Very well put! And I especially agree with your point about "Avatar" - a movie that had really zero cultural impact. That’s exactly how I feel about so many films that are either wildly successful or artificially elevated to "masterpiece" status.
I think it’s okay to distinguish between what the wretched plague of the internet and its opinion-inflation machine keeps hyping up, and what actually has a real cultural impact.
For example, I’m genuinely baffled by how films like "Groundhog Day" or "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off" -which shaped an entire generation - are often overlooked, while certain other movies continue to be worshipped as sacred texts. Meanwhile, there are films I only watched out of a sense of duty as a film lover - only to forget them immediately ("The Godfather" 1-3, for instance).
At the end of the day, this has led me to the conclusion that I couldn’t care less about what someone else tries to sell as a “masterpiece” or who falls for marketing hype. I have my own list of truly significant films, and whether anyone agrees with it or not? Totally irrelevant.
I couldn't agree more with you about Ferris Bueller. That film is incredible. I disagree about The Godfather films though, I do think the first 2 are masterpieces...Great comment
I loved Interstellar, but I understand (and actually understood while I was watching it) that without knowledge of some pretty arcane scientific theories, a lot of it isn't going to make a lot of sense. As it happened, just weeks before I saw it I had seen a documentary about the nature of the universe, black holes, the big bang, all that, which brought a whole lot of perspective that I took into Interstellar. I found myself recognizing a lot of those theories in the movie, adding greatly to my understanding and enjoyment of it, while simultaneously realizing that people who hadn't seen that documentary might be very confused indeed.
(The score to Interstellar is really terrific, btw. Pay attention to that when you rewatch. It does its job, but in very innovative ways.)
While I generally enjoy Nolan films, I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding Tenet. It's the only Nolan film I really disliked start to finish. I see Tenet as a pure distillation of what I don't like about some of his work - an insistence that if you aren't smart enough to keep up, that's your problem, and you're clearly stupid. Interstellar has that problem as I outlined above, and I found that the case with Inception as well. I couldn't ever get past the preposterous conceit of dreams within dreams. So when he took that concept to 11, it lost me. I felt stupid.
Memento, on the other hand, manages to walk that line well. It's smart and a challenge to keep up with, but unlike Interstellar or Inception or Tenet, it didn't require that you understand and buy into some very specific things to enjoy. Everyone understands amnesia, and everyone understands things going backwards. He doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between those mental challenges most of his audience are capable of following and those they mostly aren't.
P.S. I (gasp!) didn't like the original Dark Knight. I found Heath Ledger too self-consciously ACTING, I found it far too long, and I was so distracted by the guy with the massive face wound, that I couldn't concentrate on anything else, and was constantly pulled out of the action, annoyed that Nolan was constantly shoving the gore in my face.
I am halfway through my rewatch of Interstellar. Must admit I am mostly impressed with it as a piece of cinema so far, but then again I haven't got to the stuff I really hated yet. It's taking me a while because I'm pausing a lot to write notes... Pros and Cons style.
I have issues with Hans Zimmer (that I may write a whole essay on in the future) and many of my criticisms I have noticed in this film already. I almost never notice the score in movies and have to actively listen out for it in 99% of films. I notice extremely catchy/memorable melodies like Howard Shore's work in the Lord of the Rings or the famous character themes of John Williams in every film he scored. Everything else never even registers to me...
I’m with you there most of the time actually. I’ve been actively trying to pay attention to it because it’s such a big part of the vibe of any movie and I felt I’ve been missing out.
Highly recommend a podcast called Settling the Score which goes into researched detail about classic specific movie scores.
My son and I love 3-4 Nolan movies, and gleefully shit on every flaw we find in them and in the massive turds like Dark Knight Rises. Have you really, actually, only met sycophantic Nolan fans intolerant of any critique? Are my son and I so unique?
Don’t watch it again. It’s a trap. You think you missed something; you didn’t. Run away. Run away as fast as you can. Interstellar is wretched. Loved a lot of his others but this one is beyond saving.
