Interstellar Butter
By Steve Herte
Interstellar (Paramount,
2014) – Director: Christopher Nolan. Writers:
Jonathan and Christopher Nolan. Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne
Hathaway, Ellen Burstyn, Mackensie Foy, John Lithgow, Timothee
Chalamet, David Ouelowo, Collette Wolfe, Francis X. McCarthy, Bill
Irwin, Andrew Borba, Wes Bentley, William Devane, Michael Caine, &
David Gyasi. Color, 169 minutes.
Seeing
a movie a week after it opens can expose you to the criticisms and
praises of friends who saw it before you. I usually do not let this
affect my opinion of a film, but when all I hear from people is high
accolades, it’s difficult to reduce my expectations. And when a
film is two hours and 49 minutes long, it’s just as difficult to
raise them.
Fortunately, Interstellar is
a stunningly beautiful movie from the technical point of view,
breathtaking in set design, and cinematography, convincing in the
special effects department, and a musical soundtrack that is dynamic
and powerful. My time passed without seat-shifting. The story is
compelling and strangely reminiscent of space voyages in past films,
most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey and the TV
series Earth Two.
The
population of Earth has become so enormous that technology, science,
and especially space exploration, are akin to serious crime. The need
for food and farmers is much greater than the need for knowledge.
NASA has gone underground in order to stay functional and continue
operations.
Meanwhile,
on a Midwestern farm, amid acres and acres of cornfields, we meet
ex-pilot Cooper (McConaughy), his dad, Donald (Lithgow), his son Tom,
(Chalamet), and his daughter Murph (Foy). They’re a close-knit
family whose intelligence is being wasted on feeding the world. Even
when Cooper tries to get Tom into an engineering program at school
he’s denied by the counselors, who deem farming as more relevant.
And
it isn’t easy for farmers (never was) because the soil has become
so depleted that crops are failing one by one, farmers are forced to
burn their useless fields, and dust storms the scope of Saharan sand
storms are becoming commonplace. One day, Murph, who believes she has
a benevolent ghost directing her life, discovers a pattern created by
the dust in her library, which translates into a set of global
coordinates.
Cooper
takes the family truck to find what lies at these (nearby,
relatively) coordinates and instructs Murph to stay home with Donald
and Tom. She doesn’t. At dark they come upon this locked, gated
area (strangely like Cheyenne Mountain in Stargate SG1)
and are arrested when they try cutting their way in.
Once
inside, they learn that, under Professor Brand (Caine), this is where
NASA has been hiding. He’s not only hiding but also conducting
space launches to discover a new planet where people on Earth can
move. This is where, as my friend Indy advised me, one has to suspend
one’s knowledge of current technology, physics and astronomy and
enter the realm of science fiction. Not only have they sent three
missions to Saturn (three-year journeys each) but, in an accelerating
expanding universe, have located a stable wormhole leading to a new
galaxy and sent them through it. Cooper is needed to pilot a fourth
mission to rescue the survivors (if any) and hopefully bring back
news of a habitable world for Earth’s population.
Cooper
agrees to go and leaves his family in Donald’s care and against the
major protestations of his daughter, promises to return. Together
with Smith (Borba), Doyle (Bentley), Romilly (Gyasi), a blocky robot
named TARS (voiced by Irwin), and Professor Brand’s own daughter
(Hathaway) he leaves for Saturn and the wormhole.
Messages
to and from the spaceship go from two-way to one-way the farther they
get from Earth. Tom grows up, marries, and has a child. Murph becomes
a young woman (Burstyn). Once through the wormhole the intrepid crew
have to conserve fuel as well as time and space. The first world they
land on is a water planet where the oceans are six inches deep but
the waves are miles high. And that’s not the strange part. One hour
on this planet equals seven years on Earth. They are swept up by the
mother of all tsunamis and spend over three hours there before
returning to the mother ship and a 23-year older Romilly.
The
fuel expended escaping the first world leaves them too little for
both the second and third worlds. They debate which and choose an
icy, but beautiful, frozen planet, landing on one of the clouds (yes,
even the clouds here are frozen – another quandary for physicists).
Here they find Williams (Devane) alive, but seriously mentally
deteriorated after being alone for so long.
But
wait, it gets even weirder. After the confrontation with Williams,
what’s left of the crew have to save the damaged mothership (thanks
to Williams) from being swallowed by a black hole. Cooper and TARS
find a way into the black hole while Brand sails on to the third
world and they discover a tesseract supposedly created by an alien
race that represents their five-dimensional universe in three
dimensions (so that humans can comprehend it).
All
this is fascinating cinema, for sure. I loved the adventure of it
all. Why didn’t it get a perfect rating? I blame that on the
director, Christopher Nolan. I’m hoping he was sitting in his
director’s chair constantly yelling “What did you say?” at
McConaughy, but, if he did, it was not enough. I found it very
difficult to understand Cooper’s lines; it happened so often I
started to become disinterested. Even Burstyn tended toward
incomprehensibility at the end of the film. The acting in general was
spectacular and the movie excellent. I just wish the script was in
tune with it.
Rating:
4 out of 5 Martini glasses.
