Inception (with implanted spoilers)

not on the enemy side, mind you

i think with movies such as this, which play with a certain amount of trickery, people like to play guessing games as to what vast secrets are being hidden just out of view by the filmmaker, and i think without fail the theories that are conceived are totally offtm. maybe we can blame the glowing suitcase in pulp fiction or something, i dunno. i think the number of films that have these weird secret stories about what actually happened that are hidden completely from the audience is pretty much zero.

http://www.thedailycontributor.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/southland-tales.jpg

*shudder*

but dude have u herd the commentry on DD:TDC bcz that explaing fkn EVERYTHING

southland tales fucking rules fuiud

I still have never seen Southland Tales, I don't if it would be lolariously bad or just bad bad.

It was brutally boring and terrible.

i think with movies such as this, which play with a certain amount of trickery, people like to play guessing games as to what vast secrets are being hidden just out of view by the filmmaker, and i think without fail the theories that are conceived are totally offtm. maybe we can blame the glowing suitcase in pulp fiction or something, i dunno. i think the number of films that have these weird secret stories about what actually happened that are hidden completely from the audience is pretty much zero.

http://www.newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/directory/45/4227_headless_woman_slv_SHR.jpg

this otoh sucked

yeah like darraghmac I am NOT buying the 'omg the inception was on COBB' angle - perhaps there's meant to be some by-product effect on his subconscious but I don't think that's the main point of the 'heist'

my best friend has spoken lucidly about this film and I am about to present his thoughts 4u

any film with a mega-zeppelin not alluded to it in the first 2/3 of the running time but them whoomp there it is can never be totally worthless

xposts

wtf history mayne

his post was "ASTOUNDING"

(me: dream/film metaphor!)

yes yes, there's also the bit where they sit around planning how to manipulate Fischer with their scripts like actors at a rehearsal AND the bit where Cobb starts going on about how you don't remember the beginnings of dreams - 'how did we get here?' which is (as Observer critic Philip French has pointed out) just like the cinematic process of the cut. However, I would say fine, yes, there are references to the mechanics of movies but these don't go much beyond mere gestures

(me: compromises his concept with making it a high-budget action movie!)

I think the compromise comes through the endless exposition. I read somewhere that Nolan was too intelligent to make it easy for his audience. I think he spends his entire time addressing his audience in the manner of a lecturing religious studies teacher, pointing out that this is the way certain inexplicable things are, without noticing the burgeoning inconsistencies swelling up beneath him

Nolan doesn't seem to get that the association between film and a dream is almost a given and doesn't require such explicit treatment

Watch it again (if you want) and as you watch it, think to yourself how many times the subtext of a line is 'what is going on?/this is what is going on'

I think there's a lot to be said about the emergence of CGI and films like Avatar and Inception which preach the essential (or inessential) unreality of the world - their aesthetic supports the corporate machine that makes money of it, however much they'd like to claim to be opposed to it

He then told me there's a film called 'The Woman In The Window' as an excellent comparison, and I suggested 'Vertigo', which he concurred with.

Apart from his regrettable intolerance of religious studies, I think he makes some good points. What say you?

jesus its like that guy doesn't read lazenby's tumblr

the person in this thread I most agree with is caek fwiw

Nolan doesn't seem to get that the association between film and a dream is almost a given and doesn't require such explicit treatment

yeah it's sorta well known that watching films actually puts your brain into something very close to a dream state

i think Mulholland Drive was about lesbians

mulholland dr is from a different planet of goodness to inception

also says more about movies in any one of its scenes than all the inception criticism ever

pandora's box right there

jesus its like that guy doesn't read lazenby's tumblr
this

so wait is lazenby now the ineffable authority on inception

it's a good, thoughtful piece but it only deals with the movie on its own terms

(the movie's)

He then told me there's a film called 'The Woman In The Window' as an excellent comparison.

this is just a mediocre semi-noir with an 'it was all a dream' ending. really got nothing to do with 'inception' other than 'dreams n shit'.

