Director Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar"— starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway on a space mission to save the future of the human race — is one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year.

The film doesn't hit theaters until Nov. 7, but the handful of lucky fans and entertainment insiders who saw the movie during a few private screenings last week all raved about it:

Even directors like Brad Bird had only praise for the project:

But the minute critics finally saw the film earlier this week, the rave reviews came to a halt. It turns out "Interstellar" may not be the Oscar-sweeping movie everyone thought it was going to be.

"'Interstellar' Lifts Off, But There's Still No Oscar Frontrunner," The Wrap writer Steve Pond titled his recent review of the flick.

Pond explains: "'Interstellar' is a big, extravagant film that will clean up when it comes to below-the-line nominations, and a touching movie that could figure into the Oscar acting races. But it isn't the one thing that this year's race has been missing: a frontrunner."

In Forbes contributor Scott Mendelson's review "'Interstellar' Gets Lost In Space," he writes that "Christopher Nolan’s ambitious outer-space adventure is more admirable for its intentions than for its overall execution."

The Guardian's Henry Barnes agrees, saying: "Christopher Nolan’s post-Batman epic gens up on the physics, gets down with the grandeur, rattles down a wormhole and gets lost in space."

In his review, Barnes writes of the film: "It wants to awe us into submission, to concede our insignificance in the face of such grand-scale art. It achieves that with ease. Yet on his way to making an epic, Nolan forgot to let us have fun."

"Interstellar" has just a 72% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is fairly low compared with Nolan's past films like 2010's "Inception" (86%), or 2008's "The Dark Knight" (94%).

It looks as if "Interstellar" star McConaughey, who won last year's Best Actor Oscar for "Dallas Buyer's Club," may not be bringing home that statue two years in a row.

But the negative reviews aren't hurting box office projections.

"Interstellar" is slated to rake in an estimated $76 million opening weekend, per BoxOffice.com, which also projects that the film will earn $340 million total domestically.

Despite the negative reviews, there are still a few positive posts out there, like Variety's, which says: "Christopher Nolan hopscotches across space and time in a visionary sci-fi trip that stirs the head and the heart in equal measure."

NOW WATCH: Movies Of The Past That Correctly Predicted The Technology We Have Today

SEE ALSO: Here's What Fans Were Saying About "Interstellar" Before Critics Got Their Hands On It

MORE: 17 Must-See Fall Movies

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Alfonso Cuaron's space epic "Gravity" starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney won seven Oscars including Best Director and received overwhelmingly positive reviews, but there's still one surprising person who hasn't seen it.

Director Christopher Nolan, who has been working on this year's space adventure "Interstellar" featuring Matthew McConaughey, told Time Out he has yet to see Cuaron's movie and it was a little weird when he ran into him last year.

"I sheepishly admitted to Alfonso [Cuarón, the director of Gravity] when I had dinner with him during the awards season last year that I was probably the only person on the planet who hadn't seen it," Nolan told Time Out.

The "Interstellar" director explained his reasoning behind putting off seeing the Oscar winner.

"I said to him: I can't watch another great sci-fi film while I'm trying to do my own thing. I'm looking forward to seeing it in a month or two," added Nolan. "To me, I'm still making this film, and getting it out there is the last stage."

Nolan explained "Gravity" isn't the only recent film he hasn't seen. While working on his own movies, he explains he likes to stay focused on the task at hand. 

"I go through a fallow period when I'm working. I can't watch new films when I'm working. All I see is process," said Nolan. "It falls apart on me. I'm okay watching old movies, but still everything becomes a bit mechanical. It's very hard to enjoy a film when you're constructing one. So I'm very much looking forward to getting back out there and catching up what with what I've missed."

"Interstellar" is in theaters Nov. 7.

SEE ALSO: "Interstellar" reviews are not as great as expected

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Christopher Nolan, the director of "The Dark Knight" and the upcoming "Interstellar," doesn't have an email address.

In a lengthy feature in The New York Times (via The Verge), Nolan and his perfectionist habits are profiled. Interestingly enough, Nolan claims he doesn't have a personal email address.

For important messages, Nolan's assistant, Andy Thompson, handles Nolan's correspondences. But since Nolan doesn't have an email he checks, Thompson prints out important emails so Nolan can read them in physical form.

The article also reveals other interesting facts about Nolan: He wears the same thing every day ("dark, narrow-lapeled jacket over a blue dress shirt with a lightly fraying collar, plus durable black trousers over scuffed, sensible shoes") and always keeps a flask of hot tea in his jacket pocket.

To read the full profile for more details about Nolan's film process, head on over to The New York Times.

SEE ALSO: Find Out What Your Zip Code Says About You With This Creepily Accurate Website

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“Interstellar” is one of the year's most-anticipated films. It's expected to have a huge opening weekend making north of $50 million. So far reviews have been somewhat mixed and that may be because "Interstellar" is the sort of film that deserves to be watched twice, as is the case with many of director Christopher Nolan's complex films ("Inception,""The Dark Knight" trilogy).

The space voyage is easily one of Nolan’s most thought-provoking films yet. It’s definitely his most ambitious.  

In the not-too-distant future, we’re not fearing for our lives from zombies or a virus, but rather a food shortage brought on by the adverse effects of Mother Nature. Devastating dust storms that leave piles of soot and cause lingering respiratory issues are our biggest concern. 

Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former test pilot and engineer, is told his daughter’s generation will be the last to survive on Earth. Their only hope is for Cooper to head to the stars and traverse through a wormhole in search of a habitable planet along with five other companions. 

At its best, "Interstellar" is a joyride through the great unknown while tearing at your heartstrings. The farther you get into the film the more abstract it becomes until you're floating, literally, into the bizarre unknown. There's a moment near the film's climax where you'll probably look at the screen, stop, gauge the audience's reaction, and then look back and wonder what the heck is going on because it's that out there.

