The Dark Knight Rises (Batman 3) - No Riddler

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Lionel Mandrake said:
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He might not come, but I like to remind people that he's out there.
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DMc... has to come back.
 
Guys its Scullibundo. If it's not Spielberg or Cameron, it's not great. Trying to have a legitimate film conversation with him will always boil down to "well, it's spielberg, so it's better and that's it." There's no basis other than tenure.
 
Now that I'm home, we can do this properly.

What I said was that those five films are better than Nolan's output for the past decade. I was not saying that every one of those films is better than every one of Nolan's.

Inception is not Nolan's weakest. His weakest is Insomnia (if we're not including following). Tintin is better than both of those.

I'm saying that those five are stronger overall than Nolan's best five. And they are only from the Berg's last decade.

Nolan is indeed one of the better modern filmmakers. But there are plenty that give him a good run for his money. Danny Boyle and David Fincher above Nolman.

What scares me is that I'm getting the impression that some of you consider Nolan's filmography to rival Spielberg's entire filmography. But on GAF, anything is possible I suppose.
 
Scullibundo said:
What scares me is that I'm getting the impression that some of you consider Nolan's filmography to rival Spielberg's entire filmography. But on GAF, anything is possible I suppose.
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I agree that that's a scary proposition. However, I think it's possible that someone could prefer his style of filmmaking and thematic discussion - the sort of cold, labyrinth professionalism that runs in all his works - to Spielberg's more humanistic filmography.

They're apples and oranges really.
 
My name is merely Veidt, but I speak for a man called DMCzaf. A man greatly feared by the Spielberg underworld.

I bring you this message:
''I return in 10 days.''
 
DeathbyVolcano said:
Child please. None of Nolan's films match Raiders or CEOTTK or Schindler's List. Just saying Nolan outdied Spielberg the past decade.
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And I disagree. I emphatically disagree.

Munich is leagues above everything Nolan has ever done. It was one of the best of the decade without any doubt in my mind and enters into Spielberg's own best category.

Then you have Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, A.I, Tintin and War of the Worlds - which outside of its last five minutes it great.

Catch Me If You Can should not be looked over. I find it becomes ridiculously underrated when people look back on it. It is an absolutely brilliant film. A.I? Amazing and divisive. I can understand people not liking it, even whilst I adore it. Tintin was spectacular. It was Spielberg absolutely ripping it up and letting loose as only he can. A coked up artist scrambling to get every joke and idea out of his head. And Minority Report is flat out one of the best science fiction films ever made. A brilliant adaptation of PKD's work. The script is tight as fuck. The characters are all fleshed out and wildly interesting in their own ways. Spielberg has always delved into different genres and movie types and the fact that his top 5 or 6 of just the past decade are all nothing like each other says a lot about his enormous talent. The man hasn't lost anything. Hell, Munich is the most mature and thoughtful film he's ever made.

Nolan's towering achievement of the last decade for me is The Prestige. It is very good. It is the only film in his filmography that felt like it echoed the genuine passions that drive Nolan himself. It is the only film I felt he put some of himself into. Is it a seminal film? No. Nolan hasn't made one yet. Is it one of the absolute best of the decade? Not for me, as much as I enjoy it.

Batman Begins is great. TDK is ambitious if a little clumsy in how it operates and thus doesn't stand up to repeated viewings for me. Memento is the opposite of this and is very good. Inception again doesn't stand up to rewatches and fails its characters in a big way. It feels like an expensive piece of work that is hollow all through the middle. Everything that I dislike about Inception is addressed expertly in The Prestige - which is very careful in how it constructs its' narrative, very generous with how it fills out its' characters and heartbreaking when the shit hits the fan - unlike Inception. Insomnia is okay. Nothing special.
 
Yeah The Prestige is probably my favorite Nolan film. Such perfect development in the plot and characters. Inception is easily his most forgettable film I think. Very over-hyped and very hollow.
 
