Christopher Nolan recently announced a new project entitled Quay, a documentary short about two British stop-motion animators. Set to premiere next week, it’s a far cry from Nolan’s blockbusters in both scope and subject matter. Yet it’s clearly a personal project, with Nolan using his clout and money to promote two obscure filmmakers. Every artist …
It’s impressive enough that most actors can go from role to role in quick succession. But the world likes to freak out when that transition is visible. With the release of the new boxing film Southpaw last weekend, the internet has been filled with videos and gifs of Jake Gyllenhaal’s transformation into a boxer. It took …
If Christopher Nolan is not the most popular, talented, influential or even interesting director working today, then he is certainly the most important. The release of a Christopher Nolan movie, even one that “underperforms” at the box office like this week’s Interstellar, is by far the most fervently talked about work of art for several …
For almost 50 years, Batman has graced the silver screen. Whether working solo or accompanied by sidekicks and associates, Gotham City is continually saved by his enduring presence. Even though the eight theatrical live-action films featuring the Caped Crusader have had their ups and downs, there is no denying his appeal as a lead character. …
Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman have been one of the most complex characters in pop culture, endlessly analyzed, since his first appearance 75 years ago. From comics, to television and to film, Batman and his creators have designed a layered, flawed and fascinating character. Never was this truer than in director Christopher Nolan’s …
It’s time that we get over the Dark Knight Trilogy. Yes The Dark Knight is a great movie. But Batman Begins is just a good movie and The Dark Knight Rises with it’s absurd plot holes and magic orphan vision is like Prometheus with a cape. The fundamental problem with Nolan’s ultra-realism is that it can’t support …
Picking out ten moments from The Dark Knight Trilogy, what is essentially one epic journey encompassing 459 minutes, is an almost impossible task, as it leaves out so many wonderful scenes enriching the story or bewitching the audience.
When artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger teamed up to create Batman in the late 1930’s, they faced the task of creating a character who could capitalize on the pandemonium surrounding Superman, but who would nevertheless have a look and personality all his own. Kane and Finger came up with a hero who …
Christopher Nolan has earned carte blanche by dint of not just vision and execution but depth; he always buries material under the surface. Are you watching closely?
Superhero movies have become a staple of summer movie season, for better or for worse. The question often is not whether we’ll see a superhero movie anymore, but how many we’ll see, with The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises being released within the last three months alone. Some may point to …
With The Dark Knight Rises opening this week, it’s only appropriate to look back at the series’ first two entries as well as previous incarnations of the Batman. Compiling a top ten list of best scenes from a character that has spanned decades would appear a fruitless effort. With a wealth of rich images, performances, …
Anyone who saw Memento upon release surely could never envisage the career path that its London-born director, Christopher Nolan, would take,moving from hugely impressive small, independent films to being the king of big budget and, along with Darren Aronofsky, surely Hollywood’s premier filmmaker. The crescendo of this status will come this summer, with the opening …
In 1998, Wally Pfister shot The Hi-Line in Montana in the dead of winter on a $300,000 budget. It got him into the competition at Sundance Film Festival and while the film is all but forgoten, it was there, that he met Christopher Nolan who asked him to be his D.O.P. in the neo-noir thriller …
100- Brick (2005) Directed by Rian Johnson Genre: Film Noir, Mystery, Crime Rian Johnson’s Brick is a rare gem; the low-key, post-modern approach mingles ’40s and ’50s costume accents and the hard-boiled attitude of the great 1930s and ’40s detective novels with the institutional drab of a suburban high school. Take the regular struggles of …