http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/07/20/what_s_fact_and_what_s_fiction_in_dunkirk.html

7/20/2017 5:39:55 PM

Most overrated director of my life:

1. Christopher Nolan

7/21/2017 12:04:41 AM

He's won exactly 0 Oscars.

Did Dunkirk suck that much for you?

7/21/2017 12:12:33 AM

All of his movies have been pretty entertaining and some have been quite thought provoking.

7/21/2017 7:29:28 AM

Agree.

Although, I forget who but someone made a point on the previous page about his movies being disjointed. I have to say I echo this sentiment, particularly with some of TDK trilogy and Interstellar.

It's like he moves from scene to scene too quickly and there just seems to be a bit of an awkward transition, like he's rushing to get dialogue out. I'm not sure how to explain it correctly.

7/21/2017 12:59:58 PM

going to see it tonight at Mission Valley. this is really the only movie this year I've been excited about except for maybe Trainspotting 2 but that was just ok.

7/21/2017 3:07:08 PM

Best war movie since Saving Private Ryan.

Even though I knew the overall outcome, it was still extremely intense.

7/21/2017 10:38:50 PM

This was really damned good. Didn't let up at all.

7/21/2017 11:14:29 PM

I heard that Tom Hardy did some amazing acting with just his eyeballs

7/22/2017 3:04:01 AM

Do we see a lot of Stukas in this film?

7/22/2017 3:52:21 AM

^I wouldn't say you see a lot of them, but when you do, it is really well done, even if they are from a distance. The psycholigical sound of a plane diving is very prominent on the characters' faces.

7/22/2017 11:43:01 AM

It is not the sound of a plane diving, it is the sound of a horn that was put on the Stukas as war propaganda. This is a little known fact.

In reality the horn was a hassle for the pilots, and it required several modifications during its use during the war.

[Edited on July 22, 2017 at 12:55 PM. Reason : y]

7/22/2017 12:37:52 PM

I disagree that this movie is the best war movie since Saving Private Ryan. It's certainly very intense, but for me the lack of character development makes it not as great as I had hoped. (I get it, not much character development can happen in 24 hours... I'm just saying...). I think it's closer to Lone Surviver in that, the first time you see it, it's pretty awesome; but afterward it starts to lose its value because there just isn't much there to keep you entertained after you get used to the suspense.

That being said, this is a solid movie. Go see it!

7/22/2017 10:34:20 PM

^^ jericho trumpet

7/22/2017 11:09:48 PM

Saw it last night at the imax, and that definitely helped with the immersive aspect of the film.

Definitely lived up to the reviews. I don't see many movies on the big screen but this is one you need to see there.

I don't need character development with that kind of action.

[Edited on July 23, 2017 at 2:11 AM. Reason : Good comparison to Lone Survivor, but this is better. Plus it's hard to buy Marky Mark in that role]

7/23/2017 2:08:47 AM

I actually thought that fury was a criminally underrated war flick.

7/23/2017 4:25:24 AM

Fury was ok, the ending was a bit much

7/23/2017 8:20:58 PM

Quote :

"Fury was ok, the ending was a bit much"

. Yes.

Also there are many subtle similarities between Fury and SPR.

7/23/2017 9:32:11 PM

Pretty good. I dont know if it's one I will fawn over though. Really good immersion for what it has to work with.

7/23/2017 10:32:48 PM

It was pretty damn good. It didnt capture the scale of the full evacuation (100,000s of soldiers and hundreds of small boats) but it captured it from the small scale viewpoint of the guys there. All in all it was very good, though the average person with no knowledge of WW2 may not appreciate it


And on a history buff note:

It was nice to see realistic WW2 air combat (filmed with real planes I hear) as opposed to the crap CGI zipping spaceship dogfights (WW2 planes pulling maneuvers an F16 couldnt even do) that crap like Red Tails tried to pass off as accurate. (anyone recall my Red Tails rant back in the day)



[Edited on July 24, 2017 at 12:27 AM. Reason : .]