The film's 2-hour and 49-minute runtime plays out in what I like to refer to as five acts. It builds as a slow crescendo from family film on Earth to space exploration with an unexpected twist to Kubrick-level crazy before coming back down to Earth for its final leg. 

At the surface level, “Interstellar” is Steven Spielberg’s "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" meets Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey.” It has the innocence and mysteriousness of an other-worldly being’s presence in “Close Encounters,” while there are an endless amount of comparisons to be made to “2001.” Nolan has said both served as inspiration for the film, along with other sci-fi films including "Metropolis" and "Star Wars,” and it shows. Many visual cues in space are taken from “2001” and a scene toward the final act feels like it could have had a place in the 1968 film. 

On a deeper level, Jessica Chastain may have said it best when telling Entertainment Weekly that  “Interstellar” is a love letter from Nolan to his daughter, Flora. The film’s production title was “Flora’s Letter.” Underneath it all, that's what "Interstellar" really is — a father-daughter story reflected in the relationship between Cooper and his daughter, Murph (MacKenzie Foy), the two lead characters at the center of the film.  

There's a line about half way into the film delivered by Anne Hathaway's character, Amelia Brand, in which she says "Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space." That quote is very much the heart of "Interstellar," as McConaughey fights to get back home to his family.

Nolan’s movie isn’t just a letter to his daughter, it’s also one to the planet to make sure we don’t end up depleting our own resources foolishly. There are minor jabs to our heavy focus on gadgets and new devices consuming us.  

Time serves as a constant antagonist of the film. Cooper and Brand frequently discuss how much time it will cost them to travel to X planet vs. Y planet. It will take eight months to get to Mars and two years to get to Saturn. An hour scouring one foreign planet will cost them seven Earth years.  

We watch as time steals away precious moments Cooper has with his family while he fulfills a duty he feels obligated to do — save mankind. As he watches transmissions from his children over the years as they grow and he appears to stay the same, you can't help but want to tear up alongside the rough and tough McConaughey who is reduced to a puddle of tears onscreen. 

And while this may not be another Oscar-winning role, McConaughey delivers again. He has this easy-going, rugged demeanor that can equally charm you while he's embracing his daughter close or joking casually with one of two military droids and disarm you when butting heads with Brand. At this point in his ongoing McConaissance, he just has to show up to win you over.

Michael Caine — a Nolan favorite now appearing in six of the director's films — and Jessica Chastain also deliver strong performances, but the real breakout star is 13-year-old MacKenzie Foy, who plays Cooper's young daughter. 

You may recognize Foy from the "Twilight" franchise as a young vampire, but boy does she stand out here as a feisty and stubborn yet brilliant young girl who follows in her father's footsteps with a love for science. 

Comedian Bill Irwin is also a welcome delight bringing to life TARS, a sarcastic giant military droid whose concrete slab appearance parallels Kubrick's mysterious monolith from "2001." You'll probably be taken aback when you first see him moving strangely around on screen but you'll be entranced when you see him scurry back and forth on a water-logged planet.

The Moment Audiences Will Be Talking About

As cool as TARS and his counterpart CASE are, one of the best parts of the film happens about half-way through when a huge actor reveal occurs, shaking up Cooper’s mission. If you’ve been following along with casting announcements, you won’t be surprised, but a good many people should be shocked as the big star goes uncredited in the film. 

The Music Makes the Movie.

You can't talk about "Interstellar" without mentioning the music. The two go hand in hand, really. Nolan's fifth collaboration with composer Hans Zimmer is dynamic. His soundtracks always breathe life into Nolan's films and this time is no different. 

There's something about the ability of Zimmer's scores to make the film feel bigger than it really is and that's one perk of seeing it in IMAX. You can instantly be filled with an eerie sense of wonder of what it's like to be in space but at any second Zimmer can crank up the noise gradually or suddenly so that your heart tightens in your chest and your fingers clutch nervously at your sides.

Some of his darkest tunes in "Interstellar" bring to mind "Gotham's Reckoning" from "The Dark Knight Rises" soundtrack, another collaboration with Nolan.

You can sample a bit of what I'm talking about here:

The Moment That Will Make You Scratch Your Head

I mentioned earlier there's a strange moment that may make you raise your eyebrow and wonder what's going on. Without spoiling much, there's a moment late into the film that screams Kubrick. It's so bizarre and wacky at first that you'll either embrace this moment as a brilliant risky move or dismiss it as jumping the shark in trying to tie together the film's vast plot. I'm still grappling with whether or not I liked this Kubrick-esque fourth act in the film. A second viewing may help me enjoy it more.

Should you see it in IMAX?

People over the next week will surely ask whether or not they should see “Interstellar” in IMAX 70mm or which of the other five formats I recommend. Before seeing the film, I was ready to tell everyone to see this movie on the largest screen possible. After viewing it in IMAX 70mm at AMC's Lincoln Square, I'm not so sure that's the case.  

I know Nolan filmed the movie in both 65mm IMAX film and 35mm anamorphic film, but since the film goes back and forth between space and Earth and other planets in between, not every moment is filmed in IMAX. There were a handful of moments where I felt watching in IMAX was absolutely necessary: when you see the scale of the other planets being explored ranging from a water planet with waves cresting at what appear to be 100 ft tall or more to a tundra with clouds made of sharp ice.

There are two other moments in the fourth and fifth legs of the film, the latter housing an “Inception”-inducing moment from the collapsing dreams. (You’ll know it when you see it.)

There’s one must-see scene in IMAX about an hour into the film, when Nolan first takes us into space. When McConaughey, Hathaway, and the rest of their 6-team crew first shoot through the stars you feel like you’re right there with them, soaring through that wide expanse of space. And it’s such a strange and wonderful feeling because you’re not wearing 3D glasses or IMAX 3D glasses. You’re experiencing it all on screen with the naked eye. It’s a beautiful, mesmerizing depth perception trick that repeats when the crew heads through a wormhole soon afterward. Nolan says his main focus for the film was to try and put the audience in space and he succeeds in doing just that.

