I’ve mentioned many times that I am so glad I am not addicted to gambling. I have other vices, and the added temptation of a big payday by sacrificing my hard-earned money with less-than-successful odds sounds miserable.
In Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, he tells the story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain – A Most Violent Year, Take Shelter), an Olympic-level skier who once ran one of the most exclusive high-stakes poker games for more than a decade, two years before her arrest that saw FBI agents surrounding her house with automatic guns in the middle of the night. It’s a legitimate directorial debut and one that is worthy of its high praise. But despite how well made the movie is, I believe it to be a much more enjoyable and educational film if you are familiar with poker. I have no idea how to play the game, so while I was fascinated by the movie, there were many parts where I felt like the odd one sitting around a kitchen table because there were many terms thrown around that I did not understand as well as actions, motives, dialogue, and even purposes that felt very foreign to me. As a result, the movie didn’t hook me like it did many of the other films that Sorkin also wrote (The Social Network, Moneyball, Steve Jobs, Charlie Wilson’s War, not to mention his credits as a lead writer on television’s The West Wing and Newsroom). That’s not to say Sorkin should stick to screenwriting. He absolutely should not. It’s just that I will look forward to seeing him direct a movie revolving around a different theme in the future rather than revisiting Molly’s Game, a film that, frankly, will be one that I will forever forget about soon after I write this review.
Interstellar is a good movie that aims to be not just a great movie but a movie that people talk about for years and years to come. I imagine that there will be a circle of fans who will do this, but I think, for the majority of people, this will be a movie that they enjoy but won’t ever think of as being unique or legendary. I think this movie tried too hard to make that lasting impression rather than just live in the moment of making a great film. As I will mention below, this movie could have been much more straightforward and, in doing so, much more effective. I felt the first 45 minutes of the movie created a cast of characters and a setting in which numerous stories could have been told, and the film could have succeeded. I say this because Interstellar is, first and foremost, a space exploration movie with overtones of the importance of human relationships and weighing what is best for society against what is best for an individual. However, I would like to know if I recommend the movie. And I do recommend it. As much as I wanted it to be great, it wasn’t. But it was still good. At 168 minutes, it is at least 45 minutes too long. And the spaceship scenes themselves are absolutely brutal. There is way too much dull talk of esoteric physics that went straight over the heads of 90% of the audience. It wasn’t needed and forced you to try to use your brain to comprehend everything that was happening. That wasn’t why I was there. I go to movies to not have to use my brain.