I have to admit that I sorta wish Nolan did a smaller film again. The bigger they get, the more they tend to lose me emotionally. His craftsmanship is great, and I always enjoy many of the individual elements of his films, but it's been a long time since I felt anything much in connection with his films. With Tenet, I appreciated the sheer logistical effort, but it's mainly the logistics that I saw. I couldn't lose myself in the film (which was also my problem with a lot of Sam Mendes' 1917). And because I felt emotionally disconnected from what was happening in the film, I've also not felt much of an urge to revisit it.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Why I haven't seen Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo before now I don't know, but I can report that while the film itself is merely fine the battle scenes are extraordinary. There is no substitute in special effects for just filming thousands and thousands of people doing a thing. Watching the aerial shots of an endless stream of cuirassiers boiling round thousands of red uniformed infantry packed into squares is eye-boggling. The charge of the Scots Greys, a ragged mass of horses going breakneck over a plain, is what Peter Jackson surely had in mind when he filmed the Ride of the Rohirrim. Columns ten deep five hundred men across. Staggering.
Steiger is pretty good as Napoleon but Plummer is genuinely excellent as Wellington, all flashing eyes and calculating ice.
November, aka Noirvember, is over. Now it is December, or, as it is also know... Neo-Noirvember. It's time for a month's worth of neo-noirs! And actually I'm going to do a Christmas noir for Christmas.
黒い河/Kuroi kawa (Black River) (1957), dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Fumio Watanabe, a bookish engineering student, moves into a pretty shitty apartment near a US military base. Ineko Arima is a waitress who catches his eye, but she also catches the eye of Tatsuya Nakadai, a local gangster sort of fellow. Noir events ensue.
This is the third movie in a row which is pretty good. Watanabe is decently complex: definitely quite nerdy, but he can also be spiky and even a little violent. Nakadai is absolutely a jerk but he's a believable one. Arima is in a tough position and she ends up driving a lot of the plot in interesting ways, especially at the end, which is excellent.
The movie is like 50% typical noir love triangle and 50% social commentary about the slums near the US military base. Unlike your typical US film, where the Communists are always horrible bad guys, there's a Communist character in here who is basically the only really decent guy in the whole movie. The social commentary stuff is fine but it sort of makes the movie a little bloated and unfocused. There's also some humor which doesn't land very well. This is our first neo-noir but I guess it's basically just a straight up late period noir. Oops. 84/100
I dunno, Mario just looks generic and bland to me. Like, it seems significantly less creative and interesting than Super Mario Odyssey, a 5 year old game. I realize that games and movies aren't a direct comparison, but in terms of storyline, characters, environments, visual style and ideas, Odyssey was a lot more compelling.
Remember, the last time Nintendo took a hands-off approach and let movie directors get bold and creative with the Mario property, we got Dinohattan and Dennis Hopper devolving people into monkeys with a SNES Superscope.
That film will still probably outlive this one.
I doubt it. This will probably kickstart a whole series and spin-offs, and the "did you know there was a weird old Mario movie before?" trivia will die out quickly
I rewatched the 1931 Dracula this week, on a big screen as opposed to TV (which is how I first watched it)... and I'm afraid I still don't particularly like it. Obviously it's dated, but in itself that's not what bothered me; we watched Dreyer's Vampyr a few weeks ago, and that film is also as old-timey as they come, but its strange, dreamlike quality still resonates. Dracula, however, is just so damn camp. I can enjoy it for this, but I'm finding it difficult to enjoy it unironically, except for a couple of things (e.g. the wonderful matte paintings). van Helsing is boring in this one, as are Mina and Lucy and especially John Harker (oh, for Keanu's terrible accent!). Lugosi has some charisma, but he's also practically the same in every single scene, looking half-confused, half-constipated. He has the odd moment where there's more there, e.g. when Renfield first meets him or at the theatre, but those are exceptions. Renfield himself works better than most characters, but mostly in the aforementioned camp way. I love his laugh, but I can't take it seriously for a second. While older, I find Nosferatu considerably more successful and unsettling. Sorry, my fanged friends - the Universal Dracula isn't for me.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I like Bela Lugosi's strange composure and his, uh, hand-acting? But the '31 Dracula suuuper didn't land for me either. Frankenstein came out the same year and feels significantly less dated under James Whale's understanding of people.
