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Directed/Written by: Christopher Nolan
Summer 2010
Teaser: http://bit.ly/1vEXi1
:shock:
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810099246/video/15201197
yeah, first link didn't work but yahoo neither does work good (for me), so:
http://www.quietearth.us/articles/2009/08/24/Teaser-trailer-for-Chris-Nolans-scifi-thriller-INCEPTION
this looks great, im officially intrigued/looking forward to it
This looks great. What a way to use the perfect amount of almost nothing to make me dying to see it.
Quote from: RegularKarate on August 24, 2009, 12:47:52 PM
This looks great. What a way to use the perfect amount of almost nothing to make me dying to see it.
exactly.
Quote from: modage on August 24, 2009, 01:00:07 PM
Quote from: RegularKarate on August 24, 2009, 12:47:52 PM
This looks great. What a way to use the perfect amount of almost nothing to make me dying to see it.
exactly.
yeah.
my only weird thing - when it says "Your mind.. Is the scene of the crime." i can't not think of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Looks fucking cool. I would like to see how they got them to float in the air, it doesn't look like wire work. Maybe a gimbal? Anyway, can't wait for another great film from Nolan.
maybe some kind of rotating room, i'm not sure, looks interesting.
Picolas, that "your mind is the scene of the crime" is just something i laugh at when see, i completely agree.
Quote from: Gamblour. on August 25, 2009, 08:38:24 AM
Looks fucking cool. I would like to see how they got them to float in the air, it doesn't look like wire work. Maybe a gimbal? Anyway, can't wait for another great film from Nolan.
i'm sure it's a combination of gimbal + wires.
Quote from: picolas on August 25, 2009, 03:55:34 PM
Quote from: Gamblour. on August 25, 2009, 08:38:24 AM
Looks fucking cool. I would like to see how they got them to float in the air, it doesn't look like wire work. Maybe a gimbal? Anyway, can't wait for another great film from Nolan.
i'm sure it's a combination of gimbal + wires.
And computers, don't forget them computers. You're probably right, it looks cool as fuck.
More hints about Dark Knight director's secret sci-fi film
Source: SciFi Wire
We don't want to spoil Inception, the upcoming top-secret sci-fi film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by The Dark Knight helmer Christopher Nolan. Until recently we'd had only Nolan's vague description and an opaque teaser trailer, but we've learned a few things from Talulah Riley, who is credited only as "Blonde" in the cast list.
Speaking to us in London today, where she is promoting Pirate Radio, Riley said her scenes involve the altered physics hinted at in the teaser trailer. The teaser shows two men fighting in a hallway that shifts around, making its occupants float. It appears that this scene happens inside the mind of DiCaprio's character.
"I got tilted," Riley said in a group interview. "I was in the big hangars in Bedfordshire. They built sets."
Riley said she still longs to do a real action role. "I'd like to do something action-y and actually get to do the action rather than be the girl looking at the action," she said.
Riley added that her scenes also included stars DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and Ken Watanabe. Neither Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon Levitt nor Marion Cotillard have a "blonde" fetish with Riley.
Described as a blackmail thriller with sci-fi undertones, the script for Inception has been kept under wraps. Riley only received sides for her scenes, creating a mind-bending acting exercise.
"Really, truly, I have no idea what goes on in the film whatsoever," she said. "I really don't even know what was going on in my own scenes. I don't know who any of the other characters are. I think it's fun. Obviously when there's an awesome director, you just do what you need to do."
Nolan's set required a different mindset for Riley too. The British films she has worked on seemed like anarchy next to Nolan's carefully orchestrated set. "It was the most business-like set I've ever been on," she said. "Everyone was really efficient. It's completely different, just the atmosphere on set is completely different, because it's not a comedy, obviously."
Inception opens July 16, 2010.
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http://thisman.org/
i'm convinced this is BRILLIANT viral marketing for inception. it's too fucking freaky to be real. i also think part of the premise for the movie lies in this part of the site:
DREAM SURFER THEORY
It is the most interesting theory and the one that has the greatest implications, but it has also the lowest scientific credibility. According to this theory this man is a real person, who can enter people's dreams by means of specific psychological skills. Some believe that in real life this man looks like the man in the dreams. Others think that the man in the dreams looks completely different from his real life counterpart. Some people seem to believe that behind this man there is a mental conditioning plan developed by a major corporation.
so basically it's like a nightmare on elm street, but with science/corporate crime. AWESOME.
How did you find this site?
Edit:
Nevermind, I see it's getting talked about a bit on the 'net. It's really creepy.
man i hope you're right because reading through that site and watching the trailer again has skyrocketed my excitement for this flick
oh...and: http://thisshaq.org/ (http://thisshaq.org/)
Interesting theory, Pic.
I've always felt that site was some kind of viral marketing (that or just a "fun" site someone decided to make). The idea is kind of creepy, but the creepiest part is that picture. I could see either Ken Watanabe or Cillian Murphy playing that guy. That's the beauty of that composite drawing. It's just generic enough to not look like a real person.
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The title font makes me think of Chicago.
... IS that Chicago in the background?
Leo there looks like Christopher Nolan.
French Trailer here. (http://makingof.com/happening_now/media/inception/-inception-french-trailer/234/944)
It looks awesome but wtf?
American Trailer. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/inception/) Its the French trailer in English.
gonna pull an Experiment and not watch any trailers or read any reviews for this movie. i'm tired of watching trailers and having all the best shit shown to me and kind of killing the experience.
Even though I'm not a fan of Dark Knight, this movie is still at the top of my most anticipated for big Hollywood releases in 2010. Nolan is an infinitely better filmmaker with large scale projects. Like JJ Abrahams, he can turn tepid stories into genuine entertainment that is exciting, but Nolan needs to reign in his scripts more. The Dark Knight and Batman Begins are too critic conscious. The scripts need to fully immerse themselves in their stories more.
Bigger than Batman: Christopher Nolan says 'Inception' is 'the biggest challenge I've taken on'
Source: LATimes
On Sunday, the staff of Los Angeles Times Calendar section will be previewing key 2010 releases by Hollywood. This is an early look at one of the articles in that package.
Christopher Nolan So what exactly is "Inception"? That's a popular question after a visually dazzling but enigmatic trailer was released for a film that didn't exactly clear things up with its title.
Is it an international thriller? A story of madness and lost love? Or Hollywood's very first metaphysical heist movie? The answer is "all of the above," according to writer-director Christopher Nolan, whose follow-up to "The Dark Knight" seems to have Ian Fleming, the Wachowski Brothers and Sigmund Freud as its spiritual advisors.
"I think we've put a lot of different things into the pot with this one," Nolan said this week during a break from the editing bay.
"I grew up watching James Bond films and loving those and watching spy movies with their globetrotting sensibility.... We get to do that here, not just geographically but also in time and dimensions of reality as well. We get to make a movie that's expansive, I suppose you'd say, in four dimensions."
The Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. release is shaping up as one of the most intriguing releases of 2010. Leonardo DiCaprio leads a cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Ken Watanabe.
The film was produced by Emma Thomas, who is Nolan's wife as well as his career partner. She said that "Inception" is a story that requires a huge canvas. The pair didn't set out looking for a way to top their Batman epic in scope, that's just where Nolan's "Inception" script took them.
"It's something that we had been talking about on and off for seven or eight years," Thomas said. "Coming off of the 'The Dark Knight,' the only thing we really knew is that we wanted to do something more personal. It seemed like the right time to do this. The fact that it's really just an enormous movie -- that wasn't ever really a factor in the decision. This story lends itself to a movie of this size."
A key part of the premise is corporate espionage by way of dream invasion, but motives and even reality are slippery in a film that toys with perception as its travels through time and space. The crew covered a lot of territory too, filming in six countries.
"This is the biggest challenge I've taken on to this point," said Nolan, who may return to Gotham City for his next feature. "We're trying to tell a story on a massive scale, a true blockbuster scale – the biggest I've ever been involved with. We tried to make a very large-scale film with 'The Dark Knight' and with this one we wanted to push that even further."
'Inception' breaks into dreams
Director Christopher Nolan's latest is a heist movie with an unusual target: the mind.
