Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" (July 21, 2017) - Part 2

[StormC]

Dont even care, Nolan's films will always be divisive as they engage audiences in thought-provoking, instinctual, guttural reactions.

Nolan is one of the most critically and commercially successful directors of the 21st century, how are his films divisive?

 

[OutOfBoose]

I do think that Nolan has a better shot at winning Best Director than Dunkirk will have at winning Best Picture.

I don't know. Doesn't mean much to me. People here talk mostly about scores, ranks and nominations, but I just keep rotating the film in my head.

Tommy stuff especially. These scared young men trying to get out.

 

[Kreem Pi]

my thoughts from letterboxd

Great review man.

 

[lime]

I was very disappointed.

7/10 (generous rating for the great sound, cinematography and music).

 

[harlequinade]

Great review man.

Thank you!

It came out more serious than my usual stuff there I didn't include me thinking

Spoiler

COME ON WHEELS COME ON WHEELS and then feeling like Nolan punched me in the throat with what was happening with Hardy in the last scenes

 

[Kreem Pi]

One technical problem I had with the film: the transition between 5perf 65mm film and 15 perf 65mm Imax film is extremely jarring. Not because of its frequency. The cuts are way less in quantity than Interstellar or the TDK trilogy. It's the color timing. The 65mm film often looks jarringly different in terms of colors for the same scene compared to Imax.

 

[The Joker]

91%...

Yea this may finish in the 80s.

It's back up to 92%.

 

[weezerspider]

Yeahhhhhh.....this is BY FAR Nolan's best film. It's not even close, really.

 

[Kreem Pi]

Glad you liked it. For me it's his most daring film since Memento. But I don't know if it will have the same replay quality of the Prestige.

 

[harlequinade]

Glad you liked it. For me it's his most daring film since Memento. But I don't know if it will have the same replay quality of the Prestige.

I kept thinking it during the movie but on my way home I found myself wanting to see it again in cinema as soon as possible

 

[weezerspider]

The Dark Knight will probably always be my favorite Nolan film because I love Batman and it's a great film about my two favorite fictional characters, but Dunkirk is such an achievement of filmmaking. I was completely immersed. Like Fury Road, it followed all of Hitchcock's rules of "pure cinema".

 

[Gee]

It's back up to 92%.

Doesn't matter anymore. In two hours, I'll be seating in front of that big IMAX screen disappointed.

 

[Kreem Pi]

Speaking of The Dark Knight, anyone thought this particular scene was a thematic call back to it?

Spoiler

The scene where Raylance's son doesn't tell Cillian Murphy the boy he shoved down is dead?

"Sometimes truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more"

 

[redhawk23]

Because I had kind of sussed out what his approach would be ahead of time, I think I have personally not allowed myself to be properly blown away blow away by the risks this film took with it's structure. Obviously I enjoyed the eat the films split perspectives eventually converged and how well the characters are ultimately established even without dialogue ... But I don't think I properly appreciated that we got all this in a giant summer movie. Nolan has earned access to the largest possible canvas and he is using it to do things that would be ptessivr in small indie dramas. It's actually nuts when you stop to think about it.

Have their been any article about the kinds of effects work done on this? I imagine double negative didore work here than we might expect.

 

[Ivan Drago]

It was a very good, taught, audio-visual ride. Nolan's patented ramping tension through intercutting narrative momentum. This works very well for the first half of the film. The second half tries to keep that sense of suspended tension, but ends up feeling like it's treading water somewhat.

I certainly appreciate that it feels like a very different kind of war film. I've seen a lot of people compare it to a bunch of films I don't agree with.

If anything, the film this most reminds me of is Cuaron's Gravity. That constant sense of moving forward and forward and forward like a theatrical ride that takes precedence over character or story.

The film isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it is a very impressive piece of filmmaking that feels different enough from Nolan's recent work (due to its structural approach) that it feels like something fresh from Nolan.

Oh, and the sound design of those diving planes is excellent.

Dunkirk is a great theater experience (after watching it you'll understand why Nolan is against straight to Netflix movies), but similar to Gravity I probably won't be watching this at home or ever again.

 

[StormC]

I'm seeing this Sunday night. Should probably reserve tickets since walk up seats will be crap, I'm sure.

