Inception

I’m way behind in posting about the movies I’ve seen.  It’s been since last month that I’ve posted on this topic.  In that time, I’ve seen about 8-9 movies.  I saw a movie actually in the theatre tonight (it was 102 degrees here and the house was too hot!) and I’ll discuss that one.  I’ll get to the others later.

Inception (2010)

We saw this tonight.  I’ve really been wanting to see Cyrus or The Kids Are All Right but we decided that Inception was one of those movies that might benefit from being seen on the big screen (i.e. not on our TV at home).

I enjoyed the movie.  Along with zombies and apocalyptic films, I’m a sucker for art forms that make you think about your reality. One of the very basic ideas in this movie is that dreams can be entered and manipulated to find or plant information. This can be done in groups in the movie or you can explore your own head.  The dream state and what goes on in the "back" of one's head is a debated and complex topic.  The way this movie manipulated it and explored it was compelling.

There were echoes of two other films: eXistenZ and The Matrix.  I won’t go into the parallels with the reality theme and The Matrix because that’s a much-seen movie.  eXistenZ, however, is a small movie directed by David Cronenberg that I don’t think got much attention, but that I found fascinating – at least in concept.
In eXistenZ, “the world's leading designer of virtual reality games [Jennifer Jason Leigh], is testing a new prototype when an assassin wielding a daunting organic weapon attacks her. She survives the assault with help from her marketing assistant turned bodyguard (Jude Law). But she'll need to ‘portal’ into her own game to get to the bottom of the intrigue.”

The dream-surfing in Inception and the resulting feeling of not knowing which is real – the dream or “real life” – is similar to the game scenario in eXistenZ.  Also, the use of the subconscious mind and what goes on in there as well as the manipulation of ideas (both getting them out of someone’s head and putting them in) is interesting.

As far as the performances go, Leonardo DiCaprio played what’s becoming his typical “serious guy”role and Ellen Page seemed somewhat two dimensional, I expected a bit more from her.  Of course, Marion Cotillard was excellent.

Great review by Roger Ebert here.

last week's movie post - part 2

Part two of last week's movie post =

3. Whip it: Just to get it out of the way, yes, this is Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. Synopsis: Coming-of-age roller derby movie with Ellen Page. The reviews are "generally favorable" but seem all over the board when you read them. There are plenty of plot flaws in the movie and the makeout scene in the pool is too much (i.e. too cheesy). The movie overall does have a certain energy but it also has a certain predictability. I'm sort of so-so on the film.


4. Inglorious Basterds: synopsis - In this Quentin Tarantino film, various parties take advantage of a Nazi movie premier in a bid to try to end WWII. The film had some wit and I actually enjoyed Brad Pitt's Tennessee accent and attitude. I don't know that it is Best Picture worthy, one of the awards for which it was nominated, but I certainly did enjoy the different, if sillier, take on World War II. I will note that, as a fan of good sound, this film had excellent sound. From the scrape of a fork on a plate of strudel to a hand on a rifle's trigger in a bar fight, the sounds were crisp. Some of the music selections were a bit bothersome. At least one song was a song used in Tarantino's Kill Bill and I'm not sure one of the modern-era songs worked.
A sentence in a review in The New Yorker struck me, "'Inglourious Basterds' is not boring, but it’s ridiculous and appallingly insensitive—a Louisville Slugger applied to the head of anyone who has ever taken the Nazis, the war, or the Resistance seriously." Understandably and justifiably most movies made about World War II are serious. The slightly different (read silly) slant on this movie was appealing to me.