“Hey, this isn’t where I parked my car!” Image via Hollywood Reporter

This review MIGHT contain some spoilers. I am not sure. I am very careful when it comes to revealing plot details in a film and I do my best to only reveal details that will create a better understanding of the film without ruining the possible intrigue of it. However, the rules of spoilers are a bit different when it comes to Nolan. So…POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT. Proceed if you’re not gonna be a jerk about it.

There are a lot of different sci-fi movies out there, but in truth, there are only two: those that want to be Star Wars, and those that want to be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Interstellar falls into the latter category. 2001 is probably the hardest to emulate, given that it starts with a bunch of dudes in ape suits playing with a skeleton and ends with a star baby floating in the sky. If anybody could at least come close to attempting this task, then it’s got to be Christopher Nolan. Or at least, that’s what you would think.

Unfortunately, Interstellar is a little bit like I thought it might be: a parody of a Nolan film more than a Nolan masterpiece because it has everything you would expect one of his films would have. Layers! Abandonment issues! Michael Caine! Husbands who won’t take off their wedding rings even though their wives are dead!

Matthew McConaughey stars as Cooper, another of Nolan’s heroes who is psychologically scarred by a mysterious past event. Cooper once flew a rocket into space. Now, he is grounded on Earth. In this vision of the future, the Earth is dying, as humans have depleted most of their resources. There is a constant drought and heavy, dirt-filled winds that make America look like The Dust Bowl. Also, space exploration is a thing of the past. Everybody is too focused on this little corner of the universe. It is almost as if they are using an allegorical dystopian future in order to tell us about the present. Crazy, right?

Nolan spends a lot of time setting up this world, and the dynamics of Cooper’s family. Cooper has a relationship with his son that is mostly stagnant, and an even more complex relationship with his daughter Murph, who dreams of going into space. Interstellar seems like Nolan’s attempt to go full Spielberg. Few blockbusters actually explore human elements such as family, so it is refreshing to see how much thought Interstellar puts into this.

One of the first issues with Interstellar is that its plot often feels like an accident. Additionally, it feels like various sci-fi stories sewn together to make an uneven whole. At one point, Cooper sneaks into a top secret government site. Literally, minutes later, he is being blasted into space. It doesn’t take very long for him to go from “some random dude who got caught sneaking on private property” to “the man who is chosen to save mankind.” It’s like they forgot the buildup to the film’s most important event.

Before we know it, Cooper is on a mission to find a new planet where mankind can live. He is joined by fellow astronaut Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and the two of them disagree on a lot of ideological issues because grrr deep space conflict. They are also joined by a robot named TARS. TARS offers some much needed comic relief, something that is rarely seen in most of Nolan’s films.

Let’s go back to the Space Odyssey thing. The reason that Interstellar never reaches that level is because Nolan the filmmaker interferes with that vision too much. As always, Nolan loves explaining everything down to the very last detail. Inception somehow turned exposition into an art form. In Interstellar, Nolan wants to explain quantum mechanics to us, and make it completely inaccessible at the same time. There are stunning images here. They are few and far between, but they are there. I just wish that at times, the characters would shut up for a few minutes, and let us take in the vast beauty and mystery of a wormhole. I looked back in my notes and saw that I scrawled “stop talking” across several pages.

There are times when Interstellar lands. And when it does, it makes the extra money you shelled out for IMAX worth it. The final stretch of the film is often stunning. It portrays the constraints of time in a way that I never thought possible. Interstellar is also filled with some moments that would work on any screen. The film’s most powerful scene comes after McConaughey has been stuck in space for much longer than imagined. He comes back to watch videos that his much older children have left him. McConaughey makes this scene feel real. He has gotten to a point where he no longer has to impress us; McConaughey is the real thing and we’re all going to have to deal with that.

Interstellar is overstuffed with ideas. That could be a positive thing, if all of these ideas felt like they had more of a home. It just made me yearn for more. I wanted to know more about the people on Earth; the people who actually believe the moon landing was staged. I also want to see more of these barren planets that we barely got a glimpse of.

At its worst, Interstellar is exhausting. At its best, Interstellar gives us a glimpse inside the insane mind of Christopher Nolan, a man who is clearly not happy with any theory of nature until he has deconstructed it every way imaginable. I just hope next time he makes that journey a little more satisfying and fun for his audience.