Will you get the best experience out of one of the IMAX screenings? Probably. Since Nolan filmed a large chunk of the movie that way you may as well pay to see it the way the director intended. It’s not like you’re shelling out the big bucks to see a post-converted 3D film. I just wasn't as blown away during my experience at the Lincoln Square theater as I was by last year's space epic "Gravity."

The film is not without its faults. 

Early on, Cooper just happens to stumble upon NASA at the exact moment when they need a pilot to command a space shuttle leaving in search of a new planet to sustain life. The whole bit seems rather convenient and contrived. Even Cooper points this out; however, it’s something that makes a bit more sense by the end of the film. 

Nolan consulted theoretical physicist Kip Thorne who serves as an executive producer on the film, but the science itself can be a bit dense and go over the average viewer's head as a NASA team tries to solve an equation about gravity and there are discussions about finding the shortest route to embark on their journey.

And while the many nods to Kubrick's filmmaking are there, I'm not sure if it works all the time. There's a particular scene where the camera cuts multiple times from no sound in space to sound onboard the shuttle with McConaughey, Hathaway, and others and it's a little bit jarring. Nolan says the scene is supposed to "emphasize the claustrophobia of the ships"; however, I'm not sure that completely works. Then again, there are some on Twitter suggesting the IMAX sound mix of the film may not be the best.

Recommend seeing INTERSTELLAR in 70mm at Ziegfeld in NYC. Several of us found sound mix at Lincoln Square IMAX obscures key dialogue.

— Lou Lumenick (@LouLumenick) November 3, 2014

Perhaps, one of the biggest flaws in "Interstellar" is that it feels slightly formulaic.  

Whenever I watch a Christopher Nolan film I’ve grown accustomed to obsessively looking for clues in the beginning of the film that will tell me something about its end. If you’ve seen the brilliant mind-boggling 2001 indie “Memento” or equally mind-bending “Inception,” you know how a Nolan film works. You need to go back and watch the film a second and possibly third time because there’s always something at the start of the film which may allude to the end. This is true of "Interstellar." I won't give anything away, but pay close attention to the start. *mini-spoiler*If you do, you won't be completely surprised by its end.*mini-spoiler* This common element makes Nolan's filmmaking process a bit predictable. Stick a hint about the end of the film at its start. Where's the fun in that for his biggest fans?

Overall, “Interstellar” makes you think a lot about survival, the future of the human race, and the lengths we’ll go in order to ensure that future.  

You'll leave the film thinking about it long after you've seen it. You may not even want to leave the theater right away. That may be why Nolan's credits are simple white text on black to let you ruminate on everything you just saw.

Is it Oscar gold? In the visual department, sure. It makes for one of the best cinematic experiences you'll see all year; however, in having so much occur in a nearly 3-hour film, Nolan's ambitious space film may have attempted too much. 

"Interstellar" is being released in in 70mm IMAX film, 70mm film, and 35mm film Nov. 5. It's everywhere Nov. 7.

SEE ALSO: Early "Interstellar" reactions are hailing it as the must-see event of the fall

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Disney's Marvel Studios has dominated box offices in recent years with a series of fun, interconnected superhero movies. Warner Bros.' DC Comic movies, led by auteur director Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight Trilogy," have been darker and more critically acclaimed, if less prolific (so far).

Nolan's dismissive opinion of Marvel movies was indirectly revealed by Zack Snyder, director of Warner's "Man of Steel," in an in-depth profile by The Guardian's Tom Shone.

Snyder says he consulted closely with Nolan on that project and asked for the director's opinion when the studio asked him to include a comic post-credit sequence in the style that Marvel's movies are known for.

Nolan replied: “A real movie wouldn’t do that.”

Nolan's "Interstellar" comes out this week. Our Kirsten Acuna calls it "an ambitiously beautiful and wacky adventure into space."

Read more from Shone's excellent article on Nolan at The Guardian »

UPDATE: Speaking on Wednesday, Nolan denied this controversial quote. “I would never say someone else’s film isn’t ‘a real film,’” Nolan said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “The quote is inaccurate.”

According to Nolan, he had told Snyder, "We shouldn’t be chasing other movies, but stay true to the tone of Man of Steel."

SEE ALSO: 10 striking insights about Christopher Nolan and his movies

DON'T MISS: Are Marvel's movies really crap? Not if Joss Whedon has anything to do with it

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There are countless anecdotes about the auteuristic quirks of director Christopher Nolan, whose "Interstellar" comes out this week. For some new ones, check out an in-depth profile by The Guardian's Tom Shone, which includes an amazing story about how Nolan got frequent partner Hans Zimmer to write the theme for his space epic.

"Chris said to me, in his casual way. 'So, Hans, if I wrote one page of something, didn't tell you what it was about, just give you one page, would you give me one day of work?'" Zimmer told Shone. "'Whatever you came up with on that one day would be fine.'"

Zimmer agreed, and then one day he received a one-page typewritten letter. Per Shone:

On the paper was a short story, no more than a precis, about a father who leaves his child to do an important job. It contained two lines of dialogue — "I'll come back""When?"— and quoted something Zimmer had said a year before, during a long conversation with Nolan and his wife at the Wolesley restaurant in London ... "There was no movie to be made, there was no movie to discuss, we were talking about our children," said Zimmer, who has a 15-year-old son. "I said, once your children are born, you can never look at yourself through your eyes any more, you always look at yourself through their eyes."

Zimmer spent a day composing the theme and then showed it to Nolan, and Nolan loved it. It was only then that Nolan revealed what kind of movie he had in mind. As Zimmer told Shone:

"I asked him, 'Well, yes, but what is the movie?' And he started describing this huge, epic tale of space and science and humanity, on this epic scale. I’m going, 'Chris, hang on, I’ve just written this highly personal thing, you know?' He goes, 'Yes, but I now know where the heart of the movie is.' Everything about this movie was personal.'"

