Topic: Tenet

[lipsink]

I hope we finally get to see Alfred's tangerine.

[olliebean]

Trailer keeps you interested without giving away shit loads of plot.

Well, I agree with half of that...

[Non Stop Dancer]

Bit of a wasted opportunity that the word describing what a palindrome is isn't itself a palindrome. Bet the bloke that came up with it still kicks himself for that.

[Piggyoioi]

bets on the main protagonist having a dead wife?

[Mango Chimes]

Bit of a wasted opportunity that the word describing what a palindrome is isn't itself a palindrome. Bet the bloke that came up with it still kicks himself for that.

It's short for palindromemordnilap.

[Deyv]

Just saw the trailer. I like the imagery in at least one of the scenes, so I'm interested in seeing it. Without any real idea of who the characters are or what the plot is, I think it's an effective trailer. Unless those things were all meant to be clear, in which case it's a catastrophic failure. But, I am going to see this eventually. I skipped Dunkirk, but other than that I've enjoyed the films of Nolan's that immediately spring to mind. Interstellar isn't amazing, but it's not awful.

[beanheadmcginty]

If this turns out to be a good film, I hope one of the reviews uses the headline "Tenet's super".

[Egyptian Feast]

It looks OK, but I'll wait until some of you have seen it before deciding whether to bother. Inception was one of the most underwhelming cinema experiences of the last decade for me. The premise had a lot of potential but I got fed up with the constant exposition very quickly and was bored by the end. I found it oddly unimaginative and dull for a film that's supposed to be mind-blowing. There were some nice visuals between the endless scenes of dullards explaining the not particularly complex plot, but not enough to keep me interested. The trailer for this gave me similar vibes.

[dissolute ocelot]

Disappointing reviews here!

The Guardian has a review (by Catherine Shoard who seems to be a general film news journalist, not Bradshaw). She doesn't like it, complaining too much exposition and uninteresting characters (I like the description of Robert Pattinson as looking like "some bloke who’s got drunk in Banana Republic’s scarf department.")

Indiewire (who I think are normally pretty good) likewise find the characters uninvolving, the visuals drab, and the whole thing a riddle without a solution, suggesting it's all a scam to force you to watch it multiple times trying to figure out what it means.

I'm generally a Nolan fan, and like an epic blockbuster, but can certainly do without films in which humorless, under-defined characters recite technobabble in grey CG locations.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Ah, but these are real locations.

[PlanktonSideburns]

You are now my favourite person.

same

[Inspector Norse]

Looks like every other Christopher Nolan film.

The Failing New York Times agrees with that:

"The film is undeniably enjoyable, but its giddy grandiosity only serves to highlight the brittleness of its purported braininess."

which yeah could be applied to most of his films.

[Shit Good Nose]

She doesn't like it, complaining too much exposition

That's a bit like saying there's too much gore in the Saw and Hostel films.   Most of Nolan's films are basically 75%+ exposition.  It's one of his main trademarks.

[olliebean]

That's a bit like saying there's too much gore in the Saw and Hostel films.   Most of Nolan's films are basically 75%+ exposition.  It's one of his main trademarks.

The fact that he consistently does it too much doesn't mean his films wouldn't benefit from less of it.

[magval]

I'm giving myself less than five minutes to try and get this out, because I don't have the patience to REALLY sit and think about it -

I get the impression Christopher Nolan looks down upon 'normal' filmmaking, and that there exists no such thing as him making something that's just straightforward and good outside the realms of the superhero films he made (two of which were excellent). His reliance on gimmickry smacks so much of the Lee and Herring Jesus going 'aaaaaahhh'.

He makes clever films for thick people, is the nasty version of what I'm trying to say, and even though I think that's going too far and I like elements of some of his films myself (and two of them entirely), I can't find a better way of putting it.

Like people are falling over themselves in these Tenet reviews to say 'it's full of flaws but it's still a great film'. Great? How's a film FULL of flaws "great"? There's some weird reverence going on here that I can't figure out. Because he made a 'grown up' superhero film, a backwards film and a film that wasn't just about dreams but about dreams WITHIN dreams?

Naw. Away and shite mate.

[Shit Good Nose]

Well, Following, Memento, Insomnia (granted it's a remake) and Dunkirk aren't sci-fi or superhero films. 

[El Unicornio, mang]

And The Prestige!

[Shit Good Nose]

And The Prestige!

It's a bit sci-fi...

[greenman]

It's a bit sci-fi...

Bales accent teleported in from a Guy Ritchie film?

That film does seem to be the ultimate in "bro cinema", not just because it features bro science icon Tesla but the mix of guff competision and a focus almost entirely on a complex thriller plot.

Generally a lot of Nolans appeal seems to be on those lines, complex plots and "epic" visuals that can be held up as adult cinema without really being that challenging and most importantly can be talked about without reference to emotional content.

Have to say though I did like Dunkirk quite a lot, plot somewhat gimmicky I spose with the different time frames but really more in the background, mostly just focusing on building tension which I think he carries off very well.

