Dunkirk (2017)

Christopher Nolan's upcoming historical drama/suspense about Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of 300,000 Allied troops from the coast of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) as they were being surrounded by the invading Nazis. As a fan of Nolan's previous work, I'm really looking forward to this; the movie sets out to use his signature non-linear style to tell the story as a triptych, showing the perspective of British troops and civilians on the air, land and sea. The movie was also mostly shot with practical effects: real ships and planes were used when possible, including many of the historical "little ships" that were manned by civilian auxiliaries during the actual event and an ex-French Navy destroyer. And last but not least, Hans Zimmer is doing the score, and it sounds quite fantastic so far.

edited 17th Jul '17 5:17:03 AM by eagleoftheninth

Oh I saw a trailer for this- to be honest I had confused the subject matter with the Normandy Landings, which turned me off from the whole thing. But I don't think I've seen a movie made about the opposite- when the Allies were evacuating, and not storming the beaches

That spelling. THAT SPELLING. Urgh. I guess that's how German fans must have felt when Munich got released.

Maybe the title is spelled differently in the French release?

Yes it is (OP posted it), it's just that I tend to spend time on the English-speaking net and I can't get used to it. Especially since AFAIK cities with an "English" version of their name are rather rare in France. According to this there are only three, and the othef two are not even used that much and are very similar to the French spelling (Marseilles and Lyons).

Dunkerque/kirk is a quite unique case.

To be fair, isn't the French Dunkerque already a francosication (is that a word?) of the town's original Flemish name?

edited 17th Jul '17 8:39:05 AM by DrDougsh

Yup, "Dunkirk" is universal in English and has been for centuries, and is in fact the original Flemish name of the town from a thousand years ago.

Anyway. I am so stoked about this movie.

The original name is "Duinkerke" actually. >.>

That's even harder to pronounce!

You know, the British don't even pay attention to American place names. Martin Gilbert's history of the Second World War kept talking about "Pearl Harbour". Drove me bananas.

The trailers for this movie look goddamn brilliant. "We shall fight them on the beaches...."

So apparently there's going to be another movie about Operation Dynamo coming out this year . . . only this time it's being told from the perspective of Churchill (played by Gary Oldman in heavy makeup) and the British high command.

Now all we need are films depicting the French and German perspectives of things.

Seriously though, a film depicting the infighting within the OKW as the Germans plow through western Europe would be a refreshing Perspective Flip, revealing with plenty of foreshadowing how the Germans would eventually lose the war due to Interservice Rivalry and organizational infighting. I'd imagine that Rommel, Guderian, von Manstein, and von Rundsteht to be the principle characters, with the occasional pop-in by Hitler to establish how different his mental state was in 1940 compared to Downfall and its depiction of him in 1945.

Reviews are out, and people massively disappointed by Interstellar aee back on the Nolan hype train.

BUT I LOVED INTERSTELLAR

And I didn't like Interstellar. What's your point?

It doesn't matter whether or not you like it, the point is the critics did not liked Interstellar, but they likes Dunkirk.

"So apparently there's going to be another movie about Operation Dynamo coming out this year"

Dueling Works

edited 18th Jul '17 7:38:22 AM by jamespolk

Apparently it's even better than Inception & The Dark Knight.

Get hype!

Which means I should avoid getting hyped. X)

Got IMAX for Friday afternoon.

So stoked. Just imagine, a big general-audience blockbuster, that is NOT based on a comic book character or toy. It's like seeing a unicorn!

Saw it yesterday. I have no complaints.

I honestly wasn't aware Interstellar was considered one of his weakest films. I personally have always considered that Batman Begins (which isn't to say that it is a bad movie at all, but I'd honestly put Interstellar above it).

I saw it yesterday and really liked it. I do have one complaint though: The movie does not make it very clear at all how the British managed to evacate all these soldiers. I'm fairly certain that every single large British warship we see attempting to evacuate the soldiers gets torpedoed and sunk, so there's no real sense of the tide turning in the British favour. When it's announced at the end of the movie that they've managed to evacuate about ten times the number Churchill asked for, it kind of comes out of nowhere, without any sense of how they managed this.

I thought it was great. Not much to say but that. I do think they didnt have to kill the French guy and keep freaking Harry Styles but whatever.

I guess the only problem I had was Cilian Murphy's soldier. Are we supposed to accept the fact that he basically manslaughtered poor George just because he was under serious duress, and that it really wasn't his fault?

edited 21st Jul '17 9:01:44 AM by LongTallShorty64

Holy shit, that was fantastic.

There was something about the way Mr. Dawson described the traumatized soldier being shell-shocked ("he's not the way he was, he probably won't ever be again") that struck me as being an implication that Dawson, like many men his age, served in World War I and went through a similar experience where he broke and completely lost his shit. Although he's clearly distraught and upset at George's death, he pardons Shell-Shock enough to not kick him overboard at an opportune moment like I actually expected in the theater.

I viewed the film with my Taiwanese father, who was conscripted into the ROC Army in his youth. He said that the thing that agitated him the most while watching the film was blindly complacent the Allied troops in the film seemed to be. Although he was well aware of the fact that the film's imagery was based off of events in Real Life, he mainly complained about:

- How the Allied troops on the beach openly stand around in massed formations instead of busying themselves digging trenches or at least manning defensive positions in the city. Instead of wasting their time waiting for a ship to arrive, they could at least preoccupy themselves preparing to better their survival and assemble on the pier when a ship actually does come.

- Why the infantry squad in the opening carelessly wanders about the streets dead in the middle of the road where they can be cut down in seconds as they actually are instead of at least moving from house to house to minimize their exposure. When they actually do come under enemy fire, he literally sighed What An Idiot out loud when they decide to sprint along the street instead of immediately barging into the doors and windows of the buildings they were next to.