By Geoff Boucher; Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Cardington, England - July is the month when movies gets dizzy (or is it ditsy?) from the heat, and this year is no exception, with films featuring heartthrob vampires, evil aliens and the never-gets-old concept of talking dogs. But on July 16, in the middle of the usual popcorn parade, director Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. will deliver "Inception," a strange thriller that has been a Hollywood mystery for months thanks to its cryptic title and the fact that the studio has guarded the Nolan-penned script like a state secret.
So it was no surprise last summer that, at a musty old dirigible hangar outside London, Nolan welcomed a rare visitor to his "Inception" set with a guarded smile. "So you've read the script -- did you understand it?" Mazes and masked intentions are the specialties of Nolan, who burst on the scene 10 years ago with "Memento," a noir riddle told in two alternating narratives presented in opposite chronological directions -- a masterpiece of watchmaker cinema that earned Nolan and his brother, Jonathan, an Oscar nomination for their screenplay. In 2008, Nolan performed an even more impressive sleight of hand when he delivered a $1-billion success with the Batman movie called "The Dark Knight," the most cerebral of superhero films and one that barely used any computer-generated effects.
"Inception," the 39-year-old director's seventh feature film and his first foray into science fiction, combines the perception riddles of "Memento" and the sheer scale of "Dark Knight" with its $160-million budget and location shoots in Morocco, France, Japan and three other countries. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a specialist in the new branch of corporate espionage -- he's a dream thief who plucks secrets from the minds of tycoons after pumping them full of drugs and hooking them up to a mysterious contraption. The problem, though, is the land of nod can be volatile -- as can DiCaprio's character, Dom Cobb, who is a wounded dreamer after the loss of his beloved wife.
The movie may be Hollywood's first existential heist movie, and though that may not sound like typical fare for the air-conditioning months, Warners and Legendary Pictures are banking on the movie catching on as a brainy "Mission: Impossible" by way of "The Matrix"; the globe-trotting movie may have had its subconscious baggage packed by Sigmund Freud, in other words, but it also carries a passport stamped by Ian Fleming. DiCaprio says Nolan is the perfect director to turn that unlikely combination into a July hit.
"Complex and ambiguous are the perfect way to describe the story," DiCaprio said in a recent phone interview. "And it's going to be a challenge to ultimately pull it off. But that is what Chris Nolan specializes in. He has been able to convey really complex narratives that work on a multitude of different layers simultaneously to an audience and make it entertaining and engaging throughout. You look at ' Insomnia' or 'Memento,' these movies are working on so many different levels. That's his expertise; it's what he does best, as a matter of fact."
'Inception's' conception
For Nolan, "Inception" was an elusive dream. "I wanted to do this for a very long time, it's something I've thought about off and on since I was about 16," Nolan said during a break in shooting last summer. "I wrote the first draft of this script seven or eight years ago, but it goes back much further, this idea of approaching dream and the dream life as another state of reality."
Nolan split his youth between Chicago and London (he has dual citizenship) but, with his stately, professorial mien and Oxford dress code, he seems far more in touch with the banks of the Thames than the shore of Lake Michigan. Ever since he was a youngster, he says, he was intrigued by the way he would wake up and then, while he fell back into a lighter sleep, hold on to the awareness that he was in fact dreaming. Then there was the even more fascinating feeling that he could study the place and tilt the events of the dream.
"You can look around and examine the details and pick up a handful of sand on the beach," Nolan said. "I never particularly found a limit to that; that is to say, that while in that state your brain can fill in all that reality. I tried to work that idea of manipulation and management of a conscious dream being a skill that these people have. Really the script is based on those common, very basic experiences and concepts, and where can those take you? And the only outlandish idea that the film presents, really, is the existence of a technology that allows you to enter and share the same dream as someone else."
It was the success of "The Dark Knight" (which broke records as a home video release and now stands as the bestselling Blu-ray ever) that allowed Nolan to put his most ambitious idea on the screen. The presence of DiCaprio not only gave Nolan a major movie star, it led to changes in the film that may make it more accessible to moviegoers.
"I've incorporated a huge number of his ideas," Nolan said. "Leo's very analytical, particularly from character point of view but also how the entire story is going to function and relate to his character . . . It's actually been an interesting set of conversations, and I think it's improved the project enormously. I think the emotional life of the character now drives the story more than it did before."
Critics of Nolan say that he makes frosty films with no detectable human heartbeat, just the clicks and whirls of his intricate story gears. It's interesting, then, to consider that contributions by DiCaprio (who is coming off another dark fever dream of a movie, Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island") and how they meshed with Nolan's own revised view of his original "Inception" story.
"I originally wrote it as a heist movie, and heist movies traditionally are very deliberately superficial in emotional terms," Nolan said. "They're frivolous and glamorous, and there's a sort of gloss and fun to it. I originally tried to write it that way, but when I came back to it I realized that -- to me -- that didn't work for a film that relies so heavily on the idea of the interior state, the idea of dream and memory. I realized I needed to raise the emotional stakes. What we found in working on 'Batman' is that it's the emotionalism that best connects the audience with the material. The character issues, those are the things that pull the audience through it and amplify the experience no matter how strange things get."
Altered states and untrusted perception are recurring themes in Nolan's films: "Memento" is about an amnesia victim; "Insomnia" (2002) presents a corrupt cop addled by lack of sleep; "The Prestige" (2006) is about rival illusionists; and in the two Gotham City films (the first was "Batman Begins" in 2005) there are no truly super-powered citizens, but the senses are blurred by fear toxins and ninja mind tricks. In all of them, Nolan put a premium on achieving the unreal on camera as opposed to in computer, which runs counter to Hollywood's obsession with the pixel possibilities of green screen and 3-D. With cinematographer Wally Pfister (Nolan's director of photography since "Memento") and special effects guru Chris Corbould (the man who built the Batmobile and has worked on a dozen James Bond films), the director put a premium on an old-school approach to movie magic.
Corbould's teams, for instance, built giant rotating hallways and a massive tilting nightclub set to film the startling "Inception" scenes when dream-sector physics take a sharp turn into chaos. One of the film's stars, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, spent long, bruising weeks learning to fight in a corridor that spun like a giant hamster wheel.
"It was like some incredible torture device; we thrashed Joseph for weeks," Nolan said. "But in the end we looked at the footage, and it looks unlike anything any of us has seen before. The rhythm of it is unique, and when you watch it, even if you know how it was done, it confuses your perceptions. It's unsettling in a wonderful way . . . we want an extraordinary thing that happens in an ordinary way. That's always been the goal."
"Inception" does have major computer effects: Several vivid sequences show a dream metropolis in churning calamity, a city skyline seems to fold in on itself as a dream begins to lose its shape and, unlike many Hollywood versions of dream surrealism, the scene has the look of a massive mechanical failure, not a morphing, liquid calamity. Nolan's dreams have the sharp edges of Escher, not the syrup drips of Dalí. Architecture is a major influence on the culture of the film too with dreams that are more like blueprints than poems. That speaks to Nolan's longtime interest in architecture. A key scene in "Inception" was filmed at the architecture school at University College London, where Nolan was an English major and also met his future wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas.
There's a temptation to frame the film as a comment on the "otherness" of modern life. These are the days, after all, of second-life movies such as "Avatar," "Surrogates," "Gamer" and the upcoming "Tron: Legacy," all of which place a human consciousness into a separate being.
Nolan, though, shook his head when asked if his "Inception" is part of that cinematic conversation.
"I think ours is of an older school, ours is more of 'The Matrix' variety and the concepts of different levels of reality," Nolan said. "The whole concept of avatars and living life as someone else, there's a relationship to what we're doing, but I think when I first started trying to make this film happen it was very much pulled from that era of movies where you had 'The Matrix,' you had 'Dark City,' you had 'The Thirteenth Floor' and, to a certain extent, you had 'Memento' too. They were based in the principles that the world around you might not be real."
Cillian Murphy, the Irish actor who played the Scarecrow in the two Batman movies and is one of Cobb's targets in "Inception," said that Nolan is creating a body of work that feels somehow more mature than some of his bright- fantasy peers. "It's the fantasy world, but it's the one that the mind itself can create or fall into, so the audience can access it in a different way than these other movies where you go to another planet or something," Murphy said. "It's the place the mind goes, and it's often very dark and always interesting."