[Inspector Norse]

Dunkirk is comfortably my favourite Nolan because he strips away all the unconvincing ”ooh I’m smart” waffle and just concentrates on action and suspense, both of which he’s actually really good at.

His other films are all entertaining because of this ability, they just never hold up on the intellectual level - they’re seen as boundary-pushing and brainy because look at the competition in 21st-century Hollywood.

[Glebe]

New trailer.

There have been some positive reviews too. The main criticism seems to be that it's all a bit too twisty and baffling.

[magval]

Well, Following, Memento, Insomnia (granted it's a remake) and Dunkirk aren't sci-fi or superhero films.

"There exists no such thing as him making something that's just straightforward and good outside the realms of the superhero films he made (two of which were excellent). His reliance on gimmickry smacks so much of the Lee and Herring Jesus going 'aaaaaahhh'. "

The superhero films he made were straightforward and good. The films that you've listed (plus the Prestige) mostly fall into the other category - not straightforward and gimmicky.

[Lord Mandrake]

I agree with Dunkirk being his best, it's a masterpiece on practically every level. I get the criticism of him but I struggle to think of a wholly bad film in his catalogue. Even if the sum is sometimes less than its parts.

[PlanktonSideburns]

always think of them as films for uncles

[PlanktonSideburns]

does the voice at :20

say

LAST TIME THEY WERENT YOUR TITTIES

maybe its a clue?

[hamfist]

Bit of a wasted opportunity that the word describing what a palindrome is isn't itself a palindrome. Bet the bloke that came up with it still kicks himself for that.

It is also known as a mynonym

[dissolute ocelot]

I agree with Dunkirk being his best, it's a masterpiece on practically every level. I get the criticism of him but I struggle to think of a wholly bad film in his catalogue. Even if the sum is sometimes less than its parts.

Dunkirk is superbly good cinema. All the Batman films have moments. Although I've a soft spot for seeing Inception after the opticians screwed up my prescription and it was beautifully blurry.

[Annie Labuntur]

New trailer.

There have been some positive reviews too. The main criticism seems to be that it's all a bit too twisty and baffling.

Kevin Maher in The Times gives it 5 stars. (He also gave 5 stars to The Joker and A Quiet Place if that helps you judge him.)

Some mild spoilers:

“Does your head hurt yet?” That line is delivered by suave British agent Neil (a scene-stealing Robert Pattinson) late into the twisty-turny proceedings of this globetrotting, jaw-dropping and delightfully convoluted big-screen blockbuster. Sorry, TV, your brief moment in the lockdown limelight is over — cinema, finally, has returned.

My head, however, was hurting long before that, somewhere about the 60-minute mark (of 150 minutes), when it became clear that time was running forwards and backwards simultaneously, and characters began discussing something called “inverted entropy” and how it impacted subjective reality, after which one significant player turned to another and said: “Don’t get on the chopper if you can’t stop thinking about linear time.”

However, it’s a good kind of hurt too, and as fans of the writer-director Christopher Nolan’s smarty-pants oeuvre (Inception, Interstellar, Memento) will undoubtedly appreciate, is mostly rooted in cutting-edge science: the theoretical physicist Kip Thorne is the first “thanks to” in the credits. Plus, the slippery time-torquing material is made eminently palatable by being wrapped up inside a lavish, and often deeply traditional, spy movie.

Our novice agent hero (John David Washington from BlacKkKlansman), simply known as the Protagonist and recruited into a shadowy international organisation with the aim of averting a third world war. After an opening rite of passage shootout in a Ukrainian opera house, the Protagonist is sent on a perilous and life-defining hunt for a narrative McGuffin that ultimately holds a key to a doomsday weapon controlled by the evil Russian oligarch Sator, played by Kenneth Branagh with fabulously clipped consonants (“If I ken nat hev you, den nobeddy ken!”).

Along the way the Protagonist uses actual spy thriller code phrases (“We live in a twilight world,” he says, sotto voce, when encountering contacts), is entertained by the flamboyant Le Carré-influenced operative Neil (Pattinson doing a nice Geoffrey Rush from The Tailor of Panama) and falls for Sator’s beguiling yet frequently distressed trophy wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki).

Nolan regular Michael Caine also has a winning role as the veteran spy master who delivers the movie’s smartest line. When Washington’s Protagonist suggests that the British do not, in fact, have a monopoly on snobbery, Caine sighs, smiles and replies: “Not a monopoly. Just a controlling interest.”

The real joy of the film, nonetheless, is the sheer spectacle. Nolan, famously averse to computer effects, throws literally everything at the screen. There’s a Boeing 747 crashing into a warehouse and exploding on camera. There’s a thrilling breakneck motorway heist involving three juggernauts, multiple car smashes and a rapid-fire shootout. And, well, best of all, there’s a climactic battle so structurally audacious that to reveal anything about it would be to spoil the indecently complex pleasures of the year’s first mainstream masterpiece.

[magval]

Spectacle aye?

[Puce Moment]

Looks like he's delivered up another film for me to hate-watch!

Thanks Chris!