Movie Review Oppenheimer
Movie Review Dunkirk
Dunkirk (2017)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Christopher Nolan
Starring Fionn Whitehead, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Lowden, Barry Keoghan, Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy
Release Date July 21st, 2017
With The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception, director Christopher Nolan has ascended to that rarefied air of directors who can sell a movie with his name alone. Nolan now stands shoulder to shoulder with fellow relative newcomers J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon and the original superstar director, Steven Speilberg.
The proof comes with the release of Dunkirk, Nolan's latest film and one with a minimum of star-power, rough, non-commercial subject matter, and a World War II setting that has rarely been the home of four quadrant hits without the back up of major stars like Tom Hanks or John Wayne. If Dunkirk is to succeed it will be the director of Batman who makes it happen.
Read my full length review at Geeks.Media
Movie Review Batman Begins (2012)
Movie Review Following
Following (1998)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Christopher Nolan
Starring Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw
Release Date April 24th, 1998
Published December 10th, 2001
Christopher Nolan's Memento, starring Guy Pearce and Carrie Ann Moss, is a time-twisting, mind-bending, spellbinding ride of genre busting film history and by far the best film of 2001. Now, Nolan's first film, 1998's Following is available to American audiences and like Memento it's a trip. British actor Jeremy Theobold plays the unnamed lead, listed in the end credits as the young man, a writer who while struggling with writer's block begins an unusual search for inspiration.
The young man begins following random people on the street, just watching them go wherever they go shopping, for lunch, or home. At first it's a minor fascination but it soon grows to an uncontrollable obsession. The young man however is able to rationalize his actions with rules like never follow anyone more than once or never involve yourself in the subject's life. These rules are of course broken, and eventually he's not just breaking the rules, he's breaking into his subject's lives with help of one of his subjects named Cobb. Cobb caught the young man following him and invites him to follow even closer as Cobb breaks into homes not necessarily to rob them but more to paint himself a portrait of the people's lives.
Following, like Memento is not a slave to linear storytelling like most movies. Instead, the film flashes forward and backward and tells its story with little visual clues. Cuts and bruises of an unknown origin foreshadow a fight. Unknown until we are shown later in the film where they came from. To say anymore about the film's plot is to giveaway too much. Following is full of great surprises that should not and will not be ruined by this reviewer.
The performances by British actors Jeremy Theobold and Alex Haw are brilliant, with Haw especially effective as the sly charismatic thief whose justification for his breaking and entering are so enticing you might want to try it yourself. Following is a brilliant con game that you willingly fall for not because your stupid but because it's so enticing, you want to fall for it.
With Following and Memento, we can see the evolution of Christopher Nolan as an auteur who may be the next Scorsese or Coppola, a risky artist whose films can't be classified simply by genre. The kind of artistic filmmaker who respects his audience's intelligence and plays to it and that is all too rare in this day and age.
Movie Review Insomnia
Insomnia (2002)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Hillary Seitz
Starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Maura Tierney, Martin Donovan, Nicky Katt
Release Date May 24th, 2002
Published May 23rd, 2002
How many times has Al Pacino played a cop? About half as many times as his cohort Robert Deniro, but that is still a lot. However, Pacino has never played cop in a film directed by Christopher Nolan. That is an important distinction. As Nolan has shown, in his previous efforts Memento and Following, that genre is a dirty word. With Nolan at the helm, you know you’re not in for your typical police procedural.
Insomnia has Pacino playing Detective Will Dormer, on loan from the LAPD to an old friend who is the sheriff of Nightmute, Alaska. Dormer and his partner Hap are momentarily escaping an internal affairs investigation that threatens to destroy Dormer's high profile reputation. On arriving in Nightmute, Dormer is met by a young local cop named Ellie Burr (Hillary Swank) who fills us in on how well known Dormer is by discussing his many big cases which she studied while in the police academy.
As for the case itself, a teenage girl was found in a garbage dump having been beaten to death. The case breaks quickly as Dormer and the local cops lock onto a suspect after the discovery of the dead girl’s personal items. The discovery leads to a stakeout that goes horribly wrong, leading to the death of Will's partner and a cover-up that calls Will's integrity into question.
