*on a plane once
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Monday, 17 July 2023 04:30 (ten months ago) link
alternatively could be formulated as a clunky joke: can’t believe nolan had the honesty / prophetic power / foreshadowing skill to open this movie with a theater full of sleeping people
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 17:49 (ten months ago) link
i like nolan and this movie tho
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 17:50 (ten months ago) link
I'm gonna watch it tonight for the first time....after the Barbie screening lol
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 July 2023 19:27 (ten months ago) link
I feel like I might have liked this better if the theatre had closed captioning when I saw it
― linoleum gallagher (Neanderthal), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:18 (ten months ago) link
like what were the backwards people experiencing? what were they trying to do? i don't understand
this is a hilarious and perfect level of not getting it, since the backwards and forwards ppl are the same ppl, and the backward ppl in the second third are mostly just ppl you’ve already seen moving forward. so this implies you don’t understand what forward ppl are doing either!
tbf not understanding what the forward ppl are doing or saying is like 90% of the complaints about this movie
you have to remember it’s a nolan movie tho, so when you remember that the backward ppl in the second half are the forward ppl from first half, you think about what the second third forward ppl are trying to do, and then remember back that the first third forward ppl are reacting to the second third forward people going backward in the first third, and that’s why the backward ppl in the second third are doing what they’re doing, which is important, because then when you see the final third all those ppl going forward are now reacting to the backward ppl in the first half while the backward ppl in that part are doing incomprehensible shit because they’re mostly from the in world future and have foreknowledge of stuff that hasn’t happened yet to anyone, so basically you’re doing inception on your own big brain as an advanced viewer of big brain cinema
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:22 (ten months ago) link
there’s LEVELS to nolan do u see which is why just like cremaster movies they’re always in weird big buildings with spiral staircases and odd hallways with weird forms of ingress and egress
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:24 (ten months ago) link
xpostas someone who hasn't seen the movie your last paragraph is the funniest thing I've read all day
― StanM, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:26 (ten months ago) link
what’s funny about restraint, masturbation, big spectacles, masturbation while restrained and a ten hour film cycle about your own testes?
also, i know this is the nolan thread but what’s so funny about mathew barney?
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:28 (ten months ago) link
wokka wokka i know but honest to god i assume someone has already done this? the tweets write themselves (gif of the demolition derby in the guggenheim juxtaposed with dark knight returns batman making the joker’s long truck stand weirdly erect like a skyscraper)
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:31 (ten months ago) link
Barney IS Nolan but moving backward
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:31 (ten months ago) link
(I meant the paragraph that explains the story btw)
― StanM, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:33 (ten months ago) link
haha epic take
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:33 (ten months ago) link
the dinosaur?
― linoleum gallagher (Neanderthal), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:33 (ten months ago) link
xpost yes i caught the xpost
xp yes, bjork married barney, who is a dinosaur. pvmic by neanderthal
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:35 (ten months ago) link
specifically the reverse momentum was cool but simply incomprehensible to watch
specifically any time nolan hits u with the "but what really matters is _feelings and ppl_ do u see" despite having deployed more excellent casts as walking overplot explainers for a higher proportion of his movies than any director i could name
nb i like nolan movies as things to watch and feel smugly about appreciating the technical efforts and style and cool stuff while criticising the lack of heart and this is an important niche tbf
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:36 (ten months ago) link
nolan as darraghfirmation
― mh, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:39 (ten months ago) link
i probably would rep for memento as a work of actual genius also, i mean im going to go see oppenheimer in 35mm and all that
its vey frustrating that a billion dollar machine cannot see how much better i could make his movies, chris baby if ur reading this call me baby
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:41 (ten months ago) link
actually this is bringing in more unrelated BS but there’s a very similar gimmick in gene wolfe’s new sun and subsequent series, a set of characters moving in reverse continuity (vs the narrator / reader). then when the reader starts moving in time the actions of this set of characters take on a different light. this is a really dense set of books though, and it’s pretty confusing!
so maybe: 1) nolan really did want to make a puzzle box, and that’s okay (as opposed to being a titanic masturbator like mathew barney) and 2) nolan would be the only person who could direct a gene wolfe botns movie
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:41 (ten months ago) link
i was so so so psyched to read newsun because of the ilx thread on it and i put it down one night and i went to read it the next day and not only could i not findy way back to wherever i left it but not a word of a lie now i couldn't even find out what fucking *book* id been reading
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:42 (ten months ago) link
it is confusing and subtle. a lot of the practical effects are really weird. like the shootout in the road when the cars are stopped, there’s windshields shattering in forward and reverse, and in theory you could mentally follow backward to see who’s shooting in what direction, so you can pick apart who’s on what side and who’s going in which direction
but when you watch it in real time it’s very subtle, and you mostly get this sense of unreal weirdness because windows are shattering but everything looks subtly wrong, sort of like an uncanny valley i guess?