7/24/2017 12:05:42 AM

I thought it was outstanding. The sound really made it so seeing it in theaters is a must. Really cool how it was shot, written, etc. It would take a lot for this to not win Best Picture.

7/24/2017 9:26:58 AM

Best Picture?

I'm generally pretty positive about movies and TV shows, I don't come on just to bash stuff, but I had high hopes for this and I'm really just not feeling all the love for it I've seen in this thread.

Were there some great action scenes? Was it realistic? Was it entertaining and captivating? Yes to all those things

But it had no memorable performances outside of MAYBE Tom Hardy (and compared to the rest of his work this was insignificant). It wasn't terribly thought-provoking and didn't make me ask a lot of questions. The scope of the rescue mission was definitely not visualized. Historically speaking, this event was both a massive blunder on both the German and Allied side and a miracle by the English. Having studied it plenty in school I was very interested to see how they would illustrate this, and quite frankly my answer is that they didn't.

I dunno, I guess I'm about to get piled on, but I walked out of the theater with a pretty strong feeling of, "That was pretty, pretty ok"

7/25/2017 10:23:32 AM

So far, I don't see any other strong candidates for best picture, although there are a few interesting things coming down the pipeline. But then again, I hadn't heard of half the nominees last year until they became nominees. I agree this isn't going down as a GOAT movie, but it was solid and the best thing I've seen this year by far.

I'm not an expert on the history behind the evacuation so I didn't feel let down by it. To me, it showed a small fragment of the operation from three different very limited points of view. It made it seem more real and personal since they really didn't have the information that we as an audience knowing the course of the war in retrospect have. He/they couldn't have known the blunders on the Allied side / the German side, etc.

I loved that they didn't show the enemy soldiers the entire time - it added to the suspense just not knowing if or when they'd show up. I thought the lack of names and sparse dialogue really added to the tone as well and made the sound from the bullets/bombs/etc. really stand out even more.

7/25/2017 11:20:26 AM

It was okay, definitely not worth best picture

The action was good but there was no plot and little character development. Overall it is still definitely worth seeibg, but it wasn't great.

7/30/2017 12:34:49 AM

Quote :

"Having studied it plenty in school I was very interested to see how they would illustrate this,"

When did you study this? Presuming you majored in history, I guess, because I don't recall having learned about this ever.

7/30/2017 3:48:13 PM

"No plot," he says.

7/31/2017 8:35:32 AM

Quote :

"When did you study this?"

High School. I don't remember if it was more specifically in AP History or just regular history classes, but we spent what seems like much more time than other schools on the Civil War and WWII specifically. I thought this was normal, but between talking about this movie and watching The Man in the High Castle with my wife it's apparent she did go into nearly as much detail as I did in school.

7/31/2017 9:10:37 AM

enjoyed it, but it was damn hard to understand half of what little dialogue there was

happily surprised with the performance of Harry Styles. he was the anti-Ed Sheeran.

8/1/2017 10:47:42 PM

^^Crazy. I had AP history in HS and we def spent a grip of time on WW2 and Civil War but I don't recall Dunkirk ever having been mentioned.

8/1/2017 11:18:35 PM

Why would you? AP history - world or US? Or did they combine both? If US, why would we spend a whole lot of time on a military action that occurred years before we even entered it?

I'm not belittling the importance of Dunkirk - if it weren't for those citizens with boats we'd all be looking at a much different European continent right now. Just in the context of US history, I don't see why you'd spend much time on it at all.

8/2/2017 8:10:08 AM

this motherfucker said he spent a grip of time and it was instantly 1997 again

8/2/2017 8:14:29 AM

I would guess it was US History, but maybe not. Why would we spend a bunch of time on an event that in your words would have caused us to "be looking at a much different European continent right now"?

