Tenet

Appreciated this film more than any Nolan film since The Dark Knight. Usually his films aim for high concept but get weighed down by syrupy schmaltz. This one ditches his unconvincing attempts at emotional/philosophical depth and just focuses on the very creative core concept of inverted time. There's no labored soliloquies about the power of love, no epic aspirations of cultural poignancy - it's mainly just a bunch of exposition interspersed between some truly breathtaking visual and audio spectacle like nothing else. Nolan is an artist first and foremost. His films always have a level of craft that is beyond comprehension for mere mortals like me. And in this one he turns that up to eleven. Honestly, I actually enjoyed the challenging sound design. It reminded me of the film Primer (another time bending mind melter) where the discussions about complicated ideas are drowned out by background noise and music because he knows we won't understand and it's not important anyway. What is important is that we "feel it" (as is literally said). Don't try to figure it out. Just enjoy that an arthouse abstractionist who somehow gets 100+ million dollar budgets to make quirky stories with set pieces that will blow your mind.