Cast into a strange world
The cast for "Inception" is peppered with Nolan favorites, such as Murphy, Ken Watanabe (who was in "Batman Begins") and Michael Caine (who appeared in the director's last three films), as well as veteran actors such as Tom Berenger whose face fits the filmmaker's universe of grim choices and gun-metal hues. The film gives much of its prime screen time, however, to a pair of younger actors: 29-year-old Gordon-Levitt, who grew up on screen in the television comedy "3rd Rock from the Sun" and solidified his film profile with "(500) Days of Summer," and 23-year-old Ellen Page, who was nominated for an Oscar for "Juno." Those two play junior partners in DiCaprio's dream team.
Sipping tea in her trailer during a break in shooting last year, Page seemed a bit overwhelmed by the set, which was housed inside the converted old zeppelin hangar. "I've never really seen anything like this," she said. "It's humbling." It's the same place that Nolan used for his Batman films; Arkham Asylum, the Narrows and other Gotham City landmarks are still standing, waiting for the inevitable third Batman film that will almost certainly be Nolan's next project. That topic, though, is verboten on the "Inception" set, as is the Superman franchise that Nolan and Thomas will be trying to get off the ground in the next few years. ("I would never ask, and you shouldn't either," Murphy said with an expression of alarm. "He's got enough on his plate without us getting all fanboy on him.")
"Inception" plays to Nolan's two proven strengths -- massive scale and psychological puzzles -- but Page said what makes him a singular filmmaker is that he would attempt a summer film that evokes literature and architecture in an era when other directors seem to be tilting toward a video-game aesthetic.
"There's a tangible realism even when it gets crazy, and somehow that makes the jeopardy feel more real," Page said. "It's like reading a Haruki Murakami novel -- it's fantasy, but instead of feeling like some strange surreal world it feels very honest. The emotional spine of the story is there too, which is the key to his movies. There's the big scale, but the sincerity isn't left behind. The story is complicated but never confusing."
Time will tell if Nolan can build a major commercial success out of his mysterious blueprints, but he has already proved to be the rare blockbuster director willing to wander the dream world of challenging cinema.
"I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze," he said. "Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don't want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because it's frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting . . . I quite like to be in that maze."
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/04/11/four-new-photos-christopher-nolans-inception/
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http://www.pasivdevice.org/
another one of those online artefacts from the film. this time it's a manual for the application of some electrograph suitcase contraption seen briefly in the trailers. if you make it to the end you are linked to another site:
http://www.mind-crime.com/
follow that and you get to a page asking you to install a plug-in called "unity web player" in order to run what i presume will be an interactive feature.. i'm not game to install the thing even if it is an officially sanctioned warner bros site, so i leave it for a more adventurous marketing-enthusiast to tell me what happens next.
Quote from: picolas on October 26, 2009, 03:20:09 AM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthisman.org%2Fthisman_small.jpg&hash=d32b84f6d749bf9113f8fff77e4ebfeeea2dcfb9) (http://thisman.org/)
http://thisman.org/
i'm convinced this is BRILLIANT viral marketing for inception. it's too fucking freaky to be real. i also think part of the premise for the movie lies in this part of the site:
'Strangers' Director to Question 'This Man'Source: Cinematical
Deadline's Michael Fleming is reporting that director Bryan Bertino will be following up his debut on The Strangers (he wrote a script for The Strangers 2, but will not direct it) with the This Man, a film with a fascinating, potential-packed premise behind it. According to Fleming, the film is an adaptation of a web site Ghost House Pictures acquired from an Italian sociologist who, supposedly, created it as a global connection portal for people who claimed to have all seen the face of the man (pictured in the top right) in their dreams. The film, however, won't just be a chronicle of this sociologist's "discoveries", but about the man who has no idea that people the world over are seeing him in their nightmares.
The reason I sound doubtful as to the history of the project is because I don't think it's quite so fact-based as Fleming presents it to be. Jawbone.tv has a handy breakdown of when posts about This Man started to appear on the Internet as well as who registered ThisMan.org. Their registrant is the same "Italian sociologist" Fleming mentions, Andrea Natella. Granted he may actually be a sociologist, but Jawbone also pinned Natella as the director of an Italian guerrilla marketing company.
I don't really care if the story is fact-based or just the result of some clever viral marketing because I think the concept behind This Man is rock solid and ripe for speculation. I'm hoping it goes a little something like this: Strangers start to recognize the man on the street and as soon as he realizes it's because people are convinced they're having nightmares about him, he's led into a world where cults have risen in frightful devotion to him and people everywhere have him on their minds. His life starts to spiral out of control as his 'fans' come out of the wood-work and eventually he discovers it was all just a viral experiment on the Internet and that he happened to have a face that was generic enough to look like the generic face an Italian marketer/sociologist chose for his little experiment.
Again, I have no idea if that's actually what the script is about, but that's where I would go with it-- and getting people to speculate on the vaguest of details is a great sign that you've got the potential for something great on your hands. It doesn't hurt, either, that Bryan Bertino's first film managed to transform a predictable script into something that was legitimately creepy (thanks in no small part to an outstanding sound design). Here's hoping his team-up with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert's production shingle refines those talents even more.
More importantly, however...has anyone out there actually seen this man in their dreams?
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fscifiwire.com%2Fassets_c%2F2010%2F05%2FIMAXInceptionPoster-thumb-441x657-38481.jpg&hash=f9560ee81f5da7cf533d16699cdbe3947160ed68)
NEW TRAILER IS PANTS-SHITTINGLY GOOD*: http://theplaylistnation.blogspot.com/2010/05/watch-new-inception-trailer-tv-spot.html
*as long as it's not "all a dream" in Leo's head.
The score is very close to The Dark Knight's.
Quote from: modage on May 07, 2010, 04:25:32 PM
NEW TRAILER IS PANTS-SHITTINGLY GOOD*: http://theplaylistnation.blogspot.com/2010/05/watch-new-inception-trailer-tv-spot.html
*as long as it's not "all a dream" in Leo's head.
actually it looks PANTS-SHITTINGLY SPOILERFUL. i had to stop it after they introduced ellen paige and he started explaining the plot to her (and she started speculating about the rest of the film). i'm happy with my impressions from the first teaser so i'm tapping out now from this film's marketing.
also regarding your size=4 idea, that could well be the case since leo is obsessed with that right now, but i think it will be ambiguous and frankly presented early on -- in fact we can all speculate that much going into the film since we know that's one of the major themes -- any time you have a movie about dreams it's also about the difference between dream/reality BUT DONT FALL ASLEEP FROM BOREDOM JUST YET, MODAGE.. i think you can trust that nolan will make it fun and excellent.
Quote from: modage on May 06, 2010, 12:56:09 PM
Quote from: picolas on October 26, 2009, 03:20:09 AM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthisman.org%2Fthisman_small.jpg&hash=d32b84f6d749bf9113f8fff77e4ebfeeea2dcfb9) (http://thisman.org/)
http://thisman.org/
i'm convinced this is BRILLIANT viral marketing for inception. it's too fucking freaky to be real. i also think part of the premise for the movie lies in this part of the site:
'Strangers' Director to Question 'This Man'
Source: Cinematical
Deadline's Michael Fleming is reporting that director Bryan Bertino will be following up his debut on The Strangers (he wrote a script for The Strangers 2, but will not direct it) with the This Man, a film with a fascinating, potential-packed premise behind it. According to Fleming, the film is an adaptation of a web site Ghost House Pictures acquired from an Italian sociologist who, supposedly, created it as a global connection portal for people who claimed to have all seen the face of the man (pictured in the top right) in their dreams. The film, however, won't just be a chronicle of this sociologist's "discoveries", but about the man who has no idea that people the world over are seeing him in their nightmares.
The reason I sound doubtful as to the history of the project is because I don't think it's quite so fact-based as Fleming presents it to be. Jawbone.tv has a handy breakdown of when posts about This Man started to appear on the Internet as well as who registered ThisMan.org. Their registrant is the same "Italian sociologist" Fleming mentions, Andrea Natella. Granted he may actually be a sociologist, but Jawbone also pinned Natella as the director of an Italian guerrilla marketing company.