I think with Directors, people judge them by a mix of "what's their 3-to-5 best movies?" and "what have they done *recently*?" In other words, their bad movies are often forgotten as long as they have at least 3 *very* good films overall and at least 1 of their 3 most recent movies was well-received. I think that's what you're seeing here with Nolan and some of his biggest fans. Most people who have watched a lot of Nolan movies have at least 3 movies he made that they liked *a lot*.
Honestly, Oppenheimer seriously helped Nolan's reputation. I think if it was poorly received, a lot of people would have said he's lost his touch.
His 'clever' movies like Inception and Interstellar actually do insist upon themselves. All the characters in them are not real, but simply there to push the 'conceptual' narrative along. That is their motivation. It makes for the most clunky, second rate movies but with first rate scores from HZ which is what makes them feel epic on first viewing.
His characters are like undercover cops trying to 'sell' their characters - but lacking any personal history there is something terribly off about them.
They come across like Famous Five stories or even Scooby Doo.
I am by no means a huge Nolan fan, though I did enjoy a lot of his movies (still have yet to see Oppenheimer though). But I personally liked The Prestige and Interstellar, although I see the flaws.
With the Prestige it comes around to whether or not Genre shifts are your thing, and I didn’t find it jarring personally, because I think the hints are there initially (with that science fiction vibe electricity display) and there is the non-fantastical reveal for the other magician to balance it. But I can see how this is a matter of taste and can easily break the film.
With Interstellar it is something similar, I think there is a taste element (I watched it with my husband and he also didn’t like it), for me I appreciated the slowness that the movie possesses in parts and that is not typical in Hollywood (but it then ruins that a bit towards the end), as well as many of the philosophical and science aspects, but that was because I was already familiar with it. There were a lot of scenes exploring space travel in a way I have never seen before in a movie. I think they botched it a bit at the end though, both for focussing too much on action with the Mann guy, and for letting the main character survive which was an utter copout in my opinion.
Thank you. That’s precisely my point. He is undoubtedly an excellent director, just not the flawless messiah of cinema that his acolyte’s insist he is…
And thank you for you polite disagreement. We need more of that in the online space. We can have our differences in tastes and opinions and remain cordial and civil when we have them.
I agree. Nolan is good but a little of him goes a long way.
In Interstellar Nolan kneecaps the thematic height of the movie with constant cuts and loud action. Dr. Mann leads Cooper to the icy depths of a distant planet, then betrays him. They battle each other. To me that was an excellent moment to drop the bombast, drop the cuts, and let the total isolation and desperation sink in.... instead he's ramps up the music and starts cutting between that battle and the daughter back home playing Child Protective Services. Who cares!? Show me the decisive battle for the survival of mankind!
I guess maybe he's trying to say that the demons we take with us are also at home? Or something?
He tends to shatter emotionally and thematically poignant moments with bombast. When he holds himself back he's brilliant. Oppenheimer was very good for that reason, in my opinion.
I never liked Interstellar either. While I enjoyed his earlier films, I'm sick of Nolan's new experiments in sound mixing. The muddy soundscape of Interstellar literally put me to sleep in the cinema, and Tenet had a similarly muddy sound design.
Nolan has claimed that this is all part of using more production audio instead of doing post-production dubbing, but as a sound engineer I feel like he could achieve better mixes with more clarity if his sound team focused on making dialogue more intelligible to the audience.
The Dark Knight and Inception are the ones I've enjoyed the most, but I haven't seen all of his work. I hated Dunkirk though--boring, lacks hope, I didn't care if all the soldiers died, and the music is uninspiring.
But I support you critiquing Nolan. I just semi-lambasted Jane Austen and that got quite a bit of (mostly polite) push back.
So here's a question...and it is not in any way meant to be provoking or argumentative.
