If you read the last post, you know what’s going on. Here are a bunch of humorous works to go with each of Christopher Nolan’s serious thrillers:
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Batman Returns (1992)
Nolan’s conclusion to his Batman saga, The Dark Knight Rises, is not only his worst film, from a narrative and technical standpoint, but also the most politically abhorrent. Still, there is a strong potential for fun in watching Catwoman and other rogues involved in a plan to take over/destroy Gotham City that is so unabashedly silly that it crosses the border into surrealism, inviting you to take in everything as a live-action cartoon, even if drenched in grimdark aesthetics. That potential was properly mined by Tim Burton in Batman Returns, which gorgeously cranked up the ante, handling the material’s goofiness in a way that lets you laugh with it, rather than at it.
Interstellar (2014)
Futurama: ‘Möbius Dick’ (2011)
With Interstellar, Christopher Nolan continued to exponentially push himself into new directions and levels of storytelling ambition. Not only did this space exploration epic span across galaxies, ages, and dimensions (not to mention awkward attempts to make big thematic statements about love and humanity), but it also drew on several peaks of cinema, most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although it has some fierce competition from Rick and Morty, as far as I’m concerned the funniest science fiction show continues to be the cartoon Futurama, about the wacky adventures of the interplanetary delivery company Planet Express in the 31st century. And while ‘Möbius Dick’ probably won’t get anybody’s award for best episode, it satisfyingly delivers the usual brisk combination of relentless visual, verbal, character-based, and intertextual humor (the latter in the form of countless geeky easter eggs) within a tale that also thrives on the wonder and excitement of sci-fi sights in outer space, albeit one whose absurdist gags and dialogue are an irreverent counterpart to Nolan’s no-nonsense high-stakes saga.
Dunkirk (2017)
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
After Interstellar, Christopher Nolan went with a more grounded setting in Dunkirk, dramatizing (and redeeming) the infamous evacuation of British soldiers from France at the beginning of World War II. Nolan being Nolan, he still worked in his fascination with overlapping experiences of time (a motif most prominent in Memento, Inception, and Interstellar, further explored in Tenet), alternating between interlocked plotlines that last, respectively, one week, one day, and one hour. Regardless, it is a film about reconsidering notions of heroism in WWII, so I can’t think of a better counterpart than Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero, about a guy who, although he was rejected by the marines, gets mistaken for a war hero, a misunderstanding that rapidly escalates beyond control. The caustic way this classic screwball farce mocked society’s relationship with the armed forces during the war itself feels even more irreverent when compared to the dominant tone of 21st-century cinema, Dunkirk included.
Tenet (2020)
Trancers (1984)
With Tenet, Nolan returned to science fiction, now in the form of a spy-fi action yarn that starts out as what looks like a particularly kickass entry in the Mission: Impossible film series before diving head-on into mind-bending time-travelling paradoxes. On the opposite end of the scale in terms of production values, Trancers also brings in an original approach to time travel (here, only consciousness can go to the past, inhabiting your ancestors’ bodies). Because, instead of a high-budget thriller, we are dealing with a schlocky B movie ripping off Terminator, the solutions for how technology operates and looks like have to be quite creative (an acting choice, a bit of makeup, or a cheesy laser effect can go a long way), which actually works in favor of the film’s charm. Along with a winning cast (including an entertainingly joyful Helen Hunt), the consistent sense of humor elevates the material, with proto-cyberpunk neo-noir trappings presented with a tongue firmly lodged in the cheek, as if winking at an audience aware of the production’s limitations. Thus, while the movie isn’t necessarily an outright comedy, it contains enough jokes (especially fish-out-of-water stuff) and bonkers grindhouse vibes to willingly earn a superior share of hearty laughs.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Oppenheimer, a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, particularly of his key role in the development of atomic bombs during World War II, shoots in various directions (from psychological drama to espionage, with some neo-western touches thrown in for good measure), but – as I put it at the time – it eventually settles into one hell of a political thriller about the origins of the Cold War. In that sense, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb feels not only like a humorous reversal of tone, but also like a natural continuation of the saga of a world-threatening arms race fueled by unhinged anticommunism (especially as the film begins with a very deadpan tone before gradually building up the absurdity). I’ve written about this one before: ‘Deterrence based on mutually assured destruction rests on the assumption that everyone will act logically, but what happens when irrational, stupid, and fanatical people get into positions of power? […] In this dark satire of the balance of terror, a deranged Air Force general manages to order an attack on the USSR (by exploiting a logical loophole in the system), so it’s up to the US President, an RAF captain, and a mad scientist (all of them played by Peter Sellers) to figure out how to prevent WWIII. Like other Stanley Kubrick pictures, Dr. Strangelove is about the dehumanizing logic of war, but on a larger scale and much funnier than usual.’
The Odyssey (2026)
O Brother, Where art Thou? (2000)
Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, is a reinterpretation of Homer’s epic poem, closer to the ground (keeping some of the fantasy while downplaying the gods). If you want to laugh at an even more radical reimagining, the obvious choice is the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where art Thou?, which amusingly recreates several of the same characters and situations, yet placing them in Mississippi, during the Great Depression. Besides catching the references, you also get to bask in visuals that are at least as stunning – and often more so – than those in Nolan’s adventure.