The Dark Knight Rises |OT| The Legend Ends (Warning: Unmarked Spoilers Within)

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Mememto, the hotel room, when he remembers sammy jenkins
Memento is his best movie, but I don't think it's visually interesting at all. This scene included.
Prestige, the final stage.
Nothing impressive except for acting and set design.
Insomina, the fog sequence where Pacino shoots the gun
Incredi-boring sequence in an incredi-boring movie.
Begins - when he is on the ice training
Editing completely scraps this sequence because Nolan doesn't know how to shoot fights. You never see a complete move in any of the fights he does because he can't stage them and doesn't know how to use stuntmen.
TDK - when they are forced to go to lower wacker drive. When joker walks out of the hospital , when batman rides his batpod
Batpod is incredibly stupid (that shot where he bumps on the wall? come on). The greatest shot in TDK, and one of the best shots Nolan ever did, is the Joker with his head out of the car's window, wind in the face. The rest was alright. Hospital shot is.. tacky.
Inception - when mal ends her life, the room where cillians father is laying
The room where the father is laying ain't too bad, but it comes at the end of the worst edited action sequence I've seen in a huge budget picture ever. It makes the whole location (which was incredible) completely boring and a major letdown. The whole movie was a huge letdown...
 
Seriously, name one visually interesting sequence in any Nolan film. And please don't tell me "Paris folding upon itself"...

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Thats perversely what i like about him. An action orientated director would have had the truck flip cut and flip from multiple directions, they're would have been unnecessary background explosions, a bombastic score, slow-mo. The whole sequence happens without the punctuation of music, just pure raw sound in one flip. You can feel the weight of the thing. As Joker crawls out the cab the music ebbs in, Batman hurtling towards him. That entire scene is tense and fantastic to me. I can't believe people are likening him to a hack

edit Sunhi delivering the ether yet again
 
How long until IMAX becomes standard?

It will never be the standard for all movies, but hoping it becomes a blockbuster standard in like 10 years. And not the upconverted shit. Actually shot on IMAX cameras. If they update the tech to reduce the loud noises and can get the size down, I don't see what not.
 
Yeah, I rewatched Batman Begins and TDK this week. I still prefer the latter, mostly for the technical aspects. I don't quite get the Batman Begins love. It's a decent film, but a poor script made better by a solid director behind the camera. TDK could lose 30 minutes or so near the end, but it's just on such another level compared to BB. The scope is so much larger and it's just gives off an epic blockbuster feel like few others do. I still don't outright love either film, so TDKR could easily out-do both.

I don't think BB's script is poor, it is quite good throughout the origins part. Then the shitty microwave thing happens.

BB and TDK are interchangeable for me, unlike some who had that stance and made these stupid "camps". Both movies are going for something different and I love some things about one, that I don't about the other.

The BB goons, regardless of all their romanticism for Bat origins, ras al ghul, katie holmes, opening flashbacks - can't convince me that the whole microwave plot is shit bad. Scarecrow is hokey and so is Falcone.

TDK I've loved from start to finish, including hong kong and boat scene, but the thing that bugs me the most if how boring a character batman has become compared to the joker. Without the joker, the movie has too sterile and methodical a feel. But thankfully there is a lot of the joker to shake things up.
 
I actually have no qualms with the Bane mask. I personally cant think of any other sort of mask could have worked well on film while allowing Hardy to express his rage and swag.
 
Nolan is a very literal director. Very one-to-one. What you hear is what you get: if a character speaks, you can be sure the onscreen image will be of that character moving his mouth. If that character mentions something, then you can be sure that Nolan will cut to a close-up of that object. The vast majority of the time, he can only deliver information through dialog. This becomes very apparent in something like Inception, where everyone is constantly spouting exposition 140+ minutes, but Leo is the only one who ever approaches something like an actual character. Everyone else is just ciphers for Nolan to say things.
That's exactly it.

