Christopher Nolan | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: The World Is Not Enough

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Darren

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

The World is Not Enough is a mess of a film, even by the standards of the Bond films. It proposes some interesting ideas and has some neat concepts, but there’s also some really stupid moments thrown in as well. If Tomorrow Never Dies was Pierce Brosnan doing tribute to later Sean Connery films, this him stuck in homage to Roger Moore – a few smart and emotional moments scattered over a large serving of camp, like vanilla pods mixed into the most bland vanilla ice cream you could imagine. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s so wildly inconsistent that it’s far less satisfying than generally weaker instalments.

That's the crushing weight of expectation, right there...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Christopher Nolan, Elektra King, GoldenEye, james bond, james bond january, judi dench, m, Movie, non-review review, pierce brosnan, renard, review, robert carlyle, Roger Moore, sean connery, sophie marceau, The World Is Not Enough, tomorrow never dies | 7 Comments »

Are the Oscars Still a Pipe Dream for Christopher Nolan?

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Darren

As I write this, the clock is counting down. The Oscar race is in full swing. And I look back, and I really haven’t written too much about it. There are two reasons for this. The most obvious is that I haven’t seen too many of the contenders. Of the headliners, I have seen both The King’s Speech and The Social Network. I have yet to see The Black Swan, 127 Hours or True Grit. Of the lower-tier Oscar films, I have really only seen Inception and The Kids Are All Right. It isn’t that I don’t want to see them, it’s just that it has been a busy January and things have gotten in the way. The other reason I haven’t been blogging about it is because – barring what the competition between The King’s Speech and The Social Network says about the Academy – it has been a pretty bland year. There are so many “locks” that the race has become almost boring. In fact, the only real question I’m at all concerned about is whether Christopher Nolan will finally get that Best Director nomination he so sorely deserves.

Could this turn the Oscars upside down?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Academy Award, Academy Award for Best Picture, academy award for outstanding direction, best director, best director oscar, Christopher Nolan, coen brothers, Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell, films, Inception, King's Speech, Movies, snobbery, The Dark Knight | 9 Comments »

The Cat’s Out of the Bag: Catwoman and Bane Confirmed as Villains of The Dark Knight Rises (Batman 3)

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Darren

Read our in-depth review of the film here.

Yesterday was a big day for fans of superhero cinema. Along with photos from X-Men: First Class (and an interview with Kevin Bacon which suggests he’s having a lot of fun, so I likely will too), Warner Brothers released some more photos of Green Lantern and a little bit of news concerning The Dark Knight Rises. Tom Hardy will be playing the steroid-fueled villain Bane, while Anne Hathaway will be playing Catwoman. I’ll just let that sink in.

“Tell me who the villains are!”

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: anne hathaway, bane, batman, batman forever, catwoman, Christopher Nolan, films, Harley Quinn, Movies, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, tom hardy, Warner Brothers | 18 Comments »

A Tale of the Batman: Gotham By Gaslight (& Master of the Future)

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Darren

After spending the tail end of last year looking at the tangled inter-continuity crossovers at Marvel, I thought I’d spend January looking at some of the looser “out of continuity” tales at the major companies.

Gotham By Gaslight is an out-of-continuity tale which imagines Batman as the protector of a Victorian-era Gotham City, pitting the detective against none other than Jack the Ripper. It’s an entertaining little story which has a bit of fun with its premise, while managing to concisely boil the Dark Knight’s characteristics down to their core components. It’s an efficient tale which works quite well on its own merits, but has subsequently been overtaken by the hype surrounding it.

Making headlines...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: a tale of the batman, a tale of the batman: gotham by gaslight, batman, Brian Augustyn, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, comic book, comic book review, dark knight returns, elseworld, elseworlds, Gotham by Gaslight, gotham city, mike mignola, review | Leave a comment »

Batman: Dark Victory

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. Earlier today we looked at the Emmy-winning Robin’s Reckoning, so I thought we might take a look at the comic book origin of Robin that it inspired.

“And while the Maronis and the Falcones have often been bitter rivals, they all now share a common enemy,” Batman narrates at one point in the sequel to The Long Halloween. “Extinction.” Dark Victory is the story of the death of “the gangster element of Gotham City” as the organised crime families attempt one last struggle against the emerging freaks. It closes the book on the story threads that Frank Miller introduced in his revision of Batman’s origin in Year One, which continued through Loeb and Sale’s The Long Halloween (which itself provided the basis of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight). The book serves as an origin story for Dick Grayson, and thus offers a nice bookend for the early years of Bruce’s crimefighting career.

Face the facts...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman: dark victory, batman: year one, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, comic book, dark victory, darkknight, dc comics, dick grayson, gotham city, harvey dent, i believe in harvey dent, jeph loeb, joker, noir, robin, The Long Halloween, tim sale, two face, year one | 9 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Batman – Gotham Knight

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. This is one of the animated feature films involving the characters from the creators of the original animated shows.

