The Movie/Film Thread

[Scribble R]

Sometimes I wonder what goes on behind the scenes here, if you'll excuse the pun!

[Nimh]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Jihad

You sound like every film student trying desperately to impress his peers by adopting some saucy, "too cool" weakly stilted opinion.

Weakly stilted in spite of all that text.

For someone whose posts are always so holier than thou, your posts are always so pet-ish/fanboyish.

To say "he can't direct." is just asinine. Sure he's not Kubrik, but for mainstream Hollywood directors, to find markedly better would be the few and the elite. Parroting the same Internet Cool Guy arguments (that have already been discussed) just makes you sound as much of an adolescent needing reassurance as those who you look down upon for liking Nolan movies (Heaven's to betsy!) Sure, Nolan depicted dreams differently than Michel Gondry, but he made his creative choice, reinforced it, and ran with it. It's like being upset that there wasn't more slapstick in Citizen Kane or that they didn't hook up at the end of Casablanca. (Excuse me for comparing Inception with Kane and Casablanca; they are just easy references. )

As said before if you really lost track of who the good guy, the bad guy were, and what was at stake in any of his action scenes I can't help but wonder if you were looking at the screen the entire time. If you really want incoherent action scenes, I invite you to check out Transformers 2. As for the tired ass female character arguments, you gotta just think it is a bigger indictment of Hollywood at large. The protagonist is usually gonna be a dude, and he fairly often is going to have some intra-personal ghost or conflict -- which is either going to be a lady or his dad. Can't blame Nolan for not rewriting Batman's backstory, or making Inception less interesting.

Who knows though, maybe these hip cool reasons why "popular director" really sucks gets you more invites to obscure B-horror movie vhs book-clubs.

Don't get me wrong, I really want to be convinced that all the time I've spent watching Nolan movies was worth it. There are good things in his movies, I just accentuated the negative to make a point. Sorry my style doesn't seem to hit the sweet spot of balance between enthusiasm and dry objective judgment that you hold up as a personal standard (you got an issue with my general manner on here, I really don't give a shit), but let's stick to substance.

You're right, Nolan is a creature of Hollywood and embodies a lot of its sexism and incoherent storytelling, which doesn't stop his movies from being hits, and there are worse directors. But I think there are far better filmmakers who've come before Nolan and done exactly what he did, much better, and I just can't throw all that stuff away and join the hordes who declare him an original genius. I don't feel "cool" saying that, in fact I feel very uncool and unhip and not-with-the-crowd and that doesn't make me proud, just confused.

[TurtleFu]

Here's the thing about Batman, coming from a huge Batman fan:
THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOLAN HAVING POORLY WRITTEN WOMEN IN A BATMAN FILM. To think that "Oh, well Nolan is only working with what he's got; Batman doesn't have strong, well-written women" is INCORRECT.
Here is a list of SOME OF THE strong, well-written women in the Batman mythos, all of which have had excellent stories told, without cheesecake, and all of whom could easily fit in the Nolanverse
Renee Montoya/The Question
Catwoman [Yes, I know she's in the third one, but I doubt their going to go with the Brubaker/Cooke version]
Oracle
Spoiler
Cassandra Cain
Lady Shiva
Poison Ivy
Huntress [Who I think would especially work well in the Nolanverse, because she's tied to the mob and has an origin/style based more in the gritty realism like the Nolanverse]
Black Canary
Talia al Ghul
Harley Quinn

What we end up with though, is a watered down Vicki Vale/Harvey Dent mash-up who ends up getting fridged.

[deadgrandma]

Fuck BATMAN




The only real superhero is this guy:

[Tokyo Jihad]

^ Not far off from the truth!

Originally Posted by Nimh

in fact I feel very uncool and unhip and not-with-the-crowd

Oh christ... Wheres that hipster kitty meme..

[TurtleFu]

I get where Nimh is coming from. Recently, I had to work with bunch of new people, and when we were talking about favorite bands ("Incubus!" "Radiohead!") I could have said "Tokyo Incidents" but I knew I would just come across as an outcast, so I lied and said "The Beatles" as a safe choice.

[deadgrandma]

Wuss

If they outcast you for that, then who cares if you're an outcast. FFS.

If someone asks me my favourite musician, I say Ringo, they say 'who' and then I don't have to sit through some asinine conversation that I've had a billion times before. Hell, I've even just made up names of bands before. One of them being 'The Crusty Sacks"

[Nimh]

^^^ I always say "The Beatles" or "Elvis" in those kinds of situations.

In "what's your favorite movie" situations, I say Casablanca or The Godfather mostly, even though the answer is Blue Velvet.

[deadgrandma]

Mulholland Drive is my fave Lynch, closely followed by Blue Velvet and Inland Empire.

I'd put a picture of the best part of Mulholland Drive, but I better not.

[W3iHong]

I like black orpheus.