Dark Knight Rises

[Lucas]

[doug maverick]

Originally Posted by wenshu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GokKUqLcvD8&hd=1

Ok so, I think that The Dark Knight (and Christopher Nolan) is really overrated but I can't help geeking out over this.

why do you think they are overated? batman begins was eh...but the dark knight was amazing..and as for nolan he is always on point, a maticulous director who like to do as much in camera effects as possible before going to cgi, like he did in inception. a guy like that you cant call overated...he's on the money.

[wenshu]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

why do you think they are overated? batman begins was eh...but the dark knight was amazing..and as for nolan he is always on point, a maticulous director who like to do as much in camera effects as possible before going to cgi, like he did in inception. a guy like that you cant call overated...he's on the money.

If it hadn't been for Heath Ledger's performance The Dark Knight would have been completely unwatchable.

This guy breaks it down. http://vimeo.com/28792404

Don't even get me started with Inception. Nolan is over hyped to the point of cringe worthiness.

[doug maverick]

Originally Posted by wenshu

If it hadn't been for Heath Ledger's performance The Dark Knight would have been completely unwatchable.

This guy breaks it down. http://vimeo.com/28792404

Don't even get me started with Inception. Nolan is over hyped to the point of cringe worthiness.

youre entitled to your opinion...but i didnt ask for someone elses opinion i asked yours..lol

[sanjuro_ronin]

I am not a fan of the Keysi fighting crap, that's for sure.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin

I am not a fan of the Keysi fighting crap, that's for sure.

same.

[dirtyrat]

the dark knight was poorly edited.

and i agree it was really overrated.

like most Batman movies, it was more about the batsuit and not enough about the man behind the suit (World's Greatest Detective). and the fighting style should also reflect that.

[doug maverick]

Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin

I am not a fan of the Keysi fighting crap, that's for sure.

agreed. and i think i mentioned this and someone else did as well..youll never get a batman movie that is as cerebral as the comics are...just wont happened...i think thats what i like about the sherlock holmes movies. its what batman should be.

[dirtyrat]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

agreed. and i think i mentioned this and someone else did as well..youll never get a batman movie that is as cerebral as the comics are...just wont happened...i think thats what i like about the sherlock holmes movies. its what batman should be.

no need to make it too cerebral, there's subtle methods a writer or director can use to showcase Batman's genius and cunning.

[wenshu]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

youre entitled to your opinion...but i didnt ask for someone elses opinion i asked yours..lol

Fair enough. It was lazy of me. Nevertheless it is a very good illustration of a lot of what is wrong visually with Nolan's set pieces that explains far more than I ever could.

Look at Inception. The first 2/3rds of the entire movie is spent just explaining the rules to set up a jumbled incoherent mess of set pieces. Oh, now we're in the snow, oh wait the van is falling into the river, Oh now we're back in the snow, what's with the fucking snow? Do I even care enough to remember why they were doing all this stuff in the first place? No.

Not only does Nolan not respect his audience enough to let them figure it out he can't be trusted to maintain any sense of continuity, visually in his set pieces as demonstrated in the video I posted and narratively. It's not that it was hard to figure out it is just so poorly done that I don't care about any of the characters and just feel condescended to with an eye strain headache.

By comparison Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris employs a similar metaphysical dream/time travel mechanic except he doesn't tell you the rules. Allen respects his audience enough to figure it out, also the structure of the plot is such that the mechanic works without needing reams of expository dialogue to prop up the audience's suspension of disbelief. It is just as complicated but far less intrusive and used to great comedic effect (it sets up a killer punch line towards the end of the movie). Owen Wilson notwithstanding it's a great flick.

Traffic is another good comparison. There were 4 or 5 branching storylines and no matter what you always knew exactly where you were. Even though Soderburgh is cutting back and forth between all these characters you never have to stop and ask "wait, what? who is this guy and what does he want?"

I think Nolan aspires to all these things and fails miserably. But I'll always give him points for biting (and giving credit to) Micheal Mann. Mann's the man. All the best shots in The Dark Knight are the second unit shots that are meant as homages to Michael Mann.

Speaking of The Dark Knight. The ferry scene. Jarringly incongruous and added a superfluous 20 odd minutes of throw away characters that all of the sudden we're supposed to care about?

It serves as the act of redemption in the movie, but redemption should probably involve one of the characters whose arc we've actually been following for the last 90 minutes not a bunch of random people thrust into the middle of the narrative out of nowhere.

Points for blowing up Maggie Gyllenhal though.

[dirtyrat]

Originally Posted by wenshu

If it hadn't been for Heath Ledger's performance The Dark Knight would have been completely unwatchable.

This guy breaks it down. http://vimeo.com/28792404

Don't even get me started with Inception. Nolan is over hyped to the point of cringe worthiness.

finally took time to watch the video. now i understand why subconsciously i thought there was something wrong with the action sequence.

thanks for posting this!

[doug maverick]

Originally Posted by dirtyrat

no need to make it too cerebral, there's subtle methods a writer or director can use to showcase Batman's genius and cunning.

it wont happen...trust me...theyve tried it and warners has rejected those scripts everytime...however sherlock holmes is a game changer it shows that you can show all the cool detective work...all the forensics and still have kick ass action and the batmobile. so lets see what happens.

[doug maverick]

Originally Posted by wenshu

Fair enough. It was lazy of me. Nevertheless it is a very good illustration of a lot of what is wrong visually with Nolan's set pieces that explains far more than I ever could.

