Director Watch Ep. 160: 'Interstellar' (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

On episode 160 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter are joined by AwardsWatch contributors Cody Dericks and Josh Parham to discuss the next film in their Christopher Nolan series, Interstellar (2014).

Welcome back to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, the boys attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema's greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision-making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you've got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love.

After hanging up his cape and cowl Dark Knight pictures, Nolan set his sight on the stars, for a space epic that defined a generations taste in cinema. With Interstellar, the famed director takes us on a trip through time and space with a rescue mission to save the human population as Earth slowly dying and decaying. In this trip through a wormhole to investigate prospective, future inhabitance, one engineer (and former pilot) will stop at nothing to finding a solution to not only save humanity, but his family he left back on Earth. In making this bold, ambitious film, Nolan created his most emotional, thrilling, technically daring film of his career so far, but much like Inception, had detractors who took issue with the explanation of the science in the film, as well as feeling emotionally manipulated by the film's ending. Ryan, Jay, Cody, and Josh break down both sides of the Interstellar argument, why they love or dislike it, the score from Hans Zimmer, the use of time in the ending, the film's set piece, the importance of the McConaissance, Anne Hathaway's speech about love, a few impressions of Michael Caine, and why this film is the one that resonates the most with younger cinephiles.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more. You can also listen on the AW YouTube page.

This podcast runs 2h32m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series on the films of Christopher Nolan with a review of his next film, Dunkirk. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let's get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and "B-3" from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).