Inception (with implanted spoilers)

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-07-13/film/with-inception-can-christopher-nolan-save-the-summer/

"One of my favorite brain teasers, or things to occupy my mind with when I have spare time, is that if you look in a mirror, left and right are reversed, but up and down are not. How is that possible? I've been trying to wrap my head around that for decades and I make no progress. If any of your readers have the solution, I'll be interested."

and fucking magnets, how do they work?

was it just me or did it seem like ellen page brought her own wardrobe to the set, it was like everyone dressed in these perfect retro suits and shirts and then theres fuckin JUNO in her g-damn bandana

her character was just a student, tho. also it's not like lukas haas dressed so great either, the architect seems like the nerd of the group.

I looked him up on imdb to see why he looked so familiar to me, and it turns out he was that horrible Jean Luc Picard clone in Star Trek Nemesis!

Did the exact same thing. Actually thought he did a good job in that, though (about the only good thing in the movie!). One of the best actors in this one for sure.

Anyway I liked the movie quite a bit, it's a solid enough puzzle film that often feels exhilarating, great for a first time watch. A second time viewing will be the test. I'm still unpacking the first twenty minutes or so, it was much more complicated the more I thought about it in light of the ending.

I had guessed it would be a 'down to the final frame' ending. HOW it ended was the surprise to me, I was actually shocked when it cut to black, it didn't feel as long as the film was to that point. Quite a 'lady/tiger' conclusion, at a remove. (I am also still trying to figure out how benign the possible endings/conclusions are.)

And where the hell did they film the snow fortress? I want one of those!

(Also, references to things like 2001 and The Conversation and etc. -- understandable enough...but I was not expecting Star Trek: The Next Generation's holodeck near the end there.)

Oh and WTF at Lukas Haas there. More in the sense of 'wait he's still being cast in things?'

One other thought -- I liked the relative blandness of the whole central idea of dreaming and sharing dreams as it was portrayed and accepted by the main characters. Very little gee whiz in favor either comfort or intrigued curiosity. In a very general way, it almost seems to reflect our understanding of science fiction as evolving concept, so much of what HAS been 'gee whiz' has been identified and accepted.

Yeah, it was almost Vonnegut-esque in terms of how it dealt with technology.

"This suitcase is a macguffin, we all know it's a macguffin, lets not do the robots behind the matrix thing, the red pill / green pill thing, let's not even bother talking about it, let's just get on with the story and the action."

Speaking of which, am I alone in liking how Nolan directs action scenes? People who think he's bad at it; who do you think is good at it?

In the case of this and Batman Begins I like that it's blurry and hard to follow; BB is about a mysterious shadow kicking shit out of people and this is about dream-violence; it's not appropriate to depict either of these things like a Bourne film.

I kinda loved this. No one seems to have as much fun messing with (relatively) CGI-free mindfuckery as Nolan does, but I also felt more invested than I thought I'd be in the emotional component. (And way more invested than I was in the similar parts of Shutter Island.) I was sort of annoyed at the ending though, felt like hedge-betting. I would have really liked a pat, happy ending for once, especially after the relentless last 90 mins, but of course Nolan don't roll that way. <3 Tom Hardy and JGL, wish we'd had more of them. Leo more tolerable than usual.

The more I think about it the more the end is... Nolan showing (once again) that he's making a film as well as telling a story. I think it's the perfect note on which to end the film.

Which is to say that... The Dark Knight had me consciously aware that Nolan wasn't trying to depict reality so much as transpose comicbookness into a filmic; at the time I wrote about the lack of blood despite the violence, the Jim-Lee-esque nature of Two Face's injury, etc, and I think the same thing applies here. Unlike some comic book movie directs Nolan didn't just recreate comic frames onscreen, and likewise he didn't try to make the representation of dreams here too weird and far-out; I know that my dreams inhabit weird emotional territory, have weird physics, etcetera, but the settings are pretty mundane, very much secondary in importance to the emotional territory that the dream is creating or inhabiting, and I thick Nolan goes for that here to an extent too by not making the dream environments too Burton or Del Toro weird (much as I adore Del Toro).