I don't really care if the story is fact-based or just the result of some clever viral marketing because I think the concept behind This Man is rock solid and ripe for speculation. I'm hoping it goes a little something like this: Strangers start to recognize the man on the street and as soon as he realizes it's because people are convinced they're having nightmares about him, he's led into a world where cults have risen in frightful devotion to him and people everywhere have him on their minds. His life starts to spiral out of control as his 'fans' come out of the wood-work and eventually he discovers it was all just a viral experiment on the Internet and that he happened to have a face that was generic enough to look like the generic face an Italian marketer/sociologist chose for his little experiment.
Again, I have no idea if that's actually what the script is about, but that's where I would go with it-- and getting people to speculate on the vaguest of details is a great sign that you've got the potential for something great on your hands. It doesn't hurt, either, that Bryan Bertino's first film managed to transform a predictable script into something that was legitimately creepy (thanks in no small part to an outstanding sound design). Here's hoping his team-up with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert's production shingle refines those talents even more.
More importantly, however...has anyone out there actually seen this man in their dreams?
disappointed this isn't viral marketing for inception. oh well. that last poster is silly. trailer is pants-shittingly awesome.
can't wait for this.
did the cinematical guy just straight out try to write his own screenplay in that article?
Quote from: pete on May 08, 2010, 12:55:45 PM
did the cinematical guy just straight out try to write his own screenplay in that article?
hahah yeah looks like it, and it was pants-shittingly shit.
Quote from: matt35mm on May 07, 2010, 04:37:13 PM
The score is very close to The Dark Knight's.
with a touch of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XKJRxhSveo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XKJRxhSveo)
Quote from: Pozer on May 10, 2010, 02:12:09 PM
Quote from: matt35mm on May 07, 2010, 04:37:13 PM
The score is very close to The Dark Knight's.
with a touch of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XKJRxhSveo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XKJRxhSveo)
He Does A Good Hans Zimmer: 'Inception' Trailer Music Is Actually By Zack Hemsey (http://theplaylistnation.blogspot.com/2010/05/he-does-good-hans-zimmer-inception.html)
60 second TV ad here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpUmz8OV_-w)
Japanese Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnceUG0qbsI)
Why Christopher Nolan was afraid you'd laugh at Inception
Source: SciFi Wire
Most of us don't dream about being badass action heroes. Usually it's more like showing up for high school naked, or getting chased by a giant pretzel. That wouldn't make a good movie, or at least you probably couldn't get Leonardo DiCaprio to star in it. Christopher Nolan was worried that his movie about dreams, Inception, could get silly if he went too far into the weirdness of dreams.
"One of the things tonally I talked about with Leo is never tipping over into comedy, the sort of funny version," Nolan said in a press conference on June 25 in Beverly Hills, Calif. "There are certain areas when you're talking about dreams—the analysis of dreams and how you might examine those in the film—that you do want to avoid. They would probably be either too disturbing for the sort of action film genre that we're working in, or funny."
DiCaprio plays Cobb, an expert in creating dream worlds for high-profile targets, then entering their dreams to steal secrets. He's got some of his own nightmares haunting the dreams, too. Even if Cobb knows it's a dream, he has to deal with them in that reality. So do all the other characters.
"One of the things all these guys have done in their performances is that they've created very subtle differences in the way the characters appear in the dream levels and then in reality, but they've never made it funny," Nolan said. "They've never taken it to that comedic place. Certainly I think there's probably a great comedy version of this movie somewhere, but I didn't want to make it."
So Nolan hired the right actors, but there's a little more to it than that. DiCaprio shared exactly how he made Cobb's dream states so realistic. "It was a matter of sitting down with Chris and being able to really form the backbone of a character and create a scenario where it became like a giant therapy session," DiCaprio said during the press conference. "At the end of the day, these different layers of the dream do represent a psychoanalysis, him getting deeper and closer to the truth of what he needs to understand about himself."
Maybe Nolan's being a little too modest. It's not all about the actors. Nolan created dreams that they could be awesome in. "This is Chris Nolan's dream world," DiCaprio said. "It has its own structure and its own set of rules. It was basically being able to sit down with Chris for two months every other day and talk about the structure of this dream world, and how the rules that apply in it."
Inception opens July 16.
Inception reviews (http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/07/creamola.php) are everywhere.
I. Can. Hardly. Wait.
[size=8]FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH[/size]
kubparisons.
As a non-fan of Nolan's Batman movies I was keeping my expectations low for this one, but as a big fan of Memento I am now officially psyched.
I guess it's time I checked out The Prestige.
Nolan has been a consistently watchable middle-brow director. He challenges conventions, but within really safe parameters. Insomnia was an unnecessary effort, Batman Begins suffered from way too much boring exposition, and Memento gets more credit than it deserve for a well executed trick. Following, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight have been his strongest films to date... and he certainly hasn't made a total failure... but I'm never excited at the promise of another Christopher Nolan film.
Inception was no exception, either... until Nolan started citing Last Year At Marienbad as an influence on the film. Now my interest is considerably raised. I love that there's a big budget summer film that's partially inspired by Alain Resnais - makes me appreciate Nolan a little more.
Quote from: john on July 05, 2010, 10:47:55 PM
Inception was no exception, either... until Nolan started citing Last Year At Marienbad as an influence on the film. Now my interest is considerably raised. I love that there's a big budget summer film that's partially inspired by Alain Resnais - makes me appreciate Nolan a little more.
Except that he said he hadn't seen it until after he made Inception....
what did these critics say about eternal sunshine? I think we need a control for this experiment.
found these:
kirk honeycutt: "A bold and venturesome trip down memory lane as only writer Charlie Kaufman could imagine it."
todd gilchrist: "Jim Carrey finds a muse who combines the subversiveness of Andy Kaufman, the imagination of Dr. Seuss and the fearlessness of the Farrelly Brothers."
and apparently faraci didn't like the dark knight.
this is the nerdiest thread ever.
I bought my Imax tickets for the midnight screening.
I'm a NERD!
I've got opening day IMAX, I just didn't want to risk being too tired.
I'm old!
Quote from: Ghostboy on July 06, 2010, 12:18:01 AM
Except that he said he hadn't seen it until after he made Inception....
Well that's disappointing.
Guess I can return to my initial feeling of indifference. Hopefully the film will surprise me still.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Freporter.blogs.com%2F.a%2F6a00d83451d69069e20133f2189e53970b-800wi&hash=37fe07cfa471b63df397be64170e76576f5900da)
Thats cool! This one is on my way to work.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm5.static.flickr.com%2F4096%2F4764411193_91f7c967f2_z.jpg&hash=f283907a9a65aea668660496490bb0affc11d3b9) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/modage/4764411193/sizes/o/in/photostream/)
Is there anything about this movie that isn't utterly badass?
Can't wait.
If I dislike this movie, I am keeping my mouth shut on here. It's better to say nothing for now because I will be too disappointed, but I've come to like The Dark Knight more. The flaws are still the flaws in the movie, but I disregarded them and look at all the positives now. I feel I am ready to love this wholeheartedly. I just can't think about it too much because I want to feel surprised too.
The next 10 days are going to be torture.
i also would like to register my interest in this motion picture.
fucking huge interest.
Christopher Nolan is the Nelson Mandela of xixax.
That building art is pretty amazing. I was outside a train station today, and I saw a half-crumbled building and thought it was an Inception ad, but it was just a half-crumbled building. Like they would spend that sort of money in Atlanta on a non-Tyler Perry movie.
I too am interested in this. Although, I have to say, repeat viewings of TDK do not hold up for me. I find it cumbersome to watch again. Memento, too. I always love watching his movies once and then maybe twice, but maybe not more than that.
first person to see this must review it thus:
if good, write:
THE HYPE IS REAL.
if not good, write:
THE DREAM IS REAL BUT NOTHING GREAT IS REAL THEREFORE THIS FILM IS NOT GREAT :/ WOW LOOK AT THAT BUILDING.
^^ yes please.
Quote from: cronopio 2 on July 06, 2010, 07:01:25 PM
Christopher Nolan is the Nelson Mandela of xixax.
Nelsopher Nolandela.
I had a dream last night that I saw a download of this and all I thought was the Xixax guys are gonna be pissed I watched this on my laptop.
that's their new marketing campaign: viral dreams.
Quote from: Fernando on July 07, 2010, 10:37:12 AM
^^ yes please.
