Inception (with implanted spoilers)

I liked them better when they were just "attempts"

we're not on the same level ;_;

What other massive action blockbusters even attempt to be half this smart?

everybody always says this like Nolan deserves a badge.

just throwing this out there but maybe if he wants to make a "smart" movie he shd not worry about whether it's a massive action blockbuster or not

What other massive action blockbusters even attempt to be half this smart?

Seriously, this is teed up like a pitch in a t-ball game.

memento, obv

What other massive action blockbusters even attempt to be half this smart?

The Terminator
Die Hard
Aliens

lol darraghmac

The question is, what other Hollywood blockbusters pretend to be as smart as this movie pretends to be?

The Terminator
Die Hard
Aliens

man there really was a golden age for action movies, huh

...and i don't care if you're being sarcastic

Con Air is obviously the smartest dumb blockbuster of all time. or the dumbest smart one.

John Frankenheimer to thread

man there really was a golden age for action movies, huh

...and i don't care if you're being sarcastic

I'm not!

Something from the last ten years would be good as a counter example. Matrix sequels do not count. And Nolan has made smart movies which are unconcerned with being blockbusters - The Prestige being one. It's like if Coldplay made an effort with their lyrics - yes, you could get even better lyrics by listening to Mountain Goats, but you wouldn't also get massive stadium riffs and synths and Eno production and Rihanna.

Goddamn I want to hear THAT Mountain Goats album immediately!

Basically, I'm saying we can and should want to have it all.

And Nolan's trying to do that; maybe he's not quite doing it perfectly, but I like his attempts (a lot) and I'm super glad he's not pandering to lowest common denominators.

while i sympathize with sick mouthy here i also feel like ppl need to get off the "THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS SMART AS IT THINKS IT IS!!!" train with this movie, it doesnt actually "think" that, it's just pretty deadpan

Oh but I'd say he does pander to the lowest common denominator – he's the art-damaged Hollywood hack for whom humorlessness isn't just an affect but a sign of his seriousness.

I'm on the THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS SHORT AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN train.

using the word "hack" in the context of discussing this movie is pretty meaningles

I'm on the THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS SHORT AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN train.

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 24, 2011 12:20 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm on this train with pretty much every hollywood movie these days :(

last action hero

tbh 'aliens' is a stupid :(

it is neither stupid or a :(

basically my favorite thing about Nolan, and really the only thing about his work that really "stands out" to me, is that he injects humorless po-faced philosophy into his movies. no, it's not terribly profound and it is terribly rote sometimes, but it's like the explicit purpose of his films to be brain teasers.

he likes puzzles and paradox, and those have a sort of aesthetic value on their own.

knowing how dumb or smart your movie is is pretty important, kinda feel that nolan falls down here where eg cameron tends to get it right until avatar

totes is xxxp

you're a stupid :(

roasted.

basically my favorite thing about Nolan, and really the only thing about his work that really "stands out" to me, is that he injects humorless po-faced philosophy into his movies. no, it's not terribly profound and it is terribly rote sometimes, but it's like the explicit purpose of his films to be brain teasers.

The discussion of "ideas" gives the movies a soupçon of intellectual heft. My problem is that the ideas dissolve under scrutiny, which places an unnecessary burden on his rather idly directed actors and his staging of action sequences (which have never impressed me).

your mum's a stupid :(

pwned, no returns xp

lol

The discussion of "ideas" gives the movies a soupçon of intellectual heft. My problem is that the ideas dissolve under scrutiny, which places an unnecessary burden on his rather idly directed actors and his staging of action sequences (which have never impressed me).

― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 24, 2011 12:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he can have... problems... in the action dep't. though the gravity-twirlin' hotel fight was great.

anyway... inception. i dont think there's anything more to say about this movie, is there?

course not, it's just that fans and haters end up baffled about what their oppos do/don't see in the thing and hence the perpetual butting of heads

we should incept each other

I think his best movie is The Prestigue because the brain teasers he sets up there have a lot of resonance. I think there is something to the ideas in The Dark Knight (namely something about opting out of the moral either-ors that our society often frames issues of ethics and security in). not sure these ideas really dissolve for me at least, but then the movies (especially the Batmans) kinda lose steam on multiple viewings because, as you say, he's not a terribly dynamic director. The Dark Knight seemed like breathless tension for two hours the first time i saw it, and now it seems heavy handed.

ugh, The Prestige

The Prestique

is there a "definitive" take on Inception? I remember some pretty wild theories about it circulating. (like it's really Leo being incepted, etc.)

xp: ha!

Slocks, i think that THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS SMART AS IT THINKS IT IS!!! is actually a valid point, and not entirely dismissible as an argument. In a movie as high-concept as this one - as reducible to a slugline as "guys travel around inside nested dream-levels perpetrating a heist" - enjoyment is a direct function in an audience member's belief/interest in the conceit. once the emulsion's broken, there's no whipping things back together. the lugubrious, nearly-architectural construction of the dreams-in-dreams conceit started to turn me off within the first 45 minutes, and the airlessness of the acting killed the movie dead within the hour. the fact is, without the "smart idea" there wasn't enough in the movie to keep me occupied: acting, design, action, cinematography, dialogue struck me as Serious and wannabe-Important, but never fun or diverting or more than technically-proficient on their own. I love the Nightmare on Elm Street flicks (well, most of them), which have a similarly stupid premise, partly because they never lose the thread of their moronic premise(s), and they keep the story twisty and fun enough that the terrible acting, awful effects, and ear-twisting dialogue don't even register.

Honestly, if the movie had been either a little more cerebral and genuinely challenged me in either a narrative or conceptual way, or ridden a little less highly on the engine of its own cleverness just kicked back with a kind-of-cool idea as backdrop for a heist, I probably would have liked it. As it was, it fell in a really awful middle ground between the two possibilities; to my mind it served both ends poorly and bored the shit out of me.

I know much of this was discussed way upthread but 1) It would have been a much better (or maybe more satisfying) movie if it was about Leo being incepted, and that's the big reveal at the end - that the inception idea is stolen from him when he's incepted. 2) it would have been a lot better shorn 45 minutes or so of people firing machine guns at each other.

Also, per remy bean, bit of a problem to introduce the idea of inception vis a vis Leo talking to Ellen Page and the city folding in itself and stuff like that only to rarely (if ever?) do much that interesting in the dream world ever again.

...

if the inception idea is being stolen from Leo, he is not being incepted, which is the planting of an idea

okay I am thinking you didn't actually understand this movie

i did tho, it's still shit

(xp to self) For what it's worth, I feel the same frustration about the second Nolan Batman movie. The first one was 'new' enough (a horror-tinged 'real' universe Batman that stood in stark contrast to the antiqued expressionism of the '90s flicks) to interest me aesthetically, even in spite of a dull narrative drive. The second one – espesh w/ Ledger's trumped-up presence - ramped up the presence of the narrative, but its increased prominence didn't do more than alert me that the narrative wasn't very good (to my taste), and that the universe was joyless.

remy OTM.

I do understand the movie, as far as that goes. It's just been, what, a year and a half? I barely understand myself at this point.

remy OTM this movie is terrible