Dunkirk - Christopher Nolan's next film

Yeah I wasn't all that interested in seeing it until I saw the reviews. Saving Private Ryan perfected the WW2 movie for me and then things like Pearl Harbour took the good out of it. So I didn't bother with Hacksaw Ridge, Letters From Iwa Jimo when they came out even though they got great reviews.

Have not seen Hacksaw Ridge yet, but I strongly recommend Letters from Iwo Jima, fantastic movie, with the bonus of it being told from the very rarely seen (at least in Western Cinema) viewpoint of the Japanese.
 
More like was a genius. He hasn't been able too reinvent himself that much. His two best movies are the first 2 movies he made.
Haven't seen Hateful Eight so can't comment. His first two films may be his best, but that doesn't discount the rest, especially when Pulp Fiction is perhaps one of the greatest ever. He's probably only directed two duds, and perhaps a case could be made for their quality. Without derailing too much, does he really need to 'reinvent' himself? That seems an awfully strict criteria.
 
Gotta love how Tarantino is still hailed as a genius. When all he does is repeat himself while taking little or no risks. The guy is literally remaking his own films at this point. The only difference being the heating in the room in which everyone is stuck in.
I would say his unique style is a massive risk in itself, hence the divisive nature of his films. You seem rather impassioned; why so spiteful against QT?
 
This reads as "anyone that disagrees with MY opinion is wrong!". A touch of hypocrisy in your post, as well as a clear contradiction. Nonetheless, Tarantino is a genius, Nolan is good. Both deserve credit for producing some very good films.
I'm sorry but.. what contradiction?
 
I'm sorry but.. what contradiction?
You slammed the idea of hating on someone/something because it's "cool to do so", yet proceeded to do just that with Tarantino. You could just as easily swap around the words "Tarantino" and "Nolan" in your previous post and the post would be just as relevant. Neither deserve to be creatively dismissed.
 
Nah. If the Soviets were making that much progress, we would've went straight into France instead of chipping away at North Africa and Italy.

Highly unlikely unless we were seeing Germany in complete collapse which would have been unlikely in 1942 or 1943. While the time between Dunkirk and D-Day did of course give the Germans time to prepare defenses, the Western Allies were in no real shape to launch a major offensive in Europe. The invasions of North Africa were largely unopposed, and those that were opposed were mostly by French troops loyal to the Petain government and were mixed levels of resistance. The US Army still had much to learn being inexperienced in war as battles like the Kasserine Pass showed.

The mistakes made in the invasion of Sicily and Italy were lessons well learned by the Western Allies, lessons that if they had not been learned might have spelled disaster against German forces in France. They were also chosen as places the Western Allies could come to grips with the Germans and their allies and make some progress in the war effort. In the end, they assured the safety of the Suez, led to the drawing off of German strength elsewhere, gave the US particularly valuable combat experience, allowed the Western Allies to show they were engaging the enemy, and in the end provided a few victories to keep the moral of the folks at home up.

The number of troops needed in North Africa and then Italy were much smaller than what would be needed to fight beyond the beaches in France and neither the US nor the UK were prepared to be able to send that many troops ashore nor support them logistically (in terms of ships, supplies, landing craft, etc).

The raid on Dieppe in 1942 shows exactly how unprepared the allies were at that point and if they had gone forward with a major invasion prior to learning the lessons of Dieppe it might have spelled complete disaster for the war effort in the West.
 
Highly unlikely unless we were seeing Germany in complete collapse which would have been unlikely in 1942 or 1943. While the time between Dunkirk and D-Day did of course give the Germans time to prepare defenses, the Western Allies were in no real shape to launch a major offensive in Europe. The invasions of North Africa were largely unopposed, and those that were opposed were mostly by French troops loyal to the Petain government and were mixed levels of resistance. The US Army still had much to learn being inexperienced in war as battles like the Kasserine Pass showed.

The mistakes made in the invasion of Sicily and Italy were lessons well learned by the Western Allies, lessons that if they had not been learned might have spelled disaster against German forces in France. They were also chosen as places the Western Allies could come to grips with the Germans and their allies and make some progress in the war effort. In the end, they assured the safety of the Suez, led to the drawing off of German strength elsewhere, gave the US particularly valuable combat experience, allowed the Western Allies to show they were engaging the enemy, and in the end provided a few victories to keep the moral of the folks at home up.