While investigating under the noses of the local cops, Dormer uses some questionable tactics to discover a suspect, a mystery writer named Walter Finch (Robin Williams). Somehow, Finch knows Dormer's secret and tries to use it against him. This begins a cat and mouse game where the mouse proves to be smarter and more adaptive than the cat.
Insomnia isn't about police procedure and chase scenes, it's about atmosphere and intellect. Williams and Pacino play fantastic cat and mouse with Williams tormenting Pacino with his inability to sleep due to Alaska's never-setting summer sun. Both Williams and Pacino are spectacular as they leave their previous screen chewing person's behind.
Director Christopher Nolan brilliantly uses the never-ending sunlight of this unusual and unlikely location as the perfect backdrop for this intensely dark suspense flick. As Pacino drives around at 3 in the morning and the sun shines, it is as if the light turned his mind into a prison shining a harsh light on his guilty conscience and many regretful decisions.
Nolan is becoming one of the best directors in the world, an auteur whose genius lies in keeping both the audience and his characters off balance. In Memento it was Leonard's short term memory, in Following it was the young man’s writer's block and guilty conscience, and in Insomnia it's Dormer's inability to sleep that keeps the audience and the characters from ever getting comfortable or complacent.
Insomnia is a strong move into the mainstream for Christopher Nolan who manages to make a Hollywood film without compromising his artistic vision and Auteurist style.
Movie Review Inception
Inception (2010)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Christopher Nolan
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine
Release Date July 16th, 2010
Published July 15th, 2010
“Inception” is the best movie of the year. Combining a mind melting metaphysical conceit with a wildly entertaining story, “Inception” from director Christopher Nolan is not merely some exercise in high minded, arty filmmaking, it's also a rollercoaster ride of emotion and action like little you have seen since the last time Christopher Nolan blew your mind with “The Dark Knight.”
”Inception” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, a globetrotting con man whose milieu is not seedy bars or corporate boardrooms but rather, the depths of the human psyche. Cobb can enter your mind through your dreams but unlike Freddy Krueger he's not here to kill but to rob you of your deepest, most well protected secrets.
With his team, including Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy, Bronson), Ariadne (Elliot Page) and money man Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), Cobb sneaks into the subconscious of a corporate heir named Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). This job however, is different from the team's usual theft of secrets, this time they are attempting an Inception wherein they planting an idea in Fischer's mind in hopes of influencing his future.
Complicated? It sure sounds complicated but under the skilled direction of Christopher Nolan and the guiding performance of Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception is only rarely mystifying. The story is elaborate and exceptionally well put together and even at 2 hours and 40 minutes it floats by like a dream, one you can't help but remember.
I am being intentionally vague as too much information could spoil the fun. I will tell you that Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard plays Cobb's wife and it's a performance that exceeds even the genius of her Oscar winning role in “La Vie En Rose.” The way Cotillard's character, Mal, is woven into the plot will blow your mind in the most unexpected ways.
”Inception” is exceptionally well directed and intricately plotted and features career best performances from DiCaprio, Cotillard, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Elliot Page. Rounding out this cast are veterans Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite and Tom Berenger, all of whom bring something unique and fascinating to this remarkable, epic dreamy adventure. “Inception” will require further examination and discussion but that can wait for the DVD release. For now, avoid the spoilers and experience “Inception” for yourself. We’ll talk more about it later.
Movie Review: Batman Begins
Batman Begins (2005)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer
Starring Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman
Release Date June 15th, 2005
Published June 14th, 2005
Joel Schumacher has committed a number of cinematic sins. His destruction of Andrew Kevin Walker's darkly brilliant script for 8mm or last years 3 hour tin-eared musical Phantom Of the Opera come immediately to mind. But without a doubt Schumacher's most damnable sin is his destruction of the Batman film series. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin are atrocious examples of a director completely bent to the will of marketing executives. A director more interested in creating synergistic toy products and fast food tie-ins than in making entertaining movies.
Eight years after Schumacher killed it, and through three years of torturous development Batman has risen from the ashes once again and in the hands of director Christopher Nolan, an artist and auteur of the highest regard, Batman is not merely back, the D.C Comics franchise is better than ever. Rivaling Raimi's Spiderman and Singer's X-Men, Nolan's Batman Begins is a visionary comic book film worthy of the icon status of the character.
