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Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk.

Started by Glebe, December 29, 2015, 02:33:34 PM

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Glebe

Christopher Nolan to Direct Action Thriller 'Dunkirk' for Warner Bros. (EXCLUSIVE).

QuoteSources tell Variety that Nolan will direct "Dunkirk" from his own original screenplay as his next project. Insiders say the yet-to-be cast unknowns will lead the cast, but that Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy are in talks to join the ensemble.

Yay! That's some cast, and should look glorious in 70mm and IMAX.

Another competently directed, po-faced 150-minute slog with 0 interesting female characters and more exposition than actual dialogue. NO THANKS.

Replies From View

On the positive side, the music should be some droning chords featuring the most rudimentary use of Shepard's tone.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: clingfilm portent on December 29, 2015, 02:52:32 PM
Another competently directed, po-faced 150-minute slog with 0 interesting female characters and more exposition than actual dialogue. NO THANKS.
No, this thread's about Christopher Nolan. I thought all those criticisms would've been laid to rest with "Inception", but no. He could direct feminist comedies for the rest of his career and people would still say the same three things about him.

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 29, 2015, 04:16:26 PM
No, this thread's about Christopher Nolan. I thought all those criticisms would've been laid to rest with "Inception", but no.

Well exactly, because all of his films have roughly the same things wrong with them since Inception and even before. I hate to sound like one of those types but those criticisms are fair I think.


biggytitbo

Let's hope it addresses the problem of almost all WW2 movies in that the actors are far too old - frontline soldiers were in their early 20s, not 30 and 40s like the actors.

MojoJojo

Quote from: clingfilm portent on December 29, 2015, 04:50:47 PM
Well exactly, because all of his films have roughly the same things wrong with them since Inception and even before. I hate to sound like one of those types but those criticisms are fair I think.

I agree with the female characters one.
The po-faced one... well it's an opinion thing, but I think the ending of Inception and the stupid internet arguments about it show a certain amount of awareness of the pointlessness of it all. Although the fact lots of people do take it seriously argues against that as well.
Dialogue - yeah, I guess it's not great. Doesn't get in the way though.
150 minutes and competently directed aren't really criticisms.

Working through it, I guess I'd say your criticisms are half valid. He doesn't do any of those things particularly well - however he doesn't do any of them badly enough to ruin everything else[nb]except maybe the female character thing, which does stick out a bit once you notice it[/nb].

In return you get blockbuster films with relatively novel plots.

Talulah, really!

The pertinent question is, who is the point of reference here? Who are the contemporary blockbuster directors that are making these types of film but with humour, rich complex female characters and lashings of wonderful dialogue that the audience can rejoice in even as they are left alone to decide what is going on that Nolan, seemingly, can't manage?

BlodwynPig

I don't want to see a film about Dunkirk - yawny yawn

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 29, 2015, 04:16:26 PM
"po-faced, 150-minutes, 0 interesting female characters, more exposition than actual dialogue"

No, this thread's about Christopher Nolan. I thought all those criticisms would've been laid to rest with "Inception", but no. He could direct feminist comedies for the rest of his career and people would still say the same three things about him.

Surely Inception's the most blatant example of this.

His fans truly scare me though, so I'll add the caveat that I do like Memento, Insomnia and The Prestige.

Steven

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on December 29, 2015, 10:28:57 PM
His fans truly scare me though, so I'll add the caveat that I do like Memento, Insomnia and The Prestige.

So do I, ain't seen Insomnia more than twice while very pissed so can't critique too well, but certainly Memento's narrative is edited from cryptic into eventually patronising wank, and The Prestige has a lot of casting problems I think.

By the way, I was all too aware that I was echoing the Internet hivemind (or at least the whiny part) with that comment, and exaggerated the smarm for my own amusement....