The Mummy, a year after Dracula, is similarly quiet and slow, but it comes across to me as moody and atmospheric, where Dracula still feels like a poorly edited adaptation of a stage production... which is what it is, really. Weirdly, I hear good things about the Spanish version of Dracula, which includes different footage, but I haven't seen it.
+2
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I like Bela Lugosi's strange composure and his, uh, hand-acting? But the '31 Dracula suuuper didn't land for me either. Frankenstein came out the same year and feels significantly less dated under James Whale's understanding of people.
The Mummy, a year after Dracula, is similarly quiet and slow, but it comes across to me as moody and atmospheric, where Dracula still feels like a poorly edited adaptation of a stage production... which is what it is, really. Weirdly, I hear good things about the Spanish version of Dracula, which includes different footage, but I haven't seen it.
Apparently the spanish version basically used all the same sets, they just filmed at night, so they got to watch the Legosi version being filmed as a kind of practice run
Same, Nosferatu is where it's at. I might be an outlier regarding Nosferatu though, because I prefer Herzog's version
There are some very odd choices in Herzog's version, in particular the '70s German soap opera music, and some of it is rather flat and ugly, also looking like '70s German TV series, but it nails many of the uncanny elements, especially once Nosferatu arrives in Wismar and brings plague and death with him. And the ending has much pointier teeth than the original, to coin a phrase.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The ghastly nature of Nosferatu as a character performance does a lot of heavy lifting for the original (I havent seen Herzog's remake) and I'm super excited to see what Eggers does with it now that his version is finally moving along in production.
The ghastly nature of Nosferatu as a character performance does a lot of heavy lifting for the original (I havent seen Herzog's remake) and I'm super excited to see what Eggers does with it now that his version is finally moving along in production.
I rewatched the 1931 Dracula this week, on a big screen as opposed to TV (which is how I first watched it)... and I'm afraid I still don't particularly like it. Obviously it's dated, but in itself that's not what bothered me; we watched Dreyer's Vampyr a few weeks ago, and that film is also as old-timey as they come, but its strange, dreamlike quality still resonates. Dracula, however, is just so damn camp. I can enjoy it for this, but I'm finding it difficult to enjoy it unironically, except for a couple of things (e.g. the wonderful matte paintings). van Helsing is boring in this one, as are Mina and Lucy and especially John Harker (oh, for Keanu's terrible accent!). Lugosi has some charisma, but he's also practically the same in every single scene, looking half-confused, half-constipated. He has the odd moment where there's more there, e.g. when Renfield first meets him or at the theatre, but those are exceptions. Renfield himself works better than most characters, but mostly in the aforementioned camp way. I love his laugh, but I can't take it seriously for a second. While older, I find Nosferatu considerably more successful and unsettling. Sorry, my fanged friends - the Universal Dracula isn't for me.
I wasn't wild about Vampyr, but it's certainly more interesting than the Lugosi Dracula. Echoing Fencingsax, the Spanish version is supposedly far superior. I think I have it as a bonus feature on a Blu-Ray - should watch it some time.
I wasn't wild about Vampyr, but it's certainly more interesting than the Lugosi Dracula.
I think Vampyr works best as a series of surreal, dreamlike, uncanny shorts that isn't worlds away from, say, a short film by Maya Deren. It's when the overall plot kicks in that it's weakest IMO. But especially during the first half hour I was very much there for it. It's kinda ironic that Vampyr works least well when it's about, well, the vampire.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
No, it was really boring and from what I remember his sound mixing is getting increasingly worse.
