A Trio of Dramas

[lil_shepherd]

I said I wouldn't say anything more about Sherlock but I've suddenly realised that there is a description of this production that sums up my dislike - this is a post-modern version of Holmes. I have problems with post-modern, which seems to me to be all about style over substance.

Comments

[fatpie42]

(For a great example, see the one in New York at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum - Greengrass is one of the world's great action directors and Nolan isn't.)

Unfortunately Greengrass's method for directing of car chases seemed less than helpful when he came to do a chase sequence where everyone was on foot. The chase towards the end of Green Zone was thoroughly disappointing. (Even ignoring how that chase ended.)

Were there car chases in Inception? Certainly there was a van being chased at one point, but it didn't seem like a car chase per se.

[inamac]

There's the car chase that's interrupted by the freight train (which does, admittedly, 'surprise!') And the muddled and interminable snowmobile chase (which has been done better by Bond lo these many years ago (and, indeed, by Top Gear...)

[lil_shepherd]

Actually, I thought the chase towards the end of The Green Zone was exemplary, in that you knew at all times who was chasing who and where. I personally held it up as an example to James Cameron for the godawful fight at the end of Avatar.

Yes, there was a car chase (and that it was a van makes no difference.) It went on for bloody ever, as did the lift sequence. I know what he was trying to do, but I was looking at my watch. As for the snow sequence, and the snowmobile chases, these were far too confusing. I defy anyone to tell me who was being shot and who was being chased at any particular point.

[fatpie42]

in that you knew at all times who was chasing who and where

You did? I hadn't got the foggiest.

Yes, there was a car chase (and that it was a van makes no difference.)

Oh it wasn't the fact that it was in a van which made me disinclined to call it a car chase. It was more the fact that it wasn't a matter of a single bad guy chasing after them. They have different people all around them trying to chase after them and its mainly the maze-like nature of the dream that is keeping them at bay. In a chase I would expect to have very definite chaser(s) and chasee(s), but Inception only really has the latter.

It went on for bloody ever, as did the lift sequence.

Of course it went on for a long time. It went on for the vast majority of the movie. (Unless I'm misunderstanding.)

And as for the lift sequence, I must say that it took the majority of that whole sequence for me to work out what Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character was attempting to do. By the time I'd got the message, he was nearly finished.

I defy anyone to tell me who was

[gabcd86]

I should have taken your brief before-the-cut criticisms of Sherlock to heart. Didn't mind the first episode, but the second was just a waste of valuable time that I could have spent sleeping. Not that I didn't doze off during it too.

I didn't think Inception was that hard, either. It was a bit mind-spinny if you thought about it, but it all held together without being scrutinised.

Haven't seen them in a while, but I think I disagree with Greengrass's credentials. He's not as bad as whoever directed the latest 007 film, but I spent most of that chase through Algers? (a North African place, at any rate) trying to work out which suited young man was being hit. But I may well be amalgam-ing it with Quantam of Solace.