If we're evaluating artists is there a tipping point where one moves from one level to the next. What I mean is, if he has two 2s, six 6s and ten 10s does that make him great because he has so many 10s or middle cause he made some crap. And how are they evaluated differently than someome who has no 10s and no 2s but a ton of 6s. Are they the same kind of middle if it's more likely to say they've NEVER made something amazing?
Are they then evaluated for an unwillingness to take risks? Etc.
Again, just a thought i had while reading.
I can't remember which one Baine is in but if nothing else he's one of two impressions my husband does perfectly and it cracks me up everytime.
Understood. I meant generally, in evaluating any artist's body of work.
Similar to the way athletes are evaluated I suppose. If one has 1 amazing season and 3 crap ones who do they compare to a person who have 4 average seasons.
We definitely have different taste in movies. Here's my take, which still comes out with Nolan scoring middling to slightly above average (if I use critical consensus for things I have not seen)... just with mostly different ratings.
Inception 4/10 - wildly overated cliche movie. Visually stunning, for sure, but that's all it really has going for it. I don't find it as deep as it thinks it is.
Oppenheimer 9/10 - A bit bloated, but an incredible magnum opus nonetheless. It did seem like he REALLY wanted to say something more about JFK with that little coda at the end.
Memento 9/10 - A gimmick movie, but a good one. It was a *great* film for its time. Seeing the plot in reverse is a neat trick. Honest Trailers dissected it hilariously, but I still think of it fondly.
The Dark Knight 6/10 - Overrated and overstuffed. Still good, but it never got me the way the first one that you hate so much did. I also didn't find Katie Holmes' replacement all that attractive, to the point of being distracted by it. I had fun for about the first half of the movie, and then I was just bored and wondering when it would ever end.
The Dark Knight Rises 4/10 - Overstuffed, ridiculous, obvious twists, and just generally not very good.
Batman Begins - 8/10 - My favorite Batman movie, ever. Katie Holmes "acting" is admittedly distracting, but I didn't like her replacement at all, so, meh. I'm even willing to overlook the ridiculous plot hole where the train would have boiled everyone's blood long before getting to the water supply tower or whatever it was, because it put an interesting new twist on the original and had a good villain and a decent one-liner ending which disposed of said villain. I found it a fun popcorn movie. This is actually the *only* Batman movie I'll bother to re-watch when it's on TV. In my defense, the last Batman film I'd seen before this was the utterly execrable "Batman & Robin," which I saw at $1 movie night in college, and the consensus was everyone in attendance had overpaid for that dreck.
Incomplete Grades:
Tenet - Never saw it.
The Prestige - Never saw it, but vaguely heard something referenced about a weird plot point here and there, which must be the 'Bait and Switch' you refer to.
Dunkirk - Never saw it, heard mostly good things.
Interstellar - Never saw it, heard mostly bad things.
...but it sounds like I don't need to see most of them anyway, so, hooray? I guess?
Dunkirk was good, Tenet was dog shit, Interstellar is massively overrated, and Oppenheimer was overly long and failed to engage me to the point that I fell asleep 2 hours into it.
I agree entirely. Thing is with Oppenheimer, all that you say is correct but it’s kind of my jam. Slow, political intrigue, physics, Soviet era espionage. I fully understand why most people would find it overly long and boring, but it works for me. Thanks for commenting…
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"
I was going to comment he’s a man of moderate height in a land of dwarves 😆
Very well put! And I especially agree with your point about "Avatar" - a movie that had really zero cultural impact. That’s exactly how I feel about so many films that are either wildly successful or artificially elevated to "masterpiece" status.
I think it’s okay to distinguish between what the wretched plague of the internet and its opinion-inflation machine keeps hyping up, and what actually has a real cultural impact.
For example, I’m genuinely baffled by how films like "Groundhog Day" or "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off" -which shaped an entire generation - are often overlooked, while certain other movies continue to be worshipped as sacred texts. Meanwhile, there are films I only watched out of a sense of duty as a film lover - only to forget them immediately ("The Godfather" 1-3, for instance).
