Nolan is one of the most refreshing director that has appeared in a long time. Surely it will be unfair to compair him Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas (students of Kurosawa I might add, or rather John Ford since Kurosawa was inspired by John Ford and Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, and even Scorcese were inspired by Kurosawa.

Nolan is not one to follow the conventional studio methods of making movies.

He is first and foremost postmodern. In his movies, he explores fragmentation of time, perception, explores how decisions made and how incidents can change someone, and features very real characters with very real (albeit dark) emotion in seemingly impossible situation.

To the casual viewers, his movies can be confusing and also at the same time looks badly edited.

To film students, his work is great for study and discussion and meant for repeated viewing.

I mean, when I first watched Memento, I could not quite get it. I understood the ending but still it feels like I am missing alot there. The second and third viewing it just gets better and better because you start to fill in the gaps.

With Prestige it is amazing how you will start off rooting for one person and by the time the movie ends, you would have switch sides for a few times because as you get into the movie, you start to see the characters for who they really are.

I mean, his movies aren't for everyone. The themes are dark, his characters are dark and not easy for everyone to relate. I mean we all have our dark side but how many are actually willing to explore that side in all of us? Most will just push it aside because we prefer to look at the world full of sunshine and happiness and all the sugar and spice and all things nice.

For those brave enough to explore that part of us, it is easy to relate to his characters because reality is, the world is not always sunshine and happiness and by the time we die, we will very likely have experience or witness more horrors and sadness than we would like to admit.

I think it is wrong to view batman as a superhero movie. The intention was never to make a traditional superhero movie. The approach is more akin to Casino Royale, taking a popular franchise that is running the risk of self parodying and bring it back to basics and Batman Begins did just that.

There is no place for flashy action scenes and big explosions. The action sequence in Batman Begins works for what it is, realistic and straight to the point.

Anything more would have spoilt the realistic approach they are going for.

I mean Spielberg is a great director but he is also a very safe director. He definitely has the ability to tackle of very dark and 'unsafe' subjects but most of the time, he rather take on the mantle of the family movie director and that's how most of his movies are, very family oriented. Flashy, happy, and very likeable and heroic protagonist.

I mean, he did make Schindler's List, Minority Report, and Munich.

My favourite work of his is Minority Report and even though most would say that is his darkest movie, the story is much tone down from the original source material.

So yes, Spielberg is definitely a great director and I will watch his movies but always with the knowledge that he will neatly wrap things up for me and the ending will never be too sad.

With Nolan, I can always expect the unexpected and the ending will make me want to walk into the cinema and watch the movie again and again.

I predict Nolan with change the industry soon, like how Orsan Welles changed the industry with Citizen Kane.

ps-it will be also be crazy to Nolan to Spielberg and Welles success relative to their age because the industry just doesn't work that way anymore today.

For the few movies (six so far) that Nolan has made so far, he is definitely showing tremendous improvement each time.

One more thing to add, The Prestige was based on a novel and while the movie differs in some ways, the sci-fi element is still in the novel and I would actually say tone down greatly in the movie.

Also just to put the sci fi deus ex machina matrix ending issue to rest, one word, Tesla.

That is a man historically known for inventing stuff way ahead of his time. Hence, the fact that he actually invented a machine that teleports (or in this case duplicates (never his original intention)) should not be too far out from this movie internal logic. It still fits.

In the movie there was a part that says something along the lines of "Tesla does what magicians are pretending to be doing"

Welles is fully capable of bettering Kane but sadly, with the flop that Kane was back then, Welles never did get the same freedom he had from the studios while doing Kane again.