The number of troops needed in North Africa and then Italy were much smaller than what would be needed to fight beyond the beaches in France and neither the US nor the UK were prepared to be able to send that many troops ashore nor support them logistically (in terms of ships, supplies, landing craft, etc).

The raid on Dieppe in 1942 shows exactly how unprepared the allies were at that point and if they had gone forward with a major invasion prior to learning the lessons of Dieppe it might have spelled complete disaster for the war effort in the West.
This was a hypothetical scenario wherein the Soviets had already bled the Nazis dry and were rolling them back to Berlin. In this case, our dance with Rommel in the desert wouldn't have taken place. Else we leave all of Europe to the Communists...
 
You slammed the idea of hating on someone/something because it's "cool to do so", yet proceeded to do just that with Tarantino. You could just as easily swap around the words "Tarantino" and "Nolan" in your previous post and the post would be just as relevant. Neither deserve to be creatively dismissed.
But that's the thing though, Nolan's films get so much stick while Tarantino's generally don't get half as much. That was my point.
 
Jesus don't take Nolan reviews so seriously. The man can do no wrong for a lot of people. I actually disliked Interstellar and Inception.
 
Jesus don't take Nolan reviews so seriously. The man can do no wrong for a lot of people. I actually disliked Interstellar and Inception.
The reviewers have actually turned quite a bit on him in recent years so I would take them seriously. I didn't like TDKR and Interstellar but I found Dunkirk to be outstanding. Up there with his best.
 

God thats awful.

The writer doesn't at all make the case why he thinks it's the best war movie of all time(The only mention seems to be in the click bait title), so many bizarre parts

'And who but Nolan, born in London to a British father and an American mother, would tackle WWII without America in it? '
Wait until this guy finds out about subtitled war movies.

'But there's little doubt that he has, without sentimentality or sanctimony, raised that genre to the level of art

What level of horse shit is this.
 
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It is interesting that Saving Private Ryan's blood and gore approach is now viewed as "war porn" and something to be criticized, when at the time it was actually something that garnered some praise in that it brought more realism to the war movie genre, instead of the old clean, bloodless, stoic deaths, you have messy, painful, horrible deaths. I am sure they are out there, but I don't know anyone who watched that movie and thought, "Oh boy I want to go to war, that looks great!"
 
It is interesting that Saving Private Ryan's blood and gore approach is now viewed as "war porn" and something to be criticized, when at the time it was actually something that garnered some praise in that it brought more realism to the war movie genre, instead of the old clean, bloodless, stoic deaths, you have messy, painful, horrible deaths. I am sure they are out there, but I don't know anyone who watched that movie and thought, "Oh boy I want to go to war, that looks great!"
While I do agree with you, I don't think anyone criticizes SPR's approach in itself, more that every war movie since then has felt that the way to emulate it's success, effect and impact is to simply become even more graphic. To simply recreate the graphic and damage misses the point - and I think it is the lazy movies that only replicate that from SPR that are justifiably criticized.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...his-best-film-so-far?CMP=twt_a-film_b-gdnfilm

5 stars from Peter Bradshaw, who is usually quite hard to please. Most critics are saying that it is Nolan's best film so far. I'm very excited for this. Not as much as I was for Interstellar though.

On a side note, I thought the Dunkirk scene in Atonement was tremendous. Joe Wright is a very intelligent and talented filmmaker.
 
The 'war porn' criticism regarding SPR is very poor stuff. Hopefully swoosh's view above is what's actually meant by the criticism.
 
When people are saving best ever war film - are they meaning it....or are we talking blockbuster war movie? I mean, either way, it's massive massive praise. Kudos Nolan, seems like he's gonna be the comeback of the year. I wasn't going to book it in, but looks like I'll meerkat movies it next Tuesday now.
 
I'm seeing this next week and with every review it is building it up to fail in my eyes! I hope I'm not disappointed
 
Rave reviews all around.

I really do like Nolan, but still, my favorite works from him came with his more intimate and smaller projects such as Following, Memento, even Prestige. Batman Begins is also my favorite in the trilogy.
His monumental movies such as Interstellar or Inception were also enjoyable and great in its own way and I always appreciated his main approach of putting so much emphasis on the story of such a big blockbuster projects which is a rare, even quite unique thing nowadays. Felt with both movies that he went a little bit too far with trying to make a movie "bigger than life".