Scullibundo said:
And I disagree. I emphatically disagree.

Munich is leagues above everything Nolan has ever done. It was one of the best of the decade without any doubt in my mind and enters into Spielberg's own best category.

Then you have Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, A.I, Tintin and War of the Worlds - which outside of its last five minutes it great.

Catch Me If You Can should not be looked over. I find it becomes ridiculously underrated when people look back on it. It is an absolutely brilliant film. A.I? Amazing and divisive. I can understand people not liking it, even whilst I adore it. Tintin was spectacular. It was Spielberg absolutely ripping it up and letting loose as only he can. A coked up artist scrambling to get every joke and idea out of his head. And Minority Report is flat out one of the best science fiction films ever made. A brilliant adaptation of PKD's work. The script is tight as fuck. The characters are all fleshed out and wildly interesting in their own ways. Spielberg has always delved into different genres and movie types and the fact that his top 5 or 6 of just the past decade are all nothing like each other says a lot about his enormous talent. The man hasn't lost anything. Hell, Munich is the most mature and thoughtful film he's ever made.

Nolan's towering achievement of the last decade for me is The Prestige. It is very good. It is the only film in his filmography that felt like it echoed the genuine passions that drive Nolan himself. It is the only film I felt he put some of himself into. Is it a seminal film? No. Nolan hasn't made one yet. Is it one of the absolute best of the decade? Not for me, as much as I enjoy it.

Batman Begins is great. TDK is ambitious if a little clumsy in how it operates and thus doesn't stand up to repeated viewings for me. Memento is the opposite of this and is very good. Inception again doesn't stand up to rewatches and fails its characters in a big way. It feels like an expensive piece of work that is hollow all through the middle. Everything that I dislike about Inception is addressed expertly in The Prestige - which is very careful in how it constructs its' narrative, very generous with how it fills out its' characters and heartbreaking when the shit hits the fan - unlike Inception. Insomnia is okay. Nothing special.
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oh here we go again sculli, you and that Munich :)

I personally think that Noland is doing something really great, he took a dead horse and kicked it alive again with Batman.

The Prestige is going to be one of those great films of our time.

However I do feel that Speilbergs work is better, but thats due to his long career, he have had more work, some are not as good, even Speilberg makes bad films from time to time, look at war horse.... Nolan will be there one day.
 
It's sad to see people dismiss Inception like this, I mean I don't know shit about film-making or cinematography and whatnot - and it may very well be the case that it was poor in those aspects. But I love the idea, but more so the fact that Nolan has been putting years and years of gradual work for this project. (I mean what he said he has been working at it for about 10 years now?) That's dedication.

But then again, he did say he has been perfecting the screenplay of the Howard Hughes flick as well, so really curious to see where he goes with that.
 
robertsan21 said:
oh here we go again sculli, you and that Munich :)

I personally think that Noland is doing something really great, he took a dead horse and kicked it alive again with Batman.

The Prestige is going to be one of those great films of our time.

However I do feel that Speilbergs work is better, but thats due to his long career, he have had more work, some are not as good, even Speilberg makes bad films from time to time, look at war horse.... Nolan will be there one day.
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But we have been talking about their last ten years. Spielberg makes films more often than Nolan and yet the quality of them are still higher imo. The long career excuse doesn't work when we're talking about within the same period of time. And with War Horse came the more than redeeming Tintin.

But yes, we owe Nolan a lot for what he did for Batman. Don't think I won't be seeing TDKR in IMAX on Day 1.
 
Gila said:
It's sad to see people dismiss Inception like this, I mean I don't know shit about film-making or cinematography and whatnot - and it may very well be the case that it was poor in those aspects. But I love the idea, but more so the fact that Nolan has been putting years and years of gradual work for this project. (I mean what he said he has been working at it for about 10 years now?) That's dedication.

But then again, he did say he has been perfecting the screenplay of the Howard Hughes flick as well, so really curious to see where he goes with that.
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Hey I love Inception.
A great film and love the idea behind it.
 
