Tagged: Christopher Nolan

Michael Uslan on who’s the star of Batman movies

Michael E. Uslan is, among many other things, an executive producer of the Batman films. This post is reprinted with his permission.

–ComicMix Staff

I’ve always believed that the star of a Batman movie is… Batman. For me, it is not about hiring a big box office draw like making Tom Cruise The Batman for a generation. It is all rather about making Bruce Wayne come to life. Because of that conceptually, the most important aspect of casting is not necessarily the actor, but rather the filmmaker. Does the filmmaker have a love for and understanding of the character? Does he or she have a passion for the character? Does the filmmaker have a vision for the character and do you believe he or she can execute that vision? Ultimately, more than track record, it comes down to trust.

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Dennis O’Neil: Thinking Christopher Nolan

Warning: Spoilers below.

So when the lights came on, I turned in my seat and said to the man behind me “Not bad, Chris. Not the worst flick I’ve seen this month. Except for – and this’ll come as no surprise to you – the ending. Sucks pizzle through a potato. Real stink city. Alfred runs into Bruce in Paris? Come on! The flick ends when the helicopter goes blooey and we gotta think Bats dies. Sacrifices himself to save others. Real redemption stuff. That’s your ending and that last scene…Chris, you gotta know that it ruins everything else. What, did some suit twist your arm? Listen, maybe it’s not to late. Movie doesn’t open till…when? Friday? Might be time enough to get some scissions and cut the last couple minutes off the prints. Yeah, I know that there are maybe a thousand copies of the flick and it won’t be easy, what I’m suggesting, but we’re talking art, Chrissy, and sacrifices must be made. Dig?”

Okay, okay, that really didn’t happen. It’s true that a some of us comic book guys got invited to a premier screening of The Dark Knight Rises at a Manhattan theater (and yes, indeedy, it was one big honkin’ deal.) And, as it happened, Marifran and I were seated in front of the movie’s director, Christopher Nolan, but I didn’t know that until much later, after we were home and Mari told me.

If I had known? Probably, not much would have changed. I’m not a fellow to approach strangers, especially not celebrities because I think they must get bellies full of uninvited attention and are properly sick of it.

But that ending.

I did think it was a mistake, though not a drastic one, and if that’s so, how did it happen? Then, a few weeks ago, I saw an online news item that reported a comment by someone connected to the film. This person observed that the brief scene I’m objecting to is foreshadowed earlier in the narrative when Alfred tells of a dream he had in which he meets his boss, Bruce Wayne, in Paris – exactly what happens after Bruce apparently dies in an explosion. So was that last scene another dream? A way for Alfred’s subconscious to cope with the loss of his friend? If not, what’s the dream Alfred describes doing in the script? It doesn’t seem to add anything to plot or character unless… it allows the writers to have an upbeat ending and still tell the story they want to tell. You want to think Bruce is in a cafe munching croissants? Be my guest. Or do you want to join me in believing that the screenplay is better than I was giving it credit for?

Me? I’ll just mutter bravo, but I’ll mutter it here where it can’t possibly bother Mr. Nolan.

 

Box Office Democracy: “Interstellar”

Interstellar is a movie that in the hands of most directors would be a failure. It’s a movie about space and time that assumes an awful lot of knowledge on both subjects from the audience. It’s a movie with a moral compass that swings so wildly that at the end I can only point to three characters and say I absolutely know how the film wants us to feel about them. There’s a healthy dose of paradox and deus ex machina flowing through the third act of the movie. Even good directors would mess this up; this script could have been Neill Blomkamp’s Waterloo. Christopher Nolan turned it in to one of the best science fiction movies in years. I was delighted to watch this movie and hope that every bit of Nolan’s post-Batman career can be this enjoyable.

It must be quite hard to make a movie about space travel. No one in the audience has ever been in space and I have no reason to believe that any of the depictions we’ve seen in movies over the years have been particularly accurate. Instead of trying to one-up Gravity or anything Nolan seems content to draw upon the history of the depictions of space in film. Scenes in Interstellar felt like they could have been in Alien, or 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nolan decides to use our shared visual vocabulary to tell quick, expressive stories out of fleeting shots. I don’t mean to suggest that he sits back and only uses images from other directors, far from it; the wormhole and black hole sequences are mind-bendingly wonderful images. Nolan puts more on the table than any director in the genre since Kubrick. It’s the most I’ve been impressed with just sheer directorial force of will in recent memory. Nolan elevates this move more than any acting performance could ever hope to.

