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Showing posts with the label christopher nolan

TOP 30 REASONS WHY JUSTICE LEAGUE IS THE BEST COMIC-BOOK MOVIE

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A while back, I reviewed the Justice League movie and I wasn't too kind to it. In fact, I was the opposite of kind to it: I was unkind in a big way. After giving the film a couple of re-watchings, I now realize I was wrong and I feel like I understand the movie a lot better now. There were countless things I missed, misunderstood or flat-out lied about so consider this list a re-review and please ignore my initial take on Justice League as it was unfair, silly and wrong. I finally learned to fully appreciate the film's qualities and rethink a lot of the problems I had with the film because they weren't real problems at all. I firmly believe that Justice League is the best comic-book movie ever made and here's why: 30 SOCRATES Famous philosopher Socrates once said: " There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.".   I have never seen a reviewer make this connection but this quote is at the very core of the Justice League mov

DUNKIRK REVIEW - PODCAST

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We review Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk on The Big Rewind .

DUNKIRK - REVIEW

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Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk is a WWII movie following several characters including soldiers, pilots and civilians as they try to survive during an evacuation in the North of France, just before German forces close in. This story is told from different perspectives and periods of time as a British mariner sails a boat towards Dunkirk in order to help the Allied troops while a Spitfire pilot faces numerous potentially deadly challenges in the air and soldiers on the ground try everything they can to stay alive and make it home. The intensity of the expanding war is captured perfectly by showing the humanity and heroism involved alongside the pain and misery these soldiers face every single minute that goes by. No matter how flawed the main characters are, we still understand them and feel for them since none of what they're dealing with is their fault: they just happen to all be stuck in the grimmest mess. These are people who are so tired and beaten that

DUNKIRK - VLOG 14/08/17

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I talk briefly about Christopher Nolan's latest: Dunkirk .

INSOMNIA - REVIEW

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Before Christopher Nolan's name was synonymous with big, high-concept sci-fi blockbusters but after the director's breakout hit Memento , he made Insomnia , an Alaska-set remake of the 1997 cult Norwegian thriller. The film sees Al Pacino play an ageing detective who travels to Alaska to try and solve a murder case. After he mistakenly shoots his partner in the fog while following the killer, he attempts to cover up his blunder but he is soon blackmailed by the murderer. The lack of any sleep also starts to confuse the detective and his insomnia plays tricks with his memory. Insomnia was released the same year as One Hour Photo , a film which also starred Robin Williams in a creepy against-type role. The fact that the actor and comedian agreed to tackle two chilling characters in a row was a bold move which showed great versatility, especially since he did such a brilliant job in both movies. And Death To Smoochy , of course. Insomnia often gets forgotten as a Christop

INTERSTELLAR - VLOG 20/12/14

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I review Christopher Nolan's latest. It's called Interstellar , in case you don't know.

INTERSTELLAR - REVIEW

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After finally letting go of his (and our) beloved Dark Knight trilogy, Christopher Nolan finally ventured into the unknown, to more ambitious cinema where no man has gone before. Well, maybe Kubrick... Still, with Gravity greedily and, some would say, undeservedly claiming the space opera genre last year, only Mr Nolan could swoop in and reclaim it with a movie crazy enough to make you completely forget that Sandra Bullock was once spinning around somewhere. The film, of course, is Interstellar : a grand sci-fi blockbuster in which an ex-engineer/space pilot-turned farmer leads an expedition through wormholes and strange planets in what is essentially Earth's very last hope for survival as our world literally turns to dust. We spend some time with Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his family which includes his young daughter Murph (later played by Jessica Chastain) who seems to believe in ghosts and his father-in-law, played by a sadly once again restrained John Lithgow. C

MEMENTO - REVIEW

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Christopher Nolan's breakout hit Memento was a big deal back in 2000 but risked not being relevant for much longer than that, with it being very much a concept movie. Luckily, very few have attempted/risked telling a story backwards so it's looking like Nolan's film is safe for now. The film sees Leonard (Guy Pearce), a guy with a unique condition making him unable to create new memories who is on the hunt for the man, known only as John G., who raped and killed his wife. The story is told backwards and is intercut with a slow-developing strand told chronologically (if at an unknown point in time) and shot in black and white. The film opens with Leonard shooting his friend Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) in the face and we get to see, little by little, how this came to be. Like with Inception or The Prestige , here we have a thriller with a different approach which develops sort of like a maze, almost losing you here and there but ultimately keeping you hooked. Leonard uses v

MAN OF STEEL - REVIEW

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SPOILER WARNING F***. That'll teach me to get really excited about a blockbuster. Alright, how do I put this without pissing you guys off... Superman Returns was better. Woops... Sorry. I can't think of a film I was more looking forward to than Man Of Steel this year. On paper: there's no way it could have gone wrong. You had a brilliant cast, kick-ass trailers, some great writers behind it, Christopher Nolan as producer, Zack Snyder: a director known for making great-looking movies... But it all led to this: quite possibly the most charmless Superman movie to date. The film opens on the most Avatar -like Krypton you'll ever see (with touches of Dune thrown in for camp value) as we follow Jor-El (Russell Crowe) who is busy worrying about the fact that the entire planet is about to explode, though he doesn't seem too bothered about leaving the dying world himself, or getting his wife to safety somehow. Jor-El also happens to be at the heart of a

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES - REVIEW

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SPOILERS AHEAD!  And so the Dark Knight rises... At last "the legend ends" and Christopher Nolan's Bat-reboot comes to its thrilling conclusion. The character's re-invention, after his disappointing campy late 90's turns, made him respectable again and brought the hero back with a vengeance.   Batman Begins spent half of its time showing us Bruce Wayne's progress from Billionaire orphan to Billionaire orphan with a penchant for bats and ass-kickin' and the other half of its time giving us a taster of Batman in action complete with megalomaniac villains, cool-as-f*** gadgets and loads of action. What Nolan and co. brought to the table was a serious, semi-realistic approach, an emphasis on plot and a scale worthy of the character. The Dark Knight was the money shot: taking everything that was good about Begins and cranking it up to 11 with two fantastic villains, a deep, bittersweet plot, thrilling action by the buckets and raised stakes. Neithe