Come anticipate "The Dark Knight Rises" with *BATSPOILERS*

Insomnia felt like getting out of town and up to Alaska, though.

I think I am at the point where I can't imagine Nolan making a movie I'll like again. He's become such a shitty filmmaker (maybe he always was and I was just fooled by Following/Memento because they weren't 7 HOURS LONG). Point about "all exposition, all the time" above is OTM and when the speechifying stops its just poorly edited action scenes and explosions (actually fine with the latter, but gotta have some film framing things blowing up.)

What fantasies does Rocket Raccoon fulfill?

never heard of Furries then?

Touché

He was a turtle.

I watched the 'forwards' version of Memento on DVD once; it was rubbish.

I don't even know if I think Nolan's a good filmmaker or a rubbish filmmaker or what at this point. I find something compelling about some of (most of?) his films, but I'm not sure how much that actually has to do with him and how much is happenstance. We've talked at length (probably in the Inception thread) about him being very conscious that he's "making films"; part of me thinks this is a really interesting approach, a very clever acknowledgement of artifice and fabrication, and part of me thinks it's very strange, borderline-spectrum behaviour.

All this considered, actors, and good actors at that, obviously seem to enjoy working with him. Obviously post Dark Knight that may be because they know they're going to get massive payout from being in his films, but the cohesion of the 'troupe' or company he's built up suggests they all get along and believe in what he's doing.

What most bothers me about Nolan is his use of violence to make those expository points resonate.

I'm anticipating a lot of shit for this post, but its kind of been on my mind since seeing this movie and I felt like tossing it out there. I don't think Nolan is a "great" director, I think he's a really good director as far as the medium of summer blockbusters go. What kind of bugs me, I guess, is that people bemoan (and rightfully so!) the laundry list of really stupid blockbusters we get each summer (Transformers, G.I. Joe, Battleship, I could go on and on...) and here we have a director who is at least trying to do something different within the context of tentpole franchises and I'm grateful for at least that much. Does he always succeed? No. He's not as "interesting" or thought-provoking as he likes to think he is, but I'll take a Dark Knight Rises or Inception any day of the week over three-quarters of the action movies released in any given summer.

^^ i tell ya, it's weird coming onto the internet and seeing how much people hate Christopher Nolan!

with inception i was just happy someone had thought up a movie all by themselves and got funding to make it without it having to be about some property that had already been marketed to the target demographic when they were children (savings!). but gawd. i said something like this on the thread but the second time i saw it i was stoned and it was like being locked in a series of progressively tinier boxes. then morbs said "i prefer to let a filmmaker enter my mind alone."

I dunno, jon. To me beneath the carapace of Big Ideas Nolan's movies are as dumb as the movies you hate

they're really not though. They overreach themselves (and i kinda hated this one) but compared to something like Transformers? forget about it

If you think any of Nolan's movies are as dumb as Transformers 2 then I don't know what else to really say. But, y'know, I'm just a dude and not paid to be a movie critic so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Yeah, Nolan is on a different planet to Transformers 2, which left me feeling both insulted and idiotic.

I can't credit a guy for his intentions, esp when in the case of Batman Begins the Big Ideas come in the form of Jedi koans.

One noxious thing shared by Nolan and his Autobot confreres: most of those movies are way over two hours long.

Now that's something I'm not that keen on. Like 90s albums all being 77 minutes because that's how much you could fit on a CD.

otm, just because you can make it that long doesn't mean you should. i'm guessing Avatar 2 is going to push 4 hours at this rate.

i am honestly a bit amazed if you guys are not trolling and are seriously debating whether Nolan's movies are dumb as Michael Bay's, but ugh why am i feeding into this

I'd like to know, and I'm pretty sure I asked this on the Inception thread, if people think Nolan's films are dumb, what films do they think are smart?

I don't look for thoughtful blow-up movies!

basically I want them short and with actors who don't look doleful.

How do you feel about Die Hard?

I love it.

i kind of liked IOZ's take on the nolan style (if you can overlook a rape analogy):

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/07/deception.html

The visual experience of Inception left me with the distinct impression that I had been drugged by a circa-1999 Tom Ford for Gucci ad and then mercilessly date-raped by his shiny partner, a Lexus commercial. I kept expecting "The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" to dash across the screen in some boldly sans-serif font. I kept expecting the lease options.

With the recent series of Aaron Sorkin analyses going around, I've been scared that someone is going to write a successful article comparing Nolan's world view with Sorkin's, that I will agree with it, and then my enjoyment of Nolan films will be killed.

http://jacobinmag.com/blog/2012/07/the-dark-knight-is-no-capitalist/

I could poke holes in the politics and logic all day, but it's really only the internal holes in the plot that bother me. Lots of material for people to churn, though.

