I actually really enjoyed Oppenheimer, but why does it feel like Nolan’s early career was a lot more impressive than his later career where he now has major studio backing, ensemble all star casts, and infinite budget?>memento>the prestige>insomniaI kind of judge the batman trilogy as seperate just because by virtue of being a major company IP they never give total creative control, or at least didn’t back then. Which is why in a film like the Dark Knight, even when it’s meant to be this brutally grim and gritty world, you get odd editing choices to conceal violence the joker does, and to not show anybody get shot in any way that isn’t bloodless, plus nobody swears. May sound like silly critiques but I wonder if the studio gave him full creative control and let it be rated 15 or 18 if he’d have gone harder. Begins is a good shlocky comic book movie, dark knight is a “prestige” one I guess. Rises really didn’t hit the mark for me at all.Then inception feels like the turn of his career. Where he pivots fully into blockbuster territory but still retains some level of that earlier soul. Compare it with tenet and it feels night and day.
At some point the spectacle becomes the star and everything else becomes secondary.
>>219717911Inception was his first movie after dark knight. Iirc it was then when all the studios were willing to gave him unlimited budget for CGI. From now on his movies were more about visual show then artsy dartsy stuff from his beginings.
>>219718109This. Tenet is a very well made movie with impressive set pieces but the movie is nonsense.
>>219717911Memento was frustrating. The Prestige casting is sleep inducing. Insomnia is better spent checking out the original. But Memento is admirable for suggesting an unexpectedly huge world on so little resources. Pushing uphill is admirable. Japan's had The Man Who Stole the Sun since 1979, so Oppy feels like a stunting awardbait.
Wish he would stop trying to myth make (odyssey, oppy, dunkirk) and get back to making interesting concepts (memento, inception, interstellar)It’s a shame he forced Tenet into theaters too early post covid to keep WB afloat, that high a concept failing made him retreat to bombastic studio slop