Nice. I'm slowly joining camp "Villeneuve is basically Nolan" after Dune's violation of my ears btw, especially after I saw that he made the choice to use THAT piece of Zimmer's aural sledgehammer during the box of pain scene
I think that there are definite similarities between Villeneuve and Nolan as filmmakers, but I think that Villeneuve isn't as keen as Nolan to impress his cleverness as a filmmaker on the audience. There's a lightness of touch to Nolan's earlier stories, whereas films like Interstellar and Tenet especially felt to me like they are simply not as clever and as deep as Nolan thinks they are.
Which isn't to say that they're bad films, but if you didn't find much that was to your taste in Interstellar, chances are you won't much like Tenet, added to which its strengths benefit from watching it on a big screen.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I was done with Nolan after Interstellar, still can not bring myself to watch Tenet, even though I hear good things
Those good things you heard were lies.
See I can't tell if you're serious or if that's a Tenet joke as in "reality is a lie" or some shit
Nah, it's just that reviews are mixed.
I think it's solid but Nolan has made several better films and if you aren't onboard for "Inception but not quite as good", it's not gonna change your mind.
I think Nolan is the poor man's intellectual filmmaker. Which sounds shitty and possibly elitist, maybe, but it's true. He thinks his movies are more clever then they are, and so does his audience, I think.
Interstellar broke for me due to the schmaltzy garbage writing. Poor Anne Hathaway had to sit there and say that love is a force that transcends dimensions. There is a fantastic sci fi movie hidden in there, but it didn't come together.
Villeneuve I used to genuinely love, and I don't think that Nolan could have pulled off Blade Runner 2049, let alone Enemy, but Dune feels like he's getting extremely close to Nolan territory.
Also I hate Zimmer and what he did to movie music with a passion, so that colors it all a bit. Although I was totally fine with what he did for Interstellar and BR2049, in that it didn't make me want to turn off the movie
Tenet is a solid spectacle to watch and quite enjoyable. One of the characters in the movie says it best by, "Don't think about it". Just enjoy the ride.
I think that there are definite similarities between Villeneuve and Nolan as filmmakers, but I think that Villeneuve isn't as keen as Nolan to impress his cleverness as a filmmaker on the audience. There's a lightness of touch to Nolan's earlier stories, whereas films like Interstellar and Tenet especially felt to me like they are simply not as clever and as deep as Nolan thinks they are.
Which isn't to say that they're bad films, but if you didn't find much that was to your taste in Interstellar, chances are you won't much like Tenet, added to which its strengths benefit from watching it on a big screen.
I think trying to frame this as Nolan impressing the audience is weirdly accusatory. I think Nolan just likes weird stories. Literally from day 1 (ie - Following) he's loved stories with a unique central conceit he can build off of. Something with a very sci-fi-short-story-esque neat central premise or gimmick. Invading dreams, no memory, time going at different speeds, time going backwards, time going at different rates, etc, etc, etc. His Batman trilogy is, if anything, a departure for him into more mainstream entertainment. And once that made him a big name able to command big budgets on whatever he wanted to do, he went right back to making the kind of films he really loves. Nolan is just out there making whatever the fuck kind of movie he wants to.
People get this really weird fucking tone about this stuff. Like they are mad and sneering at a filmmaker for not being extremely mundane. As if that's like a personal insult to them.
Dark Knight has some of that schmaltz as well imo. The whole thing with the two boats, and the people practically beating the Joker
I get it, it's the point, but I squirm a bit in my seat when I see it
I think that there are definite similarities between Villeneuve and Nolan as filmmakers, but I think that Villeneuve isn't as keen as Nolan to impress his cleverness as a filmmaker on the audience. There's a lightness of touch to Nolan's earlier stories, whereas films like Interstellar and Tenet especially felt to me like they are simply not as clever and as deep as Nolan thinks they are.
