The last time someone wrote the story to a Christopher Nolan movie, we had Insomnia; his most unmemorable film.

MeLVaNoaTe wrote:The last time someone wrote the story to a Christopher Nolan movie, we had Insomnia; his most unmemorable film.

Nolan was not one of the most powerful directors in the world at that point. He can easily choose a great script floating around the Hollywood scene or come up with a great story idea of his own and then hire an amazing writer to fill out the screenplay for him.

MeLVaNoaTe wrote:The last time someone wrote the story to a Christopher Nolan movie, we had Insomnia; his most unmemorable film.

Wasn't that film technically a remake though?

For me, the cheesy dialogue in Nolan's films are completely forgotten because it's overshadowed by some of the amazing dialogue or quotes in his films. There's a shit ton of memorable quotes in his films.

MeLVaNoaTe wrote:The last time someone wrote the story to a Christopher Nolan movie, we had Insomnia; his most unmemorable film.

Nolan did have a final uncredited rewrite to that movie, albeit a small one.

Anyway, he said he always has to have a hand in the script so even if he took someone else's script, it's going to have some element of Chris Nolan in there.

JL Unlimited wrote:

MeLVaNoaTe wrote:The last time someone wrote the story to a Christopher Nolan movie, we had Insomnia; his most unmemorable film.

Nolan did have a final uncredited rewrite to that movie, albeit a small one.

Anyway, he said he always has to have a hand in the script so even if he took someone else's script, it's going to have some element of Chris Nolan in there.

In terms of story, you absolutely want him to have a hand in it because he comes up with great stories. But I don't think he needs to micromanage the smaller details of the script. James Cameron is another very powerful filmmaker who struggles with dialogue. Both of them have been hugely successful with audiences so their response to the dialogue criticism is probably "fuck off," but this flaw in their filmmaking does hurt their ability as directors to reach maximum potential.

I prefer Nolan's filmography to David Fincher's, but Fincher is smart enough to realize he needs someone else to write the script. He has heavy influence on the story and the character motivations, but he isn't the one writing every little detail. He gets world class writers like Aaron Sorkin to handle the dialogue and I think his films benefit as a result.

redfirebird2008 wrote:

JL Unlimited wrote:

MeLVaNoaTe wrote:The last time someone wrote the story to a Christopher Nolan movie, we had Insomnia; his most unmemorable film.

Nolan did have a final uncredited rewrite to that movie, albeit a small one.

Anyway, he said he always has to have a hand in the script so even if he took someone else's script, it's going to have some element of Chris Nolan in there.

In terms of story, you absolutely want him to have a hand in it because he comes up with great stories. But I don't think he needs to micromanage the smaller details of the script. James Cameron is another very powerful filmmaker who struggles with dialogue. Both of them have been hugely successful with audiences so their response to the dialogue criticism is probably "fuck off," but this flaw in their filmmaking does hurt their ability as directors to reach maximum potential.

I prefer Nolan's filmography to David Fincher's, but Fincher is smart enough to realize he needs someone else to write the script. He has heavy influence on the story and the character motivations, but he isn't the one writing every little detail. He gets world class writers like Aaron Sorkin to handle the dialogue and I think his films benefit as a result.

It would be interesting to see how Nolan would handle someone else's script. I can't remember which interview he said it in but it was during the media tour for inception. He said something along the lines that he wants to be known as a writer-director and not solely a director.

bootsy wrote: I didn't see anything wrong with what you did. It is very good information and a good gauge of what critics seem to constantly give Nolan films negative reviews.

Thank you...for some positivity now, what we might expect from other critics:

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/kennet ... ore&page=1

Turan has given just shy of 200 films his top rating of 100, 3 of which have been Nolan's (The Dark Knight, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises) For reference Gravity is also among one of those films.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/richar ... itic_score

Richard Corliss is pretty much the same story as Turnan. He's given exactly 100 films a 100 and the same three Nolan films are among that. Gravity as well he scored as 100.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/rene-r ... ore&page=1

Rene interestingly gave The Dark Knight Rises a 100 while The Dark Knight and Inception she gave a bit lower at 88. I see that she also gave Gravity an 88, so I'm curious to see whether Interstellar places higher, lower, or the same for her.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/peter- ... ore&page=2

Peter Travers has liked if not loved all of Nolan's films; Insomnia a 100, Memento a 90, Inception 88, The Dark Knight 88, The Dark Knight Rises 88, The Prestige 88, and Batman Begins 75. For reference he as well gave Gravity a 100