Read more from this excellent profile of Nolan, featuring comments from Zimmer, Michael Caine, Zack Snyder, Quentin Tarantino, and more, at The Guardian »

Also check out the "Interstellar" preview, which features some of Zimmer's music along with little more than the spare plot details Nolan originally gave Zimmer:

Nolan said of the soundtrack: "I believe that Hans' score for 'Interstellar' has the tightest bond between music and image that we've yet achieved."

Nolan and Zimmer have previously collaborated on "The Dark Knight Rises,""Inception,""The Dark Knight," and "Batman Begins."

NOW WATCH: 'The Walking Dead' Creator Answers Our Burning Questions About The Future

SEE ALSO: 'Interstellar' really is amazing

DON'T MISS: Christopher Nolan disses every Marvel movies with one cutting remark

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When I went to a screening of "Interstellar" Monday, two women sitting behind me were surprised we weren't seeing Christopher Nolan's film in 3D. 

When the the director's newest film rolls out in theaters nationwide Friday, you'll be able to see it in six formats, but not one of those will be 3D.

You will never see a Nolan film in 3D, at least not for now, anyway. 

In a 2012 interview from the Associated Press, the "Inception" director explained why his films aren't seen in digital 3D.

"The question of 3-D is a very straightforward one,"said Nolan. "I never meet anybody who actually likes the format, and it’s always a source of great concern to me when you’re charging a higher price for something that nobody seems to really say they have any great love for."

Nolan has explained his view on 3D many times. In 2012, he told the Directors Guild of America why he refused to use 3D in "The Dark Knight Rises":

Warner Bros. would have been very happy, but I said to the guys there that I wanted it to be stylistically consistent with the first two films and we were really going to push the IMAX thing to create a very high-quality image. I find stereoscopic imaging too small scale and intimate in its effect. 3-D is a misnomer. Films are 3-D. The whole point of photography is that it’s three-dimensional. The thing with stereoscopic imaging is it gives each audience member an individual perspective. It’s well suited to video games and other immersive technologies, but if you’re looking for an audience experience, stereoscopic is hard to embrace. I prefer the big canvas, looking up at an enormous screen and at an image that feels larger than life. When you treat that stereoscopically, and we’ve tried a lot of tests, you shrink the size so the image becomes a much smaller window in front of you. So the effect of it, and the relationship of the image to the audience, has to be very carefully considered. And I feel that in the initial wave to embrace it, that wasn’t considered in the slightest.

Without the added boost of 3D ticket sales, "The Dark Knight Rises" made over $1 billion at the box office worldwide.

It's not that Nolan necessarily dislikes the format overall.

At CinemaCon earlier this year, the "Inception" director praised Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" in 3D after its release.

“My resistance to 3D is purely based on what I feel is right for the films I want to make," Nolan told The Wrap earlier this year.

The director said he even tested out "Inception" to be in 3D but ditched the idea saying there wasn't enough time to do "a quality 3-D conversion."

Now watch: Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the ending to "Interstellar"

SEE ALSO: Our review of "Interstellar"

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Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" is in theaters now and available in six different formats including 35mm.

Despite the fact the format is almost dead, Nolan, along with directors like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, J.J. Abrams, and a few others, vow to keep the format alive by continuing to shoot on film the old-fashioned way. 

Nolan's campaign to save the ailing format picked up steam when Paramount announced last month theaters equipped with 35mm and 70mm projectors will get the film two days early.

"We are taking a moment to acknowledge the huge heritage of film ... filmmakers like Chris and J.J. want to make sure that film is a part of the business going forward," Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore told The Hollywood Reporter.

35mm and 70mm film can look brighter and clearer than digital projection, though the latest IMAX and 4K digital projection technology comes close. Digital projection has caught on because it's cheaper to distribute, among other reasons.

In an interview with the Director's Guild of America magazine, Christopher Nolan himself outlined why he prefers film:

"For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why. It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable. I think, truthfully, it boils down to the economic interest of manufacturers and [a production] industry that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo. We save a lot of money shooting on film and projecting film and not doing digital intermediates. In fact, I’ve never done a digital intermediate. Photochemically, you can time film with a good timer in three or four passes, which takes about 12 to 14 hours as opposed to seven or eight weeks in a DI suite. That’s the way everyone was doing it 10 years ago, and I’ve just carried on making films in the way that works best and waiting until there’s a good reason to change. But I haven’t seen that reason yet."

SEE ALSO: A huge actor has a surprise cameo in "Interstellar"

AND: "Interstellar" is a beautifully ambitious and wacky adventure into space

Join the conversation about this story »

There are six different ways to see "Interstellar." 

If you're heading out to see the film, which opened in theaters Friday, you want to make sure you're seeing it in the best possible way.

Now that I've seen the movie twice, in 70mm IMAX and 70mm film, it became instantly clear Nolan's sci-fi film should be seen on the biggest screen possible. 

Friday evening, I headed over to New York City's Ziegfeld theater to see the movie on 70mm film. Since Nolan filmed the movie in both 65mm IMAX and 35mm anamorphic film, I figured it only made sense to see it in both IMAX and film before making a decision on the right way to see it.

My biggest concern was how the big IMAX scenes would transition over to a smaller screen. There are a few absolutely gorgeous moments when Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway's characters are blasting through space that I couldn't imagine looking better in any format other than IMAX.

While I was pleasantly surprised to still feel the pull of being taken through space in 70mm, those scenes felt much more immersive while seeing it in IMAX. You feel like you're on a ride as you appear to zoom through a wormhole and across an icy planet.

Your eyes can't help but wander up the screen as you feel the enormity of a giant wave on another planet. 