Scullibundo said:
But we have been talking about their last ten years. Spielberg makes films more often than Nolan and yet the quality of them are still higher imo. The long career excuse doesn't work when we're talking about within the same period of time. And with War Horse came the more than redeeming Tintin.

But yes, we owe Nolan a lot for what he did for Batman. Don't think I won't be seeing TDKR in IMAX on Day 1.
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Well, the experience you get by making films from the 70s-90s, Spielberg has like 30 years more experience than Nolan.

I am just saying that Spielberg have a lot more experience and to compare nolands short history with films, it is quite impressive for a "beginner".
 
Scullibundo said:
And Minority Report is flat out one of the best science fiction films ever made. A brilliant adaptation of PKD's work. The script is tight as fuck. The characters are all fleshed out and wildly interesting in their own ways.
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What? What?!

Minority Report is kind of a mess. It has some great moments, but it also has all those awful attempts at humor and a lot of silly/dumb contrivances in order to make the story work. In many ways it's just a mishmash of tons of many different sci-fi ideas, but doing few if any of them right. I'd say it's a textbook case of a film being less than the sum of its parts.

Your love of Spielberg is so crazy, I'm expecting you to pop in at some point with an essay on how The Terminal is a masterpiece and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being some brilliant self-reflexive critique of blockbuster movies or some such.
 
robertsan21 said:
Well, the experience you get by making films from the 70s-90s, Spielberg has like 30 years more experience than Nolan.

I am just saying that Spielberg have a lot more experience and to compare nolands short history with films, it is quite impressive for a "beginner".
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On the other hand you can say that Spielberg has been particularly impressive in sustaining his creativity for 30 years and keep delivering us great films. No that many filmmakers have done that, some just run out of steam or are only suited to particular genre and time.

Nolan has been impressive from the beginning, was fortunate enough to get a franchise like batman and can obviously operate well with large budgets in studio environment. I look forward to his post-batman career. 'The next Spielberg' tag has killed other careers before, so Nolan will just do his own thing; it doesn't matter so much if he comes out with his 'Jaws' or 'Jurassic Park' or last 30 years.
 
Dan said:
What? What?!

Minority Report is kind of a mess. It has some great moments, but it also has all those awful attempts at humor and a lot of silly/dumb contrivances in order to make the story work. In many ways it's just a mishmash of tons of many different sci-fi ideas, but doing few if any of them right. I'd say it's a textbook case of a film being less than the sum of its parts.

Your love of Spielberg is so crazy, I'm expecting you to pop in at some point with an essay on how The Terminal is a masterpiece and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being some brilliant self-reflexive critique of blockbuster movies or some such.
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How is Minority Report a mess? What awful attempts at humor? I knew you would come out of the woodwork when I mentioned Minority Report in a positive light. At least now we can talk about it, my troubled friend.
 
Scullibundo's post is fine by me for the most part, but I don't see how Prestige is the only "personal" film he's made. Thematically, all of his films are absolutely identical: obsession, paranoia, identity.
 
OrangeGrayBlue said:
Scullibundo's post is fine by me for the most part, but I don't see how Prestige is the only "personal" film he's made. Thematically, all of his films are absolutely identical: obsession, paranoia, identity.
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The motivation that drives both characters just seemed to come from a very genuine place. When Borden tells the kid about the art of tricking somebody: ''They'll beg you and flatter you for the secret- but as soon as you give it up you'll be nothing to them. Understand? Nothing. The secret impresses no one- the trick you use it for is everything.' in conjunction with the Angier's death when he tells Borden why he did what he did: 'The audience knows the truth- that the world is simple. Miserable. Solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, you could make them wonder. Then you got to see something very special...you really don't know? It was the look on their faces.' The motivation that drives to play this game with each other feels like the same motivation that drives Nolan to play with the audience - which he does in The Prestige in a perfect manner. It feels like Nolan distilled down to his best sensibilities because he is operating within an area he identifies with, in my opinion.