Which isn't to say that they're bad films, but if you didn't find much that was to your taste in Interstellar, chances are you won't much like Tenet, added to which its strengths benefit from watching it on a big screen.
I think trying to frame this as Nolan impressing the audience is weirdly accusatory. I think Nolan just likes weird stories. Literally from day 1 (ie - Following) he's loved stories with a unique central conceit he can build off of. Something with a very sci-fi-short-story-esque neat central premise or gimmick. Invading dreams, no memory, time going at different speeds, time going backwards, time going at different rates, etc, etc, etc. His Batman trilogy is, if anything, a departure for him into more mainstream entertainment. And once that made him a big name able to command big budgets on whatever he wanted to do, he went right back to making the kind of films he really loves. Nolan is just out there making whatever the fuck kind of movie he wants to.
People get this really weird fucking tone about this stuff. Like they are mad and sneering at a filmmaker for not being extremely mundane. As if that's like a personal insult to them.
Yeah, sorry, but you're reading a ton of stuff into my message here that simply isn't there. My problem isn't that the stories are weird, it's that I don't find the twists and turns of some of his latter films to survive the weight of the bombast and the twists and the puzzles. For me, it's no surprise that Interstellar was co-written by Nolan's brother Jonathan, who has done good work, but especially his work on Westworld suggests that his storytelling doesn't necessarily get better if he's given more time and more resources, and personally I think the same's the case to some extent with Christopher Nolan. I don't find his storytelling to be particularly engaging the more bombastic it is, and I've found his big twists and puzzles to be less and less engaging. Framing this as me sneering at Nolan for "not being extremely mundane" is, frankly, quite goosey.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I think that there are definite similarities between Villeneuve and Nolan as filmmakers, but I think that Villeneuve isn't as keen as Nolan to impress his cleverness as a filmmaker on the audience. There's a lightness of touch to Nolan's earlier stories, whereas films like Interstellar and Tenet especially felt to me like they are simply not as clever and as deep as Nolan thinks they are.
Which isn't to say that they're bad films, but if you didn't find much that was to your taste in Interstellar, chances are you won't much like Tenet, added to which its strengths benefit from watching it on a big screen.
I think trying to frame this as Nolan impressing the audience is weirdly accusatory. I think Nolan just likes weird stories. Literally from day 1 (ie - Following) he's loved stories with a unique central conceit he can build off of. Something with a very sci-fi-short-story-esque neat central premise or gimmick. Invading dreams, no memory, time going at different speeds, time going backwards, time going at different rates, etc, etc, etc. His Batman trilogy is, if anything, a departure for him into more mainstream entertainment. And once that made him a big name able to command big budgets on whatever he wanted to do, he went right back to making the kind of films he really loves. Nolan is just out there making whatever the fuck kind of movie he wants to.
People get this really weird fucking tone about this stuff. Like they are mad and sneering at a filmmaker for not being extremely mundane. As if that's like a personal insult to them.
Yeah, sorry, but you're reading a ton of stuff into my message here that simply isn't there. My problem isn't that the stories are weird, it's that I don't find the twists and turns of some of his latter films to survive the weight of the bombast and the twists and the puzzles. For me, it's no surprise that Interstellar was co-written by Nolan's brother Jonathan, who has done good work, but especially his work on Westworld suggests that his storytelling doesn't necessarily get better if he's given more time and more resources, and personally I think the same's the case to some extent with Christopher Nolan. I don't find his storytelling to be particularly engaging the more bombastic it is, and I've found his big twists and puzzles to be less and less engaging. Framing this as me sneering at Nolan for "not being extremely mundane" is, frankly, quite goosey.
There's this continual framing that he's trying to impress his cleverness as a filmmaker on the audience and he's not as clever and as deep he thinks he is. It's all built around this idea that he's trying to show off to audience rather then just making the kind of stories he's always liked. There's absolutely a sneering quality to "you think you are so smart but you aren't".
