True Detective

True Detective is an HBO original drama series that first premiered in January of 2014. This show, created and written by author Nic Pizzolatto, is designed as an anthology, or a series that changes plot and cast in between every season. The first season consists of eight episodes, costarring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as partner homicide detectives.

McConaughey plays "Rust" Cohle, a very intelligent detective that, due to his own ethics, is compelled to ravenously pursue a serial killer even though it brings great danger to his own well being. Rust suffers from depression, insomnia and alcoholism, all of which stem from the untimely death of his young daughter followed by the divorce of his wife. While Rust may be a flawed character who does not believe in or follow the norms of society, he still acts as the moral epicenter of the show.

Harrelson plays a decorated and veteran detective named Marty Hart. Marty has a troubled relationship with himself, his partner, and his family that eventually leads up to many of the troubles within his character. Marty's demons eventually get ahold of him before he turns to alcohol and divorces his wife. While Marty and Rust are partners they do not necessarily get along, this leads them to disagree on much of the morality of humanity and the human existence.

The plot of True Detective jumps between the years 1995, 2002, and 2012 while Marty Hart and Rust Cohle are delivering the tale of a previous homicide investigation that they both worked on. All previous information on the case was tragically lost in hurricane Rita, so the two characters were asked by investigators to recount their professional relationship, separate home relationships, and affiliation with the Dora Lange murder case. We bounce between the past and present while we progressively learn more about our character, the case, and that the perpetrator may still yet be at large.

I would highly recommend that everyone check out True Detective at some point. It is a show that is shot beautifully with an amazingly interesting story. The first time I watched it I was bored during the first episode and gave up on it; however, after I got to the third the show greatly increases in pace. The show is also scheduled to release a second season coming up in June of 2015.

Interstellar

I finally got around to watching Interstellar and I have to say I was blown away.

The storyline was phenomenal and very original. While I found the story somewhat hard to follow after a little bit of hard thinking I was able to wrap my head around the concepts the movie was built around and i was blown away.

The ideas presented in the film around blackholes was fairly accurate in contrast to ideas I learned from my astronomy class. Blackholes are created after a very large star goes supernova and implodes. After an object reaches a certain level of mass then the gravity from that object gets to the point where its mass increases and size decreases because of the force of gravity is so strong.

This causes a blackhole and it is thought to cause a flex in out dimensional plane which then opens many more doors to different theories of how space time works, making the plot of interstellar somewhat believable which, in my opinion, is why it was such a great film.

Scientific accuracy of Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar"

Christopher Nolan's film, "Interstellar" to premier today 11/7/14, has been highly anticipated. After Matthew McConaughey's performances in True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club, many are waiting to see where he goes next. Interstellar is a science fiction adventure film, where space travelers travel through a wormhole. To ensure the depictions of wormholes and relativity were as accurate as possible, the production hired the theoretical physicist Kip Thorne. It was stated that because the film will be the first time significant finances will be available for the rendering of the black hole, it is one of the most realistic and accurate renderings of a black hole we ever had. The VXF department took Kip's mathematical data and formatted it into a visual representation of what a black hole would look like. Dr. Thorne worked with about 30 computer effects artists in order to simulate many of the sourced theoretical equations. "Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, and ultimately resulted in 800 terabytes of data."(wikipedia). Through this filmmaking process has gathered an opportunity for the physics community and the special effects community to learn new things about the nature of black holes. 

True Detective

A show with a truly captivating story and cinematic style, True Detective, which aired in 2014 for HBO, blew me out of the water. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson give an extraordinary performance in which they play dark mysterious detectives trying to discover a serial killer in Louisiana. The show is just as much about the relationship of the two detectives as it is wrapped around the case. The philosophical narration of Chole's character gives an interesting dialogue in this thought provoking series.

True detective contains some of the most elaborate cinematography for a television show, which is able to creatively portray the setting of Louisiana. This is one of the first times such a long take might have even been considered for TV. At over 6 minutes, this intense long take is one you should check out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_HuFuKiq8U

Contact (film)

First off I would like to say that I am a sucker for a good sci-fi/thriller movie. With that said, yesterday I saw the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey (directed by Robert Zemeckis).  The film follows Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) and her struggle to prove the existence of extra terrestrial life.  After finally picking up conclusive radio proof of intelligent aliens, the Ellie's life changes forever.  Trying not to give away too much of the plot, I would like to say that while bordering on the realm of science fiction, Contact is a movie that makes you ponder the impossible.  Not only did it make me realize how tiny and insignificant are might be, but it also made me realize how precious and valuable we are as human beings.  Anyways, from a film making stand point, the film was beautiful and engaging. I was literally in awe in some scenes. If you are interested in the sci-fi/thriller genre you should definitely watch this movie. Or if you enjoy movies that make you think, this movies for you too.