It’s a good think Nolan is here because the acting is not the strength I thought it would be. We may be waist deep in the ongoing flood of latter-day Matthew McConaughey’s talent but he feels like he does little except not mess up this movie. He’s not bad or anything but he doesn’t bring anything to this part that any equivalent leading man couldn’t have brought unless Nolan thinks that halfway drawl was essential to portraying this engineer/rocket pilot. Unfortunately this kind of stretches across the cast; I only thought Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and John Lithgow did work that was above replacement level in their roles. The cast is an embarrassment of riches and has the kind of cast that defies belief. I have a strong feeling this cast will one day be looked at like The Godfather or Murder on the Orient Express as one of those films where it’s just unbelievable the top to bottom talent they got. I wish I could come away raving about more of the performances unfortunately they’re all just really good and not spectacular.

It’s hard to walk out of a movie that’s almost three hours and not think it’s a little bloated and Interstellar is no exception. There’s a subplot that slowly worms its way in to the main plot that is just not as clever as either of the Nolan brothers think it is. It leaves us with a very long scene where the characters figure something out that was pretty obvious two hours ago. The script is just a bit shy of being as clever as it thinks it does and those moments become a little more obvious when you’ve been sitting for over two hours.

These are little, meaningless, complaints. Performances that are very good but not great, 15 minutes that could be easily trimmed from a 169 minute movie, trifling little nothings. This is a masterpiece of filmmaking and the bar that I will be measuring science fiction against for years to come. It’s a spellbinding, emotionally gripping, visually arresting piece of filmmaking that is, as of now, the best film Christopher Nolan has ever produced.

Interstellar teaser trailer released

  • News
  • December 14, 2013

Christopher Nolan’s eagerly anticipated Interstellar released its teaser trailer this morning. The movie is 11 months away so this realyl doesn’t give much away but we do know that it is about a team of astronauts travelling through a wormhole. The film began as a script by his frequent collaborator, brother Jonathan Nolan, but Christopher had his own ideas and the 2007 script became enmeshed with his own take on the story. The movie stars familiar performers from his previous works including Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine but it also stars Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Matt Damon, Topher Grace, and Ellen Burstyn.

There’s not much new here, but as teasers go, it certainly has our attention.

The Dark Knight Trilogy: Ultimate Collector’s Edition Coming in September

batman-begins_bat-signal-e1355519717719-9744394A day after Christian Bale confirmed he would not don the cape and cowl for a Justice League movie comes the official announcement of his three Dark Knight films being collected in time for the holidays. Christopher Nolan’s vision of Gotham City and its defender resuscitated Batman after a fallow stretch and showed us a darker view of heroism and its costs. Here’s the official press release:

Burbank, Calif. July 1, 2013 – Christopher Nolan’s reimagining of the Batman franchise beginning with 2005’s Batman Begins enjoyed phenomenal critical and box-office success.

Now on September 24, Nolan’s three Batman films – Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises – will be released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment as The Dark Knight Trilogy: Ultimate Collector’s Edition. The six-disc set will feature all three films with their existing extra content, two new featurettes and exclusive new collectible memorabilia. This must-own collection for fans of DC Comics’ Caped Crusader is available in premium packaging and will sell for $99.97 SRP.

TheDarkKnightRises_TeaserPoster-600x887About the Ultimate Collector’s Edition (UCE):

*Disc 1 – Batman Begins Feature and Special Features

*Disc 2 – The Dark Knight Feature

*Disc 3 – The Dark Knight Special Features

*Disc 4 – The Dark Knight Rises Feature

*Disc 5 – The Dark Knight Rises Special Features

*Disc 6 – Bonus Disc of New Special Features (details follow)

NEW Special Features:

  • The Fire Rises: The Creation and Impact of The Dark Knight Trilogy – The inside perspective on the fascinating story behind the creation of one of the most celebrated franchises and how it changed the scope of movie making….forever.  Full of never-before-seen footage, rare moments, and exclusive interviews with  Guillermo Del Toro, Damon Lindelof, Michael Mann, Richard Roeper, Zack Snyder and others.
  • Christopher Nolan & Richard Donner: A Conversation – For the first time, Directors Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy) and Richard Donner (Superman) sit down to discuss the trials and triumphs involved in bringing the two most iconic superheroes of all time to the big screen, and how Superman influenced Nolan when developing Batman Begins.
  • IMAX® Sequences: The Dark Knight; The Dark Knight Rises – See your favorite scenes as they were intended in the original IMAX© aspect ratio

