Inception (with implanted spoilers)

With Ariadne, Nolan was probably mostly hoping it'd call forth the Theseus reference (+ you'd know how to pronounce it already coming in).

Fair enough, all good points.

But I guess it's worth asking if treating your characters that way can be in the service of pursuing a different kind of emotion...perhaps a "coldly intellectual" or detached one but perhaps pretty valuable considering how rare that is in movies.

I don't think the end says "it was all a dream" so much as "i used to read word up magazine"

don't know what that means.

lol whoever posted this is king or queen of the thread.

And again, I know what her name is now, but damned if I can even /pronounce/ Ariadne, which shows how much weight even a proper name carries in this anonymous world.

"airy add knee"

Why do the rest of them do it? Simply for cash?

Wasn't there a 5 minute bit in the middle where Juno was all like 'f this' and Leo was 'she'll be back' and she was? I guess they are all addicted, but + cash and + no crazy ex wife fantasies, they don't yet see a downside to going in like leo or the bed ridden, especially if there is someone to pull them out?

xxxpost the film revolves around leonardo dicaprio and his tortured mind, his guilt, his longing, etc.--hypothetically, there is a cold intellectual way of exploring these conflicts, but INCEPTION doesn't attempt it.

thought this actually improved on second viewing

And again, I know what her name is now, but damned if I can even pronounce Ariadne, which shows how much weight even a proper name carries in this anonymous world.

idk man, they said her name several times, and it was a fairly self-conscious reference to the Greek myth of Ariadne helping Theseus escape a labyrinth. you could even use it as evidence to support the "it was all Cobb's dream" theory, because the symbolically named maze-maker was also the one who kept encouraging Cobb to work though his inner turmoil.

Yeah, I guess I'm just not up on my Greek mythology, so whenever they said her name I must not have caught it as her name. Isn't naming her Ariadne a little too on the nose? Regardless, she may as well been named Betty for all we know about her.

considering how much effort it took to explain it to u, I don't think you're really allowed to complain that it was too on the nose

I'm kinda into a big budget film maker using a greek mythology reference to further the thematic breadth of the film (she's leading him out of the psychological maze he is trapped in, she is also actually a maze-maker, etc) instead of just picking a greek name cause it sounds badass or cool or "meaningful," which is generally my experience watching blockbuster flicks.

anyway she served her purps, not sure what else id really want to know about her. this isn't like secrets and lies over here xp

What was she studying? Maze making? And why did she have no qualms instantly jumping into something illegal? And for that matter, why did Michael Caine have no problem recommending her for something illegal, especially working for the man many suspect of murdering his daughter?

I dunno. These are not important things, in the sense that they would not really change the story, but fleshing out characters helps me care about them as more than cogs and conveniences that serve their purpose. Part of the smarts of "The Matrix" is that many of the characters were literally cogs and conveniences that serve their purpose, but the absence of humanity was sort of that flick's gist.

think the only reaction to this chick being named ariadne is oh that's "meaningful"

"site:en.wikipedia.org mythology labryinth"

I just wanna know if cob blows up the prison ship or the ship with the innocent bystanders

i haven't seen this but

it's the kind of movie prized by the tarantinos of the world---its value is more instructional than it is artistic

seems wrong to me.. tarantino movies all swivel around ostentatiously "useless" human moments. his plots may be in a funny order but they're not machine-tooled befuddlement engines, they're just excuses for tarantino to deliver us "moment" after moment.

i think Sanpaku's posts on this thread are great. there is something terribly 90s about this, isn't there? those slick suits, "reality" "distorting".. it reminds me of Heavy Rain, which also came out this year.

(the posters and trailers i mean)

i have more time for DiCaprio than many people do but this from Sanpaku, while harsh:

DiCaprio still thinks squinting is an emotion

is sadly OTM

this film could easily have come out in 1999/2000. it feels pretty dated. apart from how it generally feels like a barrage in how it pummels you with cgi/spectacle/BIG IMPORTANT STUFF which is quite a modern blockbuster thing. josh in chicago otm.

it feels pretty dated. apart from how it generally feels like a barrage in how it pummels you with cgi/spectacle/BIG IMPORTANT STUFF which is quite a modern blockbuster thing.

so...

i mean, was ellen page even BORN in 1999? and people would have been like lol third rock.

"the film revolves around leonardo dicaprio and his tortured mind, his guilt, his longing, etc."

wish it did this more

I still liked this movie a lot, but when I read box office articles that start out like this:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/26/box.office.salt.ew/index.html

Yay moviegoers! You are rewarding the best-reviewed movies of the summer with your pocketbooks.

... I wish I didn't.

i mean, was ellen page even BORN in 1999?

if she wasn't, i'm going to have to spend a long time in confession

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6592eLBCp1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg

i used to get hopeful that interesting/ambitious movies (nevermind if they're even good) making a lot of money would lead to other interesting/ambitious movies getting made but that never seems to happen. at best it leads to someone like Nolan getting to basically do whatever he wants from now on.

i used to get hopeful that interesting/ambitious movies (nevermind if they're even good) making a lot of money would lead to other interesting/ambitious movies getting made but that never seems to happen.

