Inception (with implanted spoilers)

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.

I thought the dreaming argument is that the entire movie happens while Cobb is asleep, so there's no actual "plane"

^

we never meet a real cobb, as far as we know the entire cast is lolmaginary

wait doesn't the sandman from the first batman movie have the ability to give you messed up dreams?
this would explain the weird number of same actor cameos.
though i can't guess why bruce wayne would dream he's dicaprio.

i mean scarecrow, sandman is another dc property.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/cas/1885612350.html

Oh dear.

"I want you to come dressed as your favorite character from Inception."

so...a suit

Pete Postelthwaite was in a gown. Though I fear for anyone naming him as a favorite character.

At least that gave me a new display name.

http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/images/feed_assets/inception-someecards.jpg

misspelling of michael caine detracts from joke :(

Or adds to it, depending on your pov

[squintingleo.jpg]

this was all right, like a B–, maybe. But seriously I could've done without the retarded action sequences. If they had been (a) better or (b) weirder or (c) shorter I would've liked this movie a lot more. i'm quickly reaching my saturation point with brooding, troubled, leonardo dicaprio. also something about 'what dreams may come'

So somebody figured out that music sounds different when slowed down or sped up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVf6NBHI0Ac

Finally saw this and hugely disappointed. A great set-up squandered on banal shoot-'em-ups, a boringly obvious ending, nil emotional engagement and no sense whatsoever of the strangeness of dreaming. I honestly fell asleep for 10 minutes and started dreaming and was disappointed when I woke up in the middle of the snowfight bullshit. And I was expecting to love this.

Good bits:

Ellen Page warping the scenery in her first attempt at dream architecture.
The way the subconscious projections became suspicious and started turning on the extractors (a great, creepy idea wasted by having hordes of gunmen in Cillian Murphy's dream)
Tom Hardy
The bit where they kept kicking Levitt's chair ever to demonstration "the kick". Good slapstick.

Bad bits: too many to list without sounding like a dick.

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?

are you joking or...

Incept deez nuts

such a cop out saying that a good movie has to say something about the human condition. i fart in that general direction

secondly, did yall know that B-movies can be better than A-movies despite the labeling? (you might know, but I'm just making sure)

thirdly, I feel like the only guy in this thread who can review this movie without mentioning Nolan. I don't care who he is and you don't have to know who he is to review this movie

fourthly, Josh in Chicago mentions 'innate silliness' as if that is necessarily a bad thing

I think my main problem with this movie is that I never felt the stakes, the sense of danger. The worst case scenario -- limbo -- seemed pretty pleasant compared to, you know, death. You never really got a sense of what these people had to lose if they never woke up, and we never saw what it looked like to be in limbo from the perspective of the real world. Does it look ugly? As far as I could tell you just look like you're taking a nap.

If Leo missed his kids so much, then why did he spend mental years upon years in a fantasy mental world without them? Didn't really buy that aspect of the story at all. I mean, he grew old with Mal before she killed herself. How did he feel when he woke up after decades away from his children? None of that was really explored.

Instead you have a movie that is essentially just a structural contraption with cool visuals, and that is plenty enough to entertain me, but there's nothing there to make me want to revisit it.

i think a lot of people had that problem (hence people mention that they were falling asleep during the film). a lot of people were feeling the thrill and maybe the sense of danger (and were not bored).

maybe you should see the movie again
-= b u t o n d r u g s =-

ya'll makin for a good list of people never to see movies with

Alls I know is me, Capt. Lorax, Dan and Ned are going to the movies.