Christopher Nolan's "Tenet"
 

I didn't see a thread for it, surprisingly, so...

Saw "Tenet," the first movie I've seen in theaters for about 7 months. Almost drove to Lacey to see it a while back but now it's at all AMCs... so here we are. Not exactly a full theater and it wasn't an IMAX screen (which is unfortunate, but it was a good size screen). Loved it! Starts with a bang but after that the first act is a little hard to get through... but mostly that was because I thought I was being delivered a lot of information I was probably going to forget. Not so. And paying attention is paid off by the end, though it's not as dense as I feared -- and my daughter was able to completely follow along, too. I'm glad I didn't read TOO much about the story until now.

Music score was great. I know it's not Zimmer, but it's like Zimmer on steroids. Which isn't bad or good, it's just what it seems like to me.

Anyway, 2 and a half hours well spent! I can't wait to see the next big budget movies in theaters, No Time to Die and Wonder Woman 1984... which will probably continue to be pushed back until 2023.

I'd read some bad things about it that Nolan's characters are a little flat and not enough background is given, also that the sound mix made some of the dialogue difficult to hear. I don't agree about the characters... it's not like we needed flashbacks of James Bond's childhood or training in "Dr. No." The latter... I agree difficult, but I understood.

Saw this a few weeks ago.

It's a little bit like Nolan's Interstellar in that way. Like... how could the people from the planet Anne Hathaway settles on build the tesseract inside the Black Hole if the implication at the end is that he can just hop in a shuttle and go and see her? The loop kind of makes sense until that.

I haven't seen it, but only because all of my usual movie-going friends are too uncomfortable to go to a theater. Sigh.

It's just not the same experience if I don't have someone to watch it with. :tgrumble:

I have been limiting where I go since my last survivivng grandparent is in failing health. In other words I have yet to see it, but still really want to. Has a DVD release date been set yet? Preferably before Christmas? Its rare I buy a movie that I have not already seen, but this is one of those I likely would buy after I see it anyway. I know Nolan wants me to get the cinematic experience, but this should be better than Dunkirk and has potential. I am going to give the film my money just it will be a DVD purchase instead of a movie ticket.

I thought it was good. Another very interesting and believable take on science fiction that feels like it could be accurate. Not my favorite Nolan flick - or even in the top five to be honest, but a good movie.

Who in the world would want to watch this movie... on DVD?

Let's hear your top 5.

For the reason mentioned above.

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Interstellar
The Prestige
Inception
Batman: The Dark Knight

Hopefully, Tenet will break into the top five.

I'd say it's something like this.....

1) The Prestige
This might even be laughable to Nolan fans, but I think it's an endlessly watchable flick, with a great twist on Tesla science which fascinates me. I've had to stop myself from doing weird **** like changing the entire paradigm of my hobbies so that I spend time building Tesla coils in my basement. I think the cast was amazing and the movie unfolds at a captivating pace. I love The Prestige.

2) Inception
The psychology of this flick is endlessly appealing. It's only weakness is the "just there" technology MacGuffin that makes the whole thing possible. But outside of that, the effects, the style direction, the suits, etc all make for a place I want to be in and explore. And any movie that made me think of Joseph Gordin Levitt as one of the coolest dudes on Earth falls high on my list. Another movie where the cast was amazing and executes perfectly.

3) Interstellar
I was so impressed with this one. I loved how the science was maintained against real theory as if it was all functional. It drew an amazing balance between science fiction and real science what if? And all of that was punctuated incredibly through the relationship of McConaughey and his daughter. I know it sounds terrible to say, but it is my adamant belief that anyone who sought out that movie but didn't like it simply didn't understand it or track with it. It was executed as clearly as possible given the material it dealt with and that's saying a lot.

4) Batman Begins
Measured against the other Nolan Bat flicks and I'd say this one was the most entertaining, least flawed and had the highest hopes of being the coolest Batman to-date. The Dark Knight was good, but that was mostly carried on the back of Ledger as the Joker. If you separate that from the rest of the content I think you have a flick that wasn't as strong as BB. The Nolan Bat flicks are not the perfect Batman movies, by any means. But this one was the first to have Batman on a roof yelling at people and it wove a solid character story regarding Ras Al Ghul. It was a real world, but it was a pissed off comic book, Neal Adams Batman on screen.

5) Insomnia
I want to say that Insomnia was a better film than the other Batman flicks. I'm putting it here because that's my memory, but it has been a Very. Long. Time. since I've seen it. I can say though that any movie that made Robin Williams scary and compelling was doing something right. I can also say that back in the day this was not the kind of movie I'd have sought out, but I caught it somehow way back when and I couldn't turn it off. If I rewatched it, things my change on this list, but if memory serves, I'd say this one belongs here.