Batman Begins is an origin story that brings fans into the mind of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) before Batman and shows us why a millionaire playboy would put on a bat suit and fight crime. Locked away in some far off Asian prison a scruffy but handsome American certainly sticks out. Battered and bruised Bruce Wayne has fought everyday he's been in this prison but his latest battle against several large thugs at once brings him to the attention of another handsome westerner, Henri Ducard played by Liam Neeson.
Ducard is a representative of Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), leader of the League Of Shadows, a thousand year-old order dedicated to vigilantism. The League Of Shadows fancy themselves ninja crime fighters and in Bruce Wayne they see an asset both physically and otherwise. The League is preparing to raze Gotham City, purging the city of its criminality and anything else that might be in the way. Bruce has a choice: join the League and destroy Gotham or return alone to defend the innocent people of the city.
Returning to his home in Gotham City (Chicago standing in, not New York in this version) Wayne finds the metropolis in ruinous poverty. Crime rules the streets led by mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). Among the few good people of Gotham are Bruce's butler, Alfred (the superb Michael Caine), and his childhood friend, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), who works as an assistant prosecutor fighting a losing battle with corruption.
Bruce's fortune is intact, the family business is under the control of a corrupt executive played by Rutger Hauer and working in the shadows is a former family friend, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), whose work on various military projects for the company will certainly come in handy when Bruce Wayne is ready to transform into the caped crusader. It is Lucius Fox who creates the suit, the gadgets and the new military style Batmobile, even cooler than the sports car version from Tim Burton's Batman.
The film plumbs the depths of Bruce's past, the biggest factor to his becoming Batman. A childhood accident bred in him a fear of bats. It's a fear that is also linked to the death of his parents in a mugging outside a theater when Bruce was eight years old. A taste for vengeance is what led Bruce to his Asian adventure and the teachings of Ducard are what lead to his taking his fear of the bat as his symbol when he finally decides to take a stand against crime.
It's an extraordinarily detailed and logical story that fits perfectly into the dark atmospheric universe that director Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer, of Blade fame, have created. This Gotham City is in part the vision of Frank Miller's Year One graphic novel balanced with the Auteurist vision of Nolan who nods to Miller but makes the look and feel of the film his own.
Christian Bale is the perfect blend of movie star handsome and brooding maniac, the essence of the Bruce Wayne-Batman dichotomy. Though Batman holds the typical moral values of a superhero-- he captures but does not kill-- he has a definite weird streak. As Bruce himself points out, "A guy who dresses up as a bat clearly has issues". Those 'issues' are given a thorough and complete examination in Batman Begins and as played by Mr. Bale, they are given the depth and emotionality that the character has lacked in his former movie incarnations.
The supporting cast is exemplary, especially Gary Oldman as "Sgt." Gordon who we all know will someday be Police Commissioner Gordon. This is his origin as well and, with Oldman in this pivotal role, we have a solid basis for further great stories to be told. Katie Holmes is much better than expected in the role of Bruce's childhood friend and adult love interest. She looks too young and innocent for the position of District Attorney fighting the worst of the worst criminals but she has an unexpected steeliness to her that sells the character.
The villains, the most obvious weakness from the Schumacher films, are given a similar comic book realism to that of Batman. Based more in the reality and logic of the story, the villains in Batman Begins are not super villains with grand schemes of mass murder or world domination but logical extensions of the established corruption of Gotham City. Cillian Murphy is terrific as Dr. Jonathan Crane whose alter ego, the Scarecrow, is no psycho du jour but a functionary of a larger, more logical and ordered plot.
Obviously Nolan's Batman Begins cannot help but be compared with the lofty achievements of Bryan Singer's X-Men and Sam Raimi's Spiderman and it is without a doubt worthy of the comparisons. Batman Begins ranks only behind Raimi's Spiderman 2 as the best comic book adaptation I have seen. An awesomely entertaining and involving action packed feature, Batman is back and better than ever in Batman Begins.
Movie Review: The Prestige
The Prestige (2006)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan
Starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johannson, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis
Release Date October 20th, 2006
Published October 19th, 2006
Director Christopher Nolan's short career has been quite exceptional. His debut feature Following showed off a clever, if not accomplished young director. His follow-up Memento however, went beyond clever and into the realm of sheer directorial genius. Nolan came back to earth a little adapting the Icelandic thriller Insomnia for American audiences, showing that he is better off developing his own material.
