Christopher Nolan - Jeffrey Overstreet

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Christopher Nolan

A collection of 13 posts

Was Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Was Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Christopher Nolan seems to be remaking Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in this profound meditation on America's self-righteous obsession with coercive violence and apocalyptic firepower.

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Tenet (2020)

Christopher Nolan's movie was meant to restore our enthusiasm for big-screen cinema. So why do I think it's best watched on a laptop?

Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar (2014)

After I got home from seeing Interstellar — I saw it in good old-fashioned 35 mm, not in IMAX — I had mixed feelings about the movie, and decided I would jot down a few notes. About 90 minutes later, I was still writing.

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Why So Serious? Why, It's My Fifth Dark Knight-iversary!

Five years ago today, I attended a sneak preview with an enthusiastic Seattle audience, and watched this guy for the first time. Complicated, thought-provoking, discussion-starting, well-acted, full of awe-inspiring action sequences, unpredictable... I hadn't seen a comic-book-hero movie as ambitious or as impressive. Nor have I seen one

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The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Inevitably, answering the summons of the summertime box office, The Dark Knight Rises. And so does the sun. Thus, we finally get to see Batman duking it out with bad guys in broad daylight. But the daylight reveals other things as well, like the vastness of the city, which gives us that much more tr

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Batman Begins (2005)

Here—with a few small repairs and clarifications—is my original (and very long) review of Batman Begins...

Inception (2010)

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Inception (2010)

[This two-part review was originally published at Good Letters, the Image blog. Here are Part One and Part Two.] Part One: Mind Over What Matters If Inception sounds a bit heavy, that’s because it is. The summer moviegoing standard is Fast Food for Juvenile Appetites. But Christopher Nolan’s

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Why I'm Not Doing the Zero-Gravity Dance Over Inception

My review of Inception is a two-parter, and it goes up on Good Letters, the Image blog, today and tomorrow. Here's Part One. Basically, Part One is about why I think it's interesting but ultimately disappointing. Oh, but there are some very cool things in Inception.

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"The Dark Knight": More Than a Box Office Champ

The Dark Knight set an impressive box office record this weekend. But that's not the only list it topped. (Thanks to Scott Derrickson, who sent the link and prompted me to post this.) Granted, this IMDB list is vulnerable to surges, and as time passes, I'm

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Brace Yourselves for "The Dark Knight"

The Dark Knight is my favorite superhero movie for adults. It's every bit as good as you've heard, and probably better. But it's not for kids. Heath Ledger's Joker is one of the greatest portrayals of the devil I've ever

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The Dark Knight's big explosion

Director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige) just blew up a building in Chicago! The old, vacant Brach's Candy Factory in western Chicago was destroyed in rather spectacular fashion for a scene in Nolan's sequel to Batman Begins -- The Dark Knight. You can watch it happen

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Memento (2001)

2013 Update: I haven't seen Memento in many years, but I feel that I have seen enough Christopher Nolan movies to last a lifetime. It saddens me that Nolan seems stuck on telling stories about men who, trapped in desperate circumstances, can find hope only in violent resistance.

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Dream cast!

If you could cast ten actors in a film, who would you bring together? Post your thoughts in the comments. I remember "casting" Ian Holm as Bilbo and Ian McKellan as Gandalf in my dream Lord of the Rings film many years before Jackson took on the project,