time travel so realistic it doesn’t signpost what’s going on (like the way back to the future or marvel might with time travel) so you just end up feeling dislocated and confused.
and then on top of that it just makes the mundane plot (about trying to grab the macguffin from the other guys) harder to follow
the “feelings and ppl” criticism also makes sense to me! although i don’t find feelings and ppl important in movies. i mean, feelings and ppl are important but that’s not really what i watch sci fi films for
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 20:48 (ten months ago) link
so maybe: 1) nolan really did want to make a puzzle box, and that’s okay (as opposed to being a titanic masturbator like mathew barney)
― rick semper moranis (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:52 (ten months ago) link
im all for feelings and ppl in any genre i think nolan has rarely demonstrated the actual knack for it tbh, he wants to always blow you away with the moment in a tour de force of shock and awe which i think rarely doesnthe performances of his actors justice (pattinson i think actually takes his quiet moment beautifully in tenet tho)
i think the first comparison id go to to demonstrate what good looks like is probably arrival, if i had to shorthand where i think nolans stitching doesnt quite hold up?
the technical stuff, entropy and momentum as reversing forces or what have you, i trust him to be getting right and to have deployed perfectly as gar as justifying each separate effect.
i just think he doesn't always deploy the undoubtedly correct phenomena/concepts at play very well as story device i guess
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 20:55 (ten months ago) link
arrival is good! but how about dune? annihilation? i’d suggest it’s a better comparison than you might realize. they have a similar technique (or at least similar rigid adherence to a maybe less similar set of principles) and a similar hit rate!
i think arrival is disappointing to me in that the parts a lot of people like are the parts that make a lot of tv / cinema (and even more so, literary fiction) hard for me to swallow. see also ilx favorite children of men, which takes bleak sci fi and adds in that golden globe bs plus the urban combat misery porn you usually just get from the intl news
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 21:01 (ten months ago) link
i loved both dune and annihilation but they are either flank of arrival on the "hard scifi the only emotions are devastation, lust or glory" or "all sci fi is actually a dream of the central character" axis which is totally a real axis
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:11 (ten months ago) link
children of men had charlie hunnam in seven league boots chase a car for an hour in what one can only assume was a t-1000 reference we wont hear criticism
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:12 (ten months ago) link
feel like the tide is turning and more and more smart guys are admitting that they like nolan movies
― flopson, Monday, 17 July 2023 21:42 (ten months ago) link
versus the previous equilibrium where smart guy consensus was that nolan makes "a dumb guy's idea of a smart movie" so if u admit u like the movies you're admitting that you're dumb
― flopson, Monday, 17 July 2023 21:44 (ten months ago) link
As part of my media cleanse/donation I gave away my Children Of Men DVD, because there’s probably no time I’ll need to be horrified like that again - real life is already to close to it
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:46 (ten months ago) link
speaking of the tide turning his next movie is a family drama set during a supertsunami caused by a tilt of one half a degree in the earths axis caused by the main characters grandfather standing on a butterfly fifty years before we're only waiting on a title and mcconaghey to be old enough to play the grandfather also the grandfather surfs do u see
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:47 (ten months ago) link
Every screening for Oppenheimer starting Thursday is sold out at the AMC theater where I'm screening Barbie tonight.
I hate DeSantis.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:48 (ten months ago) link
sounds p good xp
― nxd, Monday, 17 July 2023 21:48 (ten months ago) link
so a cloud atlas remake?
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 21:49 (ten months ago) link
or was that the tree of life
yeah its gonna be good michael caine plays the butterfly
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:50 (ten months ago) link
it’s intellectual, philosophical, psychedelic sci fi cinema, like a reboot of point break done in the style of kubrick’s 2001. the first is told from the point of view of a shark hunting prehistoric samoans
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 21:51 (ten months ago) link
first hour*
I don't care about so called smart guy consensus, if they think these boring hack Nolan monstrosities are good then I'm glad to be thick. He's a pompous talentless moron.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:51 (ten months ago) link
calz its about a shark chasing prehistoric Samoans but its also a metaphor cmon this is good stuff anyone can enjoy
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 21:53 (ten months ago) link
i’m okay with ppl who are pompous, who are talentless and who are morons. all three yeah, it’s kinda hard to take! luckily i’m just out here enjoying his films not judging his persona
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 22:00 (ten months ago) link
i haven't seen all of Nolan's films (missed Following, Interstellar, and Insomnia.) i don't think any of them are bad, really. well okay, The Dark Knight Rises is bad. Tenet is incomprehensible but maybe only due to the burying of the dialogue, and i've been meaning to rewatch it with subtitles. i like TLG's take: time travel is so realistic it doesn't register, it's not a big orb materializing to drop a terminator somewhere, it's just casually happening seamlessly within the world (i know it's not quite time travel but the point stands...)
i have always felt Nolan's coldness was probably overstated, when he does go for emotion he does okay, certainly no worse than many filmmakers, and in some cases better. for example inception gets dinged for being just a puzzle box but i think the marion cotillard storyline was moving, in the final act. cillian murphy's storyline too, though i guess in a way he's being conned and i'm not sure how much of a feel good emotional ending it really is for him!
