 2001: A Space Odyssey jokes. The film lapses into self-parody as everyone refers to “gravity” and “relativity” and how everything is “relative” and they need to get back to their “relatives” who they are being pulled to by the “gravity” of love. Anne Hathaway makes a turn as Dr. Brand, another astronaut who waxes philosophical on the possibility of love being a tangible physical force like gravity. But what could otherwise have been a compelling monologue is undercut by a sloppy story that relies on the pseudo-scientific premise of blackhole intergalactic travel, and which only gets more ridiculous from there.

The characters of Interstellar are constantly explaining such pseudo-scientific goings-on, so much so that the majority of the script is devoted to such exposition. So when points connecting love and gravity are made they seem like the forced grand statements they are, and like we’re being told the reason why all the intergalactic mumbo-jumbo is taking place at all. That’s too bad, because the space scenes are executed with documentary-like realism, much more so than in Alfonso Cuarón’s cinema-of-attractions thrill ride Gravity. Nolan makes us feel like we are floating in space and then feels he has to explain it to us why it is so rather than just let us enjoy it.

And enjoyable those moments are. Interstellar is nothing less than a beautifully shot film fatally hampered by a script that tries to make sense of things where there is no sense to be made. Perhaps if the worlds Nolan showed us were amazing enough themselves, making sense of it wouldn’t matter. But like Inception before it, Interstellar gives us a whole realm of possibility and then fills it up by coloring politely within the lines.

BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) is a Dark Comedy Tour-De-Force

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), the new film by director Alejandro Gonázlez Iñárritu, crackles with unhinged energy, with manic performances and witty dialogue to spare. The film is edited into a single continuous shot, like a play, veering through backstage rooms and rooftop of St. James Theater and the streets of Times Square like a surreal dream, from one absurd situation to another. We feel like we are in conversation with people on the edge of their sanity, and in the case of Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), past that edge. A washed-up up Hollywood blockbuster actor who believes he has super powers, Riggan seeks artistic validation by writing, directing, and starring in an adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” on Broadway.

The comic-book superhero avatar of Riggan’s past success, “Birdman,” talks to Riggan as a voice in his head, a manifestation of his past success and ego that is both sinister and comical at the same time. Other side effects of Riggan’s unhinged nature include Riggan believing he is throwing around his dressing room furniture with his mind to relieve his copious stress. But Riggan’s insanity is relative compared to those around him, and Birdman is truly an ensemble film, with a stellar lineup that includes Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, and Zack Galifianakis. The entire cast brings performances that convey a similar sense of desperation and mania.

Birdman is a cyclical meditation on art vs. commerce, Broadway vs. Hollywood, and the ultimately arbitrary and subjective nature of opinion, no matter how seemingly weighty. Riggan’s “Birdman” persona is what he clings to because it’s how he defines and protects himself; it’s his most powerful representation of his ego. Norton’s Broadway bad boy Mike Shiner is Riggan’s New York foil caught in the same dilemma; A man so embroiled in the expression of “truth” in his art that his everyday self is an artifice. It’s this symmetrical expression of opposing sides that lends Birdman such a satisfying sense of completion as a statement regarding “Showbiz.” Sam Thomson (Emma Stone), Riggan’s post-rehab daughter extols the virtues of celebrity at the expense of dignity, and how it can hold a power when one remains egoless. This is contrast to the dead-eyed New York Times theater critic Tabitha (Lindsey Duncan), who chides Riggan for being a mere celebrity trying in vain to be a true artist.

If ignorance is bliss, then Birdman is about a group of confused people trying to find that bliss, to give up the burden of thinking they know the truth about themselves, or anything else for that matter. Riggan’s ex-wife Sylvia (Amy Ryan) says he’s mistaken love for admiration. Riggan seeks to gain back that admiration, thinking he’s finally finding love that he actually never really lost, revealing something absolute in the face of fickle fame and fortune.

It’s the energy of the performances that guides us through the characters’ darkness, especially from Keaton, Norton and Stone, as tortured souls who smirk at their own pain. Theirs are some of the most powerful of year, driving a film that infuses comedy into a story about a desperately neurotic industry. Soul searching doesn’t get more entertaining than this.