TENET A "Humorless," "Palindromic Dud", Even After 45 Minutes are Cut

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AndyDursin
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TENET A "Humorless," "Palindromic Dud", Even After 45 Minutes are Cut

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

This won't get me to see HOBBS AND SHAW, but obviously will be one of the few movies to see in Summer 2020.

Denzel's son John David Washington stars -- filming now taking place across 7 countries! (Take that green screen!!)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat- ... ed-1228719
Christopher Nolan dropped a surprise for some movie goers Thursday night. The secretive filmmaker's next project, Tenet, debuted a short teaser with some screenings of Universal's Hobbs & Shaw, and The Hollywood Reporter was on hand for an IMAX screening at AMC Century City. So far, the Tenet teaser has not appeared online.

The roughly minute-long first look at Tenet opens on a bullet hole that’s punched through some glass. Behind the glass stands John David Washington’s character. The teaser slam cuts to the words, “Time has come for a new protagonist.” Washington’s character walks up to examine the glass. The camera tracks him as he moves to the side, revealing more cracks in the glass. This visual echoes Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) surveying bullet ballistics in Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight. The teaser then slam cuts to the words, “Time has come for a new kind of mission.” Then, it reenters on people dressed as swat team members, or perhaps members kind of special operative unit. Quick cuts of Washington in action flash, before the teaser holds on a shot of Washington, with an oxygen mask over his mouth as he slowly breathes. Beneath the trailer is a pulsing, almost wobbling score, with the bass particularly powerful. Tenet composer Ludwig Goransson is notable for bass in his Creed and Black Panther scores.

Washington, seemingly the sole main cast member to appear in the teaser — unless Robert Pattinson or Elizabeth Debicki are behind some of those masked cops — is framed as the protagonist of the film, which is being described as an action epic evolving from the world of international espionage. Like Nolan’s 2010 film Inception, and as that description hints, Tenet looks to take inspiration from James Bond films. Tenet is also rumored to involve the time continuum, and it’s possible that the refrain of the word “time” in the teaser is a clue to this.

The lettering of the film’s title, which is notably a palindrome, has flipped the final E and T so that they are upside down — styled as TENƎꓕ. Nolan broke onto the scene with 2000’s Memento, a film that runs backwards and forwards at the same time, and has deployed non-linear structures in many of his films since.

Nolan is known for vague early teasers that reveal almost nothing about the plot. The first teaser for The Dark Knight (2008) had no footage and featured a short monologue from Michael Caine's Alfred, as well as a quote from Heath Ledger's The Joker. The first look at Interstellar (2014) included a Matthew McConaughey monologue — one that wasn’t actually in the film — and largely featured archival footage of space exploration. And the first look at Dunkirk (2017), had no dialogue, merely showing the harsh conditions on the Dunkirk beach to the score of a rapid ticking clock.

The secrecy of the Tenet release is par for the course, as well. Nolan has been an avid proponent of the theatrical experience not only of his films, but of the marketing of them too. With The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Dunkirk, Nolan released IMAX prologues in theaters ahead of major December releases I Am Legend (2007), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), respectively. With Interstellar, Nolan released a special IMAX trailer in institutional theaters, like science centers.

It is unclear which screenings of Hobbs & Shaw will get the Tenet trailer, and Warner Bros. did not respond to a request for clarification. Tenet is currently still in production, and is being shot on a mixture of IMAX and 70mm. Warner Bros. is opening the film July 17, 2020, with the cast also including Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Dimple Kapadia and Clémence Poésy.
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Monterey Jack
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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#2 Post by Monterey Jack »

Say what you will about Nolan, but name another filmmaker working today who routinely gets "Event Movie" budgets for ambitious films that AREN'T sequels, prequels, remakes or reboots. :) Tarantino is the only other one I can think of.

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#3 Post by AndyDursin »

Yeah exactly, I have my issues with some (most!) of his films for sure, but I appreciate the pure "cinema" of them and also think he could nail it totally one of these days. He's one of the rare people who can direct whatever he wants and get it released to theaters at a time when, obviously, that's becoming very, very difficult to do.

I didn't really like DUNKIRK much at all -- but I'll still support his efforts! At least he's trying, and not trying to revive THE FLINSTONES.

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#4 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2019 8:44 pm Yeah exactly, I have my issues with some (most!) of his films for sure, but I appreciate the pure "cinema" of them and also think he could nail it totally one of these days. He's one of the rare people who can direct whatever he wants and get it released to theaters at a time when, obviously, that's becoming very, very difficult to do.
I like Nolan's movies more than you do (even if I haven't been knocked-out by one of his films since the underrated Dark Knight Rises), but agreed that he's reached a rarified stratosphere of auteurs who can get pretty much ANYTHING made based on his "brand name" alone, and not based on a studio trying to resurrect moribund franchises from 30 years ago (and often by filmmakers who used to have a valuable and unique style, but who have been chewed up mercilessly by studio machinery. Tim Burton comes immediately to mind. :cry: ). Tarantino is one of the few others I can think of, with maybe Guillermo Del Toro right behind them (who managed to get a movie about a woman boinking a fish-man not only made, but get nominated for multiple Oscars, even winning Best Picture). Even Spielberg is struggling to remain relevant, with last year's Ready Player One failing to find an audience for a film that should have been an easy nostalgia-stroking box-office home run.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#5 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2019 8:44 pm I didn't really like DUNKIRK much at all -- but I'll still support his efforts! At least he's trying, and not trying to revive THE FLINSTONES.
I respect his efforts, and it's nice to see studios allowing someone to "do his thing" -- but I still don't care for most of his pictures. I liked Interstellar (though it faltered at the climax), but I hated Memento, Inception, and was bored stiff watching The Dark Knight and Dunkirk.

