Let's not forget that not only does he make great movies, actually draws people to the box office he also does it coming in under budget and ahead of schedule most the time. He is like the dictionary definition of a director a studio loves.
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Wkd BO 0714-1617 - Audiences go Ape, Sick of Spider-man and Wonder Woman (finally)?
- Thread starter xaosslug
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Let's not forget that not only does he make great movies, actually draws people to the box office he also does it coming in under budget and ahead of schedule most the time. He is like the dictionary definition of a director a studio loves.
Obliterator
Member
Yeah Nolan is one of the very few directors whose name on a movie actually means something to the larger audience. Most directors if you mention their name to casual movie fans they'll have no idea who they are. Nolan is pretty well known outside of "the bubble"
I can do without Killer croc being called a "Nigger"
DecoReturns
Member
"From the director of the Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception"
Is all the tagline he really needs.
People really loved those movies. Inception reception was a lot more then I except when it came out. Although I remember that summer being awful until Inception
Is all the tagline he really needs.
People really loved those movies. Inception reception was a lot more then I except when it came out. Although I remember that summer being awful until Inception
nhlducks35
Member
Chris Nolan
He's probably had a blank check and free reign since Inception
- Comes in under budget
- Is always on schedule
- Is a pleasure to work with
- All of his movies are certified fresh on RT
- His movies are profitable
He's probably had a blank check and free reign since Inception
PhoncipleBone
Banned
WB not caring as long as he brings in the money.
ratcliffja
Member
No, a Blank Check remake would be the best thing they could give him.
Smokey_Run
Member
Most people I know just refer to his movies as "the next Chris Nolan film" when the first trailer drops followed by "I'm definitely seeing that." His name is definitely a brand.
broncobuster
Banned
Inception 2 would blow past $1 Billion if Mr. Nolan decides to make it.
BronsonLee
Member
I remember people not knowing what to make of Inception, then it made 800 million dollars
A real Gravity kinda situation, weird how WB's the one that keeps landing those
A real Gravity kinda situation, weird how WB's the one that keeps landing those
hodayathink
Member
When you give creative directors that much freedom, sometimes you get (Gravity, Inception, Fury Road) and sometimes you get stinkers. The trick is finding a balance.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Nolan and James Cameron - that's it.
You put in the credits, and you'll fill the theatre. Spielberg used to have that, but his recent films aren't that great tbh so he lost the "it" factor he once had.
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
With Leo? Yeah, I agree.
Man, I miss Brittany Murphy.
What an eminently stupid thing to say.
That's a much nicer version of saying what I wanted to say.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
So, I finally saw Baby Driver. And I really liked it!
I also think it's the least of his five films. Like, it succeeds for the most part at everything it's trying to do. But it really seems that if he doesn't have Simon Pegg helping him craft a story and anchoring the film emotionally, Wright will select a bland cipher as his center. He did it with Scott Pilgrim, and he did it here. And what's crazy is I liked Ansel Elgort in The Fault in Our Stars. He has like half the personality here. And the central romance is thinner than the napkins on Debora's diner counter.
(Me & my wife were talking through how shifting the primary relationship from Baby & the dreamgirl waitress to Baby & his foster dad would have increased the emotional connection & resonance exponentially, but hey...)
So it's a superficial, thin, fun exercise in style, and it's amazing style. Gunfights, car chases, it's a movie that's remixing itself as it's playing, which is fucking remarkable and had me laughing multiple times at just how cool it was (Tequila is the standout setpiece). But while I really liked it, it's also an easy slot at the bottom of his filmography. He's still never come close to making a bad movie. But this is the first film of his that's just all-around-good. Not very good. Not great. Not fuckin' wow that was goddamned amazing.
Just good.
So of course it's the one that's made easily the most money.
edit: seeing Dunkirk in 70mm this Sunday.
I also think it's the least of his five films. Like, it succeeds for the most part at everything it's trying to do. But it really seems that if he doesn't have Simon Pegg helping him craft a story and anchoring the film emotionally, Wright will select a bland cipher as his center. He did it with Scott Pilgrim, and he did it here. And what's crazy is I liked Ansel Elgort in The Fault in Our Stars. He has like half the personality here. And the central romance is thinner than the napkins on Debora's diner counter.
(Me & my wife were talking through how shifting the primary relationship from Baby & the dreamgirl waitress to Baby & his foster dad would have increased the emotional connection & resonance exponentially, but hey...)
