Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2020)

Just realized this is his 11th feature, and I've seen all but the first 1 and last 1, and 1 1 is the first row of Pascal's triangle (after the 0th). Or, if you line up his movies along the 10th row, this is the only point in his career at which the Batman movies will be symmetrically distributed. And BATMAN backwards is TENET. Makes you think.

Batman Tenet
https://www.amazon.in/images/I/81v9zP%2Bj8tL.jpg

That kid will also one day play Batman.

Origin story right there. "Batman Emerges."

Overlong, noisy, full of poe-faced delivery of portentous dialogue, needlessly convoluted plot threads, unearned sense of gravitas that verges on the unintentionally hilarious and a script that isn't even vaguely as clever as it seems to think it is

this review quote sounds like a very generous summary of all his movies to me.

I liked Jessica Kiang's review in the NYT:

"But Nolan is, by several exploding football fields, the foremost auteur of the “intellectacle,” which combines popcorn-dropping visual ingenuity with all the sedate satisfactions of a medium-grade Sudoku. Within the context of this self-created brand of brainiac entertainment, “Tenet” meets all expectations, except the expectation that it will exceed them. Forgive the circularity of this argument: it’s a side effect of watching the defiantly circular “Tenet.”"

Meeting all expectations but not exceeding them is just a fancy way of saying ... fine.

just as nolan movies are fancy ways of saying jack shit, yes.

"medium-grade Sudoku" more like shoddy [sic] cackuro for beginners or pound shop word-search books with everything already filled in for you.

I remember Memento as being genuinely, darkly funny. Everything else he's done is dreary po-faced nonsense.

I remember Memento as being genuinely, darkly funny.

How old were you when you saw it?

Origin story right there. "Batman Emerges."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batkid_Begins

wikipedia has a page titled "Cinematic style of Christopher Nolan"

it should be blank imo

It feels as if people's capacity for enjoying what is essentially eye-rollingly silly bollocks has pretty much evaporated in the Covid era.

I think it was more Guy Pearce's performance than the script, tbf.

I rewatched Memento in lockdown and enjoyed it; haven't seen anything else of his bar two of the Batmen, which were terrible.

I liked The Prestige and would be willing to risk re-watching it. The Batman movies were shit because, well, they're Batman movies and I'm no longer 14.

you know what else I liked when I was 14? Stage magic

It feels as if people's capacity for enjoying what is essentially eye-rollingly silly bollocks has pretty much evaporated in the Covid era.

I think actually people probably want more eye-rollingly silly bollocks. What people don't want, speaking for people here, is stuff that is so po-faced and serious that the only reaction is to treat it as eye-rollingly silly bollocks. But yeah, in the best of times there are so, so few comedies worth a shit, let alone actually funny, and now more than ever ...

best thing about memento is ice queen Carrie-Anne Moss

We watched Memento a couple of months ago, holds up. It's actually clever and fun and modestly profound rather than BIG LOUD IDEAS IN YOU FACE! The Prestige I bet would hold up, too, because it actually (as I remember it) takes its eye-rollingly silly bollocks seriously in a good way. Which is to say, more inward than outward. There's nothing clever about big explosions.

there's a free clickbait piece for anyone who notices that the first nolan movie to get even a little critical pushback is the one with a black lead

Tenet's current RT score (80) is higher than godawful Interstellar (72)

RT scores tend to drop as more reviews get added so we'll see but I'm expecting it to dip below that

Tenet score will go down as more people see it over time and post things like "this is literally the worst movie I have ever seen."

"Interstellar worst movie I have ever seen"
About 1,860,000 results (0.65 seconds)

Tenet is the worst movie I've ever seen.

Do you think he just started this project with a list of palindromes and took off from there?

MARTIN DONOVAN

Have you heard of "A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama"?

THE PROTAGONIST
(intrigued)
Tell me more.

The Batman movies were shit because, well, they're Batman movies and I'm no longer 14.

The Batman movies were shit because, well, they're Batman movies and I'm no longer 14.

Blue Velvet and Rope are shit because I'm no longer 14

I will watch this — I’m easily entertained by the spy genre and expect to enjoy this, though how much remains an open question. I’m holding off on reading reviews. I had high expectations for Dunkirk — Christopher Nolan’s war realism was oddly underwhelming for me. The film felt vague. I had a horrible seat in the back side of the theatre though.

Oddly my favourite film of his is Interstellar. Thinking back on it I am left with the impression of the climax and the feelings of love, time, and finiteness. He was able to convey something there that overcame whatever shortcomings in plot, dialogue, etc., that I no longer remember and don’t really matter in light of what the film was able to convey visually and emotionally.

Inception was fun for its novelty but I have no design to watch it again. And you can only love a film about a
Superhero so much, not to mention the questionable politics already mentioned in a comment above.

So yeah — Interstellar and the idea that love cannot escape time.

This recent Patrick H. Willems video goes into Nolan's bland visual style.
https://youtu.be/v92uAesOimQ?t=197
skip the skits, they're lame

this video goes into nolan's increasing bombast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGdwy5sYmKw

But didn't Interstellar say love CAN escape time, which was part of its wishywashy Hollywood blarghness?

I listened to four students today (all dudes) praising him.

He's our Kubrick, which means I say to hell with him.

Interstellar was great if you like shit

I like more Nolan than most ppl here tho so i'll see my way out

you should be permitted to throw solid wood chalk-dusters at your students for talking such shite, Alf!

"He's our Kubrick" I guess you're being facetious

sorry am slow at this

He's our Kubrick, which means I say to hell with him.

Kubrick was actually funny on occasion

Bale's Aristocrats joke was hilarious fuiud

David Lynch, Wong Kar-wai, Agnès Varda, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Costa, Béla Tarr, Abbas Kiarostami, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Lucretia Martel, Claire Denis, Terrence Malick, Jia Zhangke, Tsai Ming-liang, Kelly Reichardt, Asghar Farhadi, Hayao Miyaziki, Ang Lee

our Kubrick is among these as well as others

wow marvel wave 4 is gonna be wild

Dan uhh I suspect you are taking this thread too literal

ok can't read you guys

if you read the Inception thread, it'll give more insight. there was of course nuance to many of the opinions expressed, but the overwhelming consensus of Nolan was "he should be killed"

Regardless, Kubrick and Nolan don't belong in the same conversation