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#6 Post by mkaroly »

I like Nolan, but I have not seen everything he has made. I loved his Dark Knight trilogy, enjoyed Memento back in the day, liked Interstellar and Inception. I have yet to see Dunkirk. Outside of the Dark Knight trilogy, there is very little I remember about his films. For example, I have seen Memento numerous times, but I don't really remember anything about it!

Edit: I forgot that he also made Insomnia and The Prestige, both of which I enjoyed watching at the time as well. I don't remember anything about Following.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#7 Post by Paul MacLean »

mkaroly wrote: Sat Aug 03, 2019 11:23 am I have seen Memento numerous times, but I don't really remember anything about it!
That's ok, neither did Guy Pierce! :mrgreen:

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan's 2020 Action-Espionage (Time Travel?) Thriller

#8 Post by AndyDursin »

Looks promising. Given the horrid looking slate, might be the only movie I see in theaters next summer along with TOP GUN (probably, just for the Kosinski factor).


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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan - July 17th - Trailer

#9 Post by AndyDursin »

New trailer for one of the only "Summer 2020" movies...unless it gets moved. My guess is it'll stick.


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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan - New Trailer

#10 Post by Monterey Jack »

People on Twitter calling out Nolan for being "irresponsible" and "a murderer"(!) for daring to release a film to theaters two months from now. :shock: No one's holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to go, and any theater that's allowed to open by mid-July is going to be extremely vigilant about S.D., enforcing masks, sanitation, and the like. If grocery stores can remain open, then people should be allowed to go to the damn movies, so long as they take the necessary precautions.

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan - New Trailer

#11 Post by AndyDursin »

Moved to July 31st...

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan - New Trailer

#12 Post by AndyDursin »

Moved to August 12th...

sadly this wont be the last time Im afraid.

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Re: TENET - Christopher Nolan - New Trailer

#13 Post by AndyDursin »

Well that's unfortunate, this movie sounds dreadful.

Sorry I'm not wearing a mask and booking seat reservations for "one of Nolan's weakest films" -- especially after DUNKIRK. Good to see Warner took 45 minutes (!) out of it though, the running time is down to 150 minutes, but it's clear the critics are rallying, trying to give the movie positive press given the circumstances, and this film doesn't live up to the hype.

This is also why Rotten Tomatoes is a total waste of time -- the critics can't possibly say TENET is a bad movie, so it has 88% fresh despite the fact every review is tainted with what seems like major criticisms, from the techno-babble script to John David Washington's bland performance (mentioned also in nearly every review).

And then there are a few outright pans:
And what kind of picture is it? Big, certainly: IMAX-scaled, and a hefty 150 minutes even after a visibly ruthless edit. It’s clever, too — yes, the palindromic title has some narrative correlation — albeit in an exhausting, rather joyless way. As second comings go, “Tenet” is like witnessing a Sermon on the Mount preached by a savior who speaks exclusively in dour, drawn-out riddles. Any awe is flattened by follow-up questions.
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/08/tenet ... 234581454/
You exit the cinema a little less energised than you were going in. There’s something grating about a film which insists on detailing its pseudo-science while also conceding you probably won’t have followed a thing. We’re clobbered with plot then comforted with tea-towel homilies about how what’s happened has happened.

The world is more than ready for a fabulous blockbuster, especially one that happens to feature face masks and chat about going back in time to avoid catastrophe. It’s a real shame Tenet isn’t it.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/a ... dromic-dud

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Re: TENET A "Humorless," "Palindromic Dud", Even After 45 Minutes are Cut

#14 Post by Monterey Jack »

Gee, a Nolan movie without humor...? :roll:

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Re: TENET A "Humorless," "Palindromic Dud", Even After 45 Minutes are Cut

#15 Post by AndyDursin »

True that, but this movie is coming on the heels of DUNKIRK so if it's two stinkers in a row this one's an easy pass for me. It sounds like a rerun of INCEPTION which, frankly, I didn't like either.

The fact Nolan willingly hacked an hour (maybe more) out of it is extremely telling -- that's not a little bit of material here and there, that's a big hack job, and apparently he didn't protest from what we can tell. To me, that shows this thing is very likely a turd the critics are trying to polish in order to get audiences stoked about going back into theaters.

It's going to take a really good movie to get me to wear a mask into a theater, go to the trouble of buying tickets early and plan an evening with my friend to go. Doesn't sound like this is it for me.

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