For the "well how would YOU do it" crowd, you have to write your screenplay differently. Stop using scenes where there's only two important characters constantly, and if you have to do it, stop using shot/reverse-shot closeups all the time. Stop having your characters always interrupting what they're doing to have a static, two people standing kind of talk. Stop using inserts to the stuff people are picking up/talking about all the time ; the people who watch movies don't need this to understand (at least I think they don't). Start using shots where there's multiple informations on the screen and don't use them only when there's an obvious, tacky visual joke to do with it.

There's plenty more to say, I guess, starting with his now thoroughly analyzed action sequences that don't follow any kind of geometrical plane, stop using quick-cutting to hide your lack of action-staging techniques (or make films that don't need action sequences, like Memento, which was rather great).
 
I don't think BB's script is poor, it is quite good till the origins part. Then the shitty microwave thing happens.

BB and TDK are interchangeable for me, unlike some who had that stance and made these stupid "camps". Both movies are going for something different and I love some things about one, that I don't about the other.

The BB goons, regardless of all their romanticism for Bat origins, ras al ghul, katie holmes, opening flashbacks - can't convince me that the whole microwave plot is shit bad. Scarecrow is hokey and so is Falcone.

TDK I've loved from start to finish, including hong kong and boat scene, but the thing that bugs me the most if how boring a character batman has become compared to the joker. Without the joker, the movie has too sterile and methodical a feel. But thankfully there is a lot of the joker to shake things up.

Batman has been overshadowed by villains long before TDK. I would like to see more of playboy Bruce.
 
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IMAX scenes are breathtaking, even on Blu-Ray they look stunning.

Fucking beautiful.

Memento is his best movie, but I don't think it's visually interesting at all. This scene included.

Nothing impressive except for acting and set design.

Incredi-boring sequence in an incredi-boring movie.

Editing completely scraps this sequence because Nolan doesn't know how to shoot fights. You never see a complete move in any of the fights he does because he can't stage them and doesn't know how to use stuntmen.

Batpod is incredibly stupid (that shot where he bumps on the wall? come on). The greatest shot in TDK, and one of the best shots Nolan ever did, is the Joker with his head out of the car's window, wind in the face. The rest was alright. Hospital shot is.. tacky.

The room where the father is laying ain't too bad, but it comes at the end of the worst edited action sequence I've seen in a huge budget picture ever. It makes the whole location (which was incredible) completely boring and a major letdown. The whole movie was a huge letdown...

Wow. Just... wow.


Pfister's amazing. Hard to believe he started out as a TV News Cameraman.

Funny thing about this scene is that the explosions didn't go off on time but Heath as the genius he is just kept going until it finally blew.

Something I've always loved about that scene.
 
That's exactly it.

For the "well how would YOU do it" crowd, you have to write your screenplay differently. Stop using scenes where there's only two important characters constantly, and if you have to do it, stop using shot/reverse-shot closeups all the time. Stop having your characters always interrupting what they're doing to have a static, two people standing kind of talk. Stop using inserts to the stuff people are picking up/talking about all the time ; the people who watch movies don't need this to understand (at least I think they don't). Start using shots where there's multiple informations on the screen and don't use them only when there's an obvious, tacky visual joke to do with it.

There's plenty more to say, I guess, starting with his now thoroughly analyzed action sequences that don't follow any kind of geometrical plane, stop using quick-cutting to hide your lack of action-staging techniques (or make films that don't need action sequences, like Memento, which was rather great).

Now that whole "Is that a bazooka line" makes sense in TDK... It's not like the audience couldn't figure out that was bad news.
 
It will never be the standard for all movies, but hoping it becomes a blockbuster standard in like 10 years. And not the upconverted shit. Actually shot on IMAX cameras. If they update the tech to reduce the loud noises and can get the size down, I don't see what not.
It's actually sad that the fucker Cameron isnt behind IMAX .. traitor.
 
Funny thing about this scene is that the explosions didn't go off on time but Heath as the genius he is just kept going until it finally blew.

That pause was planned actually. It was in a making of video. I was more impressed by this personally:

Christian Bale stated in an interview that during the interrogation scene, Heath Ledger wanted him to beat him as hard as he could to get the real feeling of what was required from the scene.
 
