UPDATE: Just a friendly reminder of what Nolan is probably watching this week.
EARLIER: Just because you’re a top-notch filmmaker doesn’t mean you can’t also like the most mainstream, and dumbed-down, of blockbusters.
Remember, a few years back, when Paul Thomas Anderson confessed his love for “Venom 2” and “Shang-Chi”? There’s something about a genuinely great director somehow finding things to like in mediocrity.
The latest one is Christopher Nolan who tells THR that he watches “Love Actually” every Christmas and enjoys the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise. His co-star Emily Blunt can confirm:
He watches every single movie, of every type of genre […] And you never hear him shit-talk other people’s movies. He knows how hard it is to direct a great movie.
It was also just three years ago that Nolan admitted he had a “very soft spot” for “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”
I’ll let it slip with “Love Actually,” which I remember liking when I saw it 20 years ago, but ‘Fast & Furious’? Really? The only film from that franchise that I found semi-watchable was “Fast Five.”
Let us not forget that 10 years ago, Nolan was quoted as praising Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel”:
I believe that what Zack has done in Man of Steel will define Superman for our time. [...] I've seen a lot of concept art in my time, but I've rarely seen such focused visual power. And I've rarely seen the promise of such imagery actually delivered onto the screen. But that's what Zack does.
At least Nolan has an unprofessed love for the howlingly funny comedy “MacGruber.” Anne Hathaway even mentioned Nolan’s silly penchant for randomly quoting “MacGruber” lines on the set of “The Dark Knight Rises.” It’s still one of the cleverest comedies of the last decade. Taste!