Inception (with implanted spoilers)

o maybe it was? ha

I just finished "Shutter Island," and as overbaked as it may be, I think Leo is a lot better in it than he is in this, and its own themes (themselves overlapping at times with those of "Inception") more effective. To this I can only credit the direction, and also Scorsese's wise deference to B-movie tropes. As serious as he takes it, at least he seems to be nodding to the ridiculousness of past thrillers, right down to the interminable "what we just saw" breakdown scene (with its shades of the deflating denouement of "Psycho"). Nolan's problem, in retrospect, seems to be that he made a B-movie and treated it like an A-movie, wheres Scorsese's better honed instincts convinced him to make an A-movie but treat it like a B-movie.

I dunno how you'd describe Inception as a 'B' movie tbh

'inception' was better than i was expecting and i was expecting it to be good. there are aspects that maybe don't hold up or are unexplained but i didn't particularly care since i enjoyed it so much. and i guess i didn't think there was much manipulation or trickery, everything was pretty clear to me.

x-post Because it's kind of innately silly, and hides its shaky logic behind oppressive flash, I guess. It aims to be provocative, but ultimately errs on the side of spectacle above ideas. But it's still a very engaging b-movie!

For what it's worth, I found "The Prestige" a much better b-movie ideal, because while it takes itself equally seriously, it at least has some fun with its batshit premise.

I can see Inception as a B-movie. I think I've said it before, but I think Shutter Island worked as an A-movie (?) in a B-movie disguise because it's plot was so stupid that you barely paid any attention to it all, allowing the visuals, sound, and aura of grief take over. In Inception, you're too busy concentrating on the surface to delve any further into the emotions or ideas that might exist within.

The Prestige is not a B-movie to me, as that's the only Nolan film that has any emotional effect on me whatsoever.

um, do you guys know what a B movie actually is?

http://costumzee.com/view/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/bee_movie.png

It aims to be provocative, but ultimately errs on the side of spectacle above ideas.

how does this make it not an a-movie?

uh xpost

yeah, but if you work on the notion that Jaws and Star Wars effectively turned the cheesy B-movie into the very profitable A-movie, it makes sense.

xposts

I enjoyed the fuck out of this. Globetrotting psychic industrial espionage, can't really go wrong.

The third act was the weakest though, too much shit going on at once.

I think movies like "Shutter Island" and "The Inception" are totally B-movie in spirit but blockbuster big in execution. Perhaps that's why I have a trouble reconciling their ideas, as such, with their execution. They're both so much bigger and more expensive than they need to be. Again, as I mention above somewhere, "Inception" cost about 24,000 times what it cost to make "Primer," which shows that the execution of even hyper-complex ideas doesn't need the support of endless shootouts and pointless (but impressive!) special effects like cities folding on top of themselves. The difference between this and something like "Shutter Island" (again) is that Scorsese relishes his overblown elements almost as camp, whereas Nolan approaches it with total seriousness. Yet at its heart "Inception" is still just an old school "Twilight Zone" styled mind-scramble that falls far short of the emotional and/or metaphysical profundity of, say, Charlie Kuafman's best.

Kaufman, that is.

primer showed that you can have an incredibly complex idea, film it on a low budget, and make it completely opaque and boring.

Don't think anyone with half a brain would argue that Nolan's ideas are more radical or engaging than Kaufman's. But I like an overblown blockbuster spectacle now and then, and I like conceptual pulpy SF, and the two are combined, hey, a fun night out for me.

x-post Maybe "Primer" needed 30 minutes of machine gun shoot outs to spice it up?

B-movie does not equal bad, and "Inception" was fun, while it lasted, like most overblown blockbuster spectacles.

no, it just needed some like... storytelling

but whatev, i don't really see the objection here, if someone wants to make a big-budget star-packed high-concept twilight zone episode then i say bring it on

i mean, look at the shit that passes for summer blockbusters these days... if ppl want to make this kind of movie instead of gi joe or transformers, fuckin a

like inception is really not competing in the charlie kaufman 'space'

"GI Joe" was pretty good up until the final final showdown. I liked how it wallowed in its nonsense.