So it's a superficial, thin, fun exercise in style, and it's amazing style. Gunfights, car chases, it's a movie that's remixing itself as it's playing, which is fucking remarkable and had me laughing multiple times at just how cool it was (Tequila is the standout setpiece). But while I really liked it, it's also an easy slot at the bottom of his filmography. He's still never come close to making a bad movie. But this is the first film of his that's just all-around-good. Not very good. Not great. Not fuckin' wow that was goddamned amazing.
Just good.
So of course it's the one that's made easily the most money.
edit: seeing Dunkirk in 70mm this Sunday.
broncobuster
Banned
Sometimes I have to remind myself that Kevin Smith was a thing from like 1995 to 2002.
Random Human
They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
Imagine how I feel, I watched Yoga Hosers last week.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
The 90s were weird, man. It was just an ungainly, awkward fuckin' decade.
And Kevin Smith spoke very clearly to a very specific sort of 90s dude. This Paris Review essay breaks it down really, really well.
Totally nailed it with Elgort having more of a personality in Fault of Our Stars. Hopefully his next project can lean into that more. Dude's good. It's been a long time since I've seen Scott Pilgrim, though. Need to rewatch that before saying it's THE "worst" of his batch.
Also, been having second and third thoughts on Valerian. Maybe Chamber was right to hype it? I dunno...
Also, been having second and third thoughts on Valerian. Maybe Chamber was right to hype it? I dunno...
Random Human
They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
Based on the first twenty minutes, Elgort seemed like he was going to have tons of personality in the movie, but after that he often just seems to be... there. I don't know if they were going for a DRIVE thing, but in that movie Gosling's quietness makes him seem hollow and later creepy, whereas in BABY DRIVER he's just... a guy. In the scene. Sort of hanging around.
That's an interesting point about shifting it to focus on Baby and his dad. I had thought afterwards that maybe they should've focused on Baby and Spacey, which is an interesting but sort of undercooked relationship. The dad would definitely be more sympathetic though.
I liked the actress playing the love interest but there's definitely not much there.
That's an interesting point about shifting it to focus on Baby and his dad. I had thought afterwards that maybe they should've focused on Baby and Spacey, which is an interesting but sort of undercooked relationship. The dad would definitely be more sympathetic though.
I liked the actress playing the love interest but there's definitely not much there.
TheTylerDurden
Member
kswis - what's your latest take on WW's chances of 800mil?
I think it still looks good.
Was this a particular cultural relic of the 90s, or did we all just grow up? I guess nerd culture went mainstream in a lot of ways during the 00s, but lonely, inexperienced young men probably continue to act like lonely, inexperienced young men.
I would be curious to see how someone 16-20 now reacts to something chasing Amy.
Except for Following.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Combination of both, really. The birth of the Geek Renaissance and the hyperactive eating itself of pop culture combined with the universality of boys fumbling through their own bullshit on the way to growing the fuck up got crystallized in a very specific way in the late '90s and early 00s.
I mean, yeah, there's a generalized aspect to what's being spoken about in that essay, but there's something very much tied to pop-culture, the consumption of it, the substituting of pop culture for actual life experience, that has a lot to do with it, and Kevin Smith gave a very loud, clear voice to that sorta shit.
Random Human
They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
That article is great. I re-watched most of Smith's movies recently and NONE have aged well (some are mind-boggling). But I hadn't noticed how shitty the "Chasing Amy" monologue is until that article pointed it out, which makes me question how I thought it was so deep when I was 16.
Don't worry. There's like 10 theaters within 10 miles or me and the rest are showing it. I plan on seeing it.
Just shocked me to see that one theater literally not even airing it.
Good article.
I gotta wonder how it was to grow up as a teen in the 90s, though. Was Chasing Amy really all the rage back then?
I'm more of a Dogma dude.
I don't think that Chasing Amy was ever big, even at the time. I think that I was in Grade 9 when the film came out, and I didn't watch it until late high school or during college. Bobby would have been smack dab in the target age for the film, so he probably can probably comment on the 1997 reception.
It was the sort of film that Wizard Magazine would name drop if they were explaining why Kevin Smith writing Daredevil should get people excited.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Chasing Amy wasn't like, breakout successful or anything, but it was definitely seen at the time as Kevin Smith's leap from pure comedy to something meaningful/thoughtful, and a lot of people my age considered it pretty damned sophisticated. I myself remember being stunned that Smith could do something like the argument in the rain outside the arena. I thought that was completely beyond him.
