Comments on: A Very Candid Terry Gilliam Unloads On ‘Transformers 3,’ ‘Tintin,’ ‘The Dark Knight’ & John Williams

By: [A]

[A] — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:57 +0000

the images are over the text!

By: Jiggity

Jiggity — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Gilliam's current career stasis summed up in one word: TIDELAND

By: Brody

Brody — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Wait…you almost sound offended that someone might be able to resist the charms of a Transformers movie. I can't imagine being bored enough to ever watch one of those things.

By: brou

brou — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Hilariously grumpy Drew Taylor… You hate Gilliam so much that you can't even see when he's doing self-criticism ("I don't actually quite have the skills" ).

And I don't know what you're talking about with Aranofsky ("The Fountain" costs more than "Parnassus"… and it sucks).

And of course "Clearly Gilliam's perception of how an animated film is made is some geek sitting at a computer who types in the phrase "chase sequence" and out pops the finished product. ". Let's all forget that Gilliam co-founded Peerless Camera, one of the biggest Visual Effects company in UK, which used CGI in "Baron Munchausen" in 1988. But you must be right, Gilliam must be an old fool not knowing how you handle all this animation stuff.

By: rotch

rotch — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

This sounds aweful when you pile it all together in one single note. Links to sources would be appreciated, to read the quotes in context. I read the Transformers quote and didn't find it grumpy at all.
Also, I find his observations on Inception spot-on.

By: Wash

Wash — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

This from a man who made ONE good film. Twelve Monkeys, I'm looking at you. Brazil, I am not.

How many Oscar nominated Directors can a guy take a swipe at in one interview? It sounds like SOMEBODY is still upset that he can't make his dream movie about a guy chasing windmills.

By: pt

pt — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

When Terry Gilliam is blasting the highly intelligent, unique, and very creative Chris Nolan, you know he is the ultimate jealous hater. At least all of Nolan's films are good, I can't say that about Mr. Gilliam. Most of Terry 's recent filmography are incoherent and self-indulgent mess of dog poo. I guess most people become unbelievably cantankerous at his old age.

By: zatopek

zatopek — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Gilliam is right about everything that's quoted here. And I'm not sure what the writer means by Nolan's "sweet surrealism"? Copy-pasting M.C. Escher to make your action film more dreamy is hardly the kind of surrealism I'd call 'sweet'.

By: Styles

Styles — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

I don't know why you felt you needed to write a Gilliam hit piece. He is totally right about everything he said. Transformers and John Williams do suck. You are the one who comes off as a big mouthed jackass.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

I also agree with pretty much everything Gilliam says here, and I'm not even a fan of his. What's egregious about this post is that Drew Taylor is outraged â OUTRAGED! âÂ that a director without big hits is expressing actual opinions in an interview, when everyone knows you can't have opinions unless you've won Oscars or have made more than $100-million at the box office. (Big, big sigh.)

And as to his point about unbroken shots in Tin Tin, he's right â in animation (even old hand-drawn animation) an unbroken shot is no more hard to achieve than an edited together sequence, because there is no temporal reality being photographed. The whole movie could easily be one long shot, if Spielberg wanted. I'm not saying the movie isn't as a technical achievement âÂ I haven't even seen it â just that single-take shots don't present the same challenge in animation (or even motion capture) as they do in live-action.

By: hank

hank — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

"because Nolan seems to be doing what Gilliam has only hinted at: made intellectually ambitious films, dipped in sweet surrealism and heady existential conundrums, on a large scale. "

are you sure? Gilliam has a point. http://vimeo.com/28792404

By: tristan eldritch

tristan eldritch — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Come on, he's got a point about most of those things. A continuous camera shot is less impressive in an animated movie than in a feature – because in animation, while the work is undoubtedly extremely pain-staking and creative, you completely control and create the environment, and don't have to contend with the thousand and one things that can go wrong with a continuous take in the real world.
The one thing I find odd is the way he picks on the car chase scene in the Dark Knight, which at least was much better than the abysmal hand to hand combat stuff in that movie.