Now that whole "Is that a bazooka line" makes sense in TDK... It's not like the audience couldn't figure out that was bad news.
It's always that way with Nolan. The dialogue is always there to explain something to the people watching the movie.

Another great example from Batman Begins.

Commissionner Gordon arrives on the crime scene where Batman has beaten the shit out of Falcone's guys.

So it goes like this :

Random police officer : "Are those Falcone's guys?"
Gordon : "Bah, even if they were Falcone's, we couldn't link them to him, he's well protected, and it's not as if we're gonna find him around here anyways."
Random police officer : "Well I wouldn't be too sure about that!"

And cut to the police officers who've actually found Falcone tied to a spotlight.

If you don't see how everything's wrong with this scene, starting from the expository dialogue to the fact that this stupid police officer wouldn't have asked the first question if he already knew that Falcone was tied up further along (where he was bringing Gordon), well there's nothing anyone can do to make you realize that Nolan isn't a precise, technically competent director.
 
Yeah, I rewatched Batman Begins and TDK this week. I still prefer the latter, mostly for the technical aspects. I don't quite get the Batman Begins love. It's a decent film, but a poor script made better by a solid director behind the camera. TDK could lose 30 minutes or so near the end, but it's just on such another level compared to BB. The scope is so much larger and it's just gives off an epic blockbuster feel like few others do. I still don't outright love either film, so TDKR could easily out-do both.

Please, TDK is barely a batman film.

Batman Begins nails the Batman character in a way no other movie does. He's an ordinary man who has received extensive martial arts training, and studied the arts of ninjutsu. He deploys powders and swarms of bats as methods of distractions in order to take down large numbers of enemies. He hides in the darkness and uses divide-and-conquer to bring down a mob of henchmen. All these tactics makes situations like Batman vs. an entire swat team believable. To quote Liam, it's a matter of "patience and agility." The theme of using fear against his enemies and filming Batman's first appearance like a horror movie was nothing short of masterful. The interrogation scene with the corrupt cop was the epitome of how Batman can show up out of nowhere and disappear without a trace.

The Dark Knight disregards all of this, and we have Batman exposing himself in open areas, like a brightly lit parking lot, where anyone could easily shoot him. Not to mention the nightclub scene which is a joke. And don't get me started on the boat scene.

If we want to talk about the script, Batman Begins was much better paced and there was more cheesy dialogue in TDK.

Also Katie Holmes was much better as Rachel than Maggie. Katie was believable as Bruce's childhood friend. Maggie didn't even seem to care about him very much. I think Rachel was better written in Begins too.
 
Christian Bale stated in an interview that during the interrogation scene, Heath Ledger wanted him to beat him as hard as he could to get the real feeling of what was required from the scene.

Funny that, because when Batman throws Joker's head into the glass, it looks brutal as fuck. Any normal person would've passed out instantly.
 
Why are those "visually interesting"?

What do those shots tell you, apart from "wow, this is cool set design"?

Perhaps you should illustrate what is a "visually interesting" shot, to contextualize why these aren't.

Because to me, these capture my eye pretty well.

And I get what you're saying about intense use of close-ups and shot-reverse-shot, especially in BB (which IS duller visually after the first third of the movie), as well as your criticisms of the dialogue, but I think you coming on too strong with some of these criticisms.
 
Let me just be clear that I don't think Nolan is a BAD director, just kinda a boring one. I'm still a big fan of his two Batman films, and The Prestige is pretty fun, if not very rewatchable after the twists are in the open.
 
Let me just be clear that I don't think Nolan is a BAD director, just kinda a boring one. I'm still a big fan of his two Batman films, and The Prestige is pretty fun, if not very rewatchable after the twists are in the open.

That's his most rewatchable film IMO. The story and performances themselves are enough to carry that movie along. Inception I got tired of after the second rewatch and the Batman movies may have taken a few more but I got bored by both of them pretty quickly. Especially TDK. Quickly realized I was mostly waiting for Joker scenes. And Begins I can only watch until the dock scene.
 
Let me just be clear that I don't think Nolan is a BAD director, just kinda a boring one. I'm still a big fan of his two Batman films, and The Prestige is pretty fun, if not very rewatchable after the twists are in the open.

