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Dunkirk (Spoilers)


DMC

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13 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Peter Hitchens posted a very negative review of Dunkirk.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/07/dunkirk-considered-at-length.html

By the sounds of things I'll probably agree with Hitchens if I ever see it (although I don't plan to because I don't like WW2 films that much). That being said, I did quite like Interstellar and principally because of the spectacle/atmosphere: I did not think much of the plot or the father/daughter dynamic. The main actor was also an awful mumbler.

 

Yeah this is a like a lot of the negative reviews I've seen for the movie. They centre on peoples view of what a Dunkirk movie should be, and mostly don't bother to look at what the intention of the director was when making it. 

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28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I can totally see why people would have similar views to Hitchens on the film, but how come he's so fucking insecure about it? 'If anyone disagrees with me the must be stupid!'. Poor bloke.

I often like Hitchens forthrightness on things, but he is also a complete bell-end.

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6 hours ago, PetyrPunkinhead said:

 

Agreed, it'd be an interesting exercise in film. Have Quentin write different scenes for different directors to do and maybe put it together as anthology film. Putting aside the Tarantino/Nolan fanfic colab, I truly wish we'd see another anthology film like the Twilight Zone Movie or Four Rooms. 

Four Rooms was awesome.  Have you seen this - a cabal of directors collaborating in order to preserve film in the...film industry?  Imagine those guys putting together an anthology film...maybe forget to add Snyder to the group text.

2 hours ago, red snow said:

Although I was left thinking that spitfires have incredible gliding capabilities at the end of the film, that's my only real quibble with it.

I thought so too, but apparently this is actually legit (although I'm hardly an expert):

Quote

OK, but isn’t it absurd how long that Spitfire glides?

Not really. Veterans reported gliding their Spitfires 15 miles or more.

 

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12 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Four Rooms was awesome.  Have you seen this - a cabal of directors collaborating in order to preserve film in the...film industry?  Imagine those guys putting together an anthology film...maybe forget to add Snyder to the group text.

I thought so too, but apparently this is actually legit (although I'm hardly an expert):

 

That article is pretty good, thanks.

I also like the idea of directors forming a help-group for cinema. I think some of the criticism of Netflix is overly harsh - there are a lot of great indie films that can be enjoyed on the small screen and the fact netflix is now funding some of those is only good for the industry. I do agree that "spectacle" film still requires the big screen but I'm not sure Netflix is really doing that with its films yet. If anything there are aspects of shows like "Narcos" and "sense8" where I sometimes wish I could watch scenes at the cinema. In general it's the visually engaging films that take up cinema these days. There's the superhero effects-laden works and then there are Nolan/tarrantino style films too.

Blade Runner 2049 trailers look 5x better at the cinema than they do on a laptop screen. The scenes in the desert are gorgeous.

 

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20 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think some of the criticism of Netflix is overly harsh - there are a lot of great indie films that can be enjoyed on the small screen and the fact netflix is now funding some of those is only good for the industry.

Yeah I think Netflix does some really great things.  From what I remember, Nolan's main criticism seemed to be why don't they just have a cinema release and wait a few months before streaming their movies like Amazon rather than their "day-and-date" model?  I think that's an entirely reasonable complaint, and the strategy does seem aimed at shutting down theaters - intentional or not.

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I assumed the Spitfire gliding like that was legit. Those planes were very light compared to what we make today, and had the design to glide. The more troubling question is how much ammo could they carry, because Farrier shot a lot.

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1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

I assumed the Spitfire gliding like that was legit. Those planes were very light compared to what we make today, and had the design to glide. The more troubling question is how much ammo could they carry, because Farrier shot a lot.

Yeah that occurred to me. Having said that, he did at least use a series of short bursts. Seemed plausible. 

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6 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Yeah I think Netflix does some really great things.  From what I remember, Nolan's main criticism seemed to be why don't they just have a cinema release and wait a few months before streaming their movies like Amazon rather than their "day-and-date" model?  I think that's an entirely reasonable complaint, and the strategy does seem aimed at shutting down theaters - intentional or not.

I think that approach by netflix is only damaging if they make films that could have benefitted from the big screen. I don't know how many films they have where that's the case? Okja maybe (need to see it). War Machine? Not from when I watched it at home. So far Netflix seems to be creating a direct-to-video style which I don't think is trying to replace cinema as they know others are keeping that afloat.

Amazon are different in the sense they've always had a "to buy" option outside their "prime" model so it's ok for them to have the delayed release from cinema to streaming. Netflix's whole thing is access to everything at the same time so I can see why it's an issue.

I guess Netflix could please Nolan and everyone by investing in cinema screens down the road where subscribers watch for free. Given they charge more for HD subscriptions they could charge an extra $ a month for free access to see screenings of their films at the cinema.

4 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yeah that occurred to me. Having said that, he did at least use a series of short bursts. Seemed plausible. 

I don't know how much much ammo a spitfire could carry but I thought the use of bullets was conservative by film standards.

I loved how "basic" the fighter planes were, from using a notepad for navigation to guesstimating the amount of fuel (which I know was due to a fault rather than a default). My admiration of those pilots increased even further upon realising just how adaptable they were. I also always find it amazing how the human mind/body can adapt and feel at home in things it was never designed for. Those pilots flew those planes as an extension of themselves and I'm sure much of their flying was instinct.

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Enjoyed it, wasn't my favourite Nolan film and I wouldn't rush to see it again but it was good while it lasted.

The one thing that I didn't quite follow was how Not Gibson/French Soldier died - did he just get caught on something as they were bailing from the merchant ship?