Brain Farts From The Edge: The Holy S**t I’m Lost In Space Edition

• A lot of critics have given Interstellar points for ambition. That’s totally fair. However, you’ve got to rate a film for what’s onscreen, not for what it was supposed to be. If we rated it that way, then we would all have to give Kevin Smith a million stars because he worked hard on Tusk.
• A lot of people are complaining about the accuracy of the film’s science. Come on guys, were you really expecting a film about evil sandstorms and time traveling wormholes to be scientifically accurate? Plus, inaccuracies can often make for compelling stories.
• I’ve been reading a lot about sound issues in various theaters. I experienced them in mine. Sometimes, a jet blast would completely obscure some (possibly) important dialogue.
• For some reason, TARS just kept making me think of Abed from Community. Also, it might be a problem when a robot seems like the most human character in your film.
• In general, I have noticed how much the portrayal of artificial intelligence has changed in film lately. In Interstellar, the robot was comic relief. In Her, a computer was capable of falling in love and breaking hearts. In the upcoming Chappie (this is the impression I get from the trailer), a robot is capable of emotional and intellectual growth. Come on people! We’re going back to the future!
• I haven’t seen Gravity since I saw it in theaters, but Interstellar made me appreciate it much more. I really wish Interstellar captured not just the look, but the feeling, of deep space. There were times during Gravity where I actually felt like I was floating through space and running out of oxygen.
• This had less villains than The Dark Knight Rises, I’ll give it that.
• “That’s what I love about the space time continuum, man. You get older…I stay the same age.”
• “Time is a flat ci—ahh f**k it I give up.

Sometimes, you like a movie. Sometimes, you’re not sure if you should like a movie. Sometimes, you only like a movie because you feel like you’re supposed to like that movie. Under the Skin seems to fall under that last category.

Under the Skin is the latest film from British director Jonathan Glazer. I am told by people smarter than me that he is a very good director. Some might call him a visionary. While I haven’t seen Birth or Sexy Beast yet, I can get on board with those claims. The guy knows how to frame a shot and tell an entire three act story using barely any dialogue. This is a pretty big feat considering the fact that most sci-fi movies today are bogged down by exposition.

In Under the Skin, the characters have no names and undefined intentions. The plot itself may be a great mystery, but it feels almost secondary in the grand scheme of things. Scarlett Johansson plays some form of alien life form who dons a beautiful female body and an accent and starts praying off unassuming men. So yes, she is basically the villain from Men in Black II.

Under the Skin might best be described as an existential coming-of-age story where the question being answered is “who are we?” instead of “what is up in the night sky?” In fact, Glazer doesn’t even seem that interested in what life is like on other planets. It is never once revealed where this alien came from or why she is here. This is about an alien who has the chance to see life through a person’s eyes and through that, she learns about what it means to be human.

Maybe that is part of my biggest problem with the film. I personally love science fiction that builds a unique and original world. I like when the production design creates as much of a story as the characters do. Glazer has no interest in that. Because of that, I cannot fault him. Under the Skin would only be a failure if it were attempting to do just that. However, Under the Skin would rather be 2001: A Space Odyssey than Star Wars.

At times, Under the Skin is able to achieve that. From the Hitchcockian music to the innovative low budget visual effects, it is often mesmerizing. Johansson, meanwhile, does so much with so little. A much talked about nude scene in the film is not there for pure shock value. Here we are, watching an alien try to figure out her body in a way that both scares and frightens her.

Yet, there is still something a little cold and uninviting about Under the Skin. I feel the same way about Under the Skin that I once felt about Drive, a similar film that I have since warmed up to: I admire it more than I love it.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• Parts of this film are essentially a Dali painting come to life. Does that make me sound smart?
• The A24 logo is probably my favorite in the industry right now. Also, while I don’t love every film that they make or distribute *cough Spring Breakers cough* I love the fact that they take big creative risks for big rewards.
• This film deserves a second viewing. I will probably regret many of the things I said in this review in the future.
• Now, just a few more days until Guardians of the Galaxy finally comes out.

Sad white people be sad. Image via Word and Film

Perhaps the only reason that In Your Eyes has gained so much attention is because it was released on Vimeo on the same day that it debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. I admire any project that experiments with platform release. However, sometimes the experiment overshadows the product itself, and it would help if In Your Eyes was better than it actually is.

In Your Eyes is written and produced by Joss Whedon, who has been using that sweet Avengers money to make weird little indie films (last year, he directed a micro-budget, modern day version of Much Ado About Nothing). In Your Eyes is a sci-fi romance that is not nearly as smart as it thinks it is. Simply, this film is about two different people who are somehow mentally connected to one another. To Whedon’s credit, he never tries to explain this strange phenomenon. Inception really did kill the idea of movies spending long periods of time trying to explain the unexplainable.

