The Dark Knight Rises Shows Why Christopher Nolan's Batman Movies Are So Beloved

I wouldn't say The Dark Knight Rises needs an apology for its general pop culture perception. Such a sentiment should be saved for a movie like Jennifer's Body that was hit by misogynistic reviews and toxic backlashes against its primary creative participants. Using that word for a movie like The Dark Knight Rises that got uniformly positive reviews from critics and made over $1 billion at the worldwide box office is ridiculous. That having been said, the films general reputation among the interwebs has been immensely negative, partially because the release of the movie coincided with a new rise in nitpicky YouTube channels like CinemaSins and Honest Trailers that ensured The Dark Knight Rises would be more known for background stuntmen gone awry than anything related to its storytelling or filmmaking.

Insomnia Has A Great Robin Williams Performance And Some Overly Predictable Elements

Compared to other entries in Christopher Nolan's filmography, Insomnia can't help but feel a bit routine in execution. Now, the film overall is actually pretty entertaining, a well-done cat-and-mouse crime thriller with one particularly strong performance I'll talk about later, but compared to the narrative audaciousness of fellow Nolan movies Dunkirk or Memento and even just considered on its own merits, Insomnia feels more paint-by-numbers in concept and execution of said concept. But even paint-by-numbers can be plenty fine when the paint looks pretty and Insomnia most certainly has some super colorful elements that help stand out.

Dunkirk Is An Incredible War Movie That Goes All-In On Uniqueness

Dunkirk very much does not rest on the laurels of convention in many key aspects of how it chooses to tell the real life story of the World War II rescue mission called the Dunkirk Evacuation. One expects ambition from Christopher Nolan's work at this point, with it mostly paying off for him as a filmmaker while his weaker movies (the still really good The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar) being remarkably admirable in their audaciousness, but kinda like how Edgar Wright demonstrated he could do gangster movies with the same sense of brilliant energy and creativity that he had with his comedy with last month's Baby Driver, Nolan uses his sense of ambition on Dunkirk to chart new territory for himself as a filmmaker. Both in the pantheon of his filmography and as a movie in its own right, Dunkirk really does cement itself as something special.

Memento Is An Early And High-Quality Ambitious Effort From Christopher Nolan

In March of 2001, Christopher Nolan's second movie (following his low-budget 1999 effort Following which received barely a theatrical release domestically), Memento, made its way to movie theaters. We all know his name today, making him one of the few modern day filmmakers to have real cache as a name, but back then he was just another unknown indie filmmaker looking to get people to give his small-scale thriller with an unorthodox narrative structure a look-see. Though he'd grow in scope in the years to come, numerous traits that would be heavily associated with this auteur can be found in Memento while the high level of quality found in many of his subsequent works is also very much here.

The Prestige Is Magic, You Knoooooow....Never Believe It's Not So!

In between creating two different Batman movies that revolutionized how we would forever see the character, director Christopher Nolan managed to also churn out a thriller entirely centered on magicians entitled The Prestige. A Fall 2006 drama starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, it did not receive the massive box office intakes Nolan's directorial efforts now make without even blinking, instead ranking as the 61st biggest movie of 2006, winding up narrowly behind Final Destination 3 and the 2006 remake of The Omen. Of course, people have been talking about and enjoying The Prestige long after those horror films have faded from the public's memory and now upon seeing The Prestige for myself, it's easy to see why it's garnered such acclaim over the past decade.

Interstellar Review

Flawed In Space

Space is a glorious vessel for cinematic storytelling, whether it's Luke Skywalker's many voyages into the cosmos or Stanley Kubrick using space as a backdrop for a look at humanity. So many stories, of widely varying degrees of quality, have been told within those far off stars, so it was inevitable for Christopher Nolan to send his own sci-fi tale into orbit.

Christopher Nolan Has Left The DC Comics Building

Christopher Nolan pretty much revolutionized blockbuster cinema with his Dark Knight trilogy, which took a cinematic icon (Batman) and made him the center of an epic saga filled with great acting and compelling stories. Nolan was kept onboard for the first DC Comics feature after The Dark Knights trilogies conclusion, Man of Steel, though here he was solely a producer. Steel had lots of Nolan's influence, but none of that influence felt personal. Instead, Zack Snyder just seemed to be mimicking the "darkness" and "brooding" of The Dark Knight trilogy without realizing those weren't the sole elements that made those movies successful.

Here It Is! The Newest Version of The Batmobile, Zack Snyder Style!

March 2016 isn't too far, in fact, there's only 18 months until it arrives, so by definition, there isn't too much time until Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice arrives (it comes out March 25, 2016 dontcha know). The epic Zack Snyder film has Superman interacting with numerous people from DC Comics, most notably Batman. I'm sure everyone is completely unaware of the fact that Ben Affleck is playing the Caped Crusader, but now we have the first official images of the vehicle Afflecks Batman will drive in the feature.

Franchise Frenzy: The Dark Knight Trilogy

Welcome to Franchise Frenzy! Every other week I post a column analyzing the quality and pop culture impact of a certain Hollywood franchise. This week, I swear to Christopher Nolan and cover The Dark Knight trilogy.

Three movies have really impact blockbuster cinema in the 21st Century: Spider-Man, Batman Begins and The Avengers (Inception as well, but mainly because every trailer now needs a BWAAAAMMMM) Spider-Man opened the floodgates for comic book movies, while The Avengers told everyone that more complex blockbuster storytelling was possible. And every single reboot for a while there cited Batman Begins expert mix of darkness and fun as the ultimate way to pull off a blockbuster film.