 

[Ivan Drago]

Forgot to mention this, but as terrific as Nolan's direction was, unfortunately his problem with sound mixing that seemingly started with Inception continues here. Most of the dialogue I could barely hear/understand or it was droned out by Zimmer's loud music.

The movie had amazing sound design, but some questionable sound mixing.

 

[moviedoors]

There has to be some computer assistance going on in this movie, but damned if I can tell where. It occurred to me today that there was not a single shot in this movie that didn't feel like I was looking at something real. Not one phony looking green screen shot of Tom Hardy and he spends basically the entire movie in a small cockpit, in flight. That had to have been some kind of rear screen projection. It's flawless.

 

[flickchick85]

There has to be some computer assistance going on in this movie, but damned if I can tell where. It occurred to me today that there was not a single shot in this movie that didn't feel like I was looking at something real. There isn't a single phony looking green screen shot of Tom Hardy and he spends basically the entire movie in a small cockpit, in flight. That had to have been some kind of rear screen projection. It's flawless.

Yeah I can't wait to watch the behind-the-scenes stuff on this.

 

[redhawk23]

There has to be some computer assistance going on in this movie, but damned if I can tell where. It occurred to me today that there was not a single shot in this movie that didn't feel like I was looking at something real. There isn't a single phony looking green screen shot of Tom Hardy and he spends basically the entire movie in a small cockpit, in flight. That had to have been some kind of rear screen projection. It's flawless.

God you're right. I never questioned it untill you mentioned that Hardy probably wasn't actually flying. Holy crap.

 

[rashad]

Poised for a #1 finish, Warner Bros.' release of Dunkirk debuts this weekend in 3,720 theaters, including several IMAX and PLF locations, some of which will be playing the film in 70mm. Nolan's recent history is peppered with three Batman films along with three original features, and while 2006's The Prestige only debuted with $14.8 million, Inception kicked things off with $62.7 million and Interstellar delivered $47.5 million as Nolan became more and more of a household name while also delivering films that appealed to a wide audience.

In fact, beyond opening weekend, Nolan's films tend to play for a very long time. Following the $47.5 million opening, Interstellar went on to gross $188 million domestically, a nearly 4x multiplier. Going back to the release of Insomnia in 2002, Nolan's films have delivered, on average, a 3.69x multiplier, best among them the 4.66x multiplier for Inception. So whether Dunkirk debuts on the high or low end of expectations this weekend, Nolan's history bodes well for the film's future. Also working in the film's favor is the Metacritic score, which has been holding steady at 96 while online ticket retailer Fandango.com reports the film is outselling Interstellar at the same point in the company's sales cycle.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4307&p=.htm

 

[redhawk23]

Forgot to mention this, but as terrific as Nolan's direction was, unfortunately his problem with sound mixing that seemingly started with Inception continues here. Most of the dialogue I could barely hear/understand or it was droned out by Zimmer's loud music.

The movie had amazing sound design, but some questionable sound mixing.

Theater mileage may vary. I had less of a problem in this regard, but yeah this maximum Nolan.

Similar to the concerns of there being something like 6 different aspect ratio in different thesters for this movie, I think Nolan mixes with a very specific kind of theater in mind and any setting that doesn't match that suffers badly. I've long thought it odd that his movies win sound mixing awards as it's a problem that many people complain about.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

http://deadline.com/2017/07/dunkirk-valerian-girls-trip-weekend-box-office-opening-1202132847/

Warner Bros’ Dunkirk is poised to overperform as originally expected off its great word of mouth and film reviews. Industry estimates see the film landing between $19.5 million-$22 million today with three-day box office total of $55M-plus. That figure beats both the three-day ($47.5M) and five-day ($49.7M) of Christopher Nolan’s previous movie Interstellar. That sci-fi-think film cost $165M before P&A and was in the black with more than $47M-plus. Dunkirk‘s net production cost is speculated at $150M.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

http://deadline.com/2017/07/dunkirk-international-box-office-grosses-1202132130/

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk just posted another $6.3M in its seven markets (which opened yesterday) to bring its running two-day total up to $8.6M. Domestically, it grabbed a big $5.5M last night in previews so before it goes wide tonight, the critically acclaimed film has taken in $14.1M worldwide.

The WWII drama was released in seven Asian markets yesterday and rallied $2.6M, collectively outgrossing Inception by 24%, Gravity by 34% and more than tripling American Sniper in those markets.

 

[Gee]

In my seat. Starts in 15 minutes.