Tag: Christopher Nolan

  • Persistence of Time: A Review of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk

    Persistence of Time: A Review of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk

    Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk begins an existential nightmare and ends as nihilistic commentary on time and fate. But really, what war film doesn’t? And what could Nolan’s Dunkirk stand to teach us that Patton didn’t? That Saving Private Ryan didn’t? Or The Longest Day? The Thin Red Line? Atonement?

  • Paradise Bound: Interstellar and the Quest for Dimensional Transcendence

    In the beginning, God created Adam. Then, because Adam was lonely, God made Eve. When Eve fell, she led Adam to fall with her and God expelled them both from the garden of Eden. In the 17th Century, English poet John Milton provided his own take on the story of Adam and…

  • Science, Magic, and God from a Machine

    I’m having trouble with my ending. Many writers do, and for me it is a sign of having started more scripts than I’ve dared to see through to the end. So much more can depend on a film’s ending than its beginning. Think of M. Night Shyamalan—who would remember The…

  • No Time Like the Present: Memory and Self in Christopher Nolan’s “Memento”

    Apologies for the long hiatus without warning. Thesis Crunch. Let’s get back to the movies. I embarrassed myself yesterday in an event that will not be recounted here, but for a while I could not stop thinking about it. Even an hour after the fact I was chiding myself for…

  • Information Dump, or Why “Inception” Lost Best Original Screenplay

    Okay, that’s unfair. Inception didn’t win Best Original Screenplay because the Academy preferred The King’s Speech, and with good reason. It was a great film built upon the foundation of a powerful script. (Why Hans Zimmer didn’t win Best Original Score is beyond me though…) The most common criticism I’ve…