The Baroness was kind of a cop-out but I totally got why they went that route.

i don't think nolan is aiming as high as some people seem to think he is. i think he just enjoys making movies about this kind of trickery and the people who engage in it.

^^^^ I agree totally

i three-gree

i mean, i think he isn't being profound, i think he gets these ideas and figures "oh this would be AWESOME" and yes the notion of industrial mind-thieves messing around in the minds of other people and having insane action scenes in their dreams is kind of awesome. and he's just really, really good at bringing the audience along. the cross-cutting between various levels of subconscious and the time differences in each was pretty brilliant, and not because of the "idea" as much as the execution (which solved an action movie problem via the time differences: cross-cutting between different action scenes and not missing a beat in any of them.)

George Lazenby's thoughts

i think if the movie is saying anything "meaningful" it's about the creative process/movies and not necessarily the metaphysics of reality, etc...

it's a bit tiresome to attack the movie for not being as smart as Nolan thinks it is...intentional fallacy, etc...maybe you could argue Nolan invites that kinda thing but it's a pretty boring way to talk about a movie.

xpost -- uh, wait, THE George Lazenby?

yes, that one. he's great on twitter.

If Nolan invites it, it's certainly up for discussion. And this is just internet discussion, which really is rarely more than boring. Anyway, I love a well-made movie as much as anyone else, and this one is well made, too. Totally enjoyed it as I watched it. But Nolan is such an exacting, self-consciously cerebral filmmaker I would be shocked if he simply set out to make an entertainment. But I suppose my personal struggle (not that it keeps me up at night) is that I deeply suspect Nolan made this movie for us/me to get more out of it than I did, but as with any good magic trick, I'm beginning to feel not that I don't get it but like a bit of a mark.

I think Nolan is a pretty great filmmaker, for what it's worth, and a smart guy, but this may be his first film where his reach slightly surpassed his grasp, especially compared to his other original properties ("Memento," "The Prestige"). No harm, no foul, though. I look forward to his next flick.

i like good magic tricks!

yes, that one.

That's pretty sharp. And I gotta say, he of all people should have been the one to invoke the Alpine setting of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as a comparison but he didn't = A+

I really liked Lazenby's post! Who knew?

mind blown @ george lazenby tumblr

mind blown @ ppl liking The Prestige so much

George Lazenby went politicking/businessmanning or something after Bond?

is the prestige the one with the clones or is that the other one

yes

he was in a series of Emmanuelle films in the 90s, it seems. reiterating my recommendation of his twitter.

xpost

Ha, turns out Lazenby is pretty interesting critic, who knew?

If I were Nolan, I'd be very proud of that dissection. That's awesome.

Personally, I love the idea of the movie as movie-making metaphor, though I suppose the double-edged sword is that it can come off a little smug if that indeed was fully what he was after. Like, aimless machine gunning as a sign of mastery of what it takes to put asses but also used as bait to put assess in seats? Unpacking that suitcase is a blast.

In 1968, Lazenby was cast as James Bond, despite his only previous acting experience being in commercials, and his only film appearance being a bit-part in a 1965 Italian-made Bond spoof, Espionage in Tangiers.[3]

Wow, his Tumblr is great!

Um, where does it say that it is George Lazenby?

He linked it from his twitter, which is twitter.com/georgelazenby. Ebert has confirmed it is him.

amaaaaaze

(and it's not just a Lazenby forger that got into Roger's dream?)

FWIW, Ebert's post and follow-ups from others:

http://twitoaster.com/country-us/ebertchicago/i-think-georgelazenby-is-one-of-the-smartest-tweeters-in-the-world-yes-that-george-lazenby/