Inception - Chris Nolan + Leo DiCaprio = best movie of the summer?

beautiful.

[youtubehd]BEcEwJqAYTg[/youtubehd]

  On 7/22/2010 at 12:08 PM, Atop said:

Still impressive...

 

looked for the most part like no gravity....

 

 

One reason I love this film: at this point, the zero gravity scene with Arthur figuring out a way to wake everyone up synced with the other dreams, there are four levels of dream, each with a different time frame, making me jizz in my pants because of the awesome imagination put into this idea of dream time reference differentiation...all conjecture but the idea is one of the reasons I love the film

Quoted for truth.

I saw Inception again yesterday and loved it just as much as the first, if not more

zero gravity love scene in the sequel please

sometimes i find myself wanted to hate something that everyone likes. be different but then i realize how silly it is.

  On 7/22/2010 at 7:30 AM, The Overlook said:

Well, you can all dogpile me since saying anything negative about this will be treated like walking into an LOTR convention and pissing on Tolkien's writing.

 

This movie was really boring and had every signature problem of a Nolan project. Humorless, soulless, cold, and just about completely unmoving on an emotional level.

 

I was reminded of much of the criticism that was leveled at the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. E.g. - An insufferably action-packed film with almost nothing at stake. In Quantum, some baddy was apparently about to acquire, maybe, just perhaps, full control over the water supply of a third world country. *GASPPPPP* With Inception, a generic sockpuppet caricature of a Japanese, pseudo-yakuza type, just HAS to make sure he has a monopoly on....rice...or oil...or electricity...or who gives a flying fuck? Meanwhile, Leo lost an exotic piece of ass, his wife we're told, in one of these dream experiments gone haywire.

 

So, in other words, Nolan concocted this puerile wank of a plot as the excuse to spend hundreds of millions on some hi-tech dorky filmgasms he woke up all sticky to once upon a time. I'm happy for him and I'm happy that so many people derived a bit of summer joy out of the concept of Fortune 500 families protecting their dreams with ninjas set against metal gear solid backdrops.

 

I got a giggle out of some of the tech, but holy fuck, not my cup of tea. I suspect I'll be the first and last to not love Inception around here and I'm jealous of you all.

 

Nolan's films, updated to include the latest:

 

Following - I tried, but turned it off when it felt too much like Pi in terms of acting.

Memento - shit

Insomnia - shit

Batman Begins - complete dogshit

The Prestige - damned good

The Dark Knight - meh

Inception - about 90% shit; a compelling concept ruined by Nolan's affinity for GI Joe / James Bond storytelling

The premise was that they had to convince fischer to dissolve his empire before it became the sole energy provider for the entire world, a monopoly which could have serious consequences. That sounds pretty heavy to me, but sadly, you're right, it somehow didn't result in any kind of actual tension in the movie. It was like nothing was at stake, only the risk of the team getting killed and stuck in limbo for 50 years, which didn't really bother me.

As for the Nolan hate... well, at least you enjoyed The Prestige.

  On 7/22/2010 at 11:07 AM, The Overlook said:

Ebert hasn't been useful for at least 10 years. Sad, but true. (In fact, his Inception review is downright ridiculous and should be used to wipe up Nolan's post-wank jizz.)

 

As to your question...who cares?

I agree that Ebert has lost some credibility because he is always giving glowing reviews these days, but I still tend to agree with him on many films.

man. when critics refer to a movie as "masturbatory" I get all fired up. If i agree with them, i'm like fuck yeah, and if i disagree with them, i disagree with them alot. there is something polarizing about daring to call someone's work "post-wank jizz".

  On 7/22/2010 at 11:30 AM, Atop said:

Ok, so let's say he did use a plane to create zero gravity?

 

He put the entire set inside of a plane and shot that scene in a plane while it was nose diving?

 

This does not impress you to the point where even if the rest of the film did actually suck, you still could not respect him for doing such a thing in the name of art?

rofl, well put. the zero gravity shit was fucking impressive, because it was so well choreographed (the fights between Gordon-levitt and anonymous guards in the hallways). It wasn't as if it was just an on-wires exercise. Still, even though that was impressive, it didn't really elicit a "holy shit" from me, merely a "wow that's some damn good FX. okay, next scene" reaction.

  On 7/22/2010 at 1:10 AM, Awepittance said:

something about Nolan's clean, surgical and minimalist approach to dream imagery really appeals to me. I could definitely see where people are coming from who wanted more crazy imagery but for me it worked. I think if the dreams were more magical and 'dream like' the times where the rules of reality got broken wouldn't have been as striking.

Agreed.. I liked the subdued palette/tone of the film as well. I mean really the film is about the character coming to grips with his internal processes+fears+loss+perceptions, etc, everything else is the backdrop. So I can totally cut them some dramatic license in the surrealism department. Besides, dreams aren't always profoundly surreal IME. Frequently they seem to just take the real world and bend it here and there. The train cutting through the middle of the street.. the mirrors, very dreamlike. Taking the city and bending/folding it totally reminded me of my few experiences when I had lucid dreams and started playing with the dreamscape..

(One thing this movie didn't touch on which the matrix got right was the holodeck rule.. which is that the number one use of any advanced virtual reality technology will be erotic fantasies. I'm pretty sure most people's subconscious minds aren't as neutered as the characters in this film lol)

surely i was wires, if not then other movies that use wires have been making it look real for years

  On 7/22/2010 at 6:51 PM, TwiddleBot said:

  On 7/22/2010 at 1:10 AM, Awepittance said:

something about Nolan's clean, surgical and minimalist approach to dream imagery really appeals to me. I could definitely see where people are coming from who wanted more crazy imagery but for me it worked. I think if the dreams were more magical and 'dream like' the times where the rules of reality got broken wouldn't have been as striking.