At the end of the day, this has led me to the conclusion that I couldn’t care less about what someone else tries to sell as a “masterpiece” or who falls for marketing hype. I have my own list of truly significant films, and whether anyone agrees with it or not? Totally irrelevant.
Avatar was Pocahontas in space. I thought it was dog shit and I rooted for the humans.
God, I hate that movie. Pocahontas is a million times better.
I couldn't agree more with you about Ferris Bueller. That film is incredible. I disagree about The Godfather films though, I do think the first 2 are masterpieces...Great comment
I loved Interstellar, but I understand (and actually understood while I was watching it) that without knowledge of some pretty arcane scientific theories, a lot of it isn't going to make a lot of sense. As it happened, just weeks before I saw it I had seen a documentary about the nature of the universe, black holes, the big bang, all that, which brought a whole lot of perspective that I took into Interstellar. I found myself recognizing a lot of those theories in the movie, adding greatly to my understanding and enjoyment of it, while simultaneously realizing that people who hadn't seen that documentary might be very confused indeed.
(The score to Interstellar is really terrific, btw. Pay attention to that when you rewatch. It does its job, but in very innovative ways.)
While I generally enjoy Nolan films, I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding Tenet. It's the only Nolan film I really disliked start to finish. I see Tenet as a pure distillation of what I don't like about some of his work - an insistence that if you aren't smart enough to keep up, that's your problem, and you're clearly stupid. Interstellar has that problem as I outlined above, and I found that the case with Inception as well. I couldn't ever get past the preposterous conceit of dreams within dreams. So when he took that concept to 11, it lost me. I felt stupid.
Memento, on the other hand, manages to walk that line well. It's smart and a challenge to keep up with, but unlike Interstellar or Inception or Tenet, it didn't require that you understand and buy into some very specific things to enjoy. Everyone understands amnesia, and everyone understands things going backwards. He doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between those mental challenges most of his audience are capable of following and those they mostly aren't.
P.S. I (gasp!) didn't like the original Dark Knight. I found Heath Ledger too self-consciously ACTING, I found it far too long, and I was so distracted by the guy with the massive face wound, that I couldn't concentrate on anything else, and was constantly pulled out of the action, annoyed that Nolan was constantly shoving the gore in my face.
I am halfway through my rewatch of Interstellar. Must admit I am mostly impressed with it as a piece of cinema so far, but then again I haven't got to the stuff I really hated yet. It's taking me a while because I'm pausing a lot to write notes... Pros and Cons style.
I have issues with Hans Zimmer (that I may write a whole essay on in the future) and many of my criticisms I have noticed in this film already. I almost never notice the score in movies and have to actively listen out for it in 99% of films. I notice extremely catchy/memorable melodies like Howard Shore's work in the Lord of the Rings or the famous character themes of John Williams in every film he scored. Everything else never even registers to me...
I’m with you there most of the time actually. I’ve been actively trying to pay attention to it because it’s such a big part of the vibe of any movie and I felt I’ve been missing out.
Highly recommend a podcast called Settling the Score which goes into researched detail about classic specific movie scores.
My son and I love 3-4 Nolan movies, and gleefully shit on every flaw we find in them and in the massive turds like Dark Knight Rises. Have you really, actually, only met sycophantic Nolan fans intolerant of any critique? Are my son and I so unique?
Don’t watch it again. It’s a trap. You think you missed something; you didn’t. Run away. Run away as fast as you can. Interstellar is wretched. Loved a lot of his others but this one is beyond saving.
Too late, and you are correct.
Maybe that is the magic of Interstellar. It pulls us back in against our better judgement. Like a black hole.🤣
I think with Directors, people judge them by a mix of "what's their 3-to-5 best movies?" and "what have they done *recently*?" In other words, their bad movies are often forgotten as long as they have at least 3 *very* good films overall and at least 1 of their 3 most recent movies was well-received. I think that's what you're seeing here with Nolan and some of his biggest fans. Most people who have watched a lot of Nolan movies have at least 3 movies he made that they liked *a lot*.