Maybe In Your Eyes could have used some of that complex thinking, because it never escapes its simple premise. The two connected people are a man and a woman, so you know they have to fall in love, because plot conventions. The two of them are polar opposites. Rebecca Porter (Zoe Kazan) is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl from New Hampshire who is unhappily married to a doctor. Dylan Kershaw (Michael Stahl-David) is a Tim Riggins-type ex-convict from New Mexico who just wants to redeem himself and live off the fat of the land. The whole movie is two seemingly different people having phone conversations with each other through their brains.

And that is it. Through their conversations, they butt into each other lives and try to sort each other’s problems out. It never gets out of this rut. There are a little subplots or side actions to lift the film up any further. There is nothing wrong with having a simple premise to start off with. However, what matters most is what you do with that premise. In Your Eyes believes the only way that this story could only be a romance. There are so many more opportunities. There was so much unsaid and unexplored in this film. In Your Eyes could have transcended its premise. Unfortunately, it doesn’t even try to.

It seems odd that this film comes from the mind of Joss Whedon, who has used the past two decades to create his own unique brand of science fiction and blockbusters, which ranges from Firefly to The Avengers. Maybe the real problem is director Brin Hill. Hill’s previous credits as a writer and a director include Battle of the Year and Won’t Back Down, which makes him an odd choice for this film. I am not sure what Whedon saw in Hill, as In Your Eyes does not include the amount of dancing and Nick Cannon that he would normally be used to. In Your Eyes doesn’t have much of a distinct voice, or a grasp on its own story.

In Your Eyes feels less like a professional feature and more like a freshman year film school project. Had this been the product of film school, it would have gotten a very good grade. Because this is the work of people who have worked in the industry for many years, the film’s failure feels all the more strange. There are a few bright spots, though. Once Rebecca and Dylan begin to open up to one another, they have a few very nice moments. But then, they just go back to being tropes instead of characters. In Your Eyes is an interesting experiment in some ways, but it feels more like watching someone try and make a movie as opposed to an actual movie.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• One of the trailers for In Your Eyes is just the first few minutes of the film. Despite the terrible production quality, it actually made me want to watch it.
• Rip on Zach Braff all you want, but this film is literally every single indie cliche rolled into one. 
• In Your Eyes takes place in New Hampshire and New Mexico. One character works in a car wash. There is also a winnebago. It’s like they decided to shoot on every old Breaking Bad set as a way to save money.
• In Your Eyes feels like a more simplistic version of Cloud Atlas.
• This movie made me think of Her. That is not a compliment. When Theodore and Samantha first have sex in Her, it is set against a black screen. In In Your Eyes, the sex scene between Rebecca and Dylan (set in their brains) is shown in full. It is painful to watch. This film could have used a few lessons in restraint.
• If you feel like ignoring everything I just said, In Your Eyes is available on Vimeo right now for just $5.

This did end up working to my advantage, however, because I had no bias going into this remake. Whatever this movie did, it would not feel like it was ruining any part of my childhood. As a movie, “RoboCop” could have done much, much worse. However, it is just there. It doesn’t do much, and it doesn’t contribute much to the character or sci-fi itself. It just kind of expects you to be thrilled.

“RoboCop” is set in the year 2025, a future that is dystopian only because of how generic it is. OmniCorp is a huge corporation that specializes in building giant killing machines. The company is headquartered in Detroit. I can’t even imagine the amount of people who okayed this remake because using Detroit would somehow make it socially relevant. The company’s ambitious yet morally bankrupt CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) wants to release crime-fighting robots that will be put on America’s streets. This idea is not exactly warmly welcomed, given that robots can, you know, turn and kill people indiscriminately. Instead, OmniCorp decides to put a man in a robot suit. The man inside the RoboCop suit is Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), a Detroit police officer who nearly dies in the line of duty. The RoboCop suit is the one thing that saves his life. He is literally a bunch of organs trapped in a suit of armor. The movie really misses the chance to explore what this actually feels like. Instead, it just decides to show a bunch of nauseating shots of a man’s lungs moving. Hey, at least this helped me realize what the line is between showing too much and not enough. Learn from your mistakes, everyone.

Of all of the people that could have picked up on the RoboCop legacy, I am not sure why it had to be somebody this boring. No offense to Mr. Kinnaman, who I am sure is a fine actor, but he brings absolutely none of the charisma or pathos that is required in order to be a leading man in a movie like this. However, this seems more like a failure on the part of the writers to make a man turning completely into an emotionless machine interesting. The director just kept yelling, “come on, guys! We need more shots of his lungs!”