The only problem is that if you want to see "Interstellar" on a legitimate IMAX screen, they are few in the US. As IMAX has become an increasingly popular format, many theaters started retrofitting theaters with smaller IMAX screens that are around 30 feet high.

There is only one real IMAX screen in New York City, the AMC Lincoln Square theater. It's about a 600-person theater with a screen that's 80 feet high and 100 feet wide. If there's a movie worth seeing in IMAX, that's the theater I'll want to see it at.

According to Paramount, there are 42 theaters showing "Interstellar" in 70mm IMAX in the US and Canada. Here's the full list of US theaters: 

Alabama
Huntsville: IMAX, U.S. Space & Rocket Center 

Arizona
Tempe: Harkins Arizona Mills 25 & IMAX

California
Dublin: Regal Hacienda Crossings Stadium 21 & IMAX
Hollywood: TCL Chinese Theatres IMAX
Irvine: Edwards Irvine Spectrum 21 IMAX & RPX
Sacramento: Esquire IMAX
San Francisco: AMC Meteon 16 & IMAX
San Jose: Hackworth IMAX Dome, The Tech Museum
Universal City: AMC Universal Citywalk Stadium 19 & IMAX

Colorado
Denver: UA Colorado Center Stadium 9 & IMAX  

DC
Washington: Lockheed Martin IMAX, National Air & Space Museum

Florida
Fort Lauderdale: Autonation IMAX, Museum of Discovery & Science
Tampa: IMAX Dome, Museum of Science & Industry

Georgia
Buford: Regal Mall of Georgia Stadium 20 & IMAX

Iowa
Des Moines: Blank IMAX Dome, Science Center of Iowa

Idaho
Boise: Edwards Boise Stadium 22 & IMAX

Illinois
Chicago: Navy Pier IMAX
Lincolnshire: Regal Lincolnshire Stadium 21 & IMAX

Indiana
Indianapolis: IMAX, Indiana State Museum

Michigan
Dearborn: IMAX, The Henry Ford
Grand Rapids: Celebration! Cinema Grand Rapids North & IMAX

Minnesota
Apple Valley: Great Clips IMAX, Minnesota Zoo

Missouri
Branson: Branson's IMAX

Nevada
Las Vegas: Benden Theatres & IMAX at the Palms

New York
New Rochelle: Regal New Roc Stadium 18 & IMAX
New York City: AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 & IMAX
Rochester: Cinemark Tinseltown USA & IMAX
West Nyack: AMC Loews Palisades 21 & IMAX

Pennsylvania
King of Prussia: UA King of Prussia Stadium 16 & IMAX
Philadelphia: Tuttleman IMAX, The Franklin Institute

Rhode Island
Providence: Providence Place Cinemas 16 & IMAX

Tennessee
Nashville: Regal Opry Mills Stadium 20 & IMAX

Texas 
Austin: IMAX, The Bullock Texas State History Museum
Dallas: Cinemark 17 & IMAX
San Antonio: AMC Rivercenter 11 & IMAX

Virginia
Chantilly: Airbus IMAX, Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Washington
Seattle: Boeing IMAX, Pacific Science Center

There is one issue I had seeing the film in 70mm IMAX at AMC's Lincoln Square. I couldn't help but think the sound was better at the Ziegfeld in 70mm film.

We're not the only ones.

Recommend seeing INTERSTELLAR in 70mm at Ziegfeld in NYC. Several of us found sound mix at Lincoln Square IMAX obscures key dialogue.

— Lou Lumenick (@LouLumenick) November 3, 2014

have heard INTERSTELLAR 35mm and digital don't have any issues. But I can report my IMAX screening had issues w/dialogue in select scenes

— Steven Weintraub (@colliderfrosty) November 3, 2014

While the sound didn't appear to distort any of the dialogue during my IMAX screening at Lincoln Square, I did pick up on a few more jokes from a wise-cracking robot named TARS that I missed the first time around. 

The sound of composer Hans Zimmer's harrowing soundtrack was less deafening and dynamic in the Ziegfeld. If you're not a fan of very loud films, 70mm may be the way to go. 

Now watch: Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the ending of "Interstellar"

SEE ALSO: Our review of "Interstellar"

AND: A huge actor has a big cameo in "Interstellar"

Join the conversation about this story »

Since the release of "Interstellar" in theaters, some viewers have expressed concerns over possible sound-mixing issues during showings of the movie.

/Film collected a number of critics and fans around the world who claimed their showings included muddled audio and overpowering music that drowned out dialogue at points in the film. 

In response to viewer complaints, a theater in upstate New York posted a sign on its door clarifying there were no issues with the theater’s sound equipment and that director Christopher Nolan “mixed the soundtrack with an emphasis on the music.”

During Saturday's press day for "Interstellar," we asked the film's composer Hans Zimmer about his reaction to sound complaints. The film is the composer's fifth collaboration with Nolan after "The Dark Knight" trilogy and 2010's "Inception."

"We tried to push the boundaries," Zimmer told Business Insider. "[Nolan and I] were getting the same sort of comments on 'Inception'” says Zimmer. "'Inception' was really incomprehensible to a large amount of people and the size of 'Inception,' or the ideas and the underlying metaphors were really incomprehensible."

Zimmer recalled something he told Nolan while working on that soundtrack:

"Pretend the music is a river and the audience is on this boat and it’s going to go down this river and the river is going to go inevitably. There’s no stopping it. Sometimes it’s going to get a little bumpy and sometimes it’s going to get a little incomprehensible, but what I want to do is I want to take you on a journey. I want to take you on a journey that you haven’t been on. And, I want to take you on an adventure. And it’s not a science class. These days we’re being fed nothing but information, but emotionally, I think we get less and less experience in anything because … everything is so cleaned up and we’re losing the edge … the mystery of things." 

Similarly, Zimmer says both he and Nolan wanted to take audiences on a journey on the big screen with "Interstellar." 