Holy sh*t, I'm not sure I've even SEEN 5 Nolan moves :lol: (probably, but I'm not inclined to think about it very hard right this second :trazz:), but "Dark Knight Rises" absolutely HAS to be the worst thing he's ever done. I haven't seen his entire catalog but if DKR isn't the bottom-scraper I swear I'll eat a goddamn shoe. A wingtip, even.

I can't even dismiss that as "Everybody's got opinions". That is BARELY even a "good" movie in the first place. Yikes. I guess a little "Bane" goes a long way for SOME people. :trazz:

I'm gonna go have some coffee and try and forget that I ever saw that opinion because I want my faith in human nature to remain above sea level.

Happy Halloween! "Dark Knight Rises" kinda sucks! :trazz::lol: Please don't ask me why unless you want a novel. AND I WILL WRITE ONE, YOU KNOW I WILL DON"T GET ME STARTED YOU @#$%^&*(

.....oh, right... coffee.... whoops.... later....

Top five Nolan movies? $hit, may as well rank them all.

1. Inception
2. The Dark Knight
3. Batman Begins
4. The Dark Knight Rises
5. Interstellar
6. Memento
7. The Prestige
8. Following

Honorable mentions:

:trolleye: Insomnia, the one Chris Nolan movie I still need to watch... I'll get around to it eventually
:tgrumble: Dunkirk, the one Chris Nolan movie that bored me. War movies bore me in general; I watched too many in high school and college and now I'm just done with them.
:teek: Tenet, which I STILL haven't seen because nobody will go to the theaters with me. Just wear a mask and wash your hands, guys. FFS Maybe it's me? :tlol:

It's not just you. They're the same people who still make Mommy check under their bed for monsters before they can fall asleep. And they won't be happy until they've ruined everything for everyone.

ALSO... "Dark Knight Rises" isn't very good. :trazz::trazz::trazz: I only mock you because I really, really love you. No homo.

Gonna try to arrange babysitting and go with the wife. SHE'S willing to go, just none of my usual "movie and a beer" buddies.

The parts in it that ARE good are good enough for me to rank it that high. That first Bane fight, man. Still gives me chills.

Though to be fair, Intestellar could pretty easily switch places with The Dark Knight Rises on any given day. Those two are really close for me. Neither perfect, neither in my top three, but really, really good in spite of some nitpicks and criticisms.

Also, The Dark Knight Rises has Anne Hathaway AND Marion Cotillard. :tlol:

Of The Dark Knight trilogy Rises is my favorite, but Batman Forever, Sub Zero, and Mask of the Phantasm are all preferred. Yes, I know I am ridiculous. The whole John Blake taking over for Bruce after he faked his death, how Bruce did not see through Talia when it was telegraphed, and Bane being what he is best someone else's muscle all bother me.

I have never seen Insomnia nor have I seen The Following. One day I might, I have not since that plots did not sound intriguing.

The premise of Tenet calls back to the dreamscape of Inception and wormhole/ other dimension of Interstellar which makes it an automatic viewing for me.

John Blake is terrible. Anybody should be able to agree on that! :tgrin:

That's why I haven't seen Insomnia still. :tlol: Following wasn't bad, but it honestly didn't stick in my mind like pretty much every other Nolan movie has. It's just sorta interesting.

Oh yeah. It really pisses me off that I still haven't seen it.

Tenet was decent, man. But I'm not gonna lie - it's not a movie that you "need" a theater screen for. I'm not even sure where some people have gotten off saying that. Must be the same people that pimp any Nolan film because of zeitgeist and also said that Iron Man 3 was "the best marvel movie yet!" because of the social party. It's just not true.

Anne Hathaway's tight ass in cat leather goes an incredible distance towards redeeming that movie, for sure.

I'm a fan of yours in general but that is not a defensible opinion. :lol:

I do like parts of the movie but it is VERY badly-written and poorly-staged (bad guys falling down for no reason, etc.). It's just SO sloppy compared to everything else I've seen in Nolan's catalog that no sentimental feelings can override it in my brain.

It wasn't Nolan's fault, WB rushed him. But that thing's very clearly a rush-and-hack job and it suffers on every single level for it. It's not anywhere NEAR as good as the first two films by any objective standard. Terrible movie? Nah, not even. Just way below par compared the the rest.

It's okay, we're still friends. :trazz:

That does go a long way, yeah. :lol:

Hey, I don't care as long as I am allowed to love Batman Forever and the two animated films. Like I said EVERY Batman film has its flaws. Some flaws are easier to look past depending on personal preference while others agitate us more depending on what we are looking for. Its personality and psychological.