Batman: Gotham Knight was somewhat misleadingly advertised as a “missing link” between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Released in the run-up to Christopher Nolan’s superhero sequel, the film was clearly intended to call to mind the Animatrix, with a strong sense of anime flavouring the variety of shorts on display here. Each was produced by a different studio in a different style from a different author. The result is, as you’d expect, a mixed bag. Some stories are good, some stories are bad – there are interesting stories let down by poor animation and strong stories featuring weak animation. It’s a very mixed bag, which never really seems necessary or exceptional.

Yes, that is a batarang in his hand. And yes, he is happy to see you...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, anime, anthology, arts, batman, batman begins, batman: gotham knight, cartoon, Christopher Nolan, Crispus Allen, film, gotham knight, gothic, kevin conroy, Lucius Fox, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Sal Maroni, The Dark Knight, tim burton | 3 Comments »

Batman: The Animated Series – Heart of Ice (Review)

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. While most of the episodes and comics I look at will tie into the feature-length animated movies, I thought I’d start with perhaps the most beloved piece of animation that the studio produced using DC characters.

I believe that Batman: The Animated Series sorely deserves a place on list compiled of the “best animated series of all time”. It’s certainly perhaps the single best distillation of the Batman mythos into one pure form (although Christopher Nolan’s film series – and especially The Dark Knight – also deserve some acknowledgement). What made the series unique was that, instead of simply borrowing from the comic books, it also actively contributed to them – and not just in a “we need to tie into a popular adaptation” sort of way. Lasting changes to the Batman mythos can be traced back to this particular animated series – the fan-favourite character of Harley Quinn, for example, or several sympathetic origins to well-established characters. Heart of Ice is perhaps the most successful and well-executed of these revisionist takes on Batman’s iconic selection of bad guys – offering as it does an origin for Mr. Freeze.

Dude needs to chill out…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: animation, batman, batman: the animated series, btas, Christopher Nolan, Freeze, Harley Quinn, heart of ice, joker, mr. freeze, Nora, Nora Fries, Scott Snyder, Television | 2 Comments »

When it Hits the Fan: What Do Creators Owe Fans?

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Darren

Fans are a very dangerous group to court – although I suppose that’s implied, what with the word being an abbreviation of “fanatic”. Sure, they’ll follow a particular project with zeal and enthusiasm that most producers could only dream of, and (perhaps) prove an invaluable marketing tool in this era of the viral campaign – at the very least, they are more likely to invest a lot more money in your product than a regular consumer. However, that investment comes with a downside – one that I wonder how much creators ultimately end up resenting. To call it “demand” perhaps understates the matter – after all, plenty of non-fanatic movie fans wait for the big blockbusters of the year – but there tends to be a note of what is best described as “possessiveness” or “entitlement” that comes with a large invested fan group. And is that necessarily a good thing? Do these fans feel that these creators “owe” them something for their extended loyalty? Is it fair to demand that from any producer or writer or director?

Heated fan disagreements sometimes get out of hand...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Alex Kurtzman, Christopher Nolan, damon lindelof, J. J. Abrams, leap year, Magnum P.I, matthew goode, Roberto Orci, star trek, Star Trek: Countdown, star trek: the original series | Leave a comment »

Too Much of a Good Thing: Why Inception Might Be Best Left as One of a Kind…

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Darren

Apparently Warner Brothers want a sequel to Inception. That’s a long way from the earlier rumour that Inception was a “gift” to Nolan, almost a sort of bribe in order to keep him on board for Batman 3 (or, as it shall henceforth be known, The Dark Knight Rises), and one that the studio was never really 100% certain about. While I’m delighted the movie turned out to be successful enough to warrant a sequel, I can’t help but hope that it is never produced or released.

This announcement knocked me for a loop...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman begins, blade runner, Christopher Nolan, dark knight, Inception, inception sequel, Matrix, sequels, terry gilliam, Warner Bros | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: 28 Weeks Later

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Darren

Welcome to the m0vie blog’s zombie week! It’s a week of zombie-related movie discussions and reviews as we come up to Halloween, to celebrate the launch of Frank Darbont’s The Walking Dead on AMC on Halloween night. So be sure to check back all week, as we’ll be running posts on the living dead.

It’s strange. 28 Days Later felt strangely British, with its almost quaint surroundings and “island fortress” mentality. Filmed in High Definition with an intimate approach, the movie felt somehow more tangible and organic than most of these films, managing a genuine emotional impact that it’s easy to lose sight of in these fantastical narratives – its small scale and quirky design (along with hyper saturation) lent the movie a very distinct feel, the sensation that this was a “guerilla” zombie film – shot in the early morning on abandoned streets rather than closing off sections of town. In contrast, 28 Weeks Later feels a much more managed affair, and a much more conventional one. It’s shot like any other zombie movie, and clearly intended to reach an even wider audience than the original cult hit. It’s a great movie, but one can’t help but get the sensation that the fine polish applied to it undercuts some of the impact.