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/lou-lu ... itic_score

Lou is one NY critic that has actually loved a number of Nolan's films; The Dark Knight Rises 100, Inception 100, Insomnia 100. And considering he's given less than 100 films out of over 2,300 reviews a 100 score that's pretty special I would say. I did not see The Dark Knight among his counted reviews btw. Also, he too gave Gravity a 100 last year.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/bill-g ... itic_score

This guy seems easily impressed with 70% rated higher than the average critic but note that he's only given a handful of films a 100. Among are yep you guessed it, Inception and Gravity. He gave The Dark Knight Rises an 80 btw and I can't find his scores for any other Nolan films on Metacritic.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/scott- ... ore&page=2

The Dark Knight Rises 91, Inception 91, Insomnia 80

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/ann-ho ... ore&page=1

Nolan has not gotten a 100 out of Anne yet either but she did give The Dark Knight Rises and Inception a score of 88. She's another who gave Gravity a 100 so I'm curious to see if Interstellar reaches that same high.


http://www.metacritic.com/critic/michae ... ore&page=1

Phillips gave The Dark Knight one of his rare 100's, Inception a 75, and The Dark Knight Rises only a 63, though still a green score

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/lisa-s ... ore&page=1

Lisa generally reviews higher than the average critic but she can be difficult to highly please. She gave Batman Begins a 100 but Inception 83, Dark Knight Rises 75. Sometimes her colleague Owen Gleiberman writes the review for EW instead and he gave The Dark Knight a 91. Owen btw is among the group of critics who gave Gravity a 100. I'm interested to see which of these 2 critics reviews Interstellar and where it falls.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/wesley ... ter=movies
http://www.metacritic.com/critic/ty-burr?filter=movies

These two writers for The Boston Globe always seem to be difficult to really please, but they have given Nolan's films fairly respectable scores of 88 for The Dark Knight Rises and 75 for Inception The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, and The Prestige. It seems to be a crap shoot with these two, they review about the same...

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/peter- ... itic_score

This critic who writes for Christian Science Monitor has given The Dark Knight a 91, Inception a 75, The Prestige 75, but The Dark Knight Rises only 58. For reference he was more restrained with Gravity than the other have been; gave it an 83

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/james- ... itic_score

Berardinelli gave The Dark Knight a 100, but has been a bit more restrained with Nolan's other films; The Dark Knight Rises 88, Inception 88, The Prestige only 63. James is another who gave Gravity a 100 so again I'm curious if Interstellar can obtain that same high.

http://www.metacritic.com/critic/joe-mo ... itic_score

Joe Morgenstern can be a tough NY critic to please but more fair than some others I think. He gave The Dark Knight Rises an 80 and Batman Begins a 70 which interestingly are both higher than the 60 he gave The Dark Knight. He didn't get posted for Inception; a colleague for the Wall Street Journal did and that guy only gave a 50, so I think I'd rather see Joe review Interstellar. Curious to see if it can top his scores for the Batman movies. He too gave Gravity a 100...

Any other yet released major critics/publications I missed that you anyone is interested in seeing a rundown for?

BTW, since there's been so much talk of Interstellar following in Gravity's footsteps I'll just post the page for Gravity for reference- http://www.metacritic.com/movie/gravity/critic-reviews

What movie need to be added to rotten tomatoes.

Oh, I see we've got word from Corliss and Traver's now...well as you can see from my post above quite frankly there's not much surprise there, but it's reassuring that they are staying consistent and for some reason don't all of a sudden dislike a Nolan film. Kenneth Turan should be the next to make big waves for interstellar

BTW, I guess I'm in the minority here strangely but I kinda prefer Nolan writing his own scripts. Some of my favorite and most admired directors are writer-directors. Billy Wilder is probably the greatest example, though he was more of a comedic writer. Sure, it would be interesting to see him direct from someone else's screenplay and be hands off with that side of things , but I think that would lose a big part of what makes Nolan special. I'll reserve further judgement until I've seen Interstellar and have had a chance to analyze the screenplay myself...


EDIT: Just took a look at Corliss' review for TIME Magazine. I'm not sure it will be quite another 100; he does call the film "flawed" and in the last paragraph says, "Nolan’s reach occasionally exceeds his grasp" I wonder, did RT already have this quote in hand for the consensus or is Corliss just referring to the RT consensus that was already posted...?