Inception (with implanted spoilers)

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

and somehow the promise of robin williams failed to carry me through

They should both be suggest banned from acting.

I liked about half of this, the action (Morocco/Snow Fortress) was interminable although I noted to my designer companions that nobody could run/jump like that in truly tailored Italian suits, the costume designers must have had a field day doing alterations.

The 2nd act dialogue that served no other purpose but to refocus the ADD plot had much of the audience in groans.

The plot gimmicks are kinda needlessly complicated but I was surprised there was NOT some dumbed-down MNShamwow ending and that it was so deliberately open-ended. Probably leaving wiggle room for franchising/sequels?

I was asleep for most of this movie, but wasn't the ending exactly a Shamwow 'it turned out HE was the dreamer' ending? or did I dream that.

(I was half-expecting the twist to be DiCaprio playing DiCaprio waking up, and really wanting the Batman role, but never got it, so he watches the DVDs over and over again until he starts dreaming with all the Batman minor characters showing up in his dreams, and that's the movie we saw. oh yeah and somewhere Juno was in his netflix queue, too)

"i noted to my designer companions"

did i stutter?

no

"i stuttered to my designer companions"

are you incepting me?

The spinning top was never DiCaprio's totem actually, was it? It was Cotillard's. Hmmm.

That's something that came to my mind too, as it makes it useless as a dream/non-dream signifier to him, as per my previous post just up there, in addition to its spinny-ness red herring.

Multiple world espionage bits = terrific
Ridiculous setpieces = doubly terrific
Emotional bits = struggled to give a shit, I blame Leo for this

i think that totem gif lol has probly ruined this film already for me, i've not seen it yet

My Dark Knight-fan friend: "'Intellectual' blockbuster crap -- makes The Matrix seem lucid"

"The Matrix" WAS lucid until they got to the end of the second movie

Lawrence Fishburne's accent was far from lucid.

the end of the second movie makes sense, and provides a pretty cool rationalization for Neo's existence/origins of religions, etc...

"The Matrix" WAS lucid until they got to the end sex scene of the second movie

Emotional bits = struggled to give a shit, I blame Leo for this

It's not like Leo is horrible, but I was thinking how much better this would have been with another actor as the lead. I still like it a lot, though.

on topic: i think I'll give Nolan the benefit of the doubt until a consistent interpretation of the movie emerges. but yeah on first viewing there's a curious amount of ellipses (especially considering all the exposition) and plot holes.

Ellipses were inevitable but plot holes, you'd have to make a clearer case than stating their existence!

it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"
it wasn't "all a dream"

he used to read Word Up magazine.

Wow that joke is even funnier the third time it appeared in this thread!

You're welcome!

this is pretty otm.
http://www.ultraculture.co.uk/4234-10-things-that-stop-inception-being-as-good-as-it-thinks-it-is.htm

That is actually completely wrong, every single point of it.

The scene where Arthur shows Ariadne the never-ending staircase is a particularly blatant example of Nolan showing off how clever he is, even if it is ‘justified’ two hours later by a pointless re-appearance in the Hotel world.

otm, that penrose staircase was some bullshit. a) pointless, ii) wrong, since the illusion only works if you're not actually on the staircase.

http://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/128874806770315975.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/15tz83.png

that blog is weird - who thinks that the ending is the best part?

Maybe Leo and his wife had matching true love his-and-hers totem tops?

The more I think about this film, the more it feels like either a) a sequel to a movie never made or b) a big-budget Hollywood remake of a smart little thriller (a la "Insomnia") that cost nada. I noted somewhere else that "Inception" cost somewhere around 24,000 times as much as "Primer."

After first viewing:

Could hear all dialogue clearly
Lost track of who's consciousness we were diving into on each level, not sure how it matters tho
Pretty happy taking it that Leo's wife was correct, and that he's still dreaming. Tho not sure why she just can't wake him up.

or as mark s has suggested, doodz just send an email

only got about 1/4 way through this thread so far this AM, prob will see much better readings than that further on

It seemed kind of dumb when Arthur said "Paradox!" when he threw that guy off the stairs. We get it, thanks.

Oh OK someone mentioned that upthread. I agreed.

re: heath ledger doppelganger, doesn't juno look more than a bit like the D.A. from the last two batman movies?
how many batman players are in this doing more or less the same role?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6dYiIbRKM

Saw this last night. It was alright. Don't think I'll bother watching it again. Didn't have any emotional pull for me, and I kinda want my big bucks high concept action movies to have at least a bit of emo in them.