Any questions about Nolan as a great director however, were answered when he took his first shot at the blockbuster brass ring, directing the franchise kickoff Batman Begins. One of the best films of 2005; Batman Begins raised the profile of Christopher Nolan and raised the stakes on his future success. His latest picture, The Prestige, became an instant buzzmaker with his involvement.
The Prestige, starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival magicians, is a worthy effort for a director who is still feeling his oats as a major auteur. Clever and accessible, The Prestige is just smart enough to be a Christopher Nolan movie and just thrilling enough to be considered mainstream popcorn entertainment.
In turn of the century England magic is big business on the isle. Prestidigitation, legerdemain, and simple flim flammery are so popular that stages are eager to snap up the latest trickster. Into this world of con-men and showbiz folk, come two young men eager to learn the trade. Rupert (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred (Christian Bale) broke into the business together as audience plants for a hack magician (Mickey Jay in a minor cameo).
Their job is to wait patiently in the audience until volunteers are needed. They then eagerly head for the stage to take part in a very important trick. They are to tie the magicians assistant, Julia (Piper Perabo) who happens to be Rupert's wife, tightly and watch as she is lowered into a water tank and locked inside. The trick is that the magician will make her disappear.
The trick is pretty basic, the knots aren't very tight, the lock is tricked, Julia's escape is assured, though were something to go wrong the stage manager, Cutter (Michael Caine), is side stage with an axe. One night something goes horribly wrong. Unable to untie an overly elaborate knot, tied by Albert, Julia drowns. This begins a rivalry that is far more than professional jealousy.
Blaming Albert for his wife's death, Rupert saves his revenge for his ex-friend's first solo show as a magician. When Albert goes for his signature trick, catching a bullet from a tricked gun, he unfortunately picks out a disguised Rupert who fires a real bullet that takes two fingers from Albert's hand. The rivalry devolves from there to stealing tricks, trading women, one woman, Rupert's assistant Olivia (Scarlett Johannsen), and trying to one up each other with more and more complicated and dangerous illusions.
The magic of The Prestige however, is in the storytelling. Christopher Nolan, working from a script written by his brother Jonathan, toys with the time and space of his story in unique and often surprising ways. The movie begins with Albert in jail for having committed a murder. Then we are flashed back to Albert and Rupert's beginnings, as described above, and back and forth between the journals of both magicians, each written at the height of their rivalry.
The non-linear storytelling keeps us off balance for much of the picture, as in a good magicians trick; your looking one way as the trick happens the other way before being revealed and fooling you. The magic of The Prestige is not the staged theatrics which Nolan willingly explains and demonstrates, the magic is in the quiet misdirection and sleight of hand in the storytelling and direction.
Not all of The Prestige works. There are moments when you will easily be able to see what is coming next, the little sci fi twist late in the film is telegraphed, but the payoffs even on the most predictable twist are stunning and well crafted. The ending of The Prestige will confound some audiences but for those who have paid attention its a terrific jaw dropper.
Magic is big on the big screen this fall. The Illusionist starring Edward Norton has been one of the hottest indie features of the fall. Now The Prestige with an all star cast and a rising star director arrives with a whole lot of buzz and delivers a thrilling piece of magical storytelling. While the films shifting timeline can be confusing from time to time, it is essential to Nolan's way of telling this story. In demonstrating the magic of film-making, the ability to craft your own time and space, he honors real magic.
Adding to the prestige of this story is one sensational cast. Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johannsen and Michael Caine are exceptional, that you know. What you may not know though is just how brilliant David Bowie can be. Showing up almost unrecognizable as the legendary inventor Nikola Tesla, Bowie dazzles us with a deft turn that steals a few very good scenes.
Christopher Nolan is unlikely to win awards with movies like Batman Begins and The Prestige but that is certainly not his fault. Both films are sensational works that deserve award consideration. But, Nolan is fighting an academy mindset that is against anything that appeals too young or too mainstream. You can forget the academy ever giving a fair shake to something like Batman Begins, simply out of bias toward it's source material.
But most shockingly, even a period piece like The Prestige, no matter how ingenious and well crafted, will never earn awards attention. It's a thriller, with youth appeal, and a young, unproven cast. The academy may not love The Prestige, but you just might. This is simply a terrific film, who can't enjoy that.
Movie Review Logan Lucky
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