Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by mja345

The Nolan fans who torpedoed the IMDB boards were all seemingly teens and college kids who hadn't seen that many films and therefore thought Nolan was the greatest filmmaker of all-time and "Inception" was one of the greatest films of all-time. The rating "Inception" has on IMDB is so laughable it's not even worth talking about.

I think we can all think back to a time when we were 18 or 19 year old shitheads, finally gaining a little knowledge, strident in our opinions, unaccepting of differing opinions, and passing our opinions off as absolute facts. Except the Nolan fanboys took those young shithead qualities and ratcheted them to never-before-seen levels. As dkelly mentioned in his post, it was always stuff like, "I saw '8 1/2, didn't get it, way too pretentious. You guys are a bunch pretentious d-bags who like to sniff your own farts, Nolan is GOD and Tarantino is a close second. Also, LOVE Fincher."

Well, in all fairness to them...

[benbess]

I already own almost all of the TT blu-rays that are now on sale for $10. In case anyone is on the fence, the following titles are esp. recommended....

All Thing Kings Men, 1949
This movie, shockingly, is more relevant today than when it was playing in the theaters.

Beloved Infidel, 1959
This sad story of the late career of F. Scott Fitzgerald, played by Gregory Peck, with support from Deborah Kerr, is still poignant.

Born Free, 1966
I saw this movie as a child, and was affected by it. It's still good today, and has an insightful commentary by Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.

Inherit the Wind, 1960
I first saw this movie, believe it or not, in my high school English class around 1981, using a vhs player and TV. It was haunting then. And today, with the great performances all around, and fine pq in its original apect ratio, it's even more powerful and even more relevant. Highly recommended.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967
I still don't understand why this film is today criticized by some. It's a good dramatic performance, imho, about changes going on in that era.

Places in the Heart, 1984
Powerful performances by Sally Field, Danny Glover, etc, and with a wonderful audio commentary. Fine pq on this almost lost treasure, which is well worth watching.

Royal Flash, 1975
What a fun farce, almost in the tradition of Young Frankenstein, with a wonderful commentary featuring star Malcolm McDowell.

The Eddy Duchin Story, 1956
Excellent performances by Tyrone Power and Kim Novak, as well as an interesting commentary on this title.

The Fantasticks, 1995
A life-affirming, charming, and almost lost musical. Has a grand total of 3 (!) fascinating audio commentaries. If you like musicals, buy it.

The Front, 1976
A fascinating and sad story about the black list, with a fine audio commentary featuring star Andrea Marcovicci, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman. Amazing performance by Zero Mostel, in one of his final roles.

Violent Saturday, 1955
This old-fashioned crime drama is good stuff, and features an insightful audio commentary.

When the Wind Blows, 1986
An animated movie about nuclear war that is unfortunately still relevant. Good audio commentary with one of the producers of the film.

[YogiYahooeys]

Originally Posted by mja345

The Nolan fans who torpedoed the IMDB boards were all seemingly teens and college kids who hadn't seen that many films and therefore thought Nolan was the greatest filmmaker of all-time and "Inception" was one of the greatest films of all-time. The rating "Inception" has on IMDB is so laughable it's not even worth talking about.

I think we can all think back to a time when we were 18 or 19 year old shitheads, finally gaining a little knowledge, strident in our opinions, unaccepting of differing opinions, and passing our opinions off as absolute facts. Except the Nolan fanboys took those young shithead qualities and ratcheted them to never-before-seen levels. As dkelly mentioned in his post, it was always stuff like, "I saw '8 1/2, didn't get it, way too pretentious. You guys are a bunch pretentious d-bags who like to sniff your own farts, Nolan is GOD and Tarantino is a close second. Also, LOVE Fincher."

Opinions, everyone's got 'em.

Honestly, I'm far from college age and have seen around 4,000 movies covering every decade and i have no problem calling Nolan a filmmaking god and definitely would place Inception as one of my favorite movies of all time.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by YogiYahooeys

Opinions, everyone's got 'em.

Honestly, I'm far from college age and have seen around 4,000 movies covering every decade and i have no problem calling Nolan a filmmaking god and definitely would place Inception as one of my favorite movies of all time.