Another undeserving critical darling into the dustbin of history mayne.

it's not really a critical darling i don't think

OK, but my personal reaction to Inception is that yes, I was thrilled, and yes, I was taken with it, but unless we go by these ridiculous internet theories, this film doesn't leave much in the mind to analyse - it's all spelt out for the purposes of fulfilling Nolan's vision - and while it might be a film ABOUT action movies, and their divorced-from-reality nature, it doesn't handle its unreality with enough unreality IMO.

The thing about having to dream to wake up - subtle commentary on the adrenaline-junkie movie-obsessed public? I hope not

but if you turn your mind down*, as I frequently did throughout its duration, I'll accept it's one of the coolest things ever

*LIKE IF YOU WERE DREAMING EH

guys, i love u all, but a thousand new answers every day on this thread is too much. i'm unbookmarking. good look untangling the dense complex plot (and cultural significance) of Inception. you are all doing god's work. (god is a lazy stoner who likes watching flicks like Inception and figuring them out, fwiw)

yeah it's sorta well known that watching films actually puts your brain into something very close to a dream state

b.s.

i can vouch for this movie putting me in a sleep state, but weirdly no dreams.

http://j.imagehost.org/0359/2euqve1.jpg

it's a bit of a cliche, yes, but i thought it was generally thought to be true? just found this in fact: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/the-neuroscience-of-inception/

wouldn't be surprised if studies like that inspired the script
This strong intersubject correlation shows that, despite the completely free viewing of dynamical, complex scenes, individual brains “tick together” in synchronized spatiotemporal patterns when exposed to the same visual environment.

i don't know if it is a related study, but there was some work done on blinking synchronization between subjects watching the same movies, and I might be mixing this up with another study, but movie editors gravitate towards cutting scenes right when you are about to blink, and there was some confusion whether the viewer alters his natural blinking pattern or if the editor is instinctually editing to a universal blink time.

b-b-but if it's a cliche and is generally thought to be true then it must be wrong, innit?

This strong intersubject correlation shows that, despite the completely free viewing of dynamical, complex scenes, individual brains “tick together” in synchronized spatiotemporal patterns when exposed to the same visual environment.

yes for many types of films (e.g. hitchcock) there is amazing correlation between the cognitive activities of the viewing audience. the links between the patterns of activity in dreaming and film watching, even as explained in that gloss on uri hasson's research (which is fascinating btw, worth reading the original articles), seems very tenuous and broad to me.

b-b-but if it's a cliche and is generally thought to be true then it must be wrong, innit?

― flintstones in my passway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, August 5, 2010 4:43 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

are you suggesting that this was my reasoning. any evidence for this?

or are haters just going to hate, as a wise man once said?

Just pick one from here:
http://i50.tinypic.com/vg0kmx.jpg

set to become a classic image

Anyway, Leo thanks you all.

finally saw this. very cool. don't care about an emotional connection and don't want to see it twice.

^ my college dating experiences in a nutshell

Finally saw this last night and really enjoyed it, fuck the haters. Plus it was free, so there.

A few thoughts based on reading about 75% of this thread:

1. Ned Raggett, HI DERE and Scik Mouthy are the only ILXors I ever want to see a movie with. The rest of y'all don't know how to watch movies.

2. How can you not love a movie in which the bulk of the action takes place in the 15 seconds it takes for a van to fall from a bridge to the river below?

3. I REALLY appreciated that Nolan never, ever once succumbed to the instinct to insert shots showing them all asleep on the plane. That would have taken people completely out of the movie.

4. Anti-grav hotel fight was amazing.

5. Ken Watanabe's "I bought the airline. I figured it was safer" was THE laugh line of the movie.

Too kind of you there.

I REALLY appreciated that Nolan never, ever once succumbed to the instinct to insert shots showing them all asleep on the plane

Now that you mention it that's a completely OTM point!

http://heavytext.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/NewImage5.jpg

(reposted)

Also, I can't help imagining -- if one accepts the premise that Cobb is dreaming at the end -- the alternate ending in which the plane arrives at LAX and the crew has to explain the two comatose passengers in first class.