"We want it to be bold. We were aiming for the best sound systems," said Zimmer. "And, yes, it was really important for me that people wouldn’t hear this music detached from the movie for the first time on their little computer speaker because that’s not what it was designed for."

"I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something."— Hans Zimmer, composer

"Of course, now, suddenly there is a story that some people couldn’t understand the words [of 'Interstellar']," added Zimmer. "When I go and see a great opera I usually can’t understand the words anyway but I’m still on this amazing emotional journey. What I’m interested in ultimately is quite simply this: I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something. What you feel is what you bring to it. I want you be a co-conspirator in the music, and in a funny way, a co-creator in it." 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan broke his silence on the film's sound saying it's "exactly as he intended." Nolan emphasized Zimmer's points about the marriage of the film’s picture and sound coming together to create a bold adventure.  

"Many of the filmmakers I’ve admired over the years have used sound in bold and adventurous ways," Nolan told THR. "I don’t agree with the idea that you can only achieve clarity through dialogue. Clarity of story, clarity of emotions — I try to achieve that in a very layered way using all the different things at my disposal — picture and sound."

"The idea is to experience the journey the character is going on," he said. "[For instance] the experience of being in the cockpit is you hear the creaking [of the spacecraft]; it’s a very scary sound. We wanted to be true to the experience of space travel. We wanted to emphasize those intimate elements."

"We mixed for months and months and we talked about everything," Nolan added. "We must have mixed this film over six months. It was a continuous, organic process and discussion."

More "Interstellar": The only way you should see the movie

SEE ALSO: Hans Zimmer: "The music industry has run itself into the ground"

AND: This extremely detailed graphic will explain everything you need to know about "Interstellar"

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"MythBusters" cohost Adam Savage was left cold with the plot from "Interstellar." However, his knowledge of mechanics leads him to conclude that T.A.R.S. is the perfect robot. 

Produced by Justin Gmoser

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What is it like working with Christopher Nolan?appeared as a question on Quora. Below we are republishing an answer from Hans Zimmer, who composed the soundtrack for Christopher Nolan’s movie Interstellar.

I think one of the things that is really great about working with Chris is that he doesn’t, in any way, get in the way of my imagination. In fact, he works very hard at not having me confined by the mechanics of filmmaking.

So, our process is usually starting long conversations just riffing on ideas. Then slowly I start writing and experimenting, coming up with sounds, etc., all the while keeping in constant conversation with Chris. 

In Interstellar, for instance, there’re so many themes, so many pieces, which always got to a certain point during the writing process but never had an ending, because Chris and I would get to a certain point with an idea and then abandon it because we got excited about the next idea. You have to think of how Chris and I work as a sort of breathless, constant sprint because we are just trying to keep up with our own ideas.

The ideas are so plentiful when Chris and I get together, but the execution always takes more time and it can be so frustrating. It’s sometimes very frustrating for him as well because he’s trying to make a movie and he’s waiting on the music.
 
When it comes to the music for Interstellar, I can honestly say that in one way or another, the music is our music, not just my music. It’s entirely our music, and that’s a testament to how much I let Chris into my world.

The great thing is that as a composer, you can only write from the heart and from your innermost place. So, you have to trust your director.

And that’s the thing - there’s a great sense of trust and a great sense of balance that Chris brings to the composing process.

Because Chris cuts his movies in his garage, (giving his films a sort of a homemade quality), he never makes me feel that I have the enormous weight of the canvas on my shoulders.

His editing process is really helpful for my composing process. The work and the story is always brought back to the personal and the intimate, and that’s perfect for how I work.

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It's pretty difficult to imagine life without a cellphone or email nowadays, but director Christopher Nolan says he doesn't have either.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the "Dark Knight Trilogy" director explains he doesn't see much use for the technology. When he started out in Hollywood, very few people had cellphones. He was used to people tapping him on the should and handing him a phone if necessary.

Nolan says he just doesn't find email helpful.

Via THR:

Well, I’ve never used email because I don’t find it would help me with anything I’m doing. I just couldn’t be bothered about it. As far as the cellphone goes, it’s like that whole thing about "in New York City, you’re never more than two feet from a rat"— I’m never two feet from a cellphone. I mean, we’ll be on a scout with 10 people and all of them have phones, so it’s very easy to get in touch with me when people need to. When I started in this business, not many people had cellphones, I didn’t have one, I never bothered to get one and I’ve been very fortunate to be working continuously, so there’s always someone around me who can tap me on the shoulder and hand me a phone if they need to. I actually really like not having one because it gives me time to think. You know, when you have a smartphone and you have 10 minutes to spare, you go on it and you start looking at stuff.

Nolan previously told The New York Times he doesn't have an email address. Instead, his assistant, Andy Thompson handles correspondences and Nolan reads printed out emails.

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The Academy Award nominations have been officially announced, and already there's a lot to talk about in terms of what made it and what didn't. One of the biggest snubs in this year's interesting, if not milder than usual, Oscar race is the fact that Interstellar only received nods for Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Score. That's right... Interstellar is the new Transformers. It dominates the tech categories, but fails to do much else in the major categories. 

Categories like Best Director, which has seen Christopher Nolan snubbed time and time again for the work he's put in on films like Inception and The Prestige, as well as The Dark Knight trilogy. For a man who's usually cited as being technically proficient, but emotionally sterile, Nolan's efforts in bringing his talents to a more Spielbergian project were successful enough on Interstellar that he deserved more recognition. Anyone who can get Matthew McConaughey to cry that perfectly obviously has the emotional handle on the material in front of them. 