In fact, all of the characters here are fairly boring, with barely a unique personality to spare. They yell trite lines of dialogue at each like “I can explain” and “we’re running out of time!” and in between that they yell at each other about whether Alex Murphy is a man or a machine without giving us much reason to care. They all make a lot of big speeches and throw around a lot of big words, their favorite being “dopamine.” As Inigo Montoya would say, “you keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“RoboCop” wants to skewer the loud, proud media landscape of talking heads, and it almost does. The sharpest piece of satire is the CNN style show The Novak Element hosted by Pat Novak, played by none other than Samuel L. Jackson. Novak is a jingoistic commentator who cares more about his opinions than he does about American safety. The news show itself looks exactly like the direction that cable news is going in, with holograms and floating, computer-generated pie charts making up for actual substance. You just know that Samuel L. Jackson got paid millions for what was probably three hours worth of work. Well, at least he only half phones it in here. This is what we get when we don’t give Samuel L. Jackson awards when he actually tries. But I digress. The point is that The Novak Element belongs in a much different movie. It belongs in the kind of movie that can keep its political allegories straight. It belongs in the kind of movie that brings up drones and doesn’t forget about it two minutes later.

The remainder of “RoboCop” has absolutely no idea what kind of future it wants to convey. It suffers from “Oblivion” Effect: it uses minimalism both as a way to define the future and avoid having to come up with real ideas. It seems unfair to compare “RoboCop” to “Her,” as they both have completely different goals. However, one thing that every dystopian blockbuster could learn from “Her” is that the most convincing future is the one that actually has a sense of how the people who inhabit it feel. The world has changed a lot since 1987, yet “RoboCop” feels like it has barely reacted to that 27 year age gap. Remember, we live in a world where machines are as much our enemies as they are our best friends.

Perhaps the biggest crime “RoboCop” commits is that it isn’t any fun at all. The action scenes feel like they belong in an arcade game like Time Crisis, and the guy barely gets to use the suit at all. The idea behind “RoboCop” is a fairly cheesy one that would have benefited from somebody who was willing to have more fun with it. Oh wait, they already had a movie like that recently. It was called “Iron Man.” While “RoboCop” isn’t the worst remake that has ever been made, it never once feels like it has any reason to actually exist.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• The beginning of “RoboCop” was actually really promising, and replacing the MGM Lion’s roar with Samuel L. Jackson clearly his throat is the most bold artistic choice this movie makes. Basically, if the best part of your movie happens before the movie even starts, then yeah, your movie sucks.
• “RoboCop” felt like a setup for a sequel that nobody asked for.
• I really wish they had more of Alex trying to recover his memories while in the RoboCop suit. That is a really cool idea. Not as cool as “The Wizard of Oz,” but maybe a little cooler than the Detroit Lions.
• As my friend Ryan Little (a.k.a. Tremendous Jackson) said, “Michael Keaton is the guy who did the best Kevin Spacey impression in the casting session.”
• Another reason that “RoboCop” didn’t have to get remade is because Hollywood has been doing some variation of this idea for at least the past two decades. The idea of machine turning against man is so trite at this point that it barely means anything when it could mean everything in today’s technology-dependent society.
• On that note, this is the exact reason I liked “Her” so much. In terms of robot movies, “Her” is like “E.T.”: “E.T.” felt fresh because for the first time, someone made a movie where aliens didn’t want to eradicate mankind. Likewise, “Her” is the first movie where machines just want to be our friends and have sex with us and stuff like that.
• This RoboCop might as well be Turbo Man from “Jingle All the Way.”
• “RoboCop” almost reaches so-bad-its-good territory. Almost. There are some cheesy moments, but they are more annoying than fun. Two examples: RoboCop at one point does that Batman voice; the noises that RoboCop makes as he moves are the equivalent of somebody repeatedly saying “meep morp I’m a robot.”
• This movie tried way too hard to be a “Batman” movie, straight down to the way Detroit was shot. It was like they were trying to re-create a really shitty Gotham.
• This movie has some of the worst set design I’ve ever seen. The yarn balls placed above the TV in the Murphy home made me think of the infamous spoon portrait in “The Room.”
• I actually really like Jay Baruchel, but he is so miscast here. He should be playing Steven Karp, not high power marketing executives.  
• I am only half-joking when I say this: I really wish they cast Nicolas Cage as RoboCop. At least he would have brought some personality to the role.
• Jose Padilha owes a public apology to Peter Weller, Gary Oldman, and Joe Strummer.
• Okay, okay, I’ll go watch the original now.