welcome two-time Academy Award winner
and Academy Governor Tom Hanks the last
time ten films were nominated for Best
Picture was 1943 the world was at war
and Casablanca took home the big prize
it's now time to find out which one of
this year's ten great films joins a list
that includes that Bogart and Bergman
classic and the winner is let me ask you
a question do you own James Cameron's
Avatar have you seen it a second time me
neither
all its visual splendor innovation
ambition just wasn't enough to suffer
through its 178 minutes of derivative
heavy-handed storytelling again what the
hell have you people been smoking up
there now avatar isn't the first or the
fiftieth larger-than-life blockbuster
with a mediocre narrative but it's
perhaps the worst film to be nominated
for Best Picture at the Academy Awards
certainly the worst to be favored and
the winner is The Hurt Locker
it's lost to The Hurt Locker in 2010
felt like an assertion of values for an
industry that was showing all the signs
of a gradual amnesia about what
constitutes a great film
for the record avatar didn't astonish me
visual either it doubled down on
gimmicks that I despise namely 3d this
is part of what makes me so sad about
Christopher Nolan's interstellar in a
world of James Cameron's and George
Lucas's Nolan is a warrior for stylistic
purity whereas others seem convinced
that cinema needs to move in
revolutionary new directions to survive
Nolan sees that the possibilities of two
dimensions haven't even come close to
being exhausted let alone fully realized
he's among the last to fight for
everything we treasure about celluloid
for this reason and others it may be
unfair to compare interstellar to avatar
but I don't think it's unreasonable
either both films are big muscular
operations that collapse onto weak
skeletons both force themselves to use
characters as vehicles for exposition
then choose to use them as megaphones
for awkward philosophical declarations
love isn't something we invented it's
observable powerful
it has to mean something of course
interstellar is noticeably smarter than
Avatar but that's not always to its
credit the film operates on so many
levels it's hard to identify which one
is meant to be the emotional core if
it's supposed to be the relationship
with Cooper Matthew McConaughey and his
daughter then why does Nolan devotes so
little time to it like with the blight
destroying Earth's crops inspiring
Cooper's mission to find new worlds most
of the father/daughter relationship has
to be inferred by the viewer elsewhere
in the film were subjected to multiple
explanations of relativity and gravity
and wormholes exactly where we want the
movie to force inference it lingers
where we need more exploration and
screen time it holds back these
criticisms are not new to Nolan's films
none of them are more interested in
people than concepts with smaller
budgets and simpler ideas he was better
at keeping everything self-contained
memento and Batman Begins for example
our triumphs of airtight storytelling
but as Nolan's reach and funding grows
things seem to be escaping his control
after seeing inception my first thought
was where does he go from here I didn't
think you could get any heavier than
dreams within dreams I didn't think you
could do any more of that signature 3
scene intercutting without the novelty
dying I was convinced Inception would
force Nolan to regroup what came next
was a tedious final Batman film then
this well there's less intercutting in
interstellar the only instance comes
two-thirds through the film and it's
predictably rousing the ideas are even
heavier only now there are too many for
anyone to get its due the film attempts
to accommodate wormholes time travel
fifth dimensional beings that may or may
not be us from the future relativity
survival and
all while advancing a very anti avatar
message about the environment we're not
meant to restore Earth's delicate
biosphere we're meant to leave it behind
even Kubrick would have struggled with
that much of a conceptual payload indeed
it's impossible not to think of 2001 a
Space Odyssey while watching
interstellar so the comparisons it
invites aren't generous to the latter
like Nolan Kubrick is famous for a lack
of humanity in his characters but where
Nolan's leads are often dry and tiresome
Kubrick's are cold and punishing and
those qualities have value in respect to
the film's impact note the average
length of shots in the two movies you'd
be hard-pressed to find many shots
longer than five seconds in interstellar
but it would be difficult to find many
less than 20 seconds in 2001 Kubrick
forces you to come to terms with
something before he lets you see the
next thing Nolan is already five shots
ahead of you by the time you grasp how
one image fits with the rest with
Kubrick there's always a you sized hole
demanding engagement mutating based on
when where and who you are Nolan's
whiplash of action encourages passivity
other criticisms were matched by
unintentional laughter in the theater
and Hathaways mawkish oration on love
maybe it means something more something
we can't yet understand Matt Damon's
cameo a lesson in the perils of too much
secrecy prior to a film's release
Jessica Chastain was given basically
nothing of substance to work with and
Michael Caine's multiple recitations of
Dylan Thomas's do not go gentle into
that good night play like something I
might write into a screenplay which is
no compliment maybe all this is too
harsh the film after all is a far cry
from bad still I find myself coming down
harder on nolan than on many of his
peers like a teacher Mike on a favorite
student I have a real stake in
Christopher Nolan's work and the kind of
work he represents I enjoy intimate
dramas as much as the next film goer but
cinema without 70 millimeter IMAX
spectacular z' is an incomplete form and
Nolan is basically the last name in a
megha movies with profound ambitions
that's why you should want to see a film
like interstellar because it would be a
shame to miss it grandeur intelligence
spectacle and story are not mutually
exclusive and Chris Nolan is stretching
the potential of cinema toward their
union like no other director but we have
to stick to our assertion of values
about what constitutes a great film
internal consistency storytelling that
challenge is not confuses the viewer and
dynamic deeply drawn characters these
are standards that should remain
unaffected by scope or singularity
edition hey everybody thanks for
watching I am back from Paris the beards
a little bit longer I am a little bit
more rested but I am really excited to
get back to work on these videos I've
never come back from a vacation and
wanted to go back to work before so this
is a really new and really awesome
feeling so thank you guys we're making
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for that you're gonna see another video
next Wednesday and another video next
Wednesday after that and I am very very
pumped like I said to be back at work
making the nerd lighter so