Top 10 performances in Christopher Nolan's movies

Christopher Nolan's movies have given us a lot of wonderful things - exceptional sequences, wonderful cinematography, fantastic music. But most of all they have given us wonderful performances, often times the very best from the talented actors who appeared in Nolan's film's. Here's my list of the 10 best of them.

Breaking Emotions: Smiles + Thrills

This week MettelRay gave us Smiles and Thrills to work with. I'm gonna give three examples for each of those. I'm going to share actual scenes too.

A summary? Pussy Palace, undies and George Clooney. My God, that sounds erotic.

Making the case for Hans Zimmer's score for The Dark Knight Rises

Stevee of Cinematic Paradox came up with great idea for a blogathon - since it's Oscar season she proposed that we all make a case for a nomination/win we would like to see happen. Since Anne Hathaway is probably going to win for Les Miserables and I loved her as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, my first instinct was to make a case for her. But there is another part of the movie that is brilliant and very under appreciated - the original score created by Hans Zimmer.

Scene of the Week - The Dark Knight Rises

Deshi Basara

directed by Christopher Nolan

The scene: In my absolute favorite moment from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne attempts to climb out of pit - the jail he was thrown into by Bane - without the rope supporting him. He made many attempts to get out before, always with the rope attached to him to save his life in case he failed, but that changes when another inmate tells him the story of a child who managed to escape - while climbing without the rope, the fear of falling and dying made it possible to escape.

Wanting to get out and protect Gotham, Bruce does the same, as fellow inmates chant, encouraging him. At one point Bruce stops as the swarm of bats emerges, which oddly only gives him confidence. He makes the jump and as Hans Zimmer's triumphant "Why do we fall?" stops for a moment we see the inmates freezing in silence too. As the music starts again we see that Bruce managed to make the jump and he gets out of pit, just as Batman theme starts playing in the background.

The Dark Knight Rises

94/100 (2012, 164 min)
Plot: Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham's finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay)
Stars: Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman

There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne.

If you told me a week ago that I will give The Dark Knight Rises Christopher Nolan's follow up to The Dark Knight, the movie I like but I consider to be incredibly flawed, 10 /10 I'd laugh. And if you added it will turn out to be better than Prometheus I'll probably cut off my own arm because that would make more sense to me than this statement becoming the reality.Well, fetch me the machete.

I love stories about Batman not just because he is pretty messed up hero, with all his issues and the obvious ramifications that hide behind the fact he dresses as a bat, but also because they are really entertaining - I never watch animated series on TV, but I watched Batman every time it was on. Not only did most of those stories had really cool, noir vibe to them, the villains were always my favorite part. From The Joker through Poison Ivy to Bane they were all different, unique and scary in their own way.

20 best and 20 most embarassing moments in Nolan's Batman movies so far.

As much as I think both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are fine films, the amount of things that are great in them are equal to the amount of times I either rolled my eyes or thought "oh, balls!". Those are films that could have had much better scripts but their execution is fantastic. If there ever were films that truly benefited from watching them on the huge screen - well those are Nolan's Batman movies.

Neither of them holds up too good on rewatch - the novelty and the epic factor works the first time, but then it wears off and you are stuck with moments that either feel out of place or silly. Thankfully, there are two things that will continue making me rewatch these two films - first there is excellent score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard that really adds a lot to the movies. What I love is that the main theme is present throughout both films, yet the soundtracks are very different as the composers used new theme for the Joker. While Danny Elfman's scores for Tim Burton's Batmans are fantastic, Zimmer and Howard really brought their A game here and I think this main theme will ultimately be more memorable than Elfman's one.

Soundtrack Wednesday - The Dark Knight Rises (2)

Track: The End

Artist: Hans Zimmer

Movie: The Dark Knight Rises

Soundtrack Wednesday - The Dark Knight Rises

 

Track: Why Do We Fall?

Artist: Hans Zimmer

Movie: The Dark Knight Rises

First trailer for Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises"

• Anne Hathaway sounds good, but she looks like she always does, so that's the opposite of good. And her Catwoman suit - from what I saw in the photos - is very underwhelming.
• Bane looks badass.
• I fear one day I will wake up and there will be nothing left because Nolan decided he needs to take his little "let's make things explode" Bay-inspired logic to another level and it leads him to blowing up a small country.
• Really epic music in this one.
• It's kinda funny that Bale appears to be mute. Had he slip in his Batman-voice permamently and they finally saw it was laughable?
• Cotillard and Levitt reduced to single frames. Yeah, that cast isn't exclusively an audiance magnet at all..
• Still - a very good trailer.