Quote from: cronopio 2 on July 06, 2010, 07:01:25 PM
Christopher Nolan is the Nelson Mandela of xixax.
Nelsopher Nolandela.
you just baptized my first born.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi205.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb52%2FThe_Playlist%2FJuly%25202010%2F6te.jpg&hash=1766c9e9cd9eac5229f16e136878facad94f4132)
via @ThePlaylist
this could be like the time i watched the matrix for the first time.
Nolan, DiCaprio play mind games with 'Inception'
LOS ANGELES - It's no rarity for blockbuster Hollywood directors to dream big. Dreaming big and smart, though, is Christopher Nolan's specialty.
Nolan elevated the superhero thriller to high art with "The Dark Knight," his followup to "Batman Begins." He pushed the bounds of illusion and perception in the thrillers "Insomnia" and "The Prestige."
Now Nolan is casting audiences into the subconscious of Leonardo DiCaprio and his co-stars with "Inception" — essentially, a heist movie taking place in people's dreams.
The scale, action and visual effects are as grand as those in the biggest summer popcorn flick. "Inception" also offers a depth in theme, story and characters seldom seen in huge Hollywood spectacles.
"I view the film first and foremost as a large-scale thrill ride. That's what it's always been intended to be for me," Nolan said in an interview. "If it's got more interesting ideas in it and whatever, that's all intended to just rattle around in your brain and make you want to think a little bit more about this world that the film creates. That for me is a lot of fun in a summer blockbuster, really."
Nolan and distributor Warner Bros. have played coy about "Inception," only gradually revealing plot points to stoke the imagination of fans, who inevitably are interested in the next project from the man behind the biggest opening weekend ever with the $158.4 million debut of "The Dark Knight."
The movie's trailers have been artful teases loaded with wild images — a train barreling through traffic down a city street, characters hurtling about the walls and ceiling of a hotel hall in a gravity-defying fight scene, a section of Paris tilting up and folding in on itself.
It's fair to say "Inception" is the most-anticipated original film — something not based on a book, comic, game or other source — since James Cameron's "Avatar."
"There's a lot riding on `Inception,'" said Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who co-stars as DiCaprio's right-hand man in an operation to sneak into people's dreams and steal their secrets.
"This is going to really send a very strong signal to the mainstream movie industry that if this movie does really well, you don't need to have some sort of prepackaged, market-researched brand in order to make a big hit movie. What people really respond to is good storytelling and compelling human drama."
While DiCaprio's Dom Cobb makes his living as a corporate raider of the mind, the heart of "Inception" is centered around a new challenge — planting an idea in a man's subconscious so he will awaken and act on it as if it were his own. The characters tumble through layers of dreams within dreams, the action challenging both them — and the audience — to ponder what's real and what's illusion.
The film co-stars Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page and past Nolan collaborators Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine.
Writer-director Nolan, who turns 40 two weeks after "Inception" premieres, said he dreamed up the idea about a decade ago, as his independent hit "Memento" was opening studio doors for him.
The British filmmaker said he has been toying with how to use dreams in movies since his teens, though.
"I've become over the years more and more interested in the creative potential of the mind and the way that every night we're able to create entire worlds," Nolan said.
"The idea that you can be completely convinced while you're asleep that you're in a real situation, and you've created this room or whatever, and I've created you as a person, everything you're saying I'm putting as words in your mouth, but I feel that I'm hearing them for the first time. That to me suggests infinite potential for human creativity, an infinite mystery to the way the human mind works."
Such sentiments kind of define the highest aspirations of Hollywood blockbusters, considering the resources that go into them, Nolan said.
Hollywood has always been known as the land of dreams, but filmmakers now have technology at their disposal to hurl audiences into worlds approaching the limitless possibilities of their unconscious projections.
"The closest film for me would probably be the first `Star Wars' that did this for my generation. Create a world not just where you literally forget the world you came from, but you want to lose yourself in that world so much that you watch the film again and again," Nolan said.
"I really think that that's when the tools of large-scale Hollywood filmmaking are being used to serve their best ends. Really, it's just creating an alternate reality for people to explore that they could never have imagined themselves. With `Inception,' that is certainly my attempt to try and do that."
Nolan is returning to the franchise that made him a Hollywood heavyweight. His brother is writing the screenplay for a new "Batman" movie, but the director declined to discuss the prospects of an "Inception" sequel.
"I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that I don't want to jinx the film," Nolan said. "My fingers are crossed, and I'm hopeful that the film is going to be a success for the studio, because they really supported me making a film that I'm very, very passionate about. But I'm very, very superstitious."
Nolan's also a bit incredulous about his climb from unknown indie filmmaker to top Hollywood director. He occasionally wonders if it's all been a dream.
"At the risk of sounding cheesy and cliche, the truth is, I love what I do and I love my job, and there is an aspect of that being dreamlike. It's hard for me to credit the fact that I've managed to be able to do what I love doing, I mean, even get paid for it," Nolan said.
"There's certainly some weird fear in the back of my mind that I'm going to wake up and find myself back where I started. But at least then I'd have all my scripts worked out."
'Inception' is no dream for marketers
Unusual summer bow for such a cerebral pic
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Consumers may wish more original films were wedged into the usual summer mix of remakes and sequels, but marketing executives know enough to be careful what they wish for.
Case in point: Warner Bros.' soon-to-bow thriller "Inception." Directed by Christopher Nolan, the Leonardo DiCaprio starrer has stimulated prerelease buzz simply on the basis of its A-list creatives.
Which is fortunate, as the pic's cerebral mix of brain-teasing plot points and effects-driven fantasy defies easy characterization in a one-sheet tagline or even a trailer, judging from materials released to date. Its online campaign similarly is based more on tease than glimpses into the narrative.
Studio marketing always aims to raise pic awareness and stoke must-see interest among prospective patrons, goals most easily achieved when moviegoers have a sense of what to expect from a film. With early -- and solidly positive -- reviews of "Inception" trickling out, word has circulated that the movie has something to do with industrial espionage and the invasion of dreams.
Well, that clears things up.
"I have heard everything from 'awesome' to 'a bit confusing' from those who went to the screening," one industryite said after a showing of the film at the recent Cinema Expo confab in Amsterdam.
In other words, the pic seemed to play well with the audience, but even the subsequent word-of-mouth tended to be vague, albeit positive. Even the movie's name fails to conjure anything specific.
"Nobody thinks it's a bad movie," an exec from a rival studio stressed. "The question is whether it's going to be the real breakout picture that everybody seems to think or just the darling of the East and West coasts and miss the rest of the country."
There lies the rub: how to entice Middle America without a lot of complicated explication? It obviously helps that "Inception" was helmed by Batman's favorite director and stars a maturing American heartthrob.
But what's a marketing challenge like this doing in the middle of popcorn-pic season?
"We're in the moneymaking business," a Warners insider said. "So when you have a great cast and a great movie, why not go when you can do the most business? This movie will play to moviegoers 15 to 50, and you have all those people going to the movies in the summer."
The studio sought to build awareness and buzz early by select media buys. Promos keying on complexity and vagueness of the pic's plot include Verizon Wireless' "Inception: Mind Crime" game, which is promised to help moviegoers "unlock some of the secrets of the story both before and after they see the film."
Studio execs are counting heavily on core support from Nolan's and DiCaprio's fan bases. Awareness has been slow to spread, but a high percentage of those with knowledge of the film show a "definite interest" in seeing "Inception."
Execs around town offer an unusually wide range of projections for the PG-13 pic's opening weekend, at $40 million-$60 million.
Nolan's penchant for cinematic riddles has some suggesting the pic basically is a big-ticket art film. Cost estimates run upward of $160 million on "Inception," which totes a 148-minute running time.
"It's the most expensive version of 'Memento' you could ever make," an exec from a rival studio quipped. "But it is unique in the marketplace, and I credit them for that."
But the question remains: Will Warners' good -- and original -- deed go unpunished by the marketplace?
"You really haven't seen that 18- to 35-year-old crowd mobilized this summer," a marketing exec from another studio said. "So this could become the cool and hip movie to see -- kind of like 'The Matrix.'"
But Warners opened its leggy 1999 hit in March, with "Matrix" topping out at $171.5 million domestically. To do much better, Warners might have to sustain pricey pic marketing longer than usual if word-of-mouth proves as vague as prerelease buzz.