By: Javier

Javier — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

calm down Drew

By: Rufus

Rufus — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

He's Terry Gilliam. Can't a film maker have opinions on film making? Especially one as talented as he? I could understand the tone if he were some anonymous dude on the internet or Tyler Perry but he's neither one of those things.

By: Drew Taylor

Drew Taylor — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

I am a terrible, sub-Kotaku writer.

By: Erik

Erik — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

As others have said, Terry Gilliam has a point on most counts, and *especially* when it comes to Nolan. The Dark Knight and Inception aren't bad movies by any means, but when compared to any cinema other than mainstream blockbusters they are hardly very thought-provoking or challenging.

By: hmm

hmm — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

"By the way, what have you ever done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize other's work and belittle their motivations?" –Steve Jobs

By: Cde.

Cde. — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Gilliam is right about most things here.
I'm surprised anybody finds Inception 'trippy' or 'surreal'. For a movie about dreams, it's incredibly dull. Rather than dream logic and free association, it's all bound by rules that the characters painstakingly explain to the audience. Who has dreams like those? Gilliam nailed it when he compared them all to standard action movies. Nolan dulled the most interesting thing about the concept.

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Gilliam is a great filmmaker with interesting and valid opinions about films, what a very weird & depressingly patronising tone there is to this article. I haven't read something as smug and stupid as this in a while.

By: Noah R.

Noah R. — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

I don't understand why a filmmaker shouldn't be allowed to criticize other filmmakers without being pilloried like this. You don't have to like Gilliam's work, but what is so terrible about an artist speaking his mind? He's not personally attacking anybody like Vincent Gallo; he just didn't like Inception or Tin Tin. Big deal.

By: Captain_Celluloid

Captain_Celluloid — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Yes, Terry Gilliam is grumpy . . . . yet he doesn't seem petty or vindictive . . . . why he even acknowledges what he perceives to be his own filmmaking shortcomings . . . .
and what he says is, well you know, INTERESTING.

He's made some great films.

He has earned the right to be grumpy.

Have you, Drew?

By: Sven

Sven — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Mr Taylor needs a break… Can't you just leave Gilliam's comments for what they are, without having to give your own comments?

By: Max

Max — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Seriously, is everyone commenting fucking retarded? Oh, yeah, Terry Gilliam was a fantastic filmmaker like 10 years ago and then he started making nonsensical garbage like The Brothers Grimm and Imaginarium. He's being a shit in this interview, hands down. So he should expect to get shit in return. Okay, great, he made an obvious comment about Michael Bay being all up in his own ass and being all about explosions and shit – nothing to write home about, man. We all knew that.

When he starts ripping into Nolan – I really have to object, because he's making the same dumb-ass comments people made in ridiculous hypercritical arguments about a solid film. "Bleh, dreams shouldn't look like that, bleh…" Okay, aside from the fact that Nolan had to hold your fucking hands throughout the entire story in hopes that you might grasp the idea that the dreams were by design realistic so that the mark (feel free to zone out right now like you apparently did at this part of the movie) would not realize they're dreaming – you know what, watch the movie again, you need to.

And the point that, I think, was being made was that Nolan is one of the few current filmmakers who can make happy marriage between something that is intellectually engaging while also visually captivating. Clearly something Gilliam tried with his last couple of films but – come on, be real – failed miserably. The chase scene in TDK was awesome. Everyone, including Gilliam, needs to stop trying to pull out these empty critiques to validate themselves. There's nothing wrong with it. It is an action sequence in a Batman movie. Gilliam straight sounds like a bat-shit grandpa, whining about how "everything in these dang movies looks like video-game hooplah!"

There's nothing wrong with this post.

By: brou

brou — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Fun to see the "hilariously grumpy" of the first title transforming into the "Very Candid" of the title now.

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:17:56 +0000

Terry may no longer make good movies, but that doesn't mean he's not right about pretty much everything he touched upon. He seems to have a big head, but I would too if I made Brazil.