For me, Memento is Nolan's best film

The subject of amnesia was great by himself and the idea of doing a non-chronological movie could have failed, but with this subject it worked so perfectly. It's true that it's not very stunning visually, but the movie's budget was something like 5 million, so I don't think I can criticize this. The acting was tremendous (especially Guy Pearce who should AT LEAST be nominated for an Academy Award). There are some funny moments too, especially when natalie waits only 2 minutes in her car and come back in her house saying that Dodd beat her: probably my fave scene of the movie.
But when I first saw the movie, I was saying to myself: we know Teddy's the killer, what could possibly be the punch at the end of the story, I never saw this coming! All the Teddy exposition to Leonard was incredible (I believe that Teddy said the truth BTW) and the fact that he decided to end all this with the decision of killing Teddy.
When I first saw it, I had the chronological option on my DVD, so I immediately watch it chronologically!
An incredible movie, probably my favorite of all time
NOW WHERE WAS I ?

Now Where Was I ? wrote:For me, Memento is Nolan's best film

The subject of amnesia was great by himself and the idea of doing a non-chronological movie could have failed, but with this subject it worked so perfectly. It's true that it's not very stunning visually, but the movie's budget was something like 5 million, so I don't think I can criticize this. The acting was tremendous (especially Guy Pearce who should AT LEAST be nominated for an Academy Award). There are some funny moments too, especially when natalie waits only 2 minutes in her car and come back in her house saying that Dodd beat her: probably my fave scene of the movie.
But when I first saw the movie, I was saying to myself: we know Teddy's the killer, what could possibly be the punch at the end of the story, I never saw this coming! All the Teddy exposition to Leonard was incredible (I believe that Teddy said the truth BTW) and the fact that he decided to end all this with the decision of killing Teddy.
When I first saw it, I had the chronological option on my DVD, so I immediately watch it chronologically!
An incredible movie, probably my favorite of all time
NOW WHERE WAS I ?

Precisely

About to watch this for the first time. Yes, I know its late but I've been waiting for that "perfect" atmosphere" to get the best experience. But I got impatient so Ill synthesize it! MWAHAHA

Beyond interesting concept, a good film, great performances, complicated screenplay.
While the screenplay is what makes the film (apart from the inspired direction from Master Nolan), the screenplay does have a few flaws.

A few of those flaws are pedantic (how does he remember he has short term memory loss if he got it because of his wifes death; ESPECIALLY since the last thing he remembered was his wife's death)
but then there are a few regular flaws. While the scenes are going in reverse order coninciding with the b&w scenes are pretty cool, there is no real nessecity for them.
While it creates intrigue (especially the b&w scenes) the reverse linear colour scenes ruin the tension and mystery a bit (especially with, the "why am I running?" scene)

It's a good 8/10, but Nolan has created perfect films. It's no Following, but it's a billion times better than every other thriller.

100%

my fav movie of all time

This movie is great. Ive only seen it about 4 times and the only problem I have about it is it gets a bit boring on multiple rewatches. Mostly, though, because I still can't find the answer and I still get confused when I find new things.

The reason I became a nolan fan. :goNF:

Memento features everything that film should be all about. Great vision, great performances and of course, great story-telling.
10/10.

You know, I've thought more about why I don't like this film as much as some of Nolan's other films, and I think it's because I consider this his least visually compelling/appealing film. It's a very "script-driven" film on a level that the other Nolan films are not. It's an incredibly well written film, but not all that engaging on a visual level. The cinematography and visuals all get the job done, they do what the script says, but really not much beyond that. In every other Nolan film, you could easily separate the writing from what is on screen and they seem to both tell an equally thematic story, they match each other as individual elements of film (if that makes sense). If you separate the writing from the visuals on screen in Memento, the visual craft just does not hold up to the beautifully written script. In my opinion, it almost doesn't do the script justice.

Every other Nolan film (even Following to some degree) I can watch multiple times in quick succession. I just can't do that with Memento. It has low replay value, but not because of the writing, because of the lack beauty on screen. It's always a struggle for me to watch Memento because I know it doesn't keep me interested and engaged.

I don't know about other people, but I've always noticed a massive shift in the quality of cinematography between Memento and ever other Nolan film since then. Granted, Memento was Nolan's and probably Wally's first foray into big Hollywood, so there is obvious challenges in that itself. It's entirely possible that this was during a time when Nolan and Wally weren't attached at the hip like they seem to be for every other film from Insomnia to TDKR. Maybe they just didn't collude as well as they do on the other films. In a way I feel like Nolan paid the least attention to the visual beauty and the most attention to the story/characters. So while that makes it a great film on paper, and a great story to be told, it's not exactly the best cinematic experience.

So for those of you wondering why I don't like Memento as much as Insomnia or the other films, there you have it.