Dunkirk was better than i suspected in that way, a relatively simple trick of messing w/time in the story, but vv cleverly integrated.
Memento is his best, it's simply astonishing that he was able to craft a narrative that made perfect sense in reverse in that way, and to fill it with such tension.
― omar little, Monday, 17 July 2023 22:05 (ten months ago) link
also if you don’t care abt what smart guys think why are four of your five of your seven adjectives personality traits (hack, pompous, talentless, moron). boring can be applied equally to film or ilx posters, monstrosity i suppose is an adjective about the film but just tells us you didn’t like the film, presumably to draw contrast between yourself and so called smart guys like nolan (who are actually pompous, talentless, boring, moron hacks!!)
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 22:07 (ten months ago) link
man i can’t or edit
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 22:08 (ten months ago) link
I don't even really know what his persona is apart from being a posh English prick. You sound like chatgpt you sad prick
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 17 July 2023 22:12 (ten months ago) link
the first one I outright hated was Interstellar. Tenet I didn't hate but there's only a certain amount of "Exposition: The Movie" i can take
― linoleum gallagher (Neanderthal), Monday, 17 July 2023 22:16 (ten months ago) link
but it is more interesting to see people defending Nolan itt for once so I support the late great
i liked interstellar for some reason despite it having all of the hoke im ripping him for above i found it light enough to really watch is as comic book fable
perhaps this would enrage him
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Monday, 17 July 2023 22:18 (ten months ago) link
It's funny, part of how I ended up seeing Tenet yesterday was because a few months back a friend who loves Miami Vice (2006) thought I would like it for reasons similar to that one. And after my first viewing, I get where he's coming from, in the sense of little exposition and everything being very present tense, and kinetic overshadowing comprehension (especially in Tenet toward the big set piece).
I also listened to part of last weekend's The Treatment interview between Elvis Mitchell and Nolan, where Nolan describes Dunkirk as being a challenge to write a story where character is action, without backstory. That definitely makes sense with our guy in Tenet. I didn't get quite why he needed to prioritize the Russian villain's wife over everything else. I did like Branagh as the Russian -- would like to see him and Malkovich face off in something.
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Monday, 17 July 2023 22:29 (ten months ago) link
i was going to save a huge post for later so as not to stifle fun conversation, but in order to give us something to talk about other than who is posh, english, and or a miserable prick … here you go!!
think the dark knight might be his worst, but it’s probably his most entertaining! the bank robbery scene and the joker killing a dude w a pencil are, frankly, the best gta cutscenes in modern history!!
i think i understand why nolan gets dinged for being pompous or a moron. he goes for emotions that you used to see in war movies, things like appeal to duty, or familial responsibility, etc. kinda dry civics lesson stuff you might remember from movies like “twelve angry men” or “forbidden planet”. the supposed big ideas and intellectual currents (in nolan and forbidden planet) are pretty straightforward and would have been totally to viewers of “outer limits” or readers of pulp sci fi (authors like blish, asimov, shakespeare)
forbidden planet is one of my all time favorites, i don’t watch it thinking that leslie nielsen or dr morbius are nailing relatable human emotions or experiences. they’re comic book characters, like perry mason or atticus finch.
i can connect emotionally to the story because i’ve fought with my parents, i’ve built things that have gotten out of control, i’ve used power incorrectly, etc but i have to pour my feelings about duty or ethics or whatever into these old movies, whether they’re corny movies about duty or ethics, formal puzzles like hitchcock, didactic sci fi films like thx-1138 or alphaville etc.
these films can’t do the emoting for me the way tony soprano etc does for ppl who watch prestige tv, and maybe it’s unforgivably glaringly obvious when modern stuff is that corny, but it’s all going to seem corny in retrospect. wasn’t there just a huge thread where ppl were talking about how (in the long run) prestige tv turned out in retrospect to be more emotionally manipulative than emotionally engaging?
i think ppl want to think that modern cinema has some sort of different job, which is fine. that might be rooted into different ideas about ideas like duty (like can there be any correct relation to duty or power, or should cinema only be about how those relations are fraught). if that’s your take i suppose these movies would certainly look corny or worse
― the late great, Monday, 17 July 2023 22:31 (ten months ago) link