Note on San Te's observation; Cotillard's childhood house is falling into disrepair not because she grew up in poverty but because the limbo environment it is in has been neglected and is all collapsing. Her father (Caine) is an academic, and the huge dollhouse she has suggests she had a very nice childhood.

I think the fact that it's never really discussed what Caine is an academic of suggests the whole thing is a dream, too. Lots of things are left unexplained, because in dreams things are unexplained.

Maybe our hyper-accelerated brains are just better than you Bedrock residents' at embracing complexity and contradictions!

no, see, shit and complexity aren't the same. I knew your being raised in a world where Seinfeld was judged the apex of culture wd lead to this.

did u review this somewhere morbs? i'd be interested in what you have to say beyond "you young people are dumb, this is shit"

I did not. I will perhaps see it when it doesn't cost $12.50.

complexshitty

I was raised in a time where we tucked our shirts into our jeans, ate our cereal, and let our neighbors in any time they wanted. That all changed after the towers fell.

What did YOU have? Bellbottoms and Vietnam? Pssh.

Speaking of which, am I alone in liking how Nolan directs action scenes? People who think he's bad at it; who do you think is good at it?

yeah i thought he pulled it off here. the action in 'batman begins' was pretty poor though. he has a whole lot of get-out-of-jail-free cards in this, and the 'on her majesty's secret service' stuff didn't really do it for me. but the zero-g fight scenes were awesome, imo. and the opening sequences were brilliant too. wonder if they'll be even better second time round, with a clearer idea of what's happening.

and the 'on her majesty's secret service' stuff didn't really do it for me

Ha, good call and you're right there -- when I first saw the figures in the snowscape on the mountain, I thought the opening of The Spy Who Loved Me instead but that's far more apt.

I suppose another Macguffin might be the weep father/son moment with Murphy and Postelthwaite, in that on the one hand you think "Ah, cliched garbage," but then on the other the whole idea IS that it's cliched garbage planted deep.

I would like to know if they cast Cotillard before or after they had determined they wanted an Edith Piaf song as a cue musical cue.

musical cue musical music. Yeah.

Oh and WTF at Lukas Haas there. More in the sense of 'wait he's still being cast in things?'

He is Leo's best friend, that is the only explanation I can come up with.

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@Sick Mouthy -- fair point, that was something I thought up but your explanation makes sense. I still don't buy that it was all a dream though. that's too lazy for Nolan. way too easy a solution. some parts that the audience is led to believe are reality are dreams, but not the whole thing, IMO.

"Hey bro. So you get to betray me and then are bundled off by security dudes after I turn down shooting you in cold blood."

"...thanks?"

xpost there.

@history mayne--stuff made a lot more sense and connected better the second time around when I saw it. it was much easier to notice small things and not have to worry about connecting the dots as much.

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did anybody else think the scene of Leo/Cotillard on the train tracks was a real pretty scene? that scene stuck with me a lot, with her face on the tracks looking at him.

I think the fact that it's never really discussed what Caine is an academic of suggests the whole thing is a dream, too.

I'd like to see a screenshot of his chalkboard.

Yes, I thought it was lovely in strange way. xp

Caine teaches Theory of Breakfast Cereal 101

OK can someone MARK THE THREAD TITLE AS *SPOILERS* cuz this is getting old

The movie's out! Fair game at this point; if you click on the thread and think we're not going to be talking about it then good grief.

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Cld well be something in the mumbling as signifier. About the only clearly enunciated scene was when Leo met Michael Caine, and came over all Leo and "it's my ONLY CHANCE so I MUST DO IT".

Snowscape: reminded me of CoD4. I thought it was going to be a deliberate gag at expense of games-playing young billionaire waster's subconscious.

xpost True, I'm still gunshy after on Yahoo message boards in 1999 people were crying that we ruiend the Sixth Sense ending for them. their sadness was so real :((((((

re: the mumbling, I don't know that we aren't overstating it a bit. other than a few things Watanabe's character said as the old man, I pretty much made out most everything that was said, and generally in movies there are always a few mumbled lines.

