Irrational Man

2015

USA

Directed by: Woody Allen
Written by: Woody Allen
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey, Jamie Blackley
Motion Picture Rating (MPAA): R for some language and sexual content

Synopsis (from Rotten Tomatoes website):

When a burned-out, brilliant professor — one who believes in lessons from life rather than textbooks — takes a job at a small college, everyone there is abuzz. He becomes involved with a teacher as well as a precocious student, but it takes a dramatic, existential act to turn his life around and make him see the world through a much rosier and more positive perspective.

My Thoughts:

Maybe I should just give up on Woody, at least until he gets over his Emma Stone infatuation. Something about the girl just makes me want to be somewhere else. There were some interesting ideas in this one, but they got lost in the overall silliness. Joaquin Phoenix is a fine actor, but he's out of his depth as a philosophy professor, "tormented" or otherwise. (And what's with that beer belly? His stomach almost qualified as another character.) But Parker Posey was a bright spot. Please, Woody — no more deep-thought experiments.

My Rating at the IMDb: 4 stars out of a possible 10

Interstellar

2014

USA

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Mackenzie Foy, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn
Music by: Hans Zimmer
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some intense perilous action and brief strong language.

Synopsis (by Google):

In Earth's future, a global crop blight and second Dust Bowl are slowly rendering the planet uninhabitable. Professor Brand (Michael Caine), a brilliant NASA physicist, is working on plans to save mankind by transporting Earth's population to a new home via a wormhole. But first, Brand must send former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and a team of researchers through the wormhole and across the galaxy to find out which of three planets could be mankind's new home. 

My Thoughts:

I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did. I'm not generally a huge Matthew McConaughey fan; but I do like sci-fi, and the rest of the cast sounded promising, so I took a chance. Glad I did -- it was so entertaining I didn't even mind that it was nearly three hours long. Of course, the "science" of time travel (if it might actually exist) is always going to be a little hard to nail down; everybody has a theory, and this spin was as good as any. And I even liked the idea of combining time travel and ghostly events -- something I thought would be annoying turned out to be very intriguing.

A few other stray thoughts:

• Loved the robots -- very original designs.
• Lots of visual references to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I suppose that's to be expected, but when does "homage" become "rip-off"?
• Much more entertaining than that other recent sci-fi biggie, Gravity. 
• With her hair chopped off, doesn't Anne Hathaway remind you of the young Liza Minnelli? But not quite as irritating, thank goodness.

My IMDb Rating: 6 stars out of a possible 10