But K-Swiss put it pretty well, yeah: He got a lot of credit for being a lot more insightful/thoughtful than he really was, partially because a large chunk of his audience (myself included) wanted to see ourselves reflected in his films, so we basically just cut him all the slack we wanted to cut ourselves and gave him the credit neither he (or we) had actually earned.
But K-Swiss put it pretty well, yeah: He got a lot of credit for being a lot more insightful/thoughtful than he really was, partially because a large chunk of his audience (myself included) wanted to see ourselves reflected in his films, so we basically just cut him all the slack we wanted to cut ourselves and gave him the credit neither he (or we) had actually earned.
MHWilliams
Member
Actually, Nolan has had a blank check since The Dark Knight, but WB has been in his corner since Insomnia. WB gave away movie rights to keep Nolan's Interstellar in-house.
And to be fair to Kevin Smith, there's nothing wrong with making films that appeal to a certain demographic at a certain time. They have less comic book references and gay jokes, but Garden State and 500 Days of Summer were basically the same thing.
Kevin's problem is that he never really moved past that. The people of his age group grew up. Today's 16-23 year old male probably have creators closer to their own age making things that resonate with them. Not someone who could have gone to high school with their dad.
Kevin's problem is that he never really moved past that. The people of his age group grew up. Today's 16-23 year old male probably have creators closer to their own age making things that resonate with them. Not someone who could have gone to high school with their dad.
Random Human
They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
You need to watch Yoga Hosers if you want to see Kevin Smith trying to appeal to the Instagram generation. I don't know why you'd want to see that.
I liked it on first viewing, and on second, found I 1) appreciated even more on a technical and structural level what Wright did, and 2) enjoyed the movie less, in part for the reasons you laid out. I also found a lot of story and character issues, where the desire to subvert expectations comes at the expense of how the characters had been established.
Also, I swear the ending foot chase has a lot shots and beats that are lifted right out of the opening chase - swapping in the cop cars with cops. (Which might be what you meant by the film remixing itself as it goes.)
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I can't follow you there, man. I mean, only very loosely do those three movies (Garden State, 500 Days, & Chasing Amy) share any common ground, I feel. The comic book references and gay jokes aren't just window dressing in Chasing Amy, either. They're key aspects of the film's personality and storytelling. The pop-culture substitute for real life is woven into those films in a way neither Garden State or 500 Days are, really. Those films seem to be reaching for the more universal aspects of late-term coming-of-age in emotionally vulnerable young men who believe they should just have the things they want without really working for them. Those films also at least pay attention to the idea those wants shouldn't be easily/freely rewarded.
Chasing Amy so tightly intertwines its superficial bullshit to its emotionality, and seems to honestly believe simply being emotionally vulnerable is enough to warrant reward, regardless how you go about it.
Nolan is easily the most bankable director working today.
And by working, I am referring to directors that have released more than one film since the start of the Millennium.
I guess that I was thinking about the three more superficially than that. All three hit hardest if you were in your 20s when they were released. I'm not sure if Garden State would appeal to today's 22 year old as much as it did when I was 22. It was meant to be current (as backed up by the soundtrack). But you are right about the rest. Chasing Amy is also the most cynical of the three, probably for the reason you highlight in the last sentence.
MrPink93485
Member
A- Cinemascore for Dunkirk (Interstellar and Inception had B+)
A+ for Girls Trip
A+ for Girls Trip
Smokey_Run
Member
Even crazier when you realize Paramount wasn't able to do anything with either franchise they were given and they'll now revert back to Warner Bros in a year or so.
Well shit guys. Just got out of Dunkik and boy was it boring. Can't believe how disappointed I am. Practically zero character development. I didn't feel connected to any of them and although I didn't want to see them die, I also didn't care much what happened to them. Beautiful movie but that's about it. 6.5/10
So Valerian was.....fine. Just fine. Great visuals, designs, costumes, etc. But the whole time I felt like I watching Great Value Guardians of the Galaxy. Felt like that right down to Dane Dehaan and Cara ItsNotDelieveryItsDiGornio doing awkward Star-Lord & Gamora impressions for 2.5 hours. I'd recommend just waiting for it to hit TNT Saturday Night.
Is it bad enough to make the podcast circuit? I love watching crazy movies drunk and then listening to the takedown when hungover.
I call it the "Gods of Egypt"
I watched a movie last night that had Bai Ling as a super assassin that was trying to save her brother after he stole some super dna . I had just woken up and couldn't go back to sleep. Valerian seems like that kinda of movie