Month: August 2020

Tenet Incoming

~ Huncrweo ~ Leave a comment

Great news! I’m seeing Tenet tomorrow, most likely, and I couldn’t be more excited. Not just for the movie, though I’m pretty excited for that too, but for the chance to go to the cinemas again. I haven’t been to a movie theatre since March. Yes, there have been some smaller movies out since then but I wanted to have something massive as my ‘return to cinemas’ movie, not something like Unhinged.

And Tenet is a massive movie – $200 million budget, 151 minutes, starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine etc., directed by Christopher Nolan, director of The Prestige, The Dark Knight and Inception.

I mention those three specifically since they’d probably be my top three Nolans if I had to make a list. TDK would on top by a mile (that’s almost a perfect movie), then Prestige and Inception would be tied for second (both great films. If you put a gun to my head I think I’d choose Inception, but who knows?). Next would be Batman Begins, which improved substantially upon my last rewatch, which happened in 2019 (I already really liked it but I’m comfortable calling it great now). Then Interstellar, which admittedly had a couple of problems but you can’t deny the spectacle, nor Matthew McConaughey’s performance. Then we get into the lower end of the spectrum, where I’d put The Dark Knight Rises (fine, good even, but a substantial drop in quality following the previous film) and Dunkirk (haven’t seen it in a few years but I remember it being emotionally detached and pointlessly non-linear).

The Nolans I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing yet: Following (I’d like to get the Criterion so I’m keeping my powder dry for that), Memento (can’t wait but it’s not easily available in Australia and I’d prefer not to pirate it), Insomnia (sounds vaguely interesting but I haven’t heard great things about it), and of course Tenet.

I might give Dunkirk another go tonight. I find Nolan films tend to improve on rewatch thanks to their complexity, and I don’t want to be the only one left out of the Dunkirk fan club…

Branagh’s Poirot Returns

~ Huncrweo ~ Leave a comment

 I know I’m in the minority when I say that I liked Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. It wasn’t perfect by any means and would almost certainly not age well on rewatch (part of my fondness for it is due to the relentlessly fun time I had at the cinema with a mate of mine. For some reason, Derek Jacobi’s line about leaving something unpleasant on Johnny Depp’s pillow hit just the right comedy note for both of us and we were laughing for minutes afterwards, drawing strange looks from our fellow patrons), but it was stylish and had a stellar cast.

At the end of that film, Branagh worked in a bit of a tease for a sequel based on Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile. At the time, I wasn’t sure such a movie was going to materialise, but three years later, 20th Century Fo- I mean, 20th Century Studios has released a trailer, along with a pretty sexy poster.

The poster, of course, mirrors the one for Murder on the Orient Express in 2017:

Don’t you love a bit of poster-based synchronicity? Death‘s cast isn’t quite as good as Murder‘s, I will admit, with Gal Gadot (and I guess Armie Hammer?) being the only real star among them. Still, you don’t necessarily need a stacked cast to have a good film, and the trailer gives me a lot of hope, showcasing very stylish cinematography and what will hopefully be a thrilling story.

I get that new adaptations of these classic Christie stories aren’t for everyone (particularly as both have already been made into well-liked movies themselves), but I quite like the idea of adapting another one of her novels every few years. The traditional whodunit with a cast of big names is a product of a bygone era, so having movies like these (along with last year’s Knives Out and arguably the BBC TV show Sherlock) feels like a fun throwback and a good way to break up the monotony of other studio tentpoles, which can feel a bit samey.

Not to mention that Christopher Nolan’s plan to lead the way back into cinemas with Tenet seems to have worked, since this is due for a theatrical release in October. I hope it makes it.