Look at Inception. The first 2/3rds of the entire movie is spent just explaining the rules to set up a jumbled incoherent mess of set pieces. Oh, now we're in the snow, oh wait the van is falling into the river, Oh now we're back in the snow, what's with the fucking snow? Do I even care enough to remember why they were doing all this stuff in the first place? No.

Not only does Nolan not respect his audience enough to let them figure it out he can't be trusted to maintain any sense of continuity, visually in his set pieces as demonstrated in the video I posted and narratively. It's not that it was hard to figure out it is just so poorly done that I don't care about any of the characters and just feel condescended to with an eye strain headache.

By comparison Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris employs a similar metaphysical dream/time travel mechanic except he doesn't tell you the rules. Allen respects his audience enough to figure it out, also the structure of the plot is such that the mechanic works without needing reams of expository dialogue to prop up the audience's suspension of disbelief. It is just as complicated but far less intrusive and used to great comedic effect (it sets up a killer punch line towards the end of the movie). Owen Wilson notwithstanding it's a great flick.

Traffic is another good comparison. There were 4 or 5 branching storylines and no matter what you always knew exactly where you were. Even though Soderburgh is cutting back and forth between all these characters you never have to stop and ask "wait, what? who is this guy and what does he want?"

I think Nolan aspires to all these things and fails miserably. But I'll always give him points for biting (and giving credit to) Micheal Mann. Mann's the man. All the best shots in The Dark Knight are the second unit shots that are meant as homages to Michael Mann.

Speaking of The Dark Knight. The ferry scene. Jarringly incongruous and added a superfluous 20 odd minutes of throw away characters that all of the sudden we're supposed to care about?

It serves as the act of redemption in the movie, but redemption should probably involve one of the characters whose arc we've actually been following for the last 90 minutes not a bunch of random people thrust into the middle of the narrative out of nowhere.

Points for blowing up Maggie Gyllenhal though.

decent analysis i disagree...but thats my opinion....not on the batman thing...but on inception...to me the first 20 minutes of that movie was never topped. which sucks but those twenty minutes alone make it worth my money. you mentioned michael mann all i could think is what if they shot heat with 70mm prints how amazing would that have been....see with inception i applaud the work, the visual the not relying heavily on special effects to achieve your visual...to sit back and just enjoy the ****ing movie...without being a fanboy about it. im a filmmaker, i do it for a living...nothing else just this, and some photography work here and there. im not a movie critic i dont sit and analyze a film and dissect it... i enjoy the work. with batman with inception the work was well done. inception explained alot? hmmm,.,.. then why was it called one of the most confusing films of the year? people saying they had to watch it twice... rule number 1 of filmmaking KISS. keep it simple, stupid. yes he explained alot of what was going on. its a 100million dollar block buster that was playing for more then a snobby film crowd but in malls in middle america where all they want to see is **** blow up...movies like that are made for the masses...now you take woody allens film a smaller film smaller budget, meant for the snobby high brow crowd of suedo cinephiles who consider themselves above it all, so you can throw stuff like reference to F. scott fitzgerald and a bunch of other stuff that the average person has no freaking idea what youre talking about.

[wenshu]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

decent analysis i disagree...but thats my opinion....not on the batman thing...but on inception...to me the first 20 minutes of that movie was never topped. which sucks but those twenty minutes alone make it worth my money. you mentioned michael mann all i could think is what if they shot heat with 70mm prints how amazing would that have been....see with inception i applaud the work, the visual the not relying heavily on special effects to achieve your visual...to sit back and just enjoy the ****ing movie...without being a fanboy about it. im a filmmaker, i do it for a living...nothing else just this, and some photography work here and there. im not a movie critic i dont sit and analyze a film and dissect it... i enjoy the work. with batman with inception the work was well done. inception explained alot? hmmm,.,.. then why was it called one of the most confusing films of the year? people saying they had to watch it twice... rule number 1 of filmmaking KISS. keep it simple, stupid. yes he explained alot of what was going on. its a 100million dollar block buster that was playing for more then a snobby film crowd but in malls in middle america where all they want to see is **** blow up...movies like that are made for the masses...now you take woody allens film a smaller film smaller budget, meant for the snobby high brow crowd of suedo cinephiles who consider themselves above it all, so you can throw stuff like reference to F. scott fitzgerald and a bunch of other stuff that the average person has no freaking idea what youre talking about.

After the opening action sequence until well into the second half of the film when they enter Cillian Murphy's character's dream is about an hour of just DiCaprio explaining all the rules. That's not good storytelling.

I didn't mean the ability to understand the literary references (to your point, those ARE explained in the movie; "Oh My God You're Ernest Hemmingway!") I meant the underlying mechanics of the plot gimmick that the movies hinged on.

People thought Inception was confusing because of Nolan's inability to form a coherent continuity between all the different action that happens simultaneously. This goes back to the chase scene in The Dark Knight.

You make a good point about dumbing it down; Nolan is basically a glorified Micheal Bay. Not that there is anything wrong with that, Micheal Bay can be quite entertaining. Maybe Nolan could learn a thing or two from him about how to stage and cut an action sequence.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Originally Posted by doug maverick

agreed. and i think i mentioned this and someone else did as well..youll never get a batman movie that is as cerebral as the comics are...just wont happened...i think thats what i like about the sherlock holmes movies. its what batman should be.

I can see that analogy.