Butter
70
West 45th Street (between 5th and
6th Aves), New York
I’m
often asked how I choose a restaurant. It’s a process that depends
on a few factors. The movie is chosen first. Then, depending on how
long the movie is (adding 15 minutes for trailers) I add another 15
minutes for walking distance to the restaurant. Opentable.com has New
York divided up into local districts, which greatly eases locating a
restaurant near a theater. From that point it’s a series of
considerations: 1. A place I haven’t been to before, 2. A cuisine I
didn’t sample a week ago, 3. The décor on the website, 4. A few
interesting dishes on the menu. A contrary answer to any of these can
quickly disqualify a restaurant.
Butter
had an interesting name, interesting dishes, a good look to it (even
though it’s a hotel restaurant) and was only six blocks from the
movie theater. OpenTable.com incorrectly placed it between 6th and
7th Avenues and I breezed past it twice before I
found it. It looks like a typical storefront on 45th Street,
with the name emblazoned in bronze block letters across the glass
facing the street.
Through a green canvas storm door and down two
small flights of bare wood stairs is the Captain’s Station. After
checking my coat, I followed a young lady to my table in the well-lit
area under the high-arched (and sky-lit) ceiling near the bar and
rear wall. A backlit large format photo of a forest scene carpeted
with blue flowers dominates this wall. The chairs are mostly
comfortable Captain’s chairs, except for those at the high tables,
which are leather-backed stools. The décor is rustic in woodsy
browns and tans and the bare-topped tables continue the color scheme.
A
young man soon took my water preference and my server, Vlora, brought
me the tri-folded menu and the wine list. After the young man filled
my glass with tap water he brought the bread – a fluffy roll
accented with sea salt and two crusty slices – in a square wooden
bowl, and the butter – two different blends (herbal and regular)
resting on a polished rustic tree slice. By the time Vlora returned I
had chosen my cocktail. Called a “Straight Up”, it was
essentially a martini consisting of Absolut Elyx vodka, Atsby, N.Y., vermouth, and garnished with bleu cheese and thyme stuffed olives. It
was smooth, light and classy.
When
next I saw Vlora (the place was doing a brisk business, no table was
empty for long) she helped me create a three-course dinner. I chose
the wine from a list of varied prices (many reasonable) and it was a
2012 Domaine Coillot Pinot Noir from the Burgundy region of France.
The deep ruby color and the slight acid tang made this medium-bodied
wine perfect for my dinner choices.
I
haven’t had a decent salad in a long time and the Belgian Endive
and Seckel Pear salad begged to be tried. Served in a long dish, the
red-edged, white endive leaves were attractive with the sliced white
radish, the pear slices with the golden skin still on, and the
toasted hazelnuts, all in a shallot vinaigrette dressing. Every once
in a while it’s nice to have a salad that’s not green. I loved
it. I guessed that every one of the staff knows how to spell
‘vinaigrette’ since it’s on the menu at least five times.
The
next course, chosen from the “hot appetizers” column on the menu
was Cavatappi pasta. The curly-queue, ribbed tubes of al dente pasta,
colored golden by the yellow tomato sauce, was made even more
wonderful by chunks of spicy lamb sausage and topped with slices of
cherry tomatoes and grated cheese. I was in heaven. It’s also nice
to see a pasta dish that isn’t red.
When
I finished mopping up all that delicious sauce with my bread Vlora
asked if I was ready for the main course. “Is it better than this
dish?” “Oh yes, my favorite!” “I’m ready.”
I
admit I didn’t have a clue what to expect when I order this dish.
I’ve had Berkshire pork before and loved it, but the sheer
presentation of my main dish stopped me in my tracks. The Berkshire
Pork Loin “Milanese” was pounded flatter than a pizza on the
plate and topped with a forest of golden frill greens in a mustard
vinaigrette sauce (see what I mean? There it is again.) It looked
like a centerpiece for a Christmas celebration but had the most
unbelievable flavor. The pork and the mustard mixed with the
salad-like greens to form an experience of being back on the farm
having down-home cooking. I was amazed. I had forgotten to order a
side dish, but I was glad I didn’t. I had room for dessert. But if I
had chosen one, it would have been the Geechie Boys South Carolina
Grits. It would have teamed up with this dish like a sidekick in a
western movie.
The
Chocolate-Marshmallow “Mallomar” dessert was similar to a
Tartuffo in a white sauce with nuts and fruit bits. The hard
chocolate coating was too firm to just cut into without the whole
thing rolling off the plate and onto the floor. Instead, like a good
starfish attacking a sea urchin I upended it and dug my spoon into
the lovely soft, home-made marshmallow ice cream and let the shell
shatter around it. Excellent ice cream, rich dark chocolate. Sipping
at my double espresso I checked the time – nearing 10 o’clock. I
knew it would be a late night because of the long movie. I paid the
check and thanked Vlora for all her help and service and retrieved my
coat from the coat check.
Butter
has been in existence since 2002 when they opened their first
restaurant on Lafayette Street. Chef Alex Guarnaschelli, a Food
Network star, has been titillating the palates of diners since then.
Mine too. Definitely worth a return visit. Maybe I’ll meet her.
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