Inception (with implanted spoilers)

xpost. I see your point. It's hard to say Nolan should have done x or y. I just wanted it to be somehow stranger and more disorientating, and there are countless ways he could have done that but I just don't think he has that kind of brain.

One of the reason everyone loved Ledger's Joker, I think, he really creeped up / weirded out Nolan's super-controlled vision.

tbh I loved Marion Cotillard for similar reasons

I dunno that Nolan didn't intend that, though, he pretty much admitted that one of the big influences on Dark Knight was "The Killing Joke" graphic novel, which features a very similar Joker - darker, attempting to use crime to make sociological points, ends on an ambiguous note, et al....

xpost

How you guys rate this movie against Dark City?

im not sure i can explain it exactly, but nolan just seems like someone whos really anal, hence the nerdy narrative splice and dice in memento, how nothing is left unexplained in inception, and how dicaprio said he doesnt usually like this type of film but nolan makes it seem more like real life (ie more prosaic looking). he seems intent on making sure nothing really foxes anyone.

(obv i know inception has foxed lots of people, but the foxing there also seems really anal-nerdy)

How you guys rate this movie against Dark City?

Early days yet but...it's not quite apples and oranges (Nolan has admitted a debt) but there's enough of a difference between the films and their respective styles that I didn't immediately group them together. Might have to rewatch Dark City to see what comes to mind in light of Inception.

One of the reason everyone loved Ledger's Joker, I think, he really creeped up / weirded out Nolan's super-controlled vision.

this guy makes a similar argument.

That blog linked to a blog which pretty much summed up a huge chunk of my disappointment with this movie:

For the love of god, just for ONCE, please, could we have a work of speculative fiction which did not rely on a FRIDGED WAG to provide the MANPAIN to drive the lead character's emotional development or lack of it.

It's just become really, really tiresome as a meme.

Other than that, I don't have anything new to say. Brilliant concept, disappointing execution. Lucid dreaming and the idea of shared dreamspace is such an intriguing idea and could have provided a really imaginative concept for a film - but this isn't that film. It didn't even really work as a shoot em up fight em bite em action adventure (apart from the Zero Gravity fight sequence which was pretty cool) - and I could really have done without Dream Level 3 - honestly. A bunch of good guys in white suits fighting a bunch of bad guys in white suits rolling around in white snow - yeah, that's gonna work really well when you can't even tell who's who. Bah.

Just disappointing. And frustrating how much else could have been done with some of the concepts raised in the film. And enough with the Fridged Girlfriend Manpain syndrome already.

, or just starts wailing and crying like children, or something.

"his subconscious has been infantilized"

Fridged? Frigid or something else?

It's just become really, really tiresome as a meme.

or as tiresome as the time it took to figure out what the hell you were talking about in half of your sentences.

Fridged.

Sorry, it's a term from comic fandom - I think it started with the Green Lantern. Describes where the writers brutally kill off the protagonist's wife or girlfriend in order to provide MANPAIN. In Green Lantern, I think the girlfriend was actually killed and put in a fridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators

There's a link in that blog above to how many dead wives and girlfriends Nolan has left trailed across his films.

Rewatched Dark City before I saw Inception as all the changing city stuff made me think they'd be very similar. They're really not; in fact DC is a lot closer to the Matrix in terms of plot and ideas.

I misread that as "FRIGID WANG"

which, we will all agree, would also bring the MANPAIN

look at that wiki url and grieve for our culture

ban karen 4 using the word manpain imo

I had no idea about that Green Lantern story or the whole Women in Refrigerators thing; it is probably not at all surprising that this lines up with when I stopped following online comic book fandom

Quite surprised that a bunch of sci fi geeks have never encountered the MANPAIN concept. It's all over fandom. It's totally a thing - and this is such a cliched manpain scenario.

or as tiresome as the time it took to figure out what the hell you were talking about in half of your sentences.

San Te can't read, I'm shocked!

http://www.luminomagazine.com/2004.10/spotlight/nerds/images/ogre/ogre2.jpg

This thread is my manpain.

San Te can't read, I'm shocked!

― christopher dullan (Tape Store), Tuesday, August 17, 2010 3:10 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

o_O i just got zinged by a building that sells obsolete media

Do you have MANPAIN? Take this simple test:

http://pics.livejournal.com/misstopia/pic/003gfsbs

One of the reason everyone loved Ledger's Joker, I think, he really creeped up / weirded out Nolan's super-controlled vision.

Speaking of jokers and Kubrick i think that's the same reason The Shining is so popular - Nicholson just has too much brio, no matter how schematic everything else is. Mamet and Wes Anderson have both leaned on Gene Hackman to provide a similar service in their designed-within-an-inch-of-their-lives movies.

I haven't seen this movie yet but I'm encouraged in that it doesn't appear to include the FRIDGED KIDS (specifically: long, lingering takes of bloody, dead children) that bring Leo's MANPAIN in Shutter Island.

Manpain is a term used by fans, particularly slash fans, encompassing a set of narrative devices that span literature, film and television. When a main character in a story (always male, generally white) is written with a particular kind of psychologically painful history that causes him to behave in specific ways, he is often said to have manpain.

http://fanlore.org/wiki/Manpain

good to know

The kids aren't actually fridged, but they might as well be, from the long lingering takes of them being lost and faceless scattered across his subconscious - actually it'd have been really cool if they turned around and had NO PHACE but that'd just be a Boards of Canada album cover or something.

Tracer, Inception is worth watching once just don't read anything written about it ever, and definitely don't write about it yourself (classic rookie mistake)

but dude it was

just explained

like 3 posts ago xxp

it'd have been really cool if they turned around and had NO PHACE

kept expecting this tbh

ya I expected either that, or for them to have someone else's face, or to not have any eyes, or something. I dunno why that is, but I think ti's cuz the background score was a bit darker than I expected for that type of a scene.

THAT would have been really cool, and haunting and spooky and really dream-like, if the kids had no face.

But again, it's just another way that Nolan doesn't go for the thing that would actually be interesting to explore.

how would the having no face be interesting? I mean other than causing an elder man to soil himself in the theatre....

*tokes a joint*

Because it's something that actually looks like dream imagery? You know, what the film is supposed to be about - dreaming?

I have never dreamed of faceless people before

also pls don't take us back to OMG MOVIE SUKKED CUZ THERE WERENT TAPDANCING BEAVERS DOING KARATE LIKE IN MY DREAMS debates

look all i wanted were some fucking t rexes playing some art tatum jazz piano is that SOOOO MUCH TO ASK FOR

If this movie had been anything like some of my dreams, giant rats would have eaten everyone after they ran away from killer furniture.

I am very glad this movie wasn't like that because it would have been stupid.

If it was like my dreams it would just be about how I didn't receive that important email, where is that email. :(

Strange people with no faces feature in lots of people's dreams. In fact, I think we've had this very discussion on ILX.

loled very loud at zornbond's post.

I've never (to my memory at least) dreamed of anybody without a face. I have however dreamed I've been barbecued by a member of the KKK

what if the children had Ken Watanabe's face

only if it was on a stick

what if ken watanabe had the children's face?