Christopher Nolan-mania is more prevalent than ever these days, which, duh—he finally won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, the hype around his next film is at a fever pitch even as there are approximately three to five competing theories about what it’s actually about, and even re-releases of his old films can sell out your local IMAX theater faster than the Supreme website on Thursdays at 11am. But it doesn’t feel crazy to say that 10 years ago, his hold on the film streets was, if not just as tight, then at least approaching the fever pitch it’s reached now. His Batman trilogy feels so long ago that it might be hard to remember what the energy was like when he finally completed it. As classic as that series is, The Prestige and Inception proved that he somehow had even more to offer outside of it, on an equal if not grander scale. So once his Gotham commitments were up, it felt like we were in for a truly generational run.
Which it has been! But as the first film of that new era, Interstellar had an impossible amount of pressure on its shoulders. I can’t remember what my expectations were before screening it at the Kips Bay IMAX a few weeks before it was released, but they were not met. I left feeling like it was missing something intangible; I don’t think I’ve watched it in full again since.
Until last Friday, when I snagged a seat at a proper IMAX theater—some New Yorkers might say the only real IMAX theater, the nine-story screen at AMC Lincoln Square on 68th—for the 10-year anniversary re-release in glorious 70mm. This is, inexplicably, the hottest ticket in town—it sold out through the middle of this week in the same instant totality that Oppenheimer, Nolan’s most recent film, did last summer. So when I scored a great seat in an inopportune bright-eyed 10:45am Friday morning showing, I didn’t hesitate to pull a Don Draper, which I am only admitting to my editors here because they’re getting content out of it.
Even in the morning, the energy felt different than the countless other films I’ve taken in at that IMAX mecca. I spotted several dudes in Carhartt approximations of the coat Matthew McConaughey wears as Cooper, Interstellar’s folksy astronaut hero. The ticket greeter was firing off quips to everyone he scanned, telling me that I had the best seat in the house. (I resisted the urge to reply “I know,” because I’m not new to this—left of screen, row J, if you’re wondering.)
Unsurprisingly, the verdict 10 years later is: I get it now. The sentimentality, which took so many people by surprise in the worst way, all lands; it doesn’t feel too long; Jessica Chastain is doing some of her best work lowkey. And man, that sequence where Cooper returns to 20 years worth of video dispatches from his kids—watching that 10 years older knocked me out. These days especially I feel preoccupied if not obsessed with how I’m spending my time; it’s never felt more valuable to me and I’ve never felt more acutely aware of how easy it is to waste. Maybe Interstellar is reverse-engineered to get better with age as you age with it; I can only imagine what it would be like to watch that scene as an actual parent.
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