"Inception" opens wide a week from today. Disney family adventure "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" -- that session's only other wide opener -- bows two days earlier and should ring up at least $30 million through its first five days.
Fuck you, lowest common denominator.
Quote from: Filmdrunk.com"I worked on Marmaduke, and shit, that was easy. Hell, I've been putting sunglasses on dogs since 1974. But with this here Nolan picture, where do I put the glasses? Hell, there ain't even a record scratch. It's the damnest thing you ever saw."
Christopher Nolan's dim view of a Hollywood craze: 'I'm not a huge fan of 3-D'
Source: Los Angeles Times
Night 2 of the Hero Complex Film Festival was a great success as Christopher Nolan took time from applying the finishing touches to "Inception" to sit for a lively Q&A session. There's plenty to tell you about, but I've broken out an entire article on his enlightening comments on the 3-D craze of the moment.
Christopher Nolan, speaking at the Hero Complex Film Festival, was cheered loudly by the audience when he made a moviegoer confession: "I'm not a huge fan of 3-D."
The director of "The Dark Knight" added that, after doing 3-D tests, his new film "Inception" will not be released in the trendy stereoscopic format because "we didn't have time to do it to the standards that I would be happy with."
Then, the professorial 39-year-old filmmaker, who burst on the scene a decade ago with "Memento," launched into a clinic on the entire topic of 3-D conversion and filmmaking that left some fans in the audience scratching their heads even as the film-school crowd leaned forward to catch every word. First off, he said, he resented the suggestion that cinema was somehow flat without those special glasses.
"The truth is, I think it's a misnomer to call it 3-D versus 2-D. The whole point of cinematic imagery is it's three-dimensional. ... You know, 95% of our depth cues come from occlusion, resolution, color and so forth, so the idea of calling a 2-D movie a '2-D movie' is a little misleading."
Nolan was speaking at the Los Angeles Times-sponsored festival, staged at the Mann Chinese 6 in Hollywood, between screenings of his 2002 thriller "Insomnia" and "The Dark Knight."
The festival is continuing Sunday with an appearance by Ridley Scott and screenings of "Alien" and "Blade Runner."
On Friday, the special guest was Leonard Nimoy and the film was "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."
Nodding to the movie screen behind him, Nolan told the audience of 500 that he, literally, had a dim view of the 3-D releases he'd watched: "The truth of it is when you watch a film in here, you're looking at 16 foot-lamberts, When you watch through any of the conventional 3-D processes you're giving up three foot-lamberts. A massive difference. You're not that aware of it because once you're 'in that world,' your eye compensates, but having struggled for years to get theaters get up to the proper brightness, we're not sticking polarized filters in everything."
After the massive success of James Cameron's "Avatar" and Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" (they have a staggering $3.7 billion in combined worldwide grosses since December), there is a studio stampede toward 3-D, which is seen as the type of singular spectacle now needed to lure consumers away from the comfort of their home-theater sofas.
But filmmakers have reservations. The sword-and-myth adventure "Clash of the Titans" -- which, like "Inception," was produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. -- was quickly converted into a 3-D film, and in the eyes of many critics, the post-production "rush job" showed. "Clash" director Louis Leterrier was beside himself as his movie came under fire, and he won't be back to direct the sequel; still, "Clash" has made $487 million worldwide and, domestically, stands as the fifth-highest-grossing release of 2010.
Leterrier chose his public comments on the 3-D issue carefully for the simple reason that it won't be easy to make another studio blockbuster without a studio. Nolan, who scored a billion-dollar success with "The Dark Knight," is as secure as any director in Hollywood at the moment. But he made it clear Saturday night that although he was captain of his own destiny, it was the studios that built the ship.
"Well, let me put it this way: There is no question if audiences want to watch films in stereoscopic imaging, that's what the studios will be doing, and that's what I'll be doing."
Nolan said "Inception," the July 16 dream-world heist film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, could have ended up as a 3-D release. "We did tests on 'Inception' with the different post-conversion processes, and they all went very well. It's quite easy to do, in fact. But it takes a little time, and we didn't have time to do it to the standards that I would be happy with."
Nolan said the craft of making a modern big-budget blockbuster with visual effects involved many of the same approaches needed for 3-D conversion. So, as a technical exercise, he finds it compelling but, as moviegoer, he has little interest in sitting in the dark with the finished product -- at least in most cases so far.
"It's all based on all the visual-effects technology, you know, that we're currently most engaged in with match moving, so forth, and rendering 2-D imagery into a 3-D space. ... On a technical level, it's fascinating, but on an experiential level, I find the dimness of the image extremely alienating."
What about shooting in 3D -- as opposed to the post-production conversion approach? Nolan said that approach necessitated shooting in video, with big, bulky gear and a beam-splitter that required trade-offs with optics he was not eager to make. "There are a lot of problems with it ... the idea of shooting a whole film through a massive beam-splitter and so forth -- there are enormous compromises. Post-conversion technologies probably, for me, are definitely the future, but really it is up to the audiences what they want to see and how they want to watch their films."
Nolan is due to start filming a third Batman film in March, and he and Emma Thomas, his producing partner and wife, will be the producers of a Superman film, adding a new cinematic chapter to the superhero property that launched the comic-book industry in the summer of 1938. Nolan didn't say it, but it wasn't a leap to infer that Warner Bros. would be putting pressure to make those movies into 3-D releases for 2012 and beyond -- and that the filmmaker was hoping new 3-D advances would come to light by then.
"I'm certainly quite pleased with 'Inception' as presented -- it's very bright and very clear, so as the technology improves, those differences may change, and that is what I hope for."
Quote from: MacGuffin on July 11, 2010, 02:24:01 PM
Christopher Nolan's dim view of a Hollywood craze: 'I'm not a huge fan of 3-D'
This title implies he's an idiot.
The LA Times is an idiot.
Quote from: modage on July 11, 2010, 02:43:10 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on July 11, 2010, 02:24:01 PM
Christopher Nolan's dim view of a Hollywood craze: 'I'm not a huge fan of 3-D'
This title implies he's an idiot.
The LA Times is an idiot.
'Dim view' just means 'low opinion'.
I took it to mean that he's an idiot.
But I think you might be right..
Yeah I get what they meant, that's just not how it reads.
I didn't read it as calling him 'dim' and I actually think they were working in a technical part of his refusal, the dim lightbulbs. But anyway, yes bad headline. Love that Nolan doesn't like 3d but not so crazy about his willingness to roll over to studio's zeitgeisty greedy use of it. He should be setting the standard for what makes money for studios, not subscribing to execs' every avaricious whim.
I saw it. THE HYPE IS REAL.
FFFFFFFFFFFFF
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
It's official, I can no longer look at this thread until I see the movie. Mod saw it and he loved it and I will not be able to stand the expectation and hype. I see enough commercials for the movie anyways.
Let's all talk bad about GT.
The best advice I can give everyone is to clear those comparisons out of your mind before you go. If you sat in Blade Runner in 1982 thinking how it was supposed to be 2001, but wasn't you'd probably be disappointed that it was something else.
Inception is the cover article on the current issue of Creative Screenwriting. GT, all you had to do was hit the C key a few times and everything would have been fine.
Armond White didn't like it (http://www.nypress.com/article-21420-despicable-inception.html), which means there is a 100% certainty that it's excellent. Keep in mind, Armond White was the guy who gave Toy Story 3 it's first negative review, and is generally speaking a retarded child who has terrible taste and uses big words without knowing what they mean.
Thanks to the magic of the internet, here's a chart of movies that Armond liked and disliked:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd179%2Fpolkablues%2Farmond-white-movie-chart.jpg&hash=966f1fa84fae6f303d42a25de693306581433be7)
this movie is pretty Whoa
had lots of problems with it, but the last hour or so is pretty awesome. ITS A GOOD MOVIE.
It's pretty great.
I love dream logic and I found this surprisingly easy to follow. It manages to convince you to just buy it all. A kind of complex logic is introduced and you're just like "okay, that's how that works, let's go".
I'll need to see it again soon for sure. Mostly because I just want to, but also because there was a guy in the theater who had a seizure. That was fucking distracting as I couldn't stop worrying about him until we knew he would be alright.
