I watched all of Christopher Nolan's movies and want to talk about it.

My brother, my roommate, and I thought it would be cool to come up with a list of directors and watch their movies in order to see how they evolve over time, so the first one we went with was Christopher Nolan. We didn't watch his short films or anything else, just the 10 feature films he has directed. Here are some thoughts:1) He has nailed the intellectual Blockbuster. I don't mean this like some fanboy that thinks Nolan is the deepest or most complex story teller of all time, but he really knows how to make a big, exciting, spectacle with layers worth digging into: Inception has dealing with loss and facing life after that loss; The Prestige has the dangers and costs of obsession. Even if the layers aren't the newest or deepest, there's something that informs the telling of the story.2) His story structure is never straightforward, but he doesn't just tack a twist onto the end of his movies. Memento, The Prestige, and Following all take some wild turns the first time through, but the character motivations and plot development are just as important as the big finale, making repeat viewing more interesting than just "oh I didn't catch that one line before." Then there's Dunkirk, Interstellar, Inception, and Insomnia that don't have some big crazy reveal but they use non-linear story, parallel plots and ambiguity to add emphasis to certain story beats and scenes.3) he needs to work on his female characters. The two most interesting females in my opinion are both in Interstellar, and both of them are mostly defined by their relationship to Cooper. His women aren't the most egregious examples of "men writing women" for sure, but none of them are really their own person. I'm not even saying they have to be the central character or have the most screen time, but let them be more than the object of desire, the troubled wife or daughter, the new girl to vomit exposition at, or the literal subconscious image of the dead lover. Why not have a woman be the charming, witty British guy, or the shady ally with a criminal past that you don't know if you should trust, or the courageous boat captain that faces death to save others?4) if your weakest entry of your filmography is a middling superhero movie with an incredibly distracting preference from Tom Hardy, you've done pretty good for yourself.This went a little longer than I thought. What are your thoughts on Nolan. Good or bad? Overrated or deserving of the hype? Favorite movie by him? What did I get wrong? via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3g4HNMB