Dunkirk is an unusually short movie for Nolan. Also, from what I read Dunkirk is more study of people (isolation, desperation, bravery) and along with that hits you visually. Really looking forward to this.


P.S. Yeah, SPR and term "war porn" associated with it is garbage in so many ways.
 
Very wary of reviews of Nolan films considering I thought Inception was ok and Interstellar's time warp theory seemed to escape from the screen and cause me to feel like I'd been watching it for about 10 hours. THe reviews at the time would make you think both were among the greatest achievements in the history of mankind.

I'm interested to see how he does with a war film though, where he's tied in to portraying a historic event and the people involved in it, rather than portraying a bunch of stuff that's been made up. I think it could suit his directing style. His films always seem to be grounded and character focused, which would suit a war film a lot better than a film about a bunch of people prancing around inside someone's dream.
 
While I do agree with you, I don't think anyone criticizes SPR's approach in itself, more that every war movie since then has felt that the way to emulate it's success, effect and impact is to simply become even more graphic. To simply recreate the graphic and damage misses the point - and I think it is the lazy movies that only replicate that from SPR that are justifiably criticized.

he directly calls it WAR PORN. :lol::rolleyes:

He does not say SPR was ok and then direct criticism at those who came after.
 
Very wary of reviews of Nolan films considering I thought Inception was ok and Interstellar's time warp theory seemed to escape from the screen and cause me to feel like I'd been watching it for about 10 hours. THe reviews at the time would make you think both were among the greatest achievements in the history of mankind.

I'm interested to see how he does with a war film though, where he's tied in to portraying a historic event and the people involved in it, rather than portraying a bunch of stuff that's been made up. I think it could suit his directing style. His films always seem to be grounded and character focused, which would suit a war film a lot better than a film about a bunch of people prancing around inside someone's dream.

:lol:
 
Could someone explain to me what the 'plot' of a film about Dunkirk would be about... the trailer looks beautiful but I was left clueless as to what was the story
 
Could someone explain to me what the 'plot' of a film about Dunkirk would be about... the trailer looks beautiful but I was left clueless as to what was the story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation

Basically an attempt to rescue hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers from a beach after they were cut off and stranded there while the Germans were advancing on them.

A lot of the ships and boats who helped were civilian vessels rather than Navy.

No idea what story you'd put around that but from the trailers it looks like it'll focus on individual's caught up in it and personal stories, rather than focusing on portraying the event as a whole.
 
Could someone explain to me what the 'plot' of a film about Dunkirk would be about... the trailer looks beautiful but I was left clueless as to what was the story

It's a rather intimate survival story with little dialogue told from three perspectives, land, air and sea. We follow a group of soldiers who try to get to safety, a pilot (Hardy) providing support from the sky and a civilian yacht owner (Mark Rylance) who has been called upon as part of the rescue mission. The three strands span over different time frames but are eventually interwoven in clever, intricate ways. It is, first and foremost, a masterpiece of sound design, cinematography and editing, extremely suspenseful and intense.
 
Just got back from watching this. Not sure about being Nolan's best but this was an intense viewing from start to finish.
 
Is anyone able to explain the Kubrick comparisons for me? Is it just lazy name plucking fake analysis, or is there actually some thought behind it. Cos they both did one in space and both did one in war. Strip away all judgements of quality; I'm talking about stylistic/thematic/political/philisophical similarities. I struggle to see many:

Kubrick is the fussy, uncompromising dictator who's clinical aesthetic became ever more prominent with each film. Regardless of the scale, his films have a mechanical intricacy and beat with a clockwork heart. Nolan is the crowdpleaser who makes bombastic pictures. He's a vast world builder with a long focus and definite destination. The excessive expository dialogue in Nolan movies should shut down any comparison instantly. Kubrick just wouldn't spoon feed an audience in that way. His is much more of a self-service take it or leave it approach. Hal/Humans, pessimist/optimist, suspicion/belief, subversive/conservative.

Jonathan Glazer and Kubrick are very different filmmakers but I can certainly see some similarities between the two. Likewise Hitchcock and M.Night have filmographies of vastly different quality but there are definitely elements that bare comparison (mostly because M rips a lot off).

I'm not trying to hold Kubrick up as the gold standard and to shit on Nolan by the way, I'm just questioning something that feels very off.