 

Agreed.. I liked the subdued palette/tone of the film as well. I mean really the film is about the character coming to grips with his internal processes+fears+loss+perceptions, etc, everything else is the backdrop. So I can totally cut them some dramatic license in the surrealism department. Besides, dreams aren't always profoundly surreal IME. Frequently they seem to just take the real world and bend it here and there. The train cutting through the middle of the street.. the mirrors, very dreamlike. Taking the city and bending/folding it totally reminded me of my few experiences when I had lucid dreams and started playing with the dreamscape..

 

(One thing this movie didn't touch on which the matrix got right was the holodeck rule.. which is that the number one use of any advanced virtual reality technology will be erotic fantasies. I'm pretty sure most people's subconscious minds aren't as neutered as the characters in this film lol)

didnt leo and his wife go have a 50 year orgy in eden together though

  On 7/22/2010 at 7:00 PM, Fred McGriff said:

didnt leo and his wife go have a 50 year orgy in eden together though

That's not really what I mean though. When you're wandering deep in the middle of someone's psyche or sharing the most intimate parts of 4-5 other people's subconscious minds, I think you'd see a lot more than projections walking down the street and conducting business arrangements... Plus I'm pretty sure you'd catch people in the act of using that technology to do more than visit their wives.. ;) I'm not really criticizing the film on this basis, it wasn't intended to be a psychoanalysis. It all did seem to be a little.. too clean though somehow. Minor point..

minor but interesting point

  On 7/22/2010 at 6:51 PM, TwiddleBot said:

(One thing this movie didn't touch on which the matrix got right was the holodeck rule.. which is that the number one use of any advanced virtual reality technology will be erotic fantasies. I'm pretty sure most people's subconscious minds aren't as neutered as the characters in this film lol)

uh, did i miss the cybersex scene in the matrix? don't recall that one.

I'm gonna drop some words soon on Nolan and where I think he belongs in terms of progression as a filmmaker. I'll also delve a bit deeper into why Inception fell so far short of the mark for me.

People have mentioned both The Matrix and Synecdoche as comparisons, which I think are great candidates for adding to the discussion. For me, The Matrix was a much, much, much better film simply for the fact it was unpretentious and transparently silly in its delivery of a manchild's gun-filled fantasy world. Synecdoche, I would argue, was also about ten times more useful than Inception with the exploration of overlapping/meta-realities. It rather poignantly and tragically uncovered all the frailty, loss, loneliness, and abject self-loathing of an aging writer whose fictional worlds became traps for unresolved relationships.

Inception was about.......ummmmmmm.................................fucking ninjas and more fucking ninjas fighting it out to protect intellectual property and money while DiCaprio revisits a bland, sexless, Hallmark greeting card family life he lost to this dream-raping profession. It felt like Shutter Island all over again, except a lot of fucking ninjas running around.

{more later...}

  On 7/22/2010 at 7:27 PM, blicero said:

uh, did i miss the cybersex scene in the matrix? don't recall that one.

Doesn't mean sex scenes, just sexuality in general. The characters in this film were practically asexual.

(The matrix was a pretty hypersexual film.. girl in the red dress aside.)

  On 7/22/2010 at 7:27 PM, The Overlook said:

its delivery of a manchild's gun-filled fantasy world.

Exactly.

Nolan's wife is his producer. He most probably feels restrained putting anything sexual into his projects, especially as Inception is supposed to be a film about introspection and secrets.

Fair enough, like I said, minor point, really made in jest. The film was very consistent and I quite liked it's portrayal of memory, obsession and dreaming in general.

Talked to some friends who used to keep dream journals and attempted to do a lot of lucid dreaming and they were likewise impressed by the film...

They thought whether the film was a dream or not wasn't the point at all. The point was when you are dreaming with that level of clarity and frequency you actually begin to question if the dream ever ends.. which is exactly what the main character was doing throughout the film.

sex would've have been – at the very least – a distraction, if not a crutch.

17 pages suggest this movie cannot be bad, just very dividing. and good.

  On 7/22/2010 at 8:53 PM, KY said:

17 pages suggest this movie cannot be bad, just very dividing. and good.

lol so avatar must be a masterpiece right!

saw it again last night, very enjoyable movie

eXistenZ seems the best movie to be comparing inception with. ends with the same "huh" too

  On 7/22/2010 at 9:35 PM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

eXistenZ seems the best movie to be comparing inception with. ends with the same "huh" too

eXistenZ looks way too much like the male enhancement product "extenze"

which I know nothing about

fuckinglol

  On 7/22/2010 at 7:27 PM, The Overlook said:

Inception was about.......ummmmmmm.................................fucking ninjas and more fucking ninjas fighting it out to protect intellectual property and money while DiCaprio revisits a bland, sexless, Hallmark greeting card family life he lost to this dream-raping profession. It felt like Shutter Island all over again, except a lot of fucking ninjas running around.

You hate, and you hate, and you hate some more, leaving nothing to be remembered. So just give it a rest. There were no ninjas in this film. Ninjas don't use guns. The film Inner Space had the white blood cells attacking Dennis Quaid, this film had men with guns attacking dream invaders. What is so stupid about this concept?

I do agree that this film had similar elements to Shutter Island, with Inception being the much better film. I wonder why DiCaprio chose such films. Haunting lost wife. A man stuck in a world he doesn't want to be in. Makes him more interesting in my mind.

So this being said, I think you are winded on your Nolan hatred and should give it a rest. You are arguing for the sake of argument which is never flattering. You didn't like the film. A lot of us do. Leave it alone.