This also points to the bigger snub of a failure to secure the nomination for Best Original Screenplay, as Jonathan and Christopher Nolan's work on Interstellar's story turned it from a stereotypical science fiction film, complete with zero-g sex, into a story about trying to save the world – while finding your way home. While some of its elements don't really work the first time you experience them, it's after the entire film has gelled in your mind that you begin to see its brilliance on the whole. Gravity received more nominations last year, as well as a seat at the front-runners' table for Best Picture, and it was considered by some to be emotionally underwhelming. What this says for The Martian's chances for golden glory in next year's race is not certain, but it also seems to be stranding poor Mark Watney on more than the Martian surface. 

So how did the Academy get it right with Interstellar? They recognized the film's acute technical prowess with Visual Effects, as well as its Production Design of real spacecraft sets. While most of the technical awards obviously understood Interstellar's artistic beauty, even they managed to turn a cold shoulder on Hoyte Van Hoytema's gorgeous cinematography, showing that even when they get it right, there's just a little bit of shade thrown towards the end product. 

Most importantly, Interstellar's Academy Award nominations contained a well deserved nod for Hans Zimmer and his tremendous work on the film's score. If I were to bet on what swayed the Academy voters to give this nomination to it's talented composer, I would wager two stacks of high society on the track, "No Time For Caution," aka "the docking scene music." Take a moment to listen to that track below, and tell me that's not the ace in the hole for Interstellar's score.

Some say that Christopher Nolan is the new Stanley Kubrick, as his cerebral brand of popcorn movies are consistently passed up for awards that a good number of his fans believe he deserves. While I'm perfectly fine with that analogy, as that would mean that the Nolan legacy will be one for the history books and film academics to relish in ad infinitum, it's still a damned shame that Interstellar isn't more recognized as the work of artistic craftsmanship that it is. Maybe one day, The Academy will give up their grudge against honoring science fiction, but today is not that day. Here's hoping that despite its limited nominations, Interstellar cleans up in its categories... or at the very least lands a much deserved win for Hans Zimmer's musical opus. 

SEE ALSO: The biggest Oscar snubs and surprises

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This article contains spoilers for the ending of "Interstellar."

Thanks to the physicists and engineers at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab, we now know a little more about Interstellar.

At a Q&A earlier this week, Jonathan Nolan revealed that — surprise, surprise — the film had a very different ending before his brother hopped aboard the project. 

Recall the ending of Interstellar's theatrical cut: Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) dives into Gargantua and flies around a five-dimensional bounce house, communicating with Murph via Morse code and dust to give her the data that will solve Brand's equation.

Well. According to a Nerdist writer who was in the audience, Nolan, who was plugging the movie's upcoming Blu-Ray release, said the ending of his original script was more straightforward. There was no five-dimensional tesseract. Instead, "the Einstein-Rosen bridge (a.k.a. wormhole) collapse[s] when Cooper tries to send the data back."

Nolan reportedly didn't expand on whether or not the data would've made it back, but things didn't look great for Cooper.

Once he agreed to direct, Christopher Nolan tweaked the script to include the happier ending, and also to make some of the science more digestible for the public (e.g., the gravity anomaly Cooper and Murph discover earlier in the movie was supposed to have come from a wrecked neutron star's gravity waves, which would've been picked up by the Laser Interferometer Gravity-Wave Observatory).

You can re-watch the movie and fantasize about its alternate ending March 31.

SEE ALSO: 'Interstellar' Physics You Need To Know

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When it comes to technology, director Christopher Nolan ("Interstellar,""The Dark Knight" Trilogy), is famously something of a Luddite. He doesn't have an email or a cell phone, and he's a vocal advocate of film over digital.

His action sequences also rely more heavily on practical effects than CGI. Nolan appeared Monday evening at a Tribeca Film Festival panel to discuss his film career. While referencing Nolan’s action scenes, a fan asked what scene the director is most proud of putting together.

It's not one from "Inception," nor is it one from his recent "Interstellar."

Instead, Nolan told the audience if "you're talking pure mechanics" that he would have to go with the opening scene from "The Dark Knight Rises," in which the film's villain Bane (Tom Hardy) is first introduced hijacking a plane that he drops from the sky. 

The scene was shot in Scotland, where the crew actually dropped a real plane from the sky.

While it was a scheduled five-day shoot, the crew was able to get it done in just two.

In order to shoot the scene, Nolan had to obtain permission to drop the plane. 

"It was sort of an incredible coming together of lots and lots of planning by a lot of members of the team who worked for months rehearsing all these parachute jumps," Nolan said.

He definitely pushes his crew to crazy new levels, and they always seem to be on board.

"With Chris Nolan, as much as we can physically do inside of that lens is where he would like to go," stunt coordinator Tom Struthers said in a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Practical effects might be making a comeback. The gravity-defying fight scenes in "Inception" used real sets as opposed to green screen, a gamble which clearly paid off.

Other directors are embracing practical as well.

J.J. Abrams has been earning a lot of early praise for actually building most of the sets that you will see in "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens." Even the robots such as BB-8, were physically put together and could interact with the actors.

While CGI might be easier and safer, Nolan seems to believe that working without that safety net offers both risks and rewards.

"I was amazed at what the team achieved using various old-fashioned methods," Nolan said, "I was very proud of how that came together."

Watch the full scene below: 

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Ever since he was young, Christopher Nolan always knew he wanted to be a filmmaker. 

"I was about 12 or 13 [when I decided to do this for a living] and I just became struck by the idea of a director," Nolan audience at the Tribeca Film Festival Monday night.

Like many great directors before, Nolan started making his own films on a Super 8 camera. As someone who came of age in the 1970s, one of his biggest influence was "Star Wars."

"That came out in the '70s and I'd been experimenting using Super 8 films and stuff. And then from the second I saw 'Star Wars' everything was space ships and science-fiction," Nolan said.

Nolan remarked that the "imaginatively titled" series of Super 8 films was called "Space Wars." 

As a kid, Nolan felt he had achieved something great with "Space Wars." However, he recently revisited it and was surprised at what he saw.

"I actually showed a couple of them to my kids recently because I got them transferred on to DVD," said Nolan, "and I was a little disappointed at how bad it was."

