Inception (with implanted spoilers)

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.

People on this thread saying "it wasn't that brain-busting" are otm too.

love that bill & ted trailer

Amazing

for a movie abt a bunch of rogues out for one last heist its not really much fun

There were scenes I enjoyed and nice things to see but the sterility of it is more or less down to Nolan I think. Can't blame Leo DiCaprio for not bringing fully to life some boring unfleshed out character with clunky lines.

Y'all just do what Slim Thug tells ya to

true - steven soderbergh's ocean's inception would have been GREAT

I'm not seeing Christian Bale as Billy Ocean.

nah man, keep the same cast. I'm getting pretty excited thinking about the possibilities tbh. get that chinese acrobat dude again, uh, the one dude who controlled the bigass drill... I dunno

Thoughts: (we're way past the point of spoiler alerts, right? Beware, in any case)

There seems to be a typical Nolan protagonist as every one of them is something of a humorless monomaniac, and the motivations for their obsessions are always pretty feeble and ring false to me. The relationship between these men and their wives or girlfriends is like something out of "A Beautiful Mind."

Shades of Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now," with, among other things, the way Leo DiCaprio keeps having re-occurring hallucinations of his small children, who, of course, always have their backs to him. The way Roeg's movie dealt with the concept of second sight and played with sequence of events is worth comparing to this movie, but, unlike "Don't Look Now", Inception isn't wrapped in hazy mysticism and doesn't give off a creepy occult vibe. Nolan never really gets into the mystery of dreams and he doesn't reveal anything too insightful about them either, which is a shame. Likewise, big concepts from gnosticism and whatnot are briefly mentioned but not really explored in the movie. And finishing off the 'don't look now" comparisons, not sure if eventually getting knifed by your dead wife beats getting knifed by a deranged dwarf you thought was your kid.

More thoughts later, I'm dead tired.

Going back to the motives of these shallow characters which were bypassed in favor of the needless plot complexities, during the whole "I am falsely accused of killing my wife and I will villify myself" quick plot intro, I was reminded afterwards that this theme was far better executed in The Fugitive.

I am falsely accused of killing my wife and I will villify myself

Not the most productive approach.

I liked this movie on a purely action/artsy level. I never got bothered by any of the lines (except maybe the mantra they say abouyt the train coming or whatever when they lie down on the tracks - it was weird). I think the old TBS slogan "movies for guys who likes movies" applies to me and this movie just cuz I like action and explosions and it's hard for me to be bothered by unrealistic stuff, cheesey stuff and huge ass arsenal. Seeing this movie dissected to the littlest things and comparisons over the last couple weeks has made me not want to read this thread. Alas I put in so much effort reading the first few hundred posts that I've continued to read on

Just something that hasn't been mentioned- when juno follows leo down to his basement/the hotel room for the first time, we're looking at marion cotillard from the side, and even tho we know she's going to look over and scare us, it still jarred the shit out of me, the people either side of me, and everyone else in my line of sight in the theatre.

did nolan do something clever here as a director, or did anybody else experience this, or what?

It was pretty startling for me too, even though as you said you could tell it from a mile off. Pretty big music sting there I seem to recall (see also Signs and the birthday part alien)

i can't help thinking it was more than that, tbh- tho signs 1st glimpse of alien is a good comparison certainly.