The reason Nolan gets my goat is not because he's popular and successful despite being a bad director, its because he's a good director and frequently comes so close producing greatness that I often end up disappointed. Interstellar is the first film of his I haven't watched to completion, because when I tried to I recall that it managed to commit all the aforementioned no-nos in the first 5 minutes.

wooders1978

Interstellars other main character,  who was pretty interesting, was the main characters daughter
Batman, generally, and I am sure people will find many reasons why I am wrong, female characters aren't big in it, the ones that are would have been difficult to put into Nolan's more realistic world (ivy and Harley) - they had cat woman but she was shit, probably down to miscasting

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Talulah, really! on December 29, 2015, 09:53:33 PM
The pertinent question is, who is the point of reference here? Who are the contemporary blockbuster directors that are making these types of film but with humour, rich complex female characters and lashings of wonderful dialogue that the audience can rejoice in even as they are left alone to decide what is going on that Nolan, seemingly, can't manage?

JJ Abrams!

Bad Ambassador

With Michael Caine as Townsend Thoresen.

Entropy Balsmalch

My money is on something overlong, overwraught, overly-scored with a massively unsubtle dysfunctional father-son relationship subplot and a DVD commentary which refuses to play in most machines after clogging the laser with smug.

Momento was great though. Well, until they released the version with a commentary. Smug cunt.

Sam

The Prestige is his best film.

Nolan is a good director.

Fuck yers.

mothman

There is potential in Dunkirk. If he avoids the same old tropes most films and TV docudramas focus on: those plucky little boats, plucky Tommies hunkered down in the sand while anonymous German fighters bomb and strife them, etc.

Instead there are all the stories you don't hear about so often: the French divisions fighting until they literally had no more ammo, to hold off the Germans until as many as possible were evacuated. That kind of thing.

One novel I read years ago would make a good film: Tramp Of Iron, about a single BEF tank trying to get back to Dunkirk to join the defence. Colin Forbes or Desmond Bagley, I forget which.

Glebe

Not a Dunkirk update, but it's Nolan, so I'll post it here...

Power of Story: The Art of Film with Christopher Nolan, Colin Trevorrow, and Rachel Morrison.

I've not watched it as yet meself, but it looks interesting.


biggytitbo

I bet Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk is better than the real thing.

Dex Sawash

#21
Quote from: mothman on December 30, 2015, 04:01:47 PM

One novel I read years ago would make a good film: Tramp Of Iron, about a single BEF tank trying to get back to Dunkirk to join the defence. Colin Forbes or Desmond Bagley, I forget which.

You sure about the title? I can't find it.



Edit - maybethis



Replies From View

^ A more accurate translation from the French would be "Exploding Tramp in Love".

mothman


Quote from: Dex Sawash on January 30, 2016, 04:37:14 AM
You sure about the title? I can't find it.

Edit - maybethis



Yes, that's the one. Hell, it's been more than 30 years, memory going obvs.

Dex Sawash

Your title was more intriguing,  "tramp iron" is unwanted loose bits of metal where they don't belong (pieces of wire in hay bales, nails in livestock feed, lengths of rebar up your mum's shitter[nb]or is it?[/nb] etc)
Anyway, tramp iron.


Tomorrow's lesson; cow magnets

Head Gardener

he'll find it hard to top Interstellar


biggytitbo

They should make a film about that bit where Churchil sunk all the French ships and massacred loads of their sailors.


Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: biggytitbo on December 29, 2015, 08:30:01 PM
Let's hope it addresses the problem of almost all WW2 movies in that the actors are far too old - frontline soldiers were in their early 20s, not 30 and 40s like the actors.

Your dreams have come true! http://www.avclub.com/article/one-directions-harry-styles-joins-christopher-nola-233706

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 29, 2015, 04:16:26 PM
I thought all those criticisms would've been laid to rest with "Inception", but no.

As others have alluded to, Inception is the absolute manifestation of all those stock criticisms. In fact, to my mind, it was only after watching Inception that I started to think those points had weight.