Honestly, Oppenheimer seriously helped Nolan's reputation. I think if it was poorly received, a lot of people would have said he's lost his touch.
His 'clever' movies like Inception and Interstellar actually do insist upon themselves. All the characters in them are not real, but simply there to push the 'conceptual' narrative along. That is their motivation. It makes for the most clunky, second rate movies but with first rate scores from HZ which is what makes them feel epic on first viewing.
His characters are like undercover cops trying to 'sell' their characters - but lacking any personal history there is something terribly off about them.
They come across like Famous Five stories or even Scooby Doo.
Also Anne Hathaway.
I am by no means a huge Nolan fan, though I did enjoy a lot of his movies (still have yet to see Oppenheimer though). But I personally liked The Prestige and Interstellar, although I see the flaws.
With the Prestige it comes around to whether or not Genre shifts are your thing, and I didn’t find it jarring personally, because I think the hints are there initially (with that science fiction vibe electricity display) and there is the non-fantastical reveal for the other magician to balance it. But I can see how this is a matter of taste and can easily break the film.
With Interstellar it is something similar, I think there is a taste element (I watched it with my husband and he also didn’t like it), for me I appreciated the slowness that the movie possesses in parts and that is not typical in Hollywood (but it then ruins that a bit towards the end), as well as many of the philosophical and science aspects, but that was because I was already familiar with it. There were a lot of scenes exploring space travel in a way I have never seen before in a movie. I think they botched it a bit at the end though, both for focussing too much on action with the Mann guy, and for letting the main character survive which was an utter copout in my opinion.
In my opinion...
I can see why The Prestige's genre shift and twist would be annoying—but it works, and I love it. 9.5/10
I can see why Batman Begins would be considered boring—but it isn't, and I love it. 9/10
The Dark Knight—8.5/10
Inception is a bit overrated, but it is still a good film. 8/10
The Dark Knight Rises—8/10 (maybe 7/10)
I didn't like Interstellar when I first watched it, and I still don't care for the ending, but after rewatching it, the characters won me over. 7/10
Dunkirk is slow, and the characters aren't great. 5/10
Tenant isn't a 1, but it is everything else you said it is. 3/10
As far as contemporary filmmakers go, Nolan is the best. Among the best filmmakers in history, there are plenty of people ahead of him.
Thank you. That’s precisely my point. He is undoubtedly an excellent director, just not the flawless messiah of cinema that his acolyte’s insist he is…
And thank you for you polite disagreement. We need more of that in the online space. We can have our differences in tastes and opinions and remain cordial and civil when we have them.
Thank you…
You're welcome. Thank you for giving me something to think and write about.
I agree. Nolan is good but a little of him goes a long way.
In Interstellar Nolan kneecaps the thematic height of the movie with constant cuts and loud action. Dr. Mann leads Cooper to the icy depths of a distant planet, then betrays him. They battle each other. To me that was an excellent moment to drop the bombast, drop the cuts, and let the total isolation and desperation sink in.... instead he's ramps up the music and starts cutting between that battle and the daughter back home playing Child Protective Services. Who cares!? Show me the decisive battle for the survival of mankind!
I guess maybe he's trying to say that the demons we take with us are also at home? Or something?
He tends to shatter emotionally and thematically poignant moments with bombast. When he holds himself back he's brilliant. Oppenheimer was very good for that reason, in my opinion.
I never liked Interstellar either. While I enjoyed his earlier films, I'm sick of Nolan's new experiments in sound mixing. The muddy soundscape of Interstellar literally put me to sleep in the cinema, and Tenet had a similarly muddy sound design.
Nolan has claimed that this is all part of using more production audio instead of doing post-production dubbing, but as a sound engineer I feel like he could achieve better mixes with more clarity if his sound team focused on making dialogue more intelligible to the audience.
