MUST READ
The Complete List of True One-Hit Wonders, by Tom Nawrocki (Medium’s Cuepoint)
SOUNDTRACK OVERKILL
Hanz Zimmer’s exceedingly literal and pressing soundtrack to Interstellar throws Kubrick’s borrowings for 2001 A Space Odyssey into relief — makes his choices as witty and acerbic as his invention of Hal (the gay computer). By linking the two famous Viennese Strausses (Johann and Richard) for sequences illuminating how graceful a weightless space dealt with machinery, Kubrick hit grace notes of humor and irony in his otherwise glassy feel for the future — and philosophy itself.
Nolan’s more interested in closeups of machines coupling, introducing a female quantum physicist who relies on telepathy from her stranded future father, and Zimmer’s gunning for an Oscar. He’s outside the box just enough to be persuasive, but lends this film more pretension and sentimentality than necessary while echoing Mahler a shade too closely (I heard lots of the Third, Fifth, and Ninth). Definitely enough shit-kicker sanctimony from McConaughey than necessary.
Tim,
You might like to re-visit your information about the music of Richard and Johann Strauss as used in 2001.
Your reference as HAL as “gay” seems more a comment aimed at Douglas Rains who voiced HAL in the film and as such is irrelevant to your piece here.
I understand, however, that this kind of soto voce commentary is acceptable in the domain of blogs. A competent editor would have immediately struck the line if written for print and had you properly research the music used in 2001.
I refer to Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz. The reference to Hal comes from my memory of Anthony Lane’s Kubrick obituary.