During the candid conversation, Nolan described how every film he made was a stepping stone to something bigger. Without "Space Wars," he may never have been ready for his $6,000 feature film debut "Following." Without "Following," there would have been no "Memento" and with no "Memento," there would be no Nolan-helmed "Dark Knight" trilogy.

"That's the weird thing about a filmmaker's process ... or my process ... I sort of remembered it the way I wanted it to be," Nolan said, "coming back to your old films...they tend to change over time."

SEE ALSO: Director Christopher Nolan Doesn't Have A Cellphone Or Email Address

AND: Christopher Nolan says he's most proud of the opening scene in "The Dark Knight Rises"

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Christopher Nolan has garnered a reputation for ending his films with mind-boggling twists. 

The one that still seems to perplex people the most is 2010's "Inception."

If you haven't seen the film, there are spoilers ahead.

At the end of "Inception," Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) finally returns home to his kids after spending a long time in the dream world. Cobb carries a little top with him. If the top keeps spinning, that means he is in a dream. If it stops and falls over, that means he is back in reality. The final shot shows the top spinning, but it never reveals whether it falls over. 

Five years after "Inception" was released in theaters and became a box-office smash, this one question still drives fans crazy.

At a recent Q&A at the Tribeca Film Festival, one audience member asked the director to explain what the ending of "Inception" means.

Nolan, who looked like he had heard this question just a few too many times, wouldn't explain the ending, but instead explained why he won't comment on it or the endings to any of his films for that matter. 

He told a story about when his mind-bender "Memento" premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2000.

"We got a very, very excited reaction to it," Nolan said. "Somebody had asked about my interpretation of the ending and I said 'Well, it's all up to the audience but this is what it means to me,' and I gave them in great detail what exactly the ambiguities of the film meant to me," Nolan said. 

The press conference was never recorded, so his "Memento" explanation never got out. However, Jonathan Nolan, Christopher's brother, who wrote the short story on which "Memento" was based, advised him against ever explaining the ending of one of his films again.

According to Nolan, his brother told him, "You don't understand, nobody hears that first bit where you say it's really up to the viewers if you then give your interpretation."

"It's the last time I ever opened my mouth," Nolan said.

Christopher Nolan isn't the first filmmaker to be questioned about the ending of something he made years ago. He's in good company with the likes of David Chase, the creator of "The Sopranos," who recently gave an in-depth analysis of the show's ending following nearly 10 years of constant debate and controversy.

Nolan is known for his secrecy, so it is unlikely that we will ever get an explanation like that for "Inception" or his other films.

While he will never offer us a definitive answer (an interview in Wired is the closest he's gotten to giving one), we seem to have his permission to continue arguing over whether or not that top kept spinning.

SEE ALSO: Christopher Nolan says he's most proud of the opening scene in 'The Dark Knight Rises'

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During a panel talk about the ins-and-outs of filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival, director Colin Trevorrow ("Jurassic World"), who will be directing "Star Wars: Episode IX," Trevorrow teased an idea he's working on for his "Star Wars" movie: shooting in space.

"I asked the question, 'Is it possible for us to shoot IMAX film plates in actual space for 'Star Wars,' and I haven't gotten an answer yet," said Trevorrow during the panel.

Trevorrow made the comments while on a panel that included Christopher Nolan, and cinematographer Rachel Morrison ("Fruitvale Station").

The ambitious idea by Trevorrow, who is coming off the second-highest grossing film of 2015 with "Jurassic World," would be a first for the "Star Wars" franchise, but it doesn't sound like it's the first time it's been thought about.

Nolan said during the panel that he had the same idea for one of his movies.

"Funny enough, we had that conversation with 'Interstellar,' said Nolan. "There's incredible footage from space now."

The 2008 8-minute short film "Apogee of Fear" is regarded as the first movie to shoot in space.

With "Star Wars" movies notoriously difficult to make here on Earth, it could be interesting to see if Disney would give the okay to allow Trevorrow to do it.

For the 1995 film "Apollo 13," director Ron Howard had pieces of the lunar modules set built in a Boeing reduced-gravity aircraft so the actors could do select space sequences for about 23 seconds of weightlessness.

Trevorrow's idea is certainly next level.

"Star Wars: Episode IX" opens in 2019.

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Following the news that Sean Parker has started a company that plans to offer rentals of movies still in theaters for $50 each, the biggest directors in Hollywood are coming out with their opinions. And some are strongly opposed to the venture.

The latest opponent is Christopher Nolan, the auteur behind “The Dark Knight” movies and “Inception,” who wrote in an email to Variety on Wednesday, “It would be hard to express the great importance of exclusive theatrical presentation to our industry more compellingly than Jon Landau and James Cameron did,” referring to the earlier statement from Landaru and Cameron, producer and director of "Avatar" and "Titanic," respectively.

“Both Jim and I remain committed to the sanctity of the in-theater experience,” Landau said. “For us, from both a creative and financial standpoint, it is essential for movies to be offered exclusively in theaters for their initial release. We don’t understand why the industry would want to provide audiences an incentive to skip the best form to experience the art that we work so hard to create.”

The Screening Room would offer consumers the option to buy a $150 anti-piracy set-top box to permit them to rent for 48 hours movies that are still showing in theaters. A portion of the $50 fee would go to exhibitors, and customers would receive two tickets to their local multiplex for the movie they rented.

Directors who are for the model include Peter Jackson, J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. 

But the National Association of Theatre Owners issued a statement saying that it's against Screening Room. AMC is so far the only large theater chain supporting the model.

“More sophisticated window modeling may be needed for the growing success of a modern movie industry,” the association's statement said. “Those models should be developed by distributors and exhibitors in company-to-company discussions, not by a third party.”

Parker and and cofounder/CEO Prem Akkaraju have yet to speak publicly about Screening Room.

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