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Introduction
Although I'm aware that some of you are constantly questioning my credibility when it comes to running long-term series of articles (for which I cannot blame you, there are some features which I had been ignoring for a long time), nothing stops the new ideas popping into my head all the time. And after leaving behind an 8-month period of reviews, articles, top lists and lots of ramblings, I have decided it's time for The Long Take to engage in serious and in depth analysis of some important directors.
The idea was born when I recently re-watched a couple of films by Kubrick, who also happens to be my favorite director, and started to see some patterns in his films like anybody else who obsesses over one thing so much that he/she either becomes delusional or a prophet. Well, I don't have a holy book to preach but, needless to say, delusions are more tolerable when they're shared. So in all my malevolence, I have decided to expose you to the results of this madness and contaminate your innocent minds with cinematic infatuation and lunacy.
Before I could even start planning that, came The Dark Knight and I have decided to run my review of Christopher Nolan's Batman films together as a two-volume article. And while gathering my thoughts on this new notion, Cihan came up with the idea of running a 'Modern Masterpieces' series, which would start with The Prestige. Still occupied with the idea of analyzing directors of importance here in The Long Take, I immediately conjured the idea of postponing my semi-planned prattle about Kubrick and replacing him with Nolan, since we would cover much of his films in our upcoming reviews anyway.
What can I say; when life gets in the way of things, cheap pragmatism goes a long way.
Long story short, you will be seeing Christopher Nolan's films reviewed here during the upcoming x months (where x is a variable that depends on how much other stuff I'll have to do and the pop-up rate of new ideas for exciting new features) while me and Cihan will be doing our best to run this whole thing as less arbitrary as possible. If the eventual product feels more like the chapters of the same book rather than a collection of random texts, well, that's about as good as it gets.
The films you'll be seeing include:
* Doodlebug (1997) - watch it here
* Following (1998)
* Memento (2000)
* Insomnia (2002)
* Batman Begins (2005)
* The Prestige (2006)
* The Dark Knight (2008)
although chances are, following this chronological order will not be possible.
I have also included a small list to the left-side bar so you can easily track/find which of these films are reviewed during any of your visits to The Long Take. As we progress, the listed films will be linked to the reviews we have written.
A seperate announcement regarding the 'Modern Masterpieces' series will be posted soon.
Last but not the least, in order to convince you that not a good memory but sufficient amount time is what I'm lacking regarding the long-ignored article series of this blog, here is a list of ongoing but not-updated-for-quite-some-time features of The Long Take:
* Oscars vs. Cannes: The polls have been up for a long time and one was even concluded long time ago. A response to your votes is the least you deserve.
* 25th Istanbul Film Festival Full Coverage: When the excitement of the event dies down, the priorities seem to be changing as well. But there are a lot of films of which I've had the chance to enjoy an early screening in this festival (which include An American Crime, The Fall and Sukiyaki Western Django) and even many more that I want to talk about. So the feature stays, the time of its revival is not far.
* The Funny Games Experience: I haven't forgot that I promised to run a second volume to Haneke's much-discussed film(s).
* Most Anticipated List: Although keeping it up-to-date all the time, not only I am lagging behind in terms of most of the films that I have been dying to see (Teeth leaves a major mark of shame for instance) but also I haven't been able to review all the ones I have seen or talk a bit about the new entries. I know the list needs more love.
* TV: In merely the 3rd post of this whole blog, I have promised to cover TV shows from time to time. Blog archive proves me wrong.
Enough confessions padre. Now, back to earthly matters.
The idea was born when I recently re-watched a couple of films by Kubrick, who also happens to be my favorite director, and started to see some patterns in his films like anybody else who obsesses over one thing so much that he/she either becomes delusional or a prophet. Well, I don't have a holy book to preach but, needless to say, delusions are more tolerable when they're shared. So in all my malevolence, I have decided to expose you to the results of this madness and contaminate your innocent minds with cinematic infatuation and lunacy.
Before I could even start planning that, came The Dark Knight and I have decided to run my review of Christopher Nolan's Batman films together as a two-volume article. And while gathering my thoughts on this new notion, Cihan came up with the idea of running a 'Modern Masterpieces' series, which would start with The Prestige. Still occupied with the idea of analyzing directors of importance here in The Long Take, I immediately conjured the idea of postponing my semi-planned prattle about Kubrick and replacing him with Nolan, since we would cover much of his films in our upcoming reviews anyway.
What can I say; when life gets in the way of things, cheap pragmatism goes a long way.
Long story short, you will be seeing Christopher Nolan's films reviewed here during the upcoming x months (where x is a variable that depends on how much other stuff I'll have to do and the pop-up rate of new ideas for exciting new features) while me and Cihan will be doing our best to run this whole thing as less arbitrary as possible. If the eventual product feels more like the chapters of the same book rather than a collection of random texts, well, that's about as good as it gets.
The films you'll be seeing include:
* Doodlebug (1997) - watch it here
* Following (1998)
* Memento (2000)
* Insomnia (2002)
* Batman Begins (2005)
* The Prestige (2006)
* The Dark Knight (2008)
although chances are, following this chronological order will not be possible.
I have also included a small list to the left-side bar so you can easily track/find which of these films are reviewed during any of your visits to The Long Take. As we progress, the listed films will be linked to the reviews we have written.
A seperate announcement regarding the 'Modern Masterpieces' series will be posted soon.
Last but not the least, in order to convince you that not a good memory but sufficient amount time is what I'm lacking regarding the long-ignored article series of this blog, here is a list of ongoing but not-updated-for-quite-some-time features of The Long Take:
* Oscars vs. Cannes: The polls have been up for a long time and one was even concluded long time ago. A response to your votes is the least you deserve.
* 25th Istanbul Film Festival Full Coverage: When the excitement of the event dies down, the priorities seem to be changing as well. But there are a lot of films of which I've had the chance to enjoy an early screening in this festival (which include An American Crime, The Fall and Sukiyaki Western Django) and even many more that I want to talk about. So the feature stays, the time of its revival is not far.
* The Funny Games Experience: I haven't forgot that I promised to run a second volume to Haneke's much-discussed film(s).
* Most Anticipated List: Although keeping it up-to-date all the time, not only I am lagging behind in terms of most of the films that I have been dying to see (Teeth leaves a major mark of shame for instance) but also I haven't been able to review all the ones I have seen or talk a bit about the new entries. I know the list needs more love.
* TV: In merely the 3rd post of this whole blog, I have promised to cover TV shows from time to time. Blog archive proves me wrong.
Enough confessions padre. Now, back to earthly matters.
1 comments:
There is no doubt in my mind that Nolan is the best active director in Hollywood.
Memento is quite easily a modern masterpiece, Insomnia proved he can do the crime/thriller genre justice without the gimmick of reverse chronological order, and the dark knight proves he's able to stage spectacular action movies and lace it with social commentary.
I look forward to reading the reviews!
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