Exclusive NEW Memorabilia:

  • Premium Mattel Hot Wheels Vehicles: Batmobile, Batpod and Tumbler
  • Newly commissioned collectible art cards by Mondo featuring Scarecrow, Joker, Bane, Harvey Dent, and Ra’s al Ghul
  • 48-page hardcover book featuring production stills and behind the scenes images from all three movies

About The Films

Batman Begins (2005)

Batman Begins explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knight’s emergence as a force for good in Gotham. In the wake of his parents’ murder, disillusioned industrial heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. He returns to Gotham and unveils his alter-ego: Batman, a masked crusader who uses his strength, intellect and an array of high tech deceptions to fight the sinister forces that threaten the city.

New Images and IMAX TV Spot Debut For The Dark Knight RisesThe Dark Knight (2008)

The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker (Heath Ledger), who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Oldman, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

Dark Knight Rises (2012)

It has been eight years since Batman vanished into the night, turning, in that instant, from hero to fugitive. Assuming the blame for the death of D.A. Harvey Dent, the Dark Knight sacrificed everything for what he and Commissioner Gordon both hoped was the greater good. For a time the lie worked, as criminal activity in Gotham City was crushed under the weight of the anti-crime Dent Act.

catwoman poseBut everything will change with the arrival of a cunning cat burglar with a mysterious agenda. Far more dangerous, however, is the emergence of Bane, a masked terrorist whose ruthless plans for Gotham drive Bruce out of his self-imposed exile. But even if he dons the cape and cowl again, Batman may be no match for Bane. Christian Bale stars, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Morgan Freeman.

THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY: ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION (BD)

Street Date: September 24, 2013

Order Due Date: August 20, 2013

Catalog/UPC #: 1000372133 / 883929308002

Pricing: $99.97 SRP

Note: All enhanced content listed above is subject to change.

Blu-ray Disc™ and Blu-ray™ and the logos are the trademarks of Blu-ray Disc Association.

® & © 2009 IMAX Corporation. All rights reserved.

Warner Home Video Blu-ray Discs™ offer resolution six times higher than standard definition DVDs, as well as extraordinarily vibrant contrast and color and beautifully crisp sound. The format also provides a higher level of interactivity, with instant access to extra features via a seamless menu bar where viewers can enjoy features without leaving or interrupting the film.

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar Now a Paramount/Warner Co-Production

Paramount100Warner Bros Film Group Finalizing New PR Job For News Corp Publicist Jack HornerWhile we await confirmation that Christopher Nolan will be the new DC Film Universe guru and what that will actually mean, he is hard at work on his next film. Today, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. issued the following joint press release:

HOLLYWOOD, CA (March 8, 2013) – Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures jointly announced today that writer/director Christopher Nolan’s INTERSTELLAR will be co-produced and distributed by the two studios, with Paramount Pictures handling Domestic distribution and Warner Bros. Pictures distributing the film Internationally.  INTERSTELLAR will be released beginning November 7, 2014, in theaters and IMAX®.

Directed and written by Academy Award-nominee Nolan (INCEPTION, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES), INTERSTELLAR is based on a script by Jonathan Nolan. The film will be produced by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan of Syncopy Films and Obst of Lynda Obst Productions. Kip Thorne will executive produce. The film will depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the furthest reaches of our scientific understanding.

Brad Grey, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures said, “As a filmmaker and storyteller, Chris has continuously entertained the world with his extraordinary and unparalleled talents. I am pleased beyond measure to welcome him to the Paramount Pictures family. Partnering with Chris, Emma, Lynda and Warner Bros. to release this original idea next November is the perfect way to start the Thanksgiving and holiday movie season for audiences around the world.”

Jeff Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said, “Christopher Nolan is truly one of the great auteurs working in film today, and we’re extremely proud of our successful and ongoing collaboration with him and Emma Thomas.  We are excited to be teaming with Paramount, and look forward to working with the Nolans, and producer Lynda Obst, on this extraordinary new project.”