With Batman Begins, its hard for me to get past Henri Ducard being Ra's al Ghul and Ken Wananbe is a decoy. Sure, making a personal connection with Two Face works, but Ra's training Bruce and Ra's should be depicted as ethnic and they go with the twist. Therefore I want Ra's al Ghul done again in film and done more akin to who he was in the comics. I got the redo I wanted with Catwoman and Hathaway did more to what I wanted to see in Catwoman that Michelle Pfeffer did not deliver on. I also note that Bane yet again was a patsy just in a different way.

Besides Interstellar and The Prestige are growing on me with time. As for Midway, I love reading books about wars and watching documentaries about various wars, but to watch films about wars, well its boring, political, and gory. Granted Nolan's Midway was not gory it was just drawn out boring. It is hard to make war interesting in film. Some war films are beloved like Apocalypse Now! which is just reinterpreting The Heart of Darkness with the Vietnam War, political statement ad violent for violence sake. You get the idea.

For some reason I never realized Bane wasn't hispanic in The Dark Knight Rises. I don't know what he was intended to be, middle eastern?

I like The Dark Knight Rises more than Dark Knight but probably not more than Batman Begins.

Or just a white guy who ended up there. In any case, not remotely Hispanic.

Again, by what standard? I'm very curious.

I gushed a LOT about Dark Knight Rises the night I saw it, but that was 100% opening night delirium. I've since seen it almost a dozen times and it does NOT hold up well upon repeat viewings. You can see more Scotch tape and chicken wire every single time you watch it.

I am of the opinion that "The Dark Knight" is both a really great film BUT also a little bit overrated because of the surrounding circumstances. And on a given day I really am more apt to randomly pick "Batman Begins" off the shelf for a no-reason re-watch. But as far as any objective standard goes there's a mile between DK and DKR. There's just SO many little things wrong with "Rises" that simply aren't there in DK. Scripting problems, staging problems, a few bits of really dodgy acting (Talia's death scene. Was. HORRIBLE.)... these aren't make-believe things a person can just pretend aren't there. They're very real flaws that simply don't exist in DK.

Like I said, DK is a wee bit overrated but in what universe is "Rises" a better movie with all the stuff that's objectively wrong with it? Don't forget to show your work. :trazz:

It's awful but I allow you to like it ironically. :lol:

That movie is 82% of the reason why I hope to one day drink mead out of Jim Carrey's hollowed-out goddamn skull.

Because you gotta have goals, y'see.

Damn, we're on the second page and nobody has an answer for my question about inverted pooping? I am really disappointed...

Well I'm sorry but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about scat. I DO however spend a lot of time chiding people for their questionable taste in Batman movies. That's my wheelhouse, sailor. :trazz:

I wish they'd put Tenet on online streaming already so I could watch it, I don't know why they're waiting so long when it's already bombed in theaters since Covid-19 shut almost everything down.

Reading this thread had me concerned for my memory, when I saw Insomia listed as a Nolan favourite I knew I had seen it but could for the life of me remember anything of it. I now remember, saw it in theatres too, though I could use a rewatch, I remember liking it at least. I also liked and own Prestige and the Batman movies.

When you rewatch it post a review of it on this section of the Technodrome forums. It will determine if I watch it or not.

Another film I want to see if it wasn't for the pandemic is Honest Thief with Liam Nesson. That looks like my kind of film as well.

As for a DVD/Blu-ray date, I don't think anything is official but is projecting the second week of December after digging around Google. I hope it will come true.

Oh I was talking about the movie Insomnia, not yet seen Tenet either.

I know. I wanted your thoughts on Insomnia. I am going to see Tenet eventually and am interested while Indomnia the plot did not grab my attention personally like say Inception, The Prestige, and Interstellar did.

Oh okay, wasn't sure if you had misread me or not. Well if it's a little more fresh in anyone else's mind they can always chime in :) I've found when talking about movies on here that I can be hazy if it's something I saw some time back and never again.

Nolan says the studios maybe learned the wrong lessons from Tenet's box office:

https://www.darkhorizons.com/nolan-s...-tenet-lesson/

https://www.cnet.com/news/tenet-is-n...is%20Dec.%2015.

I have seen multiple websites show Tenet is set for DVD release on December 15th. Is it official then?

I understand your distain for Rises,Leo through another film. When I first saw Now You See Me I just went to go to the movies, knew nothing about it going in and left the theatre blown away. I was excited when I learned of a sequel, but then it was like the sequel was trying to out twist the first film and it tied itself in knots making Now You See Me 2 as great as it is make both films unnecessary with Ruffalo's character's secret mission nullified by Freeman's revelation. I can't watch it again despite loving the film because it just takes away from the whole point. Connecting it to The Dark Knight Rises, I see it too negating the point of Bruce's mission. It's not over and he disappears retired to play dead when it is arguable that instead of setting up an inspiration and a successor (along with setting up his cover being blown with an orphanage over the hideout). I think it comes down to does an individual fan believe that Bruce Wayne can be happy and not die in battle or forced to retire to end his mission. I have my own issues that I mentioned earlier with The Dark Knight Rises, but I also want Bruce to find a role beyond Batman and Dick take on the mantle with it all making sense though it all depends on our perceptions of the character.

