Memento Review

Before Christopher Nolan hit it big with movies like The Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception, he first made a name for himself with a small, yet brilliantly crafted, mystery thriller titled, Memento.

Memento follows Leonard, a former insurance fraud investigator that is on the hunt for the man that murdered his wife. However, there is a catch. While trying to save his wife from an attacker, he suffered a brain damage, which caused anterograde amnesia. Due to the anterograde amnesia, Leonard can only remember very recent events, like within the last 30 minutes or less, the movie begins at the end of the story and jumps back to each point before Leonard’s memory fades, which creates for a unique experience for the audience.

Anterograde amnesia is when a person cannot create new memories yet retains all, or most, of his or her memories prior to the incident. While there is more explanation in the movie, according to medical experts, Memento displays the most accurate representation of anterograde amnesia in film. To combat his memory problems, Leonard writes many notes and takes pictures to remind him of what he needs to do and who people are.

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Genre: Mystery, Thriller,

Release Date: September 5, 2000

Running Time: 113 minutes

MMPA rating: R

The Good: Inventive and unique narrative devices, Perfectly paced, Mind-bendingly complex, Nearly flawless plotting, Top notch performances,

The Bad:

Plot: 9.9/10- Memento’s plot is unique, tight, and nearly flawless. 

As good as Nolan’s later films have been, even some of his best have had major plot holes and inconsistencies, yet, at least from what I have deduced, there are few if any plot holes in Memento. Using the narrative device of the character’s anterograde amnesia by starting from the end and going backwards to the beginning is not a gimmick, because almost everything takes place from the perspective of the main character Leonard. As for the mystery, Nolan leaves enough clues for the audience to figure it out, but not enough to make it obvious and the actual mystery is oh so intriguing to figure out.

Characterization: 9.2/10- Despite the continual time jumps, the main character, Leonard, is surprisingly compelling. While the other characters are not particularly developed, they are all memorable and distinct. 

Acting: 9.3/10- Guy Pearce’s performance is particularly exceptional as Leonard. He is able to convey the character’s condition effectively. Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano give noteworthy performances as well. 

Soundtrack: 7.2/10- While the score can be somewhat effective at points, it is barely noticeable overall.

Humor: N/A-

Entertainment Value: 8.9/10- Since the neo-noir mystery style is particularly appealing to me, trying to piece together the plot was very entertaining.

Overall: 9.5/10- Memento is a superbly crafted mystery film with a unique narrative structure and strong performances, there is nothing negative that can be said about the film.

Closing comments: OK.... What am I doing again? Ah, it looks like I am writing a review for something called “Memento.” I don't remember watching that....

Recommended for: Mystery fans, Christopher Nolan fans (Nolanites), Noir fans, Guy Pearce fans, Thriller fans,

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Interstellar Official Poster and Tagline, and Trailer Coming Soon

Interstellar, Christopher Nolan's upcoming film, now has an official poster and tagline released, with a new trailer right around the corner. While not exactly amazing by any means, the official poster is rather cool, and it reminds me of something by Steven Spielberg like Close Encounters of the Third Kind. What interests me is the tagline: "Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here." Now that is a cool tagline! While the first did little to catch my interest or attention, the current plot synopsis is that is about a team that goes through a newly discovered wormhole, and that concept is intriguing to me. Despite the concept being intriguing, Nolan will definitely have to do something special and original to prevent the movie from being Gravity combined with 2001, and more like Inception in space, which would be awesome. While the reviews for the film will decide whether or not I am going to see it in theaters, this new trailer will hopefully give us something to convince us that the movie is going to be worth watching, but without spoiling too much. Also, a trailer is reported to be released at some point in the near future with rumors suggesting that it is going to be in front of Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla.

In short, I am cautiously optimistic about the movie, only because Inception is one of my favorite movies. What do you expect from Nolan's Interstellar? Please comment below and let me know.

Here is the previously released teaser trailer.

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Christopher Nolan's Interstellar Trailer

The highly anticipated teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is here! And almost nothing is actually shown. While Nolan is known for secretive teasers, this is taking it a bit too far. The teaser is okay, but very little real footage is shown from the film. On the other hand, the teaser for the Dark Knight Rises featured mostly old footage, and the Inception teaser did not show much either. What I expected was an innovative sci-fi thriller, and what we got was The Astronaut Farmer. In all seriousness, since Christopher Nolan's last original flick turned out to be one of the best movies ever made (Inception), I still have faith in Nolan to make a cool movie. Before any Nolanites go completely insane, to be clear, I thought the teaser was interesting, but not amazing. Regardless, you know I am going to watch the movie in theaters!

Before you go, my friend Jordan at RATH'S REVIEWS is hosting a poll where you vote for your Top 3 Movies of 2013 so Click here to take the survey and then comment with your thoughts on the trailer.

Not the official poster

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