I'll leave my spoiler out until more have seen it, but I really only had one complaint and it's not a big one.
See this. It's NOT Batman, but see it.
spoilers
only thing that i saw as a weakness in the film was a lack of imagination in the dream sequences. of course there's plenty of imagination in all the plotting and this and that, but the dreams themselves are very staid and seemingly grounded in reality (which i suppose is explained by the landscape of the dreams being actually constructed and laid out by an architect).
i've only got my own dreams to go on, but nothing ever goes in such a linear fashion as things go in the movie. in the film, one thing leads to another, things don't appear/disappear for no reason, everything works the way it's supposed to, etc., and that's just not how i've experienced dreams. the sopranos dream sequences (particularly the long one in the episode "the test dream") handle these things about as well as possible in this format. i'm thinking particularly of tony trying to put bullets in his gun only to have the bullets turn to mush in his fingers and a scene with his daughter and her fiance at a dinner party, annette benning is there for some reason and for a moment the fiance is actually AJ, tony's son, before it's the fiance again. none of this strange, loopy, dreamlike stuff happens, unless someone wills it to happen (such as the ellen page character having the city fold in on itself), or an outside force changes the way the dreamer perceives things (gravity after the van backs off the bridge).
the exception is leo's character, whose subconscious does leak into the dream sequences, with his wife and children appearing over and over, and the wife even involving herself in the action. but why is it only leo's subconscious having an effect? why doesn't joseph gordon levitt's peak in and fuck things up?
i wasn't bothered by any of this during the movie, but it'd be Cool if someone could tell me what they think
Spoils?
Holy fucking shit i loved this. So many levels of tension on so many different levels of reality. Nuts.
Iloveamagician...
I thought the same thing but then i just decided that it was the nature of the machine itself, like, they have more control of the weird things that happen in dreams because its not completely natural..but i dunno. what i do know is that this was fucking awesome. its been so so so long since i've gone into a theater expecting a great movie and being treated to a great movie. so refreshing.
SPOILERS
Okay, I"ll touch on some spoilery stuff.
ILaM, I was really fine with the way the majority of the dream-world was so realistic. The only way the unnatural is going to really stand out is if the world surrounding it is natural. If everything is nutty, crazy, dreamlike, we're not really going to notice the cool subtleties built into the dreams.
As far as Leo's subconscious goes, I think they're all pros. They're there for a reason. Leo is breaking, he's lost control.
Quote from: I Love a Magician on July 16, 2010, 01:41:49 PM
but it'd be Cool if someone could tell me what they think
[do not proceed if you have not viewed the film; spoilers are present]I have a theory about the ending focusing on Cobb's totem. Before the scene cuts to black, the spinning top begins to wobble. For me, that indicates we have been viewing a dream the entire film.
As we near the end in the "waking/physical" world of the movie, Cobb wakes up on the Sydney-LA flight, and he is able to go home because Saito has fixed his fugitive status. Moreover, Cobb has also forgiven himself for his wife's death. Now, he can return home, and look at his children in the face, free of guilt.
At that point, the story of the movie is over. Despite that, we focus on the shot of the top spinning, which begins to topple, followed by the sudden cut to black with the musical kick which, to me, declares:
"Wake up, audience. Cinema is like a dream. And, this dream, this movie, is over." What I think Mr. Nolan is trying to express through Inception is what filmmakers try to do with cinema. They construct a dream world that we, the audience, occupy for a while. I began to wonder about this when Cobb and Ariadne had their discussion at the Parisian cafe. He asks her if she can recall how they got there, and she cannot remember. It is often that way in cinema, too. In fact, that is how it was for that scene. When that scene began, did you, the viewer, wonder how they got there? In other movies, when we cut to a scene of characters walking in the park, do we, for instance, wonder how they got there? No, we accept it, and we progress through their subjected world, continuing with the narrative. The architect/filmmaker can do fantastic things in their created world, and manipulate it in numerous ways. However, if the architect/filmmaker attracts too much attention their way, or does something that does ring true to the presented world, the subconscious starts to "see" the architect/filmmaker. Once that boundary is overstepped (breaking the fourth wall, as they say), and one moves too far past the rubicon, the dream is over -- the illusion is gone.
The quest of most filmmakers is to wrest emotion out of you -- whether that is to make you laugh, cry or be afraid. Most filmmakers argue that is the essence of cinema. Yet, Mr. Nolan feels that the bold filmmaker can layer a film enough, make it intricate enough, and with careful suggestion, that the filmmaker can change your point of view, and make you feel like the inception of it came from you -- not the film. He is making a commentary of the potential of cinema and the power of the filmmaker. Once this is masterfully executed, we reach the end, and Mr. Nolan tells us to wake up because the dream is over.
I can say with confidence this is the best movie I have seen in 2O1O.
Best movie of the year. Nolan's masterpiece. Great ideas in a great movie. We live in an interesting time. Would I see 2001 today and think, "I'm not emotionally connected enough to Dave. Shouldn't I be? I don't feel empathetic to him." The answer is no, characters are as much a function of the film as anything. I guess this is a premature response to the by-now-typical response to Nolan's films of little emotional involvement, because fuck that, I felt more during this film than any other Nolan film, specifically regarding Leo and his wife. I loved this film and its mechanisms and it's powerful and well executed and deeply thoughtful. And the audience, at the end, gasped and sighed simultaneously. Congrats, Chris, job well done.
The fight scene with JGL was one of the most riveting action scenes I've seen in a long time. I was constantly asking myself, "How did they do that?" And I was confused yet understood. Great film. Thank god!
Loved it. This is the best movie I've seen this year, and depending on subsequent viewings, maybe one of the best movies I've ever seen.
I saw this with matt35mm today and I think I'm going to drag someone else with me to see it tomorrow. Maybe my mother. I can't wait to see it again. I have so many questions. I wish it was already out on Blu-ray so I could study it.
SPOILERS.
I find it fascinating that there really isn't a villain in this. There really aren't any bad guys. It's not even really a crime what they are doing. Their plan doesn't involve death or anything that is going to hurt anyone. Maybe Cobb is the villain? He really screws his team over. If that was me, I would have not been happy about that and when the job was done, I wouldn't be all smiles.
As for the ending, I don't think there is any doubt that it was reality. It was done. FINISHED. Unfortunately, I think our minds are so engraved to expect a sequel that we always see an ending as open-ended even if it isn't.
Great film. Dreams are tricky in cinema because the temptation is to just throw internal logic away, but the film sets up clear rules and structures, so it just doesn't become a free-for-all of crazy dream stuff. I like the idea that extractors are common enough that rich people pay to learn how to defend themselves from them. I'm going to have to see this again.
I'm a bit miffed that I paid to see it in IMAX. I was under the mistaken impression that, like The Dark Knight, parts of this were shot in IMAX. But it wasn't so. Oh well. Still a great experience.
spoils!
i'm not expecting a sequel but there's no question it's an ambiguous ending. blackmirror's theory is the most perfect one i've heard. i also like the possible idea that Mal is actually alive in the real world and Cobb will simply wake up to her in a few more dream hours. or another theory that i'll propose near the end of this post..
i really loved this but i think some of the praise is.. too positive, or at least too dismissive of any flaws. probably because it's been a miserable year so far (there isn't even a 'so far this year' thread for godsakes). don't get me wrong. it's the best movie of the year up to this point and i am seeing it again in theatres, but i do have issues with it. i'll focus more on those since not many other people are.
- there's a long passage of the film as everyone's preparing for the job and giving exposition to set up the rules that is simply too relentlessly paced. every line of dialogue feels so crucial and it's just flying into your brain like encyclopedias and dictionaries off a treadmill on max speed. i think the score was going unbroken for like 30 minutes. this movie needed to be 3 hours long and take a half hour to just let the audience breathe. cause after a while i felt numbed by the constant montagey feel of that section. it's weird how that part of the movie was too propulsive to me, but the last hour or so was my favourite.. i think that's the difference between exposition and payoff. i also feel like there was not enough SHOWING of the rules and a little too much telling. having said that, this movie is so rule-heavy. it did a really good job with what it had to get across. it just occasionally straddled the line between cool exposition and bad LOST territory where it didn't care about being entertaining, it just HAD to be spelled out cause you need to know/memorize these things.