The problem is, if Bruce Wayne is capable of "finding a life beyond Batman" then it undoes the entire reason he was ever Batman in the first place. "Only *I* can do this. *I* have the responsibility. Cops and politicians are corrupt, and only *I* can do what is necessary to stop bad things from happening."

He HAS to take that responsibility to his grave, otherwise there's no point to his mission.

To retire would be to ignore the very same things he once set out to stop. To live a "happy life" would be an insult to those who LOST their lives while he was off pussyfooting around with Selina Kyle, lives he could have hypothetically saved. And Bruce Wayne doesn't seem like the type, to me, who can just turn a blind eye to tragedy that he could have prevented.

That's the entire REASON he ever became Batman. He can't have a happy ending or else his entire mission was disingenuous.

He dies on the job. That's the way it ends. Anything else is fairy-tale nonsense, wish-fulfillment for the audience who can't even wrap their head around WHY this guy ever became a crimefighter. It's that complete inability to ignore any injustice that he could have in theory prevented that made him what he is. And if he ever just shut that off, well... that's incredibly selfish on his part. If he LET himself have a happy ending, then he'd be complicit in ALL the evil he'd be turning a blind eye to. Because he could have stopped it, and CHOSE not to.

Some heroic characters can have a happy, "normal life" ending. Superman and Batman, no. It goes too far against who they are at their very core.

But no, I also have a lot MORE problems with DKR. It's just not a very well-made movie, is the thing. But the filmmakers not understanding who Bruce Wayne even is or why he's Batman is a huge problem, yeah. But there are more.

I agree and understand your perspective. Its just Dick Grayson even if his own man, was created as the original legacy character and can take on the mantle. So the cores of Bruce and Dick come into conflict and well you know what I prefer. I knew Miranda Tate was Talia al Ghul from the start without any spoilers. Why could The World's Great Detective just get over Rachael like that and be seduced by her without a clue that she is behind Bane then move right on with Selina? That is more of my issue. There is the whole thing I brought up with John Blake too that I have issue with.

Nolan's Bruce Wayne was way too invested in getting pussy. One of MANY fundamental misunderstandings of the character that those movies are guilty of.

Bat-Editor (the late, great) Denny O'Neil, a person with as firm an understanding of the character as you'd ever meet, said more than once that Bruce Wayne doesn't even care about sex or romantic relationships. Because they're a distraction at best and Bruce Wayne understands that romantic or sexual entanglements could potentially put him or others at risk. His mission is more important than getting his dick wet.

Per O'Neil, Bruce Wayne probably hadn't even HAD sex since he became Batman, not even with any of the many women who "Billionaire Playboy Bruce Wayne" would often be seen toying around with. Similar to the "ginger ale in the champagne glass" routine, Bruce Wayne would likewise take these supermodels out on dates, show them a good time, and then give them some money on the way out the door with the instruction that they're more than welcome to TELL everyone that they had sex. But it's all part of the charade. Bruce Wayne is a voluntary celibate, who channels ALL of his base urges into "The Mission". That's the character.

So yeah, the fact that in modern times it's become hip to try and add a layer of "romance" to the Batman character really irritates me. It comes from people who simply don't understand the character, like not even a little bit. Bruce Wayne knew before he put the mask on that love, romance and sex were NOT part of the equation. They're not even priorities. "The War" comes first, "Protecting his 'family' second. Nothing else even makes the list.

One of that movie's MANY failures was in how the guy was such an idiot that he dropped his pants for the first woman who showed any interest. And look where it got him. And for all he knows, Selina Kyle is eventually gonna turn on him, too, same as Talia. Yet he quits being Batman to run off with her, despite spending literally HOURS in her company beforehand. :roll: Gimme a goddamn break.

Part of why "Batman Begins" is my favorite in that trilogy, is that it's the ONLY movie of the three that presents Bruce Wayne correctly. "The Dark Knight" might be a better overall movie, but Bruce's abrupt pivot from "Cops can't be trusted" to "Harvey Dent is handsome, I trust him to save Gotham, I can retire now" along with his sadsack pining for Rachel just shows how clearly the writers misunderstood the character. He wouldn't DO these things. They got him PERFECT in the first movie, and by the third he was 100% out of character on every level. It's SO frustrating.