Part of that might be how much of a douche he was apparently on set, and how he puffed up about the death of cinema etc during the pandemic. I don't think it's much of a stretch to think that he's just not a good ol' boy making movies he likes, but a bit of a pompous ass. So. At least for me those things mesh
I just think Nolan is going deaf and unwilling to admit it to anyone. His sound mixing is getting worse and worse and he gets all tetchy if anyone calls him on it. He had to fix Batman because the Studio was in control but I get the feeling he's wrangled that away and it was just so bad. I could not understand a word of dialogue said on the boat trip which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't a heavily dialogue driven script.
The Prestige is one of my favourite films because it's just so weird but the mystery box elements actually work. Inception is also fantastic. And everyone forgets about Insomnia, which is just a really odd film.
Hans Zimmer is the modern day John Williams but he's more Marmite because unlike Williams, he refuses to write motifs and instead prefers a feeling based score. But his Inception score is one of the best (yes yes he invented the BWAH BWAH noise but that's not his fault everyone started copying it - the first time it was used it was revolutionary) and his ability to incorporate many different types of music (unlike Williams's Big Orchestra One Move) is impressive. I actually love his Amazing Spider-Man 2 score because it's just fun (riffing on Fanfare for the Common Man is just so clever to reference Spider-Man).
Lets not forget the Bat voice basically ruins the Batman movies. Bad sound has been a think for a while
To a point, it was at least somewhat passable until Bane in Rises. I don't recall an issue with Interstellar, but Tenet was absolutely atrocious. I can't express how bad a film must be for me to not like anything about it. The only film I've ever walked out of was Miami Vice.
Interstellar is just odd to me. He spends a long time grounding it in science and then goes full magic right at the end (love and time looping). I assume it was some sort of anti-intellectual argument against science ('science can't solve every problem, sometimes you just need belief' or some other nonsense).
TARS was awesome though. I really thought it was going to be another HAL situation but he smartly avoided that.
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"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Steiger is pretty good as Napoleon but Plummer is genuinely excellent as Wellington, all flashing eyes and calculating ice.
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黒い河/Kuroi kawa (Black River) (1957), dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Fumio Watanabe, a bookish engineering student, moves into a pretty shitty apartment near a US military base. Ineko Arima is a waitress who catches his eye, but she also catches the eye of Tatsuya Nakadai, a local gangster sort of fellow. Noir events ensue.
This is the third movie in a row which is pretty good. Watanabe is decently complex: definitely quite nerdy, but he can also be spiky and even a little violent. Nakadai is absolutely a jerk but he's a believable one. Arima is in a tough position and she ends up driving a lot of the plot in interesting ways, especially at the end, which is excellent.
The movie is like 50% typical noir love triangle and 50% social commentary about the slums near the US military base. Unlike your typical US film, where the Communists are always horrible bad guys, there's a Communist character in here who is basically the only really decent guy in the whole movie. The social commentary stuff is fine but it sort of makes the movie a little bloated and unfocused. There's also some humor which doesn't land very well. This is our first neo-noir but I guess it's basically just a straight up late period noir. Oops. 84/100
I doubt it. This will probably kickstart a whole series and spin-offs, and the "did you know there was a weird old Mario movie before?" trivia will die out quickly
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The Mummy, a year after Dracula, is similarly quiet and slow, but it comes across to me as moody and atmospheric, where Dracula still feels like a poorly edited adaptation of a stage production... which is what it is, really. Weirdly, I hear good things about the Spanish version of Dracula, which includes different footage, but I haven't seen it.
Apparently the spanish version basically used all the same sets, they just filmed at night, so they got to watch the Legosi version being filmed as a kind of practice run
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Oh man, I didn't even know that's a thing! sweet
Oh no, I heard they recast "Us" with Chris Pratt.
Why didn't they just use the voice actor for the movie?!
