A film odyssey for 'Interstellar'

Few moviegoers would argue that Christopher Nolan isn't one of the more original and influential directors at work today, but he's quick to agree that "Interstellar" is full of homages to films that influenced him.

Allusions to the following, he said, could be found in his new movie:

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY(1968) The big kahuna of sci-fi epics, Stanley Kubrick's hallucinogenic space trip is reflected in "Interstellar's" voyages through the wormholes and in one lengthy, graceful sequence in which Hans Zimmer's score evokes Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube" waltz, music inseparable from Kubrick's movie.

THE MIRROR (1975) "Interstellar's" use of elements "like ice, water, dust, wind and so forth for symbolic value as well as literal meaning," Nolan said, was influenced by this autobiographical and largely stream-of-consciousness work by the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky.

THE RIGHT STUFF(1983) Philip Kaufman's best-picture nominee told the story of the original Mercury astronauts and one non-astronaut, test pilot Chuck Yeager -- whom Matthew McConaughey's "Interstellar" character, Cooper, closely resembles.

REDS (1981) Nolan's use of the witness testimony in "Interstellar" -- i.e., elderly interviewees recalling the devastation they lived through -- is the same device used in this epic about the Bolshevik Revolution.