I didn't like Memento either. I don't really care for Nolan's directing style. Namely, the way he directs characters. They're flat, humorless, and just dull. That's all fine and good if you direct sleepers, and the characters are supposed to drip with banality. Yet Nolan always picks these fantastical concepts and settings, and it just feels incongruous to me.

I've heard his character directing is praised as "subtle", so I guess I must be completely unable to detect subtlety, because his characters just seem monotonous to me.

Putting less emphasis on the characters seems like a way to focus on the concepts and settings, not detract from them.

Putting "less emphasis on the characters" in any character-driven narrative is bad storytelling, plain and simple. Strong characterization is imperative, unless your characters are inherently retarded.

See, I don’t think you’re wrong, but I don’t think Nolan writes character-driven stories.

Let’s take Inception as our example. (spoilers for people who haven’t seen it)

Inception is a movie all about dudes who break into people’s dreams to fuck with their heads. We are introduced to Silas Cobb: he’s our main character, and he is the best at breaking into dreams. He’s on the run from the law, and is also being chased around dreams by his dead wife. He is given an opportunity to clear his name, but needs to pull off some supposedly impossible feat and also manage to avoid his dead wife while doing so.

This is all explained to the audience over the course of the film. It tells us about Cobb’s history, and gives him motivation to do what he does in the movie, as well as put the movie’s plot into action.

But that’s pretty much all we need. The plot is set in motion by the characters, but it doesn’t revolve around them or their temperaments. It’s a heist plot, essentially, and the big draw is seeing how the plan gets pulled off, what goes wrong, and how the team recovers. It’s about the twists and turns the plot takes, not about the characters involved in it.

And I think that’s how Nolan rolls. He comes up with crazy concepts and cool plots, and puts some characters in to push them along. He writes enough into them to make them get things rolling, then the rest is about the ride. Memento is all about the murder mystery being told backwards, Prestige is about a deadly rivalry between two stage magicians, Dark Knight is about Gotham City being fought over by vigilantes.

If that's the case, then I guess I just don't like Nolan.

Your points make sense, but I still think it causes incongruity. He makes movies about magicians, dreamworlds, and bat men, and yet these movies take themselves so seriously. I guess he figures that if the characters are bland enough, it will balance out, but it just doesn't work for me.

I thought his Batman movies and Inception were all good. I just thought Memento was one of the biggest snorefests I've seen in a long time.

I thought Rain Man did have strong characters.

*Badump-tssh*

I watched Shrooms. Was it supposed to be a horror? Seemed more like a drama with a creepy man running around and wasted teenagers.

I'll be seeing The Raid tonight. I hope it's good, action films aren't what they used to be.

I've heard nothing but praise for that movie, even my dad who isn't really impressed by anything these days loved it.

i watched that fucking ages ago. i thought it was shit, that's all i remember about it.

I've been watching a lot of Modern Family recently, I'm halfway through the first season now. I have seen the first season before but it was quite a long time ago. I think it's a fun show, not great but fun to watch once in a while.

I watched Ren and Stimpy for the first time in a long time. I fucking love it.

Watching a shit ton of Arrested Development again, man that series gets better every time I watch it.

Saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. As a fan of the original films, I was very pleasantly surprised with this one. Graphically, it's amazing. The plot is pretty good with some unexpected events and parallel plotlines going on. Fantastic choice in actors, particularly James Franco and Tom Felton who play their roles very well indeed. Great motion capture and script. Overall, fantastic film.

I really loved that movie as well. I also thought they did the best job they could plot-wise for a prequel to such an absurd series of movies.

I liked it too.

So it's actually good, then? For some reason, I kind of dismissed it as another lame Planet of the Apes sequel/prequel.

Might have to check it out.

I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes not too long ago, I thought it was okay. Saying that though, I've never seen Planet of the Apes so i guess it was kinda pointless me seeing it.

I've been watching The Incresingly Poor Descisions of Todd Margaret. I watched the first four episodes one after another last night, really great show. Very british humour, despite being made by an American.

If you like David Cross and Wil Arnet (Tobias and GOB from Arrested Development if anyone is wondering) being goofs, then this is your show. It's very funny.

I love that show.

It's really great. I just finished off the first season and am downloading the second as I type this. The finale had so many great laughs, it's uncanny. "Alice's Rape Kit" was fuckign hilarious.

watched House Of 1000 Corpses and then Devil's Rejects. they weren't what i expected, but at the same time they were what i expected, so i enjoyed them.

Watched The Little Shop of Horrors for the first time in about ten years.
I love the hell out of that movie. Probably my favorite musical ever, which is saying something, because I hate musicals.

Musicals are usually pretty bad yeah, but they're occasionally amazing. Like the South Park movie, I love that one to death.

I love musicals

That is all

I've found I hate all the musicals everyone raves about. Not even out of my innate hipsterism, I just genuinely didn't enjoy any of the songs or stories. Rent and West Side Story are two examples.

If all you saw was the Rent movie, fair enough. That was a pile of shit. The stage show was pretty good though. Probably not for everyone, but I thought it was pretty good.

I watched Lord of the Rings: Two Towers AND Return of the King in one sitting.

I didn't see Return of the King for quite some time and it was absolutely incredible. The ending was so good. Two Towers remains my favorite though because the battle of Helms Deep is one of the best battle scenes I've ever seen.

Conditioned response: Didyoureadthebooks?

I just watched Eurovision. Fun, Sweden were alright winners, favourite was actually Malta. Also Joe's favourites actually got a point this year:

If by favourite you mean 'Burn them and the entire show, but them first.'

Then yes

I liked the fountain.

But what I loved was the way they gave up pretending that they weren't lipsyncing at the end.

I read up to Two Towers. I like the films more :)

I can't stand them fuckers.

I got Extras season 1 and 2 for £3.70 the other week
Ricky Gervais at his best. No doubt the Office is better, though.

Anyone here watch Game of Thrones? I don't, but a lot of my friends do, and I was wondering if it's really worth watching. It's getting a lot of praise.

When I first watched I thought it was a big dumb pile of incest but recently I've been watching the new episodes every week and find myself liking it more and more. It's a very interesting show and absolutely worth giving a chance or two. The author is a big sweaty perverse old neckbeard, but some of the episodes he's had a direct hand in aren't half bad. Some of the lore (a 5000 year long empire held by one of the houses, for example) can be a little ridick but it's an intriguing fantasy world all the same.

The most recent episode was actually really good, and not just because of all the body parts being hacked off. It was actually just really well made television. It might be the best episode I've seen of the show.

It was really awesome and kept me glued to my seat (or fuming whenever Cersei opened her stupid maw) but I want to know what's going to happen to Theon, dammit. He's done so much stupid shit.

Theon......has some interesting times ahead.

It rhymes with Leek.