I wasn't wild about Vampyr, but it's certainly more interesting than the Lugosi Dracula. Echoing Fencingsax, the Spanish version is supposedly far superior. I think I have it as a bonus feature on a Blu-Ray - should watch it some time.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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I am Brockmire when it comes to Nolan movies.
Those good things you heard were lies.
See I can't tell if you're serious or if that's a Tenet joke as in "reality is a lie" or some shit
Nice. I'm slowly joining camp "Villeneuve is basically Nolan" after Dune's violation of my ears btw, especially after I saw that he made the choice to use THAT piece of Zimmer's aural sledgehammer during the box of pain scene
Which isn't to say that they're bad films, but if you didn't find much that was to your taste in Interstellar, chances are you won't much like Tenet, added to which its strengths benefit from watching it on a big screen.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Nah, it's just that reviews are mixed.
I think it's solid but Nolan has made several better films and if you aren't onboard for "Inception but not quite as good", it's not gonna change your mind.
Interstellar broke for me due to the schmaltzy garbage writing. Poor Anne Hathaway had to sit there and say that love is a force that transcends dimensions. There is a fantastic sci fi movie hidden in there, but it didn't come together.
Villeneuve I used to genuinely love, and I don't think that Nolan could have pulled off Blade Runner 2049, let alone Enemy, but Dune feels like he's getting extremely close to Nolan territory.
Also I hate Zimmer and what he did to movie music with a passion, so that colors it all a bit. Although I was totally fine with what he did for Interstellar and BR2049, in that it didn't make me want to turn off the movie
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit gets a neat little animated short.
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I think trying to frame this as Nolan impressing the audience is weirdly accusatory. I think Nolan just likes weird stories. Literally from day 1 (ie - Following) he's loved stories with a unique central conceit he can build off of. Something with a very sci-fi-short-story-esque neat central premise or gimmick. Invading dreams, no memory, time going at different speeds, time going backwards, time going at different rates, etc, etc, etc. His Batman trilogy is, if anything, a departure for him into more mainstream entertainment. And once that made him a big name able to command big budgets on whatever he wanted to do, he went right back to making the kind of films he really loves. Nolan is just out there making whatever the fuck kind of movie he wants to.
People get this really weird fucking tone about this stuff. Like they are mad and sneering at a filmmaker for not being extremely mundane. As if that's like a personal insult to them.
I get it, it's the point, but I squirm a bit in my seat when I see it
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
There's this continual framing that he's trying to impress his cleverness as a filmmaker on the audience and he's not as clever and as deep he thinks he is. It's all built around this idea that he's trying to show off to audience rather then just making the kind of stories he's always liked. There's absolutely a sneering quality to "you think you are so smart but you aren't".
The Prestige is one of my favourite films because it's just so weird but the mystery box elements actually work. Inception is also fantastic. And everyone forgets about Insomnia, which is just a really odd film.
Hans Zimmer is the modern day John Williams but he's more Marmite because unlike Williams, he refuses to write motifs and instead prefers a feeling based score. But his Inception score is one of the best (yes yes he invented the BWAH BWAH noise but that's not his fault everyone started copying it - the first time it was used it was revolutionary) and his ability to incorporate many different types of music (unlike Williams's Big Orchestra One Move) is impressive. I actually love his Amazing Spider-Man 2 score because it's just fun (riffing on Fanfare for the Common Man is just so clever to reference Spider-Man).
I'm too cynical these days. I see that and go "trademark renewal"
I instantly thought the same. I believe Mickey is up to expire soon, so I assume Disney will carry out some shenannigans to again extend it.
To a point, it was at least somewhat passable until Bane in Rises. I don't recall an issue with Interstellar, but Tenet was absolutely atrocious. I can't express how bad a film must be for me to not like anything about it. The only film I've ever walked out of was Miami Vice.
TARS was awesome though. I really thought it was going to be another HAL situation but he smartly avoided that.
He doesn't make movies he makes math problems!
Oh honey panda express is the definition of settling. God I love that clip.
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