I think one of the reasons Nolan's films are so popular among a certain subset of young men is precisely because they take themselves so seriously. this is the appeal! the reason TDK worked so well was Ledger + the brilliant idea "let's do a Batman movie that looks and feels like Heat." i really don't get this eternal anxiety amongst critics that a movie is pulling one over on you. hence this constant debate over whether movies are smart or dumb.

In "The Dark Knight," characters announce the movie's themes in the form of lectures to the audience while the movie is playing.

so do the characters in Paradise Lost. This is not in itself a criticism.

now, Nolan is no Michael Mann as a director, for me at least. He's doesn't have as seductive a style. but i think his more successful films like TDK and The Prestige (I don't think I liked TDKR very much) are pretty intense examinations of intellectual problems, and i think there's actually an emotional urgency in how they are engaged in those movies. I think at times this can be aesthetically thrilling.

those poor anxious male Metacritic watchers

ha, remind me to leave death threats in the comments for every critics who smugly writes "this movie isn't as smart as it thinks it is."

nice post ryan

my problem with nolan's films has never been that they're dumb, but that they're dull. they're smart enough, i suppose, but they're so self-important and ploddingly literal - so devoid of wit, joy, perversity and imagination - that they feel like illustrative museum dioramas. "wit" is key there. die hard doesn't grapple with heady ideas, but it at least has the grace and good taste to take itself lightly, to pass with a smile. that's expresses a kind of intelligence, imo.

in comparison to that, nolan's films are like listening in while a moderately intelligent person explains, in painstaking detail, with pie charts and statistical corroboration, that they are, in fact, a genius. there's nothing smart or interesting about that, and certainly nothing witty or graceful. if you want to make movies that wear a heavy-duty serious face for three fucking hours, you better pay it off with some kind of artistic reward. afaic, nolan's film's can't manage this. they're like being pelted with dimly-lit intensity bricks, and they mean nothing more than that he's spent a lot of time working out the intricacies.

I get where you are going contenderizer and I really appreciate that you are taking the time to address it, but honestly I think I disagree that there isn't any "wit, joy, perversity and imagination" in Nolan's films. I think there are examples of all four, specifically in the Batman films. But, yeah, it does get heavy-handed at times.

the contende rizes

well, hyperbole, you know...

the only real spark in the two batman films i've seen came from heath ledger. the contrast between his lunatic performance and the inert action_puzzle.xls cinematic landscape into which he'd been dropped gave the dark knight its only truly memorable moments. i did like harvey dent's grossout makeup though.

Another problem with these movies is the nullity Bruce Wayne/Batman, thanks to Bale's performance. He's hard to take seriously.

*the nullity of

I like that nullity. Thought Michael Keaton had some of it about him, too. Bruce Wayne almost doesn't have a character, a personality, he's a cypher, an empty vessel.

I realize that's how fans of the comic like him but it's not a good defense ("He's SUPPOSED to be boring!").

when your iconic protagonist is a nullity, what else do we concentrate on – Nolan's big ideas?

* explosions
* hero building himself back up from nothing
* thrilling leaps of faith
* underground resistance plots
* a bomb is going to go off
* anne hathaway is hot
* there is a bat-plane
* this is a popcorn movie guys

Fucking cool bat costume. Fighting. Angst. Baddies. Etc etc.

I mean, I get what everyone here is saying, and I even see some merit in that "aristocratic" reading (although I think it, like a lot of "fascist" takes of this series - - with which I do partly agree!!! - depends on sort of ignoring that huge chunks of the 2nd and significant dashes of the 3rd are devoted to raising the question that batman actually represents a huge problematic in a civil democracy) - - - but one thing I don't get is the idea that these movies are so devoted to their own loftiness and Deep Ideas. Yeah, there's some cornball speechifying that tries to make "Conquer your fear!" sound like a bigger deal than it is - - but man, have you heard any speech in any blockbuster? I'm satisfied by these because they're entertaining and I can basically understand everything that happens and give a shit about the characters, which yeah, compare to Transformers or Wrath of the Titans or any other action-effects fantasy explosion movie and, I mean, damn.

Like, if the movies don't thrill you, okay, and yeah, TDKR is no Die Hard but by the general standards of what a Thrilling Movie is supposed to do I think they score pretty high.

that they feel like illustrative museum dioramas

what sort of savage would dis museum dioramas :-(

This movie really needed an Oceans 11-type flashback at the credits showing how Batman survived that last noble act.

what sort of savage would dis museum dioramas :-(

― the late great, Wednesday, July 25, 2012 1:39 PM Bookmark

i don't know if you were there, but this kind of question THROTTLED the paul simon ballot poll results thread on ILM, i don't know if i'm ready to revisit that battlefield

the contende rizes

― am0n, Wednesday, July 25, 2012 12:52 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

nice

Another problem with these movies is the nullity Bruce Wayne/Batman, thanks to Bale's performance. He's hard to take seriously.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, July 25, 2012 1:08 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

i agree w/u re: the first 2 movies but i thought bale had a nice lightness of touch here