10 responses to “News & Links: Monday, July 24, 2023”

1. 

   Claude Reigns

   07/25/2023

   I wouldn't call "Barbie" or "Oppenheimer" "original" movies. The former is hucksterism for a decades-old toy line (despite claims of subversion or empowerment, that's all it is: an advertisement that audience members are dumb enough to pay for) and the latter is a biopic, which we'd had a greasy buttload of the last 20 years. Enough already.

   Chris Nolan is a competent, old-fashioned filmmaker, but his fans are insufferable, especially when they mention him in the same breath as Kubrick, et al. The dude made three fucking Batman films for fuck's sake, a remake of a good foreign flick, and several unnecessarily convoluted "thrillers" with little to say about the world we live in. He's also a rich kid with industry connections (here we go again…) so his POV doesn't interest me so much.

   My favorite Nolan movie is "Dunkirk" – which is exquisitely made and nearly a silent film with its dearth of dialogue – and this one seems similarly based on a compelling historical situation. Oppenheimer is truly one of the strangest and most interesting figures of the 20th Century, and I assume the film is based on American Prometheus, which was an excellent biography.

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2. 

   Doug Holland

   07/25/2023

   They're not sequels or remakes and that's all I can say in favor of BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER.

   BARBIE just saddens me. It seems to have been cleverly put together by all accounts, and Greta Gerwig gets to be rich if she wasn't already, but I fast-forward through commercials. I won't intentionally sit down to watch one.

   Chris Nolan is iffy at best. "The dude made three fucking Batman films for fuck's sake"? Well, I like Batman, but Nolan made three *bad* Batman films.

   And MEMENTO — overcomplicated but worth the trouble, as I recall.

   And INCEPTION — an interesting idea simply drowned in money and ooh-and-aah special effects and the insufferable Leonardo DiCaprio.

   And INTERSTELLAR, which I liked but remember almost nothing about it.

   DUNKIRK is a war movie, so I haven't and probably won't see it.

   And TENET — I'm hard of hearing already, and Nolan intentionally made it hard to hear? Fuck him just for that.

   And OPPENHEIMER? Probably not, unless a rush of rave reviews convinces me it has something worthwhile going on.

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3. 

   Claude Reigns

   07/26/2023

   "Dunkirk" is entirely about a retreat. It's fascinating and moving and very unconventional. All the thrills of a typical war film – imagery, sound, etc. – but to a different purpose, I think. Probably politically myopic in its focus on such a "small" unheroic event, but really effective as a way of saying and showing that this is "something that happened."

   Have you seen Nolan's "The Prestige"? You didn't mention it above. It's great! I love magic and magicians, and that's its subject, but also con artists – which magicians essentially are. It's almost a David Mamet film in that regard (Ricky Jay even appears.)

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   1. 

      Doug Holland

      07/26/2023

      Never saw THE PRESTIGE. It came out amidst a swell of swooning coverage of Nolan's genius, causing me to lose all interest. Mentioning David Mamet is not really a selling point, unless it's very early Mamet. 🙂 But why not add it to the long, long watchlist? I'll 'rent' a copy.

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   2. 

      Doug Holland

      07/26/2023

      Oh, now I remember — Christian Bale, too.

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   3. 

      johnthebasket

      07/26/2023

      I don't know what the movie is about having not seen it, but the Battle of Dunkirk is not about a retreat in any European Allied country. Churchill called it a "miracle of deliverance". It is about the boats, large and small, of an island nation charging across the straight TOWARD the action to retrieve the armies of Great Britain and France (and a few others) for that day when the United States would stop fucking around with Lend-Lease and get it on with Hitler.

      It is a rare historical case of the British Navy joining tens of thousands of pleasure and fishing boats to save their army to fight another day. That day came four years later at Juno, Sword and Gold beaches when cries of "Dunkirk" filled the air. War is rarely noble: it's a fucking bloody mess. But the Battle of Dunkirk had an element of nobility to it that is remembered in Europe much more clearly than it is remembered here.

      jtb

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   4. 

      Doug Holland

      07/26/2023

      Maybe they taught it in school when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, but it sure never sunk into my head, all the details you just shared.

      I am glad people stood up to the Nazis, hope I would've, and mos def I am glad the good guys won that war. Wouldn't want to watch a movie about it, though.

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   5. 

      Claude Reigns

      07/26/2023

      That's exactly what the film is about, as you described, including the "deliverance" and nobility." I don't know the specific, pedantic, military definition of "retreat", but yes, the soldiers were withdrawing from the advancing Krauts, and the English civilians were advancing in their boats to pick them up.

      The flick is assembled as three pieces – land, air, sea – which take place over varied time periods, which then coalesce in success at the end.

      https://youtu.be/OvCX2fs8nlE

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4. 

   granville

   07/26/2023

   I remember dozing off during a Nolan film (can't remember which one) and being aware of what was going on on screen even with my eyes closed. The musical cues behind everything makes it seem hamfisted and weird. The music isn't bad! It's often really good! But it's not a form of set dressing, or emotional cues, or anything that we assume music in a scene is there for. You frequently lose the subtlety of dialog because it's so fucking loud and its so fucking THERE all the time.

   Someone finally agreed and decided to do "12 Angry Men" if Nolan had directed it (or was at least in charge of sound editing):

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqbILnmJ-Q

   (It's a 10 second joke extended to a minute but that's still less annoying than what it's parodying.)

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   1. 

      Doug Holland

      07/26/2023

      Amusing vid. Says something that even not seeing most of Nolan's work, I've heard enough about not being able to hear to immediately get the joke.

      And it's tricky getting subtitles on the films I 'rent'…

      Reply

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