Anthony Green Live! and "Interstellar" - One of the Best Films of the Year (2014)

I had been on winter break from school the past couple of weeks, so I was able to watch quite a few movies. But, perhaps the thing that made me happiest was seeing one of my favorite musicians: Anthony Green (singer from Circa Survive and The Sound of Animals Fighting, as well as his earliest work in Saosin). He played at the Paradise in Boston on December 26th. It was just him playing an acoustic guitar. He covered the Deftone's "Diamond Eyes" and Vance Joy's "Riptide" and played a variety of his own stuff. It was a great night!

1. Main Set
4. Drug Dealer 
5. Babygirl 
6. Do It Right 
7. Diamond Eyes 
   (Deftones cover)
8. Riptide 
   (Vance Joy cover)
9. Stonehearted Man 
10. Miracle Sun 
11. (Unknown)
    (New song; untitled)
12. She Loves Me So 
13. Slowing Down (Long Time Coming) 
14. Everyway 
    (Circa Survive song)
15. Moon Song 
16. James' Song 
17. When I'm on Pills 
18. Someone You'd Admire 
    (Fleet Foxes cover)
19. Seven Years 
    (Saosin song)
20. Better Half 
21. East Coast Winters 
22. Conversation Piece 
23. Stolen 
24. Devil's Song (This Feels Like a Nightmare) 

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"Interstellar"
starring: Matthew McConaughey, Mackenzie Foy, John Lithgow, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Wes Bentley, Michael Caine, David Gyasi, Topher Grace, Casey Affleck, (and a surprise)
directed by: Christopher Nolan
written by: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan

Well, all be damned. Christopher Nolan sure knows how to make beautiful movies (re: "Inception" and let's be honest, the Batman trilogy is beautiful, albeit dark, texture-wise). "Interstellar" is certainly a brave, beautiful movie. He is the type of director who makes lengthy movies that demand your full attention. This is a space odyssey minus all the action of fighting UFOs and random stuff blowing up. Nolan does not do those type of action movies. He leaves the mindless stuff to Michael Bay. Nolan wants you to think, and to appreciate what he presents on the screen. With this new film, he dives into experimenting with sound presentation. Confusion: I did not see the movie in IMAX, though. That being said, this film is enthralling and gracefully blends the cosmic piece with the intimate, family connection (re: father/daughter relationship) piece. He explores the the infinity and beyond of space within the smallest human details. This might be his first movie wearing his heart on his sleeve and really not caring what people think. The thing about that is: he's appealing straight to my senses. I love films like that, when done well.

The Nolan brothers have always seemed to struggle with writing dialogue, especially when it should be weighted and heavy, emotional. They never seem to say enough, and I think "Interstellar" showcases how clunky their dialogue can be.

Nolan spends the first third of the film in the American farm belt of the near future, introducing us to widower Cooper (McConaughey), a former test pilot, who depends on his father-in-law (John Lithgow) to help him raise 15-year-old son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and 10-year-old daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy, superb). Like her dad, Murph is a rebel who refuses to buy into her school's official dictum that the Apollo space program was a lie.

It's when dad and daughter find the remnants of NASA, headed up by Cooper's old boss Professor Brand (Michael Caine), that the story gains momentum. Cooper heads into space to find a new world to colonize, leaving behind two kids who may never forgive him.

The physics lessons (Cal-tech's Kip Thorne consulted) kick in when Coop captains the Endurance mother ship with a science team made up of Amelia (Anne Hathaway), Brand's daughter; Romilly (David Gyasi); and Doyle (Wes Bentley). And don't forget R2-D2 and C-3PO. Not really. The ex-military robots of Interstellar are called CASE and TARS. The great Bill Irwin voices TARS, a chatty monolith that looks like something out of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and sounds like that film's HAL.

And yet it's the final, quieter hour of Interstellar that gives the film resonance and lasting value. All the talk of black holes, wormholes and the space-time continuum take root in Coop when he realizes his two years in space have occupied 23 years on Earth. His children, the now-adult Tom (Casey Affleck) and Murphy (Jessica Chastain), spill out decades of joys and resentments in video messages that Coop watches in stunned silence. McConaughey nails every nuance without underlining a single one of them. He's a virtuoso, his face a road map to the life he's missed as his children bombard him with a Rorschach test of emotions.

I have to admit, I definitely started tearing up a bit in the last hour of the film. Familial love is clearly the topic in Nolan's newest, most beautiful film yet. How does love factor into space exploration and finding a new planet to inhabit and not just start humankind all over again, but help save the generations we have left a terribly functioning world. I mean, looking at the "present" on the farm, we find the family in the middle of another Dust Bowl tragedy. McConaughey and Chastain (re: their eyes) really shine in wearing their hearts visibly for everyone to see). They are the bruised and broken hearts in this film. The future is not out of our hands, or control, in Nolan's eyes. He gives us hope for the future. He is almost being preemptive. I did not see it as a global warming type of propaganda film. Instead, he wants to give us something(s) to think about while watching this fantastic space odyssey and epic film. I loved loved loved this film.