That's cool. I'm not a big fan of Nolan at all and am not a big fan of "Inception". But I'm not going to shout down people who love him. A lot of Nolan's fans on IMDB had the tendency to shout down people who didn't love Nolan.

[BwayJ]

MR. HOBBS TAKES A VACATION is sold out.

[noirjunkie]

Originally Posted by mja345

That's cool. I'm not a big fan of Nolan at all and am not a big fan of "Inception". But I'm not going to shout down people who love him. A lot of Nolan's fans on IMDB had the tendency to shout down people who didn't love Nolan.

Have you seen his first two films? Following plays like a test run for Memento, which I still think is his best film.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by noirjunkie

Have you seen his first two films? Following plays like a test run for Memento, which I still think is his best film.

"Following" is good. Didn't love it, but thought it was interesting. "Memento" is definitely his best film and I thought "The Prestige" was solid. Nolan is an excellent technical director, but a lot of his more recent films feel, to me, like they're made by a technically proficient robot. "Inception" is definitely my least favorite Nolan film. Just something about it really rubs me the wrong way.

I guess the rabid fanbase around Nolan strikes me as strange. He makes very technically sound films that don't really have any edge to them. His films also tend to feel very cold and impersonal. That's the opposite kind of filmmaker who I would figure would develop that kind of fanbase. Whereas with a director like Tarantino, no matter what one thinks of his films, they're the opposite of impersonal and cold. So, I understand his rabid following far more.

[Baltix]

Zardoz is sold out now.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by mja345

That's the opposite kind of filmmaker who I would figure would develop that kind of fanbase.

It's because he made a series of technically-sound Batman movies; before that, he just had a cult following, same as you'd expect.

[BixmanJ]

Placed an order for:

How To Steal A Million
Two For The Road
The Train

My wife has a good Audrey Hepburn collection going (who am I kidding, I'm the one who loves buying all the blu-rays). Now if only someone would release Roman Holiday!

I've never seen The Train but have only heard good things. Excited to see it in HD.

[BenOswald]

Originally Posted by mja345

"Following" is good. Didn't love it, but thought it was interesting. "Memento" is definitely his best film and I thought "The Prestige" was solid. Nolan is an excellent technical director, but a lot of his more recent films feel, to me, like they're made by a technically proficient robot. "Inception" is definitely my least favorite Nolan film. Just something about it really rubs me the wrong way.

I guess the rabid fanbase around Nolan strikes me as strange. He makes very technically sound films that don't really have any edge to them. His films also tend to feel very cold and impersonal. That's the opposite kind of filmmaker who I would figure would develop that kind of fanbase. Whereas with a director like Tarantino, no matter what one thinks of his films, they're the opposite of impersonal and cold. So, I understand his rabid following far more.

A friend of mine calls Inception "exposition", because the movie is chock full of characters telling you what's going on in the movie. It seems like Mr. Nolan does this in ALL his movies. Even in Dunkirk he HAD to put words on the screen to tell you what was going on. Too bad he doesn't have faith in his audience to figure shit out ourselves...

[YogiYahooeys]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

It's because he made a series of technically-sound Batman movies; before that, he just had a cult following, same as you'd expect.

The Batman movies are nice, but I could take or leave them in comparison to his other work. That said, I imagine others probably feel differently.

[Cremildo]

Originally Posted by BenOswald

A friend of mine calls Inception "exposition", because the movie is chock full of characters telling you what's going on in the movie. It seems like Mr. Nolan does this in ALL his movies. Even in Dunkirk he HAD to put words on the screen to tell you what was going on. Too bad he doesn't have faith in his audience to figure shit out ourselves...

Oh, come on. Dunkirk would have been needlessly confusing at the beginning without the onscreen text indicating the three timelines.

[The Great Owl]

I've never been huge on Christopher Nolan. I feel that Nolan's films, namely Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Night, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar, while visually spectacular, have never been able to find the right middle ground between under-explaining and over-explaining their plot points. He usually errs toward heavy-handed over-explanation, especially with his works that have a strong sentimental component.

Inception just made me want to watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service again.

I do think, however, that Dunkirk is his best film to date. Rarely have I felt that helpless while watching a film.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by YogiYahooeys

The Batman movies are nice, but I could take or leave them in comparison to his other work. That said, I imagine others probably feel differently.