Because you realized that mostly it just means bad knockoff versions of said interesting/ambitious movies?

ha @ that gif

i haven't seen this but

it's the kind of movie prized by the tarantinos of the world---its value is more instructional than it is artistic

seems wrong to me.. tarantino movies all swivel around ostentatiously "useless" human moments. his plots may be in a funny order but they're not machine-tooled befuddlement engines, they're just excuses for tarantino to deliver us "moment" after moment.

dude i didn't say it was ~like~ a tarantino movie at all. i said it was something he would like (as a movie nerd).

oh ok, yeah - this certainly seems like a movie for nerds!

I'd put it much closer to a movie Soderbergh would like: how to tell simoultaneous stories; how to edit to best make a film a visceral experience; how to explain something really complicated without losing the audience; how to do something new with a summer tentpole movie; how to do something with a heist movie. With different casting, this could've been Oceans 14.

I mean, c'mon: Pitt, Clooney, and Julia Roberts break into Andy Garcia's brain. Who wouldn't be on board?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM

Pitt, Clooney, and Julia Roberts break into Andy Garcia's brain. Who wouldn't be on board?

There would even be room for that old heist chestnut where they finally crack the safe, throw open the door and realize... there's nothing there.

i find that kinda stuff really fun. (the music thing)

yeah me too!

i wonder if that's what the Piaf song is supposed to sound like in Limbo?

yeah that music thing is neat

guys i think i might actually see this again?

I'd put it much closer to a movie Soderbergh would like: how to tell simoultaneous stories; how to edit to best make a film a visceral experience; how to explain something really complicated without losing the audience; how to do something new with a summer tentpole movie; how to do something with a heist movie. With different casting, this could've been /Oceans 14/.

good call good post

This movie did not hold up as well as Star Trek to shaky Russian camcorder treatment, which is usually flattering to effects-based movies the same way vaseline on a lens is flattering to wrinkly people.

Also fell asleep to it (and surprisingly the sleep-version of the movie wasn't awesome either)

That music cue is awesome! I hear if you watch the movie at three times the speed it looks like "The Matrix."

that is ~wicked~

i know dude right

love that

dang, edith piaf screwed

Love that music cue!

The movie made me go back & read Neuromancer. Not that they are the same, but the shores of the subconscious thing reminded me of Linda Lee & the tarnished silver beach.

Wowsers, that music thing is amazingly cool.

Whew! I saw this on Sunday night and it's taken me this long to slog through the posts here. Which is kind of surprising, as this didn't really seem like the kind of movie that would inspire much discussion among sophisticated filmgoers. I enjoyed it, but it was both fairly pat, plotwise, and not ambiguous enough to make me think much about it after the credits had rolled. The filmmaking metaphor is interesting to me, though, and something that seems more worthy of exploration than the mechanics of the plot.

I honestly haven't been terribly excited about anything Nolan has done (although there's no reason it necessarily should've been, it's interesting and a little sad that Insomnia hasn't been mentioned once in this thread), but I think he's good at making pretty pictures. Something that you look at and appreciate aesthetically in the moment and then forget once you've walked away from it. This and The Dark Knight are far and away the most engaging and fun of his movies IMHO, but I can't help but think that that has a lot to do with the fact that I saw them both in IMAX.

More than anything, Inception made me want to rewatch a bunch of other solid reality-bendy low-key sci-fi flicks mentioned numerous times in the thread (Dark City, Eternal Sunshine, Minority Report, Brazil, etc.) and read some Dick.

Oh, and it was a total rip-off of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZQiKriReqE

The spinny/non-spinny-ness of the top "totem" isn't the dream/non-dream signifying aspect of it anyway, as that could be easily recreated in either direction in anyone's dreams.

I thought that the point of the totems was that they had a feel, a certain je ne sais quoi, that only the individual whose totem it was really knew, so that if the totem didn't 'feel' right then that person would notice that it had been inaccurately recreated and hence they must be stuck in someone else's dream. That's why they didn't let others in the group actually hold their totem (cf. JGL with his loaded die).

By this logic a totem wouldn't identify being stuck in your own dream though, right?

I enjoyed it, but it was both fairly pat, plotwise, and not ambiguous enough to make me think much about it after the credits had rolled. The filmmaking metaphor is interesting to me, though, and something that seems more worthy of exploration than the mechanics of the plot.

yeah after a week or two of digestion this is how I feel - a pretty competent and entertaining movie that didn't really... deserve... all of the intense exegesis devoted to it afterwards. it seemed very straightforward in execution and it seems that others on this thread upon rewatching confirm that it's all pretty tightly interlocked underneath, there doesn't seem to be too much wriggle room. I agree also that so far the most interesting sticking point is the parallels between dream-making in this movie and movie-making in real life.

t's interesting and a little sad that Insomnia hasn't been mentioned once in this thread

I tried to watch it recently, but having already seen the original I got Hilary Swank fatigue really early on