Angel Dust on 6/7/2010 at 04:43
Looking good. Hopefully this will break what, for me, has been a steady decline in the quality of Nolan's work since the dazzling Memento. I've found that as his career has progressed that while he hasn't yet made a 'bad' film, they have been become increasingly bloated, emotionally inert and quite frankly, in the case of The Dark Knight, a bit messy. I give him massive points for ambition and for trying to bring some intelligence and originality back into the blockbuster but he has not, in my view, fulfilled the promise seen in Memento.
Scots Taffer on 6/7/2010 at 05:07
While Memento is certainly his thematic best, the visual and cinematic language that Nolan has developed through movies like Insomnia, The Prestige and The Dark Knight are what allow a movie like Inception to look as good as it does. Not to mention if it hadn't been for the ridiculous megasuccess of TDK, this movie would never have been made.
edit: I'm banning myself from clicking anything Inception related from here on in. I want no more spoilers of any kind. I just want to be entertained.
The Alchemist on 6/7/2010 at 23:14
I want this movie to be awesome as much as it is a rip of Paprika (hey, relax, I mean in the same way that Matrix is inspired by GITS), but the fact that (
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/m/10012256-predators/) this movie got 100% freshness is concerning about the accuracy of this number.
SubJeff on 6/7/2010 at 23:38
Is that in the same way as Paprika is a rip-off of Dreamscape?
The Alchemist on 7/7/2010 at 00:47
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Is that in the same way as Paprika is a rip-off of Dreamscape?
Yeah.
Angel Dust on 7/7/2010 at 01:22
Quote Posted by The Alchemist
I want this movie to be awesome as much as it is a rip of Paprika (hey, relax, I mean in the same way that Matrix is inspired by GITS), but the fact that (
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/m/10012256-predators/) this movie got 100% freshness is concerning about the accuracy of this number.
Look at the average rating of both films.
Inception is about 8-9/10 whereas
Predators is about 6/10. The tomatometer is really an indication of how many people had a positive reaction to a film it rather than how much they liked it; that's what the average rating is for. Both films will drop soon, a lot of films start out with 100%, but expect
Predators to drop the most (although it does look like my cautiously optimistic view on it, based on the director, is looking to be on the money. It's not going to be the complete cinematic abortion that everyone was predicting but a good solid B-movie)
Sulphur on 17/7/2010 at 17:10
Well, my mind's blown. Best thing I've seen in years. My mind's still processing it, and I'm sure there are a few questionable plot points, but I didn't even realise the movie was 2 and a half hours long until we walked out of the cinema. That's the mark of an excellent movie.
I'm not going to say anything about the plot because it's the sort of film you should just go in for blind, but what I especially love about it is that Nolan's been able to make so cerebral a movie in so accessible a package. There's some of the most mindblowingly choreographed action scenes this side of the first Matrix running in tandem with a labyrinthine, deceptively layered plot.
Couple of (pretty non-spoilerific) standouts: the bit where Ariadne swivels a mirror out and rotates it completely around to face the camera, and there's not a single shot where you can see the camera at all. It's a small thing, and just effective CGI work I'm sure, but when I saw that, my jaw=dropped.
There was also an important scene involving a plummeting body where, due to some ridiculous technical hiccough, the audio cut out in the theatre and we essentially had to lip-read the dialogue. Some smartass in the left row filled in the dialogue for us MST3K style with the most feminine manly voice you've ever heard, complete with a very ladylike Wilhelm scream at the scene's climax. It was so good, half the the theatre applauded him, then threw popcorn at him before we all went back to cursing the film operator.
Summary: intelligent cinema just got mainstream. You must see this. Now. Go.
Queue on 17/7/2010 at 17:58
Okay, this one sounds too good to pass up. And after what Sulphur just said...
...I'm going to have to see this one in the cinema.
(Please come back, Sugar. All is forgiven!)
I'm still not buying the popcorn.
quinch on 17/7/2010 at 18:03
I'm a bit concerned about reports that you have to see it more than once to appreciate it. I remember feeling a bit let down with The Usual Suspects because of this.
Sulphur on 17/7/2010 at 18:32
I've only seen it once, and I already appreciate it, though I sure wouldn't mind going again. I doubt the weave of it would start to unravel upon closer inspection, and I wouldn't worry about it being too confusing the first time around: it's not. There's an admirable balancing act happening throughout, where the movie walks the fine line between giving you too much information and too little, with nary a goddamn stumble.*
Queue: Popcorn? That's what friends (or wives!) are for. ;) (Though of course, when it's time to get the tickets, they're always the first to break out that line and glance meaningfully in your direction. Oh well!)
*And, thinking about it further on, this is why the movie is easier to digest in one go than, say, Memento. It's also why some will decry it as telling too much when it should be showing instead. Those are valid points - some depth is sacrificed at the cost of repetitive exposition. But I didn't find myself caring so much because of the sheer momentum of what was happening on the screen most of the time.