Taking Down “The Dark Knight Rises”

  • News
  • August 23, 2012

dark_knight_rises_poster-4132675Ouch, ouch, and more ouch.

FADE IN:

EXT. AIRPLANE

After DC COMICS reminds everyone of their shitty new logo, HANS ZIMMER plucks a couple strings until HOODED TOM HARDY and nuclear scientist ALON ABOUTBOUL are taken on board CIA AGENT AIDAN GILLEN’S PLANE.

AIDAN GILLEN

We were only expecting the scientist, who the fuck are you?

TOM HARDY
(in 5.1 surround)

Remember how the lasht villain was introduced in a full-head mashk, only revealing hish true face ash he pulled off an overly elaborate plan that involved shacrifiching hish own underlingsh?

(removes hood)

WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN, WITH NO SHURVIVORSH!

via If ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Was 10 Times Shorter and More Honest | Cracked.com.

And just for good measure, we have the folks at How It Should Have Ended weighing in:

Sadly, I can’t find much wrong with their critiques.

Then we have word that The Dark Knight Rises passes $900 Million in worldwide box office, while at the same time selling fewer tickets than Tim Burton’s Batman. Amazing, ain’t it?

REVIEW: The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy

The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy
By Jody Duncan Jesser and Janine Pourroy
304 pages, Abrams, $40

There is so much visually wonderful about Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman films that this book seemed an obvious event. An oversized hardcover, it has amazing production values with gorgeous photography on heavy paper, cleanly designed (thank you, Chip Kidd), and overall appealing. Clearly, the authors had access to everyone from Nolan on down and they spoke freely about the challenges of conceiving themes to marketing the films.

And yet, everything feels like we’ve just touched the surface and each chapter –Screenplay, Production Design, Cast, Costumes & Makeup, The Shoot,  Special Effects & Stunts, Editing, Music & Sound, Visual Effects, and Marketing – all leave you wondering about what else happened. For example, during the Shoot, one chapter per film, you never get a feel for how Nolan directs his cast, or how he adjusts to the needs of each actor. How did Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal differ in their interpretation of Rachel Dawes. We’re left wondering why the comic book antecedents for most of the characters are referenced but not Henri Ducard nor are we told about the various reveals through the films (such as Ducard really being Ra’s al Ghul, echoed in the third film by Miranda Tate being revealed as Talia). Michael Caine writes an introduction that extols Nolan’s virtues as a director, but after that, we’re still left wondering what those are.

This reads about two steps above the usual press materials sent out when films open, the canned features sent to media outlets hungry for content. The writing is clear and facile, but a little too fawning in spots and far from critical about things that worked and didn’t work.

Perhaps the most glaring omission is a real in-depth look at the wildly successful viral marketing. This section needed more content, more images of the viral marketing at work, and more examples of the Internet phenomena, especially for The Dark Knight, which raised the bar for films.

You get some great shots of how the costumes, sets, and vehicles were built and see some of the shooting challenges that were presented over the last decade. It certainly works as a primer to Nolan’s take on the caped crusader and his world, but you don’t necessarily get into the filmmaker’s head, especially why he felt he was done after three. Nor does he comment how his successful reinterpretation of the hero led to supervising next summer’s Man of Steel. The contributions from screenwriters David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan are acknowledged but hearing more from them would have certainly helped us better understand how the films evolved, especially the themes for the final film in the wake of Heath Ledger’s death. Nolan writes in his foreword, “I never thought we’d do a third – are there any great second sequels?” Well, there’s The Last Crusade for starters, but Batman has endured monthly for seventy-five years so the answer is yes.

The book is a fine read but given the size and weight of the tome, one would have hoped for depth in the written content. It leaves you want much, much more and at this price, readers deserve all that and more.

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser Poster Unveiled

  • News
  • December 10, 2011

Warner Bros. has sent us the teaser poster to next July’s The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final Christian Bale-starring film. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film wraps up the story that began in Batman Begins. The first eight minutes will be shown in selected IMAX theaters this month, attached to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

We’ll let the image do the rest of the talking.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: The Dark Knight, 60’s Style

  • News
  • November 5, 2011

With Christopher Nolan in town this week shooting The Dark Knight Rises, we’ve come across a possible version of the opening credits…

Hat tip to Steve Saffel and Peter Sanderson.

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