Do you think he has the rabid IMDb fanbase that is being referenced here because of "Insomnia" and "The Prestige"? No way. It's because he made a series of well-regarded Batman movies.

[Sergeant Howie]

Originally Posted by mja345

The Nolan fans who torpedoed the IMDB boards were all seemingly teens and college kids who hadn't seen that many films and therefore thought Nolan was the greatest filmmaker of all-time and "Inception" was one of the greatest films of all-time. The rating "Inception" has on IMDB is so laughable it's not even worth talking about.

I think we can all think back to a time when we were 18 or 19 year old shitheads, finally gaining a little knowledge, strident in our opinions, unaccepting of differing opinions, and passing our opinions off as absolute facts. Except the Nolan fanboys took those young shithead qualities and ratcheted them to never-before-seen levels. As dkelly mentioned in his post, it was always stuff like, "I saw '8 1/2, didn't get it, way too pretentious. You guys are a bunch pretentious d-bags who like to sniff your own farts, Nolan is GOD and Tarantino is a close second. Also, LOVE Fincher."

Nolan fanboys?

[mja345]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

Do you think he has the rabid IMDb fanbase that is being referenced here because of "Insomnia" and "The Prestige"? No way. It's because he made a series of well-regarded Batman movies.

Very true. But that has carried over to films like "Inception" and "Interstellar", which tells me it's become a Team Nolan kind of cult. Hypothetically, if you were to come out from living off the grid for 20 years and based what films you should see on IMDB ratings, then "Inception" and "The Dark Knight" would be films you would see before any Hitchcock film, any Kubrick film, any Fellini film, any Truffaut film, any Altman film, any Wilder film, any Woody Allen film, any Lynch film, any Kurosawa film, any Chaplin film, any Peckinpah film, any Ford film, any Lumet film, any Godard film, etc. That's so absurd.

That's a Jim Jones, rabid cult-like following that is amazing considering Nolan's films are often incredibly cold and impersonal. The over-exposition is also a huge problem. My main problem with "Inception" is that it is actually a relatively simple film that seems complicated due to all of its exposition and machinations. And that made a lot of people who saw it carry on as if they felt like geniuses. I had multiple people tell me, "If you don't like it, let me explain it to you." I had to respond, "No, I get the plot, I just think it's unbelievably stupid."

[SeanJoyce]

I keep scrolling up to verify I'm in the Twilight Time thread, and not the Christopher Nolan one.

[Rory]

Only time will tell how good Nolan truly is. I thought DUNKIRK was very good on first viewing. I'm not sure how well it will hold up the second time. Nolan's other films have not done much for me, but they were at least partially interesting.

Anyway, getting back to the TT sale. On November first, I pre-ordered DOCTOR DOLITTLE, SAYONARA and also CAPTAIN FROM CASTILE. Then this sale is announced and CAPTAIN is now $24.95. So I had to cancel that order and then re-order it all, but with CAPTAIN at its promotion price.

While doing that, I also ordered THE BOSTON STRANGLER and THE FORTUNE COOKIE.

I'd order more (though I already own most everything I'm interested in from TT), but I recently bought several Criterion BDs during the B&N sale currently ongoing.

Have to keep an eye on your collecting or else the shock of the credit card bill is too awful.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by mja345

Very true. But that has carried over to films like "Inception" and "Interstellar", which tells me it's become a Team Nolan kind of cult.

Oh, it has *become* a Nolan thing, but they only know who he is because of Batman, and to some extent specifically because they marketed it with his name prominently displayed. It took me a long time to come around on Nolan, because I felt like every movie he made was calculated to get him his next movie (he only showed "The Following" to investors, that got him the money to make a small million dollar crime noir movie, that got him the money to make a small-for-a-studio movie with movie stars, that got him the money to make a high profile blockbuster)... but once he got to that place, I thought "The Prestige" was great, "Dunkirk" was great, and "Inception" was entertaining (though, I agree with you, not half as smart as it thinks). The thing about him, I don't think he has anything to say. "The Prestige" and "Inception" are basically movies about making movies. But for entertainment/blockbuster movies, they are smarter than the competition.