The Dark Knight and Inception are the ones I've enjoyed the most, but I haven't seen all of his work. I hated Dunkirk though--boring, lacks hope, I didn't care if all the soldiers died, and the music is uninspiring.
But I support you critiquing Nolan. I just semi-lambasted Jane Austen and that got quite a bit of (mostly polite) push back.
So here's a question...and it is not in any way meant to be provoking or argumentative.
If we're evaluating artists is there a tipping point where one moves from one level to the next. What I mean is, if he has two 2s, six 6s and ten 10s does that make him great because he has so many 10s or middle cause he made some crap. And how are they evaluated differently than someome who has no 10s and no 2s but a ton of 6s. Are they the same kind of middle if it's more likely to say they've NEVER made something amazing?
Are they then evaluated for an unwillingness to take risks? Etc.
Again, just a thought i had while reading.
I can't remember which one Baine is in but if nothing else he's one of two impressions my husband does perfectly and it cracks me up everytime.
My argument is aimed more towards refuting those who claim everything he ever made is perfect than accurately scoring him. Thanks for the comment
Understood. I meant generally, in evaluating any artist's body of work.
Similar to the way athletes are evaluated I suppose. If one has 1 amazing season and 3 crap ones who do they compare to a person who have 4 average seasons.
That is a good question… Gives me an idea for a potential article…
We definitely have different taste in movies. Here's my take, which still comes out with Nolan scoring middling to slightly above average (if I use critical consensus for things I have not seen)... just with mostly different ratings.
Inception 4/10 - wildly overated cliche movie. Visually stunning, for sure, but that's all it really has going for it. I don't find it as deep as it thinks it is.
Oppenheimer 9/10 - A bit bloated, but an incredible magnum opus nonetheless. It did seem like he REALLY wanted to say something more about JFK with that little coda at the end.
Memento 9/10 - A gimmick movie, but a good one. It was a *great* film for its time. Seeing the plot in reverse is a neat trick. Honest Trailers dissected it hilariously, but I still think of it fondly.
The Dark Knight 6/10 - Overrated and overstuffed. Still good, but it never got me the way the first one that you hate so much did. I also didn't find Katie Holmes' replacement all that attractive, to the point of being distracted by it. I had fun for about the first half of the movie, and then I was just bored and wondering when it would ever end.
The Dark Knight Rises 4/10 - Overstuffed, ridiculous, obvious twists, and just generally not very good.
Batman Begins - 8/10 - My favorite Batman movie, ever. Katie Holmes "acting" is admittedly distracting, but I didn't like her replacement at all, so, meh. I'm even willing to overlook the ridiculous plot hole where the train would have boiled everyone's blood long before getting to the water supply tower or whatever it was, because it put an interesting new twist on the original and had a good villain and a decent one-liner ending which disposed of said villain. I found it a fun popcorn movie. This is actually the *only* Batman movie I'll bother to re-watch when it's on TV. In my defense, the last Batman film I'd seen before this was the utterly execrable "Batman & Robin," which I saw at $1 movie night in college, and the consensus was everyone in attendance had overpaid for that dreck.
Incomplete Grades:
Tenet - Never saw it.
The Prestige - Never saw it, but vaguely heard something referenced about a weird plot point here and there, which must be the 'Bait and Switch' you refer to.
Dunkirk - Never saw it, heard mostly good things.
Interstellar - Never saw it, heard mostly bad things.
...but it sounds like I don't need to see most of them anyway, so, hooray? I guess?
Dunkirk was good, Tenet was dog shit, Interstellar is massively overrated, and Oppenheimer was overly long and failed to engage me to the point that I fell asleep 2 hours into it.
I agree entirely. Thing is with Oppenheimer, all that you say is correct but it’s kind of my jam. Slow, political intrigue, physics, Soviet era espionage. I fully understand why most people would find it overly long and boring, but it works for me. Thanks for commenting…
If you can’t see the greatness of Interstellar, even with its flaws, than I can’t help you. Opinions are like a-holes after all…