Sean Hoffmann’s review published on Letterboxd:
“After you kids came along, your mom, she said something to me I never quite understood. She said, "Now, we're just here to be memories for our kids." I think now I understand what she meant. Once you're a parent, you're the ghost of your children's future.” - Cooper
To call seeing my favorite movie of all time in the biggest and best format possible a transcendental experience might be underselling it somehow. To be enveloped in such an epic and far reaching and yet ultimately close heartfelt film was a magical and life affirming time. Even back in row J, the film brings you in close early on and never lets go, at times making it feel like you are somehow going on the journey with Cooper but simultaneously helping Murph solve it all. It’s truly something special and I’d encourage everyone with even the slightest interest in this movie, movies in general or the format to check it out. I traveled ~90 minutes or so and it was worth and then some. If you needed that extra nudge consider this that and make it so, you can thank me later.
Some Thoughts…
- As expected the big set pieces hit harder in IMAX but for me, being consumed by the emotional moments hit me the hardest, something I thought might happen but surprised me nonetheless. Thankfully 598 of my homies were hit just as hard and I was very much at home with the emotional reaction the film brings out in me.
- I of course remember having a love for TARS and CASE, but on this rewatch I really enjoyed just how damn funny the movie is at times. Not just a first act thing either! People like to call Nolan cold but this is one of the warmest movies I’ve ever seen on multiple levels.
- God does the Anne Hathaway Amelia Brand performance and speech especially connect with me more now than ever before. Downright infuriating that people used this as a reason to hate the film 10 years ago.
- Found a really special appreciation for David Gyasi as Romilly this time around. Dion Waiters award winner for the film? Maybe that has to be Matt Damon, but Gyasi is quietly one of the best supporting players here.
- Hans and his organ go buck wild. Maybe my favorite score of all time? Like pretty much everything else here, it’s dialed up to 11 with the best sound system at a movie theater near me and boy does it work. The organ burrows its way inside your soul with the movies opening and only finally lets go of you once the film finished. Masterful work.
- Oppenheimer really made me pay attention to editing more and while Jennifer Lame did not do this, Lee Smith did and he kills it. For a nearly 3 hour film it flies by and some of the transitions are godly. It seems he’s had a bad run of it lately (Dark Phoenix, Argylle, Empire of Light) and Lame has likely supplanted him in Nolan world, but I hope he finds his way back to good projects because his work here is impressive.
- Watching so much content about this before hand, I looked for 2 things due to that. 1 the end credits are indeed different to shave off some runtime for the previous reel size restrictions, pretty cool once you notice it. And 2, they never reveal Dr. Mann's name. Lots of speculation its Hugh, but we never see it unfortunately.
- Not necessarily a nitpick, but I love talking about this movie so much, I would enjoy hearing from other fans what they think about how the film really presses on the Blight and how quickly its consuming all the crops. But somehow Corn survives solo for 23+ years even after Brand and co. saw its accelerated death at NASA? Personally I would not be shocked if something was cut here.
- Obviously as my favorite movie it has a place on this Rushmore, but I really think along with Contact, AI and Arrival, Interstellar is one of the best pieces of emotional Sci-Fi I've ever seen. Very thankful this mini genre has emerged in the last 30 years, it's one of my favorites.
- 10 years old but my god does this look perfect. Nothing looks out of date or bad. Reminds me of another favorite film, Jurassic Park. Just incredibly timeless and I think it’s a movie we will continue to watch for decades to come and its strong visual sense is one of many reasons it’ll stand the test of time. Won’t be easy for people to call it dated.
- Every time I rewatch this movie I get so consumed by it that I completely forget about the docking sequence jump scare. Gets me every single time.
Can I Recommend? - Come on now lol.
Movie Stats
Rotten Tomatoes - 73%
Metacritic - 74
SeanScore™️ - 100/100
Box Office - $195.8M Domestic & $722.3M Worldwide Total Gross. Would love to see it cross $200M and $750M worldwide when all is said and done re-release wise. *insert Starship Troopers I’m doing my part gif*
Format Check - IMAX 70MM @ Lincoln Square, Row J. Will be seeing this in IMAX w/Laser next week because I’m a psycho and want to compare the formats. Looking forward to seeing it again.