I disagree. The Prestige is one of my most multiple viewed films from the prior decade.
 
Why are those "visually interesting"?

What do those shots tell you, apart from "wow, this is cool set design"?

Set design, blocking, camera placement, and lighting all contribute to a scene looking visually interesting. Just because Batman Begins is kind of bland looking doesn't mean his other films aren't visually stunning.


I disagree. The Prestige is one of my most multiple viewed films from the prior decade.

Memento and The Prestige are both very rewatchable.
 
That pause was planned actually. It was in a making of video. I was more impressed by this personally:

Christian Bale stated in an interview that during the interrogation scene, Heath Ledger wanted him to beat him as hard as he could to get the real feeling of what was required from the scene.

Funny that, because when Batman throws Joker's head into the glass, it looks brutal as fuck. Any normal person would've passed out instantly.

I really want to know how hard he can punch though.
 
Perhaps you should illustrate what is a "visually interesting" shot, to contextualize why these aren't.

Because to me, these capture my eye pretty well.

And I get what you're saying about intense use of close-ups and shot-reverse-shot, especially in BB (which IS duller visually after the first third of the movie), as well as your criticisms of the dialogue, but I think you coming on too strong with some of these criticisms.
I mean shots where many things are happening at once, where the movie watcher has multiple concepts to grasp at in the same shot. There was a great discussion about this on jim emerson's blog recently.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2012/06/alien_in_3d_just_one_frame.html

I mean shots like these, for instance :
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And we're talking about static shots, evidently. If we're talking about moving shots, well, Nolan isn't exactly great in those either, but I guess BB has a memorable one (the sliding towards the pit one where Wayne saves Ra's).

And we won't even adress the true authors, who know how to shoot scenes to build suspense (Tarantino, De Palma, Melville, Hitchcock, Leone, Spielberg to an extent) or emotions (Ozu, Wilder, Scorsese, Spielberg again to an extent) or to say just about anything (Welles).

Nolan is just a very boring, by the books director who's got some wickedly popular script ideas.
 
Foreign Jackass is a.......... jackass indeed, never seen so much nonsense in one post.

Seen Batman Begins again today and IMO, what an incredible movie. TDK seems like the superior movie, and yet I like Begins more. And dat Zimmer/Newton Howard music is so bombastic, seeing this on a good A/V system is glorious, dat bass.
 
If we want to talk about the script, Batman Begins was much better paced and there was more cheesy dialogue in TDK.

Honestly, if you really sat down with both of their scripts, I think you'd find about the same proportion of cheesy lines, monologuing, and characters literally explaining their motivations/arcs in each.

The difference is that BB goes out of its way to make callback to its cheesy lines as stingers way more than TDK.

"Didn't you get the memo?"
"Nice coat."
"You never learned to mind your surroundings."
etc etc

And, yes, TDK does it too (the "die a hero" stuff), but it's thematically relevant.

And all that said, it doesn't bother me in the least.
 
Policemen running. What else?

Look at the Alien shots. In both of these shots, multiple things are shown at the same time. In the ones with the body on the left, you have two conversations simultaneously going on, one in the foreground right between two people about to examine the body, and one between another group who's in deep background. You've got the dead body in the shot because it helps to build tension (it has an alien in it, remember?). You've got the stressed out people in the background who don't know what the fuck is gonna happen, and you've got the two "scientists" in the front.

The other shot has the alien in the foreground, the genuine terror in the faces of the two people in the background, again the dead body on the right side of the screen, a constant reminder, you've got a similar "doorway" composition (repeated everywhere in Alien, from set design to shot composition), you've got the guy on the left to watch for because he's going to try and manipulate the alien...

That's a lot more information than just "COPS RUNNING SCARED".
 
Neither of those shots from Alien is as good as the the three shots posted earlier from Nolan's work.

I'm really not understanding what I'm supposed to be mesmerized by in that shot. That there are several things in a single shot? I even read the article, and I still don't understand why someone would find it particularly awe inspiring.
 
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