Because it's an extremely important event within the scope of one of the most historically important wars? Because it's an event that helped shape the world we live in today? Because it's important to the climate in which the US entered the war? I don't know, I'm not in contact with that teacher, but if you want to fully understand everything about WWII it does seem an important event to study. We started at WWI, the following estrangement and depression in Germany, Hitler's rise to power, the events that started the next war, the treaties broken, each act of aggression, the disaster of the Maginot Line, and yes, the event where the vast majority of the English army should have been wiped out but wasn't, which helped shape the rest of the war

I think a lot of that speaks for itself for why it's important to learn, but further to that, I know that the teacher was Jewish, so he was very, very big into the idea of "never forget". I also remember we had assignments to speak to our family members about that time, which he felt was really important because it won't be long before anyone who was alive during all this shit will be dead

[Edited on August 2, 2017 at 9:16 AM. Reason : asdf]

8/2/2017 9:13:57 AM

Interesting that you went into that much detail. I took AP US History in HS and we barely even touched on the war itself. Had like one unit on it (it was lumped in with WWI too), and it barely covered things like D-Day or Battle of Midway, and those at least had US involvement.

8/2/2017 9:25:25 AM

It might have also been that I was in private school. I don't know how much of coursework in the late 90's was supposed to be uniform in public schools, but ours was up to our school alone at least...that could be part of it

8/2/2017 9:33:21 AM

Quote :

"this motherfucker said he spent a grip of time and it was instantly 1997 again"

8/2/2017 1:27:05 PM

^^ I'm impressed you remember what you learned in high school history... I don't remember any of it. Are you just one of those people who really enjoy history, so perhaps you read up on it on your own??

8/5/2017 7:45:23 PM

We covered Dunkirk in AP European History, but most of my familiarity with it (and I already knew this story to a tolerably fine level of detail for someone who isn't a historian) came from reading, other films, and video games.

I thought the film was fantastic. There was not much characterization, but I don't think this story really called for that. This film is about the event, not any one or several of the half million people involved in it. The event is the star.

The only legitimate reason for building up a character in this film would have been to get the audience invested in order to ratchet up the tension. And "Dunkirk" didn't need any more help in that regard. It already had me the most wound up I've been watching a movie in years. The flight scenes in particular had me *literally* on the edge of my seat, hands balled into fists, wanting to yell at Tom Hardy to just shoot the goddamn Nazi already.

8/8/2017 2:13:53 PM

I do enjoy history, though not enough that I ever considered studying it further in college. I have on occasion read history books, though they aren't my favorite. I can't recall having read about Dunkirk in any detail in any extra curricular reading.

8/9/2017 9:35:39 AM

Finally saw it. Wasn't a huge fan of the non-linear narrative, but it certainly helped build suspense. But it's a Nolan flick so non-linear should be expected.

Had this movie been edited in such a way that it was straightforward, I don't think it would have been nearly as engaging.

1/3/2018 3:02:21 PM

the version I saw kept cutting back and forth between full screen and letterbox format. Was this because of the various film/cameras used in filming this? It was kind of distracting in home viewing.

1/3/2018 4:48:48 PM

You must have gotten a bad version. I watched it and thought it was really well done. My Gf doesn't normally like war movies but she was engaged and tense the entire time.

The going back and forth timing wise was hard to follow but it all culminated well.

Georgie getting in the paper was the best part of the ending, other than the soldiers being lifted.

1/8/2018 12:59:38 PM

"The version I saw," AKA some rando torrent.

1/8/2018 1:10:52 PM

the IMAX version did that because some scenes were shot with the IMAX cameras, which have a different aspect ratio to the standard 16:9

i can't speak for the home releases

1/8/2018 1:46:28 PM

can confirm, rando ass torrent.

1/8/2018 3:01:27 PM

This movie will really make you loath that we handed one of our greatest national disasters/pivotal moments to Michael Fucking Bay




Spoiler: Dunkirk has zero love triangles

1/9/2018 12:25:22 AM

^and for some reason Hans Zimmer signed on to do the soundtrack, wtf?

1/9/2018 12:39:50 AM

It was OKed imo. The huge suspense builded up to end in a whimper.

1/9/2018 10:37:51 AM

It was a defeat and retreat. It literally ended in a whimper.

1/15/2018 4:42:06 PM

Not sure what all these folks who expected some big climax were thinking going into the movie.

I guess there are just too many Michael Bay productions out there.

1/15/2018 7:50:25 PM

1/15/2018 7:52:11 PM