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So I just got back from seeing it and...it's amazing. What a visceral and immersive movie going experience. It absolutely needs to be seen on the big screen with top notch sound. Watching it on a computer wouldn't even come close to doing it justice. I wasn't bothered at all by the lack of characterisation (which seems to be the biggest complaint) since the movie is much more about the event itself. It's probably a lock for an Oscar in sound, and Nolan directed the hell out of it. The dogfights were probably my favorite part of the film, and pretty much everything aerial looked gorgeous. Nolan and his team really nailing all the technical aspects combined with such a great story really made for a remarkable film. I have no personal connection to it, nor am I British but it choked me up a couple times towards the end. Easily Nolan's best in years.

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On July 27, 2017 at 6:56 AM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yeah this is a like a lot of the negative reviews I've seen for the movie. They centre on peoples view of what a Dunkirk movie should be, and mostly don't bother to look at what the intention of the director was when making it. 

Thats my view of the criticisms as well. The last negative review I read centered on how the critic fealt the movie not having Winston Churchill anywhere in it sort of cheated history or something?

Im looking forward to seeing this and forming my own impression.

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6 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

The last negative review I read centered on how the critic fealt the movie not having Winston Churchill anywhere in it sort of cheated history or something?



Oh goodness. There's two separate Churchill haigographies coming out this year (well, one already out), will that not sate them?

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I really liked this movie... the Stuka dive bombing scenes were devastating... as was watching that torpedo heading towards the ship carrying all those men was heartbreaking... the out of sequence scenes worked for me...

.... that one shot of the Spitfire gliding over the beach --right before he landed-- was cinematically beautiful

.... I'm thinking this has a shot at winning best picture at the academy awards

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On 7/29/2017 at 6:13 AM, Nictarion said:

So I just got back from seeing it and...it's amazing. What a visceral and immersive movie going experience. It absolutely needs to be seen on the big screen with top notch sound. ..The dogfights were probably my favorite part of the film, and pretty much everything aerial looked gorgeous. Nolan and his team really nailing all the technical aspects combined with such a great story really made for a remarkable film.

I saw it this weekend as well. I thought it was a very good film, tense from start to finish.

Like you the dogfights stood out to the most of everything, which is remarkable for me because aerial combat is normally precisely the area where my attention wanes. I just don't get much of out of it, and that was completely different this time around. It may have to with Tom Hardy, who is one of my favorite younger generation actors. The scenes on the beach were also impressive. But I was surprised that the dogfights interested me the most.

One "complaint". I wish it had been more of a WW2 movie in the sense that I wish it had shown more of the land based fighting against the Germans. The first few minutes had that but after that the focus shifts. I would have loved to have seen sequences showing the advance of the Germans towards the beach, how the last line of defense kept shrinking back further and further.

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On 7/30/2017 at 7:59 PM, Martini Sigil said:

I'm thinking this has a shot at winning best picture at the academy awards

Yeah I think this is clearly his best shot thus far.  I don't anticipate him making a more academy-friendly film in the future either.

20 hours ago, Calibandar said:

I would have loved to have seen sequences showing the advance of the Germans towards the beach, how the last line of defense kept shrinking back further and further.

I like how the Nazis are never even mentioned by name - I believe (could be wrong) that every time they're referred to it's just "the enemy."  It supports and reflects the razor sharp focus on how the evacuators were experiencing the situation.

ETA:  It's almost like Nolan lost a bar bet.  "Make a successful WWII movie with no Nazis, no Americans, no Churchill, no blood, and no victory."

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I liked Dunkirk quite a bit. I didn't know much going in, other than the actual history and the fact that the movie was somehow under 2 hours long, and the movie wasn't quite what I was expecting (a more traditional WWII movie) but I quite liked what was there. The focus on the moment-to-moment experiences, the sparse dialog, the overall lack of characterization, made it a very unique thing; the way I tried to describe it after seeing it was that it seemed almost myth-like. Because the focus was on the event instead of the characters, but there were characters there, everything just seemed so much larger than life (except the scenes with Kenneth Branagh, which were the most traditional part of the movie).

One question I had, are there ever any Nazis shown in the entire movie? There are the Luftwaffe planes, but I don't think we ever see the pilots, and IIRC we never see any soldiers either. The Nazis shooting at the start are offscreen and everything after that is at a distance.

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13 minutes ago, Fez said:

I liked Dunkirk quite a bit. I didn't know much going in, other than the actual history and the fact that the movie was somehow under 2 hours long, and the movie wasn't quite what I was expecting (a more traditional WWII movie) but I quite liked what was there. The focus on the moment-to-moment experiences, the sparse dialog, the overall lack of characterization, made it a very unique thing; the way I tried to describe it after seeing it was that it seemed almost myth-like. Because the focus was on the event instead of the characters, but there were characters there, everything just seemed so much larger than life (except the scenes with Kenneth Branagh, which were the most traditional part of the movie).

One question I had, are there ever any Nazis shown in the entire movie? There are the Luftwaffe planes, but I don't think we ever see the pilots, and IIRC we never see any soldiers either. The Nazis shooting at the start are offscreen and everything after that is at a distance.

Nope, not really. The only time you see Germans are right there at the end, and they're out of focus, and the Luftwaffe planes. I saw one analysis of the movie that said that the enemy was time itself, and there was no need to show enemy soldiers. 

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I thought it was great. I'm glad it didn't focus on the WW2 history or events leading up to Dunkirk and instead just honed in on the experience of those involved. Everything from the beach bombings, the sinking ships and the dogfights to the arrival of the civilian ships and the welcome the soldiers had in Britain was hugely atmospheric. Tom Hardy gliding his plane around to stop the German bomber to the cheers of the waiting soldiers was my favourite moment. Probably my favourite Nolan movie after the Prestige. 

 

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