Atom Egoyan has been on some kind of losing streak. Since his breakthrough masterpiece The Sweet Hereafter in 1997, his fiction features have gone from dense and compelling if awkward psychological dramas (1999’s Felicia’s Journey and 2002’s Ararat) to blunt,...
In the 10 years since I saw it in the movie theater, I’ve regularly planned to return to M. Night Shyamalan’s follow-up to The Sixth Sense. I wanted to see if it’s as strong as I remembered, and — as...
In my hastily keyboarded notes after seeing Inception last weekend, I spent much time faulting Jim Emerson for his dismissal of Christopher Nolan and of the movie. Emerson made sweeping, unsupported generalizations in the service of his obvious dislike of...
In at least four of Christopher Nolan’s seven feature films, the plots and/or fixations are initiated or propelled by the death of a man’s spouse or girlfriend. Considering that Nolan’s primary thematic interest is obsession, isn’t this a little strange?...
In taking down Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Jim Emerson writes: “[W]hat this movie’s facilely conceived CGI environments have to do with dreaming, as human beings experience dreams, I don’t know. ... [T]he movie’s concept of dreams as architectural labyrinths — stable...
We were in the play area of the department store — most likely building things with Legos — and two girls were taking great delight in excluding me. They were speaking a language I didn’t understand, and it wasn’t exactly a private conversation. They would glance my way during their exchange and occasionally laugh. I felt mocked, which was exactly what they wanted.
Christopher Nolan's Dead Women