The only characters who got any meaningful screen time in the X-Men movies were Logan, Xavier, and Magneto, so it makes sense that they’d be the ones that evoked the most nostalgic response. AFAIK McKellen hasn’t been confirmed for Deadpool 3, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up.

Well, “A Sound of Thunder” presumes that you can change the future by making the slightest alterations. Tenet, on the other hand, is pretty big on predestination. Even if you travel back in time to change events, it’s not a choice, because you were always going to do that.

What do you mean? Their careers definitely overlapped. Tarantino made three of his major movies while Kubrick was still alive, and they all predate Kubrick’s last movie, Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick was certainly aware of Tarantino and had probably seen at least one of his movies.

Yeah, that’s like arguing that you can’t appreciate classical music unless you go to the symphony. But it’s just another venue to experience the music in, it’s not the totality of the experience itself.

Eh, Anderson is not at all like Burton. He’s big into artifice, he doesn’t do “naturalistic” films (which still infuriates some people), but whereas Burton approaches his films like a cartoonist the overall effect in Anderson’s films is more like a novelist composing a particular style that tells you something about…

It’s definitely a “hard SF” movie — no sound in space! — but there the similarities end.

It’s a peculiar nostalgia/fetishization of a very specific form of theatrical exhibition. Most of the movies people watch, they see on TV. Is that necessarily a lesser experience? You do lose the social experience, though in many cases that can be a plus. But modern TVs, especially models with HDR, do feel genuinely…

Quality-wise, it’s been uneven. But there have been some extremely high points along the way. I dunno if any of it qualifies as “high cinema,” but it’s recreated almost perfectly the experience of following an epic Marvel storyline across a span of years, which was once considered impossible. I’d be sad to see the MCU…

I think in a way Nolan represents the logical endpoint of a certain kind of director who’s more interested in theme and technique than spontaneous human behavior. Kubrick is the obvious precedent, but also guys like late period Hitchcock, De Palma, Scott. They make beautiful, elegant, aesthetically pure movies you…

I wonder how much of that was inspired by the intentions on the part of Nolan’s favorite filmmakers, and how much was rooted in growing up watching movies on VHS with crummy sound on TVs with mono speakers.

Excise Tarantino, replace with Kubrick.

Disney+ predated COVID and I think there was always the idea to use it as a showcase for MCU shows that were definitely part of the canon, as opposed to just Marvel-branded. But it ended up becoming the main way to consume Marvel product for close to a year and I don’t know if the audience ever really fully went back…

Whenever someone asks me if Tenet is too complicated, I tell them that it’s basically Thunderball, except with time travel instead of scuba diving.

I looked it up and Cameron’s done 95% of the live action shooting, including all of the mocap. That leaves out reshoots, of course, but it sounds like most of the human elements are already on the hard drives.

Didn’t he do the mo-cap at the same time as the live action, so the kids wouldn’t age out?

25%, a decent chunk but not Avengers money.

I could easily see Cameron viewing this as his opportunity to make the movie even more perfect. Unless his effects artists decide to unionize. (Which they absolutely should.)

Black Widow was mostly in the can before COVID — principal photography wrapped in October 2019. But it was an odd choice to kick off Phase IV, since it was technically a prequel, and essentially an extended farewell to a character who was already dead in the series.

Isn’t that the same deal with the Gladiator sequel? Scott is shooting crowd scenes and action scenes with doubles, but nothing with the principals.

It arguably peaked with Endgame. I can’t imagine another Marvel movie making that kind of bank today. If you were a kid when Iron Man came out, you’re in your early twenties now and you probably have other things going on in your life that are more interesting than, say, Quantumania.