Inception (with implanted spoilers)

http://www.impawards.com/1984/posters/dreamscape.jpg

DOH!

http://fusedfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/803.jpg

Did Drew Struzan do that or was it just a knockoff?

xpost^Now that's the good shit right there.

But as far as movies where a director with money to burn BLOWS YO MIND and a megastar wrestles with memories of The One That Got Away, this didn't hurt like Vanilla Sky.

So is the consensus that the dream worlds run 4 deep (plunging van, zero-g hotel, snow prison, Saito (or Cobb's) limbo). If so, The Saragossa Manuscript still holds the record for most levels of recursive storytelling, nesting 6 deep once and 5 deep quite a few times. Not a bedtime film, unless you revel in the confusion.

shameless plug: discussion on this got a little heated on the podcast I co-host. some mild spoilers. review starts around the 15-minute mark.

Part of me agrees with this take - http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html

this movie is like donnie darko: the director's cut except:
-minus atmosphere
-minus intelligent humor (OMFG THAT ONE TERRIBLE JOKE WHERE HE PULLED OUT THE BIGGER GUN?!)
-minus ANY EMOTION WHATSOEVER
-minus awesome soundtrack
-minus imagination
-plus a middling protagonist
-plus a generic hans zimmer score (wtf, stop praising this bullshit)
-plus even more dull explication
-plus juno
-plus (admittedly competent) action sequences

the thing about inception and TDK is that nolan is trying way too hard to come up with something thats a masterpiece/art so its just far too po faced. its not even enjoyable on a pure explosions and heists and CGI level.

its just a pretty boring, bloated, patience testing movie, admittedly with a few moments of emotional resonance where you care a teeny bit about the characters (well, leo) and some intrigue, though it doesnt really reward you for any of that cos its such a big fucking mess.

If this movie was anything like Donnie Darko I would have set fire to the screen.

wow I expected some of the above arguments from Yahoo! Movies users....

so sad that people don't agree with me : (

http://ikbenangie.nl/joomla/images/jmovies/img_pictures/innerspace1.jpg

"hay guyz if Inception was like the reel dream world there'd be flying hot dogs and antelopes who sing german operas fuk dis i want my money bak also there was a pred ship in fischers dream"

had a dream last nite i ate amazing food for like a week straight, inception was nothing like that smh

"hay guyz if Inception was like the reel dream world there'd be flying hot dogs and antelopes who sing german operas fuk dis i want my money bak also there was a pred ship in fischers dream"

you're right, its wrong to suggest that we can do better than three mundane action movies happening concurrently with Shutter Island.

If Ridley Scott's Monopoly works out maybe Nolan can do Rubik's Cube: The Movie.

or maybe he can consolidate 6 sylvester stallone movies into pill form

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/07/ellen_pages_outfits_in_incepti.html

According to our very informal survey of grad students (er, our friends), neckerchiefs are not currently a staple of the PhD crowd, and yet she dons one in every single scene

except in the hotel and in the snow fortress...

guys shes a lesbian

I feel like a lot of the people that really hated this movie were predisposed to hating it before they even walked in to the theater.

i was only predisposed to the idea that it might not make sense.

I feel like a lot of the people that really liked this movie were predisposed to liking it before they even walked into the theater. HOW YA LIKE THEM APPLES?

i liked dark knight and i got up at 7am on a sunday so i could imax it before i left town because i was so excited about it. it's rubbish.

this feels like snes vs. mega drive all over again

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Soy6V1eKImA/S-kholQ8OAI/AAAAAAAAADc/FgF2JUKN9gg/s400/discreetcharm1.jpg

^^^ Buñuel should have given Fernando Rey a shotgun.

actually for both this and TDK, i was thinking they would both be great, amazing, huge cinematic experiences, and went on the first day of release for both, but they both left me a bit annoyed.

It's also kind of sad to see how Nolan is regarded as an "auteur" director of big budget films, when 20 years ago you had someone like Verhoeven whose films were 100% more intelligent and entertaining.

And his movies are long as hell.

so can we quit comparing this to Shutter Island simply because the events were surreal and Leonardo DiCaprio is in it? cuz I can't think of a more lazy comparison.

Okay I loved loved TDK and mostly liked Inception, but certainly don't out Nolan in the "auteur" category. He just makes summer blockbusters I happen to enjoy.

2 hrs 20 mins=epic

cuz I can't think of a more lazy comparison.

dude, both movies are about a guy who's bad at his job because he's haunted by guilty visions of his dead crazy wife. It's not just that "events were surreal."

I went in a Dark Knight fan who hoped the film would be entertaining enough to make up for the fact that dream movies can't really "add up". But for all my joshing about dream math vs. dream logic, I think caek best summed it up: if you're going to make a movie about the mind that is kind of centred around a relationship drama then that relationship should be one that faces real problems. use the very clever macguffin to explore human drama, not to explore the very clever macguffin. And if the movie's just about the trickery there's no reason to be so dour about it and not have more fun with your massive palette.

I haven't seen Shutter Island but DiCaprio's scrunchy faces can't be as intense as they are in Inception.

xpost and in both films the "job" itself may be (or is) a figment of his imagination inspired by the guilt

Honest question -- has he ever made a 'fun' movie to start with?

(He meaning Nolan.)

yea if you approach the movies from a very distant synopsis it becomes very easy to compare the two! also Robocop=Robot Jox because they feature cyborgs/robots in dystopian pics.

probably not. I don't go to Nolan movies for fun though -- I see plenty of fun movies daily/weekly and don't go to Nolan films saying "hmm I sure hope this is a rollicking romp". which I suspect was yr point!

also the events weren't a figment of Leo's imagination -- I still don't get how anybody could think the whole movie was a dream.

nolan is the blockbuster guy that makes people feel like theyre watching something smart.

Honest question -- has he ever made a 'fun' movie to start with?

He's tonally too heavy for "fun," and his thoughts can fit on the head of a pin.

and the thoughts don't dance either.

xpost ahh the ole "other people think the movie is smarter than it actually is so therefore I'm going to take it out on the director" approach.

Also – he can't stage or edit an action scene. He's like Michael Bay with Godard on the brain.

xpost ahh the ole "other people think the movie is smarter than it actually is so therefore I'm going to take it out on the director" approach

Well, it'd be unfair to take it out on his mother.

Also – he can't stage or edit an action scene.

Okay, can't disagree with this more. While I didn't like some of the action scenes in Inception, TDK has some fantastic action sequences.

xpost - no im sure the director thinks its much smarter than it is too. im not saying inception is a film for dummies, he does have cool, interesting, potentially inspiring concepts, he just has no idea of making them less heavy handed. actually, its as though he LIKES making them heavy handed so he can show to everyone just how clever he is. wears its intellectual pretensions on its sleeve a bit too proudly in other words.

I haven't seen Shutter Island but DiCaprio's scrunchy faces can't be as intense as they are in Inception.

Less to do with his face, but in IMAX his head looked like a hot-air balloon. I thought it was a product of the massive screen, but the rest were ok - just dear Leo = blimphead, again.