I can't find that in any of his other films. I have never seen any of his other characters so believably vulnerable and I assume it's because their supposed vulnerability isn't coming from somewhere honest like it is with The Prestige.
 
Scullibundo said:
The motivation that drives both characters just seemed to come from a very genuine place. When Borden tells the kid about the art of tricking somebody: ''They'll beg you and flatter you for the secret- but as soon as you give it up you'll be nothing to them. Understand? Nothing. The secret impresses no one- the trick you use it for is everything.' in conjunction with the Angier's death when he tells Borden why he did what he did: 'The audience knows the truth- that the world is simple. Miserable. Solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, you could make them wonder. Then you got to see something very special...you really don't know? It was the look on their faces.' The motivation that drives to play this game with each other feels like the same motivation that drives Nolan to play with the audience - which he does in The Prestige in a perfect manner. It feels like Nolan distilled down to his best sensibilities because he is operating within an area he identifies with, in my opinion.

I can't find that in any of his other films. I have never seen any of his other characters so believably vulnerable and I assume it's because their supposed vulnerability isn't coming from somewhere honest like it is with The Prestige.
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I'd agree that it's his most potent and Nolan-y film he's ever made, but I think they all come from a personal place, just not as successfully. He's overtaken with the idea of how well you can truly know a person, and if the final scene with Mal in Inception didn't seem heartfelt to you then I don't know what to say. The same can be said for various parts of all his films but, I agree, The Prestige is the most distilled and focused film he's made.
 
Scullibundo said:
Munich, minority report, A.I, Catch Me If You Can and Tin Tin > Nolan's output alone.

Nolan does not have it in him to make something like Munich.
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You had me till A.I, then you went all out crazy and added CMIYC and Tin Tin.

A strong argument can be made for the other films. Munich is a brilliant character study, Minority Report one of the most visually impressive sci-fi films and A.I. a profound bit of filmmaking that requires multiple viewings. CMIYC is a good movie, with heart and personality but I don't think it is better than Nolan's entire filmography (which has such conceptually strong and well executed films as Memento, Inception and The Prestige). And the then you went overboard and added Tin Tin which is a fun but forgettable film that strives to be another Raiders but lacks the personality of Indiana Jones and his friends. A retread and half-hearted Raiders is not better than Nolan's ENTIRE filmography, come on man.

You are on your own here, mate.
 
dmshaposv said:
You had me till A.I, then you went all out crazy and added CMIYC and Tin Tin.

A strong argument can be made for the other films. Munich is a brilliant character study, Minority Report one of the most visually impressive sci-fi films and A.I. a profound bit of filmmaking that requires multiple viewings. CMIYC is a good movie, with heart and personality but I don't think it is better than Nolan's entire filmography (which has such conceptually strong and well executed films as Memento, Inception and The Prestige). And the then you went overboard and added Tin Tin which is a fun but forgettable film that strives to be another Raiders but lacks the personality of Indiana Jones and his friends. A retread and half-hearted Raiders is not better than Nolan's ENTIRE filmography, come on man.

You are on your own here, mate.
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35610621&postcount=16011

Scullibundo said:
Now that I'm home, we can do this properly.

What I said was that those five films are better than Nolan's output for the past decade. I was not saying that every one of those films is better than every one of Nolan's.
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And I'm not sure that I would call Munich a character study.
 
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is Spielberg's best film and better than any film the last 10 years, regardless of director. I have no idea how this debate started. I love Nolan but I'd pick my top 3 Spielberg films over my top 3 Nolan films.

1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
2. Jaws
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark

1. Inception
2. Batman Begins
3. Memento
 
I saw Close Encounters just last week (for the first time ever) and it looked stunning in High-Def and while I would consider it amongst his best, I do think A.I. is better (if only counting his films from the last decade).
 
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