I'm still gunshy after on Yahoo message boards in 1999 people were crying that we ruiend the Sixth Sense ending for them. their sadness was so real :((((((

That should have been the first real indication that M. Night was bad for people in general.

M. Night is the Jose Lima of movie directing

can you not spoil the ending of sixth sense in the inception thread please? still got it to watch

Rosebud was Bruce willis's sled

you bast!

too much exposition, and a little too little clarity about what was going on from time to time.

― I’ll put you in a f *ckin Weingarten you c*nt! (history mayne), Friday, July 16, 2010 7:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban

it occurs to me that ~this is what dreams are like~ lots mental energy expended scrambling to explain nonsensical logic - most of the dialog was exposition but then yr still left going UH YEAH GUYS SYNCHRONIZED KICKS OKAYY - which is pretty hilarious and clever

one point of frustration - the leo incepted mol w/a dangerous concept in limbo reveal couldve been pretty weighty if they hadnt fucking given it away by having him say 'inception is possible, i incepted mol this one time lol' like just have him say 'its possible' or whatever - this bothered me

there were some nice meta touches that played symbiotically w/dreamscape constructs - like the ice comandos layout was so bond/video game overtly action movie to the point of being corny BUT then i mean juno grew up watching that shit so of course its gonna look like that BUT its also an irl action movie BUT then WHAT IS IRL LOL

tbf i couldve done w/90% less gunshots - its cowardly hedging against the sweet psychological imaginarium imo - tho i did v much enjoy the line 'his projections have become militarized' lol 'weve seen this before'

ps i dress beautifully IN MY DREAMS

max, what adjectives are you warehousing in case any beyond "sweet" are needed for films w/ actual substance?

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, July 16, 2010 9:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hay morbs i made this thread for commenting on maxs gawker work, which imo is somewhow a fundamental betrayal of ilx I LOVE CRICKET: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX > GAWKER hope to see u there

After he said his cliche-o-rama bit about one last mission and then he could get back to his family, I kind of gave up and concentrated on my ice-cream.

o hai

in dreams 'you never know how you got there' w/all the exposition the dream warrior history was never explained past 'developed by the military for training purposes'

one point of frustration - the leo incepted mol w/a dangerous concept in limbo reveal couldve been pretty weighty if they hadnt fucking given it away by having him say 'inception is possible, i incepted mol this one time lol' like just have him say 'its possible' or whatever - this bothered me

well, tbrr (or not ha), uh, i didn't rly get how leo incepted mol when they were in limbo. what does that entail? how? incepting cilian murphbro entailed all kinds of charadery and inventing situations etc. how did he trick is missus. also, you know, it's just an idea. in fifty years you'd prolly incept loads of ideas into yr significant other, right?

That's what she...um, never mind.

also, has Leo's voice changed yet?

tbf i incept people all the time irl 'hay we should go see that new what is dreams movie' 'o ok sure'

he actually uses a kind of minnesotan thing here. an odd choice but effective.

xpost

him: "maybe there is no real"
her: "wow i'd never thought of that before"
him: "clearly you never went to college"

'lets put our heads on the train tracks now lol ok u crazy frickin hot french one'

Anna Kalolina

A bit I remembered in talking with the folks I saw this with last night -- I was actually pleasantly surprised by a couple of things that didn't happen, most especially (in light of Haas's character at the start) what I was convinced was going to be one of the team members turning to out be an antagonist/fifth column/inside man type. So when the team saw it all the way through as far as they could when I had been primed for Page or Gordon-Levitt or somebody to reveal their true colors, that was unexpected enough, and made Haas a red herring.

Related to that was Cotillard's character since I figured her first appearance and actions was explained away by her being his opposite in the employ of Saito, so the slow degradation of assumptions that followed was a good touch. Like much of the movie at base it wasn't a groundbreaking move by any means but it was nicely handled.