- watanabe is deeply miscast. whether or not he can speak english in life, i never believed his character could. his pronunciation and general rhythm is so atrocious. i needed subtitles for half the things he said. and physically his performance is so.. mannered and choreographed and unreal. that moment where he opens the car door to take out a bad guy/rescue dicaprio and then says something like "Need a lift?"... it's another one of those performances that i'm surprised nolan let slip through. it's so obviously wrong.
- the explanations/rules continue to unfold at a more manageable pace further into the movie, but i was still using about 20% of my mind just to make sure i understood everything as it was happening rather than simply enjoying the things that were happening (oh, the things that were happening... i was involuntarily going "yes!" more than once..). on repeat viewings this will only get easier, though. i have a lot of questions about the nature of kicks.
- i wanted to be more involved in dicaprio's relationship with Mal, since it's kind of the real story. i'm not sure if it's underdeveloped or just tougher to get a grasp on in the first view because it's so fractured and overshadowed by the heist/dream rules. only more views will tell. cotillard is somethin else though.
- i love how much of a callback this movie is to everything nolan has done up to this point. it's like a dream collage of his movie universe.. the dead wife and the character trying to alter his memories, professional thieves, snowy mountains, dicaprio's back looking exactly like nolan's back. it all fits so well with the idea that this is nolan's dream, or our collective dream as incepted by nolan..
- i had a half-baked idea for the ending as the film was coming to a close.. it would've required a lot more explanation but. i wanted it to turn out that dicaprio was actually getting closer to reality rather than deeper into his subconscious, and that the real world had been reduced to this forest of crumbling buldings because a. we're in the future and cities should be far denser and b. everyone has lost touch with reality and become addicted to the dream technology as foreshadowed by the basement of people unable to distinguish between the two. i'm not sure where you go from there, but it woulda been a neat extension of the dream-addiction idea. on a mass scale. as well as the idea of not recognizing how something is strange until a dream ends, the strange thing being that dicaprio seems to exist in our time, when in fact this technology is way too advanced. i also think it's cool to think of dicaprio's crew as subconscious extensions of his own personality.
- there are so many great things that happened that i struggle to remember all of them. i'm almost certain i've forgotten something a day later that would've been a standout in some other movie.. i will never get tired of gimbals.
SPOILERS
We meet upon the level, we depart upon the square...
It was only a matter of time for the reality purists to materialize – and I am so pleased that they have, as it provokes the philosophical debate this movie demands. My opinion that the conclusion is a dream should not be confused as a lingering hope for a sequel. The film is perfect as is, and leaving it so, treats us to enduring, meaningful reflections.
[once again, do not proceed if you have not seen the film; spoilers follow]
I know there will be the faction that believes the ending was real. Evidence to support this is Cobb's father urging him to return to reality, and it is his father waiting for him at the airport at the end. On the flip side, isn't it Eames who tells us it is key that the understanding of the relationship between father and son is what propagates the ideal inception? It makes me question if we are viewing a level of Cobb's subconscious exploring the relationship he has with his father. Moreover, Cobb's children did not age when they reunite, which hints to the possibility that we remain in a dream. Cobb repeatedly asserts the notion of planting the seed of an idea deep into the subconscious to take root for its purpose to take effect. If this is all a dream, imagine how deep Cobb has descended. The chain of kicks has to be so massive and complex that it poses the risk that it is too late for his return to reality. Plus, if this is a part of a larger construct, we have only seen a splinter of the entirety of Cobb's illusive Jacob's Ladder. (On a side note, to entertain the possibility of additional chains/kicks, we would have to consider Cobb is connected among the sedated group in the Moroccan sleep room – much like picolas' account of multiple extensions of Cobb's personality...we are talking eternal manifestations.) If preceding levels do indeed exist, what we have been exposed to in the film must be near the very core depth of Cobb's subconscious. As the chains increase to reach this core, so does the threat of it breaking, which would sever Cobb's ascension/homecoming/reawakening. We very well could have seen one of these severances as Nash (Lucas Haas' character) dissolves. Given this possibility we would have to rationalize at some point that Cobb must appease with a compromised version of reality within the depths he has immersed himself. Perhaps, the reality we are presented at the end is the level he has ascended to accept. That would suit the faction saying, no, it was not all a dream. However, a part of me believes there is a ground zero, where the real Cobb – the estranged soul who has lost his wife and is separated from his children – remains unconscious as he performs the ultimate inception of repairing his guilt amid a grand labyrinth quest inside his mind of seeding the idea to eradicate it. Granted, it is a solipsistic interpretation, where figuratively he is all that exists, ignoring the external, and embracing the impossible as if there are no consequences to his actions. (Good call Stefen for observing the unmistakable absence of a villain. This gives credence to the solipsism of Cobb's world, as his struggle depicts that we are often our own worst enemy.) The brilliance is that the impossible becomes possible as we are dealing with dreams, which Mr. Nolan skillfully exhibits. Ariadne blows up Paris, bends buildings and defies time and space with her mirror of infinite dimensions. Arthur can herd a pack of inert individuals through sub-g gravity, while combating interlopers. Eames also illustrates this ability of turning the impossible into the possible as he forges identities within dream interphase. Anything can happen! It is not too big of a departure from the philosophy of René Descartes who reasoned cogito ergo sum. Mr. Descartes was half-awake when he uttered those words, and from that perspective -- especially for the relevance of this discussion -- I believe a minor alteration to his expression makes for a better fit: ego somnium sum.
I dream, therefore, I am.
Dude, put your spoiler warning before you talk about the ending.
BEFORE.
This shit gets released here on the 22nd.
THE 22ND.
If done well, like Avatar, this would have been very cool in 3D.
Quote from: Derek on July 18, 2010, 11:05:01 AM
If done well, like Avatar, this would have been very cool in 3D.
FUCK 3D.
3D is waay cooler than saying fuck 3D.
movie was good, not sure about THE HYPE IS REAL good or maybe one of the best movies I've ever seen good, but purdy good.
that's it.
And I'm okay with that. If there's a better movie this year, we are lucky.
The ending was definitely meant to be ambiguous. Here are a few theories.
ENDING SPOILERS MAJOR
A. The film is as presented. Reality was real, dreams were dreams, wife commits suicide, happy ending is reality.
Conventional if a bit convenient. Most people will probably view the film this way. But the last shot should leave them with lingering doubts.
B. The film is mostly as presented. Reality was real, dreams were dreams, wife commits suicide, happy ending is now tragic as it's actually still a dream.
We never saw how Dom got out of the subconscious. He just awakes on the plane mid-scene without the audience knowing how he got there. Now that he's forgiven himself, he can finally face his children in the dream. Nolans previous work in Memento ends with a character who refuses to accept reality so that would be a reoccurring theme here. Also: where is grandma?
C. The film is entirely a dream except for the flashbacks. Reality was a dream, dreams were dreams, wife wakes herself up and ending is tragic because Dom refuses to come back to reality.
On 2nd viewing I wondered if his wife was right and they were so many dream layers deep that when she commits suicide she's actually waking up while Dom spends years deep in the dream. As pointed out elsewhere online Dom never mentions how long he's been on the run. And in the film this is brought into question by him being chased down in "real life" just like his projections. The company is so vague you have to wonder why there weren't more details given.
D. Everything is a dream, dream invasion technology doesn't exist and none of this happened.
But that's too disappointing to ponder.
I think I like B the best but I think the film basically falls into one of these explanations.
Spoilers
I'm not going to mount a Dark Knight attack, but it was an alright film with little greatness attached to it. Without getting into too much explanation, my problem is that the context of a lot of the dreams were just elaborated on with action sequences and minimal challenges to the psyche of Cobb. The film leaves you with a puzzle by the end to consider, whether what he is experiencing is a dream or not, but the decision is still pretty simplistic. Most of the events leading up to the end don't make you consider many different avenues of thought to Cobb's psyche. I think the film would have been better served if it began with Cobb and Mol's relationship. See, with more context there, the film could have gone many more routes and planted all the delineations in a better emotional grounding. As is, the story does not even get you to understand elemental basics of their relationship until later in the film so when the story tries to add ambiguities and doubts, they are based on a few simplistic ideas of his emotional history. The lack of development of an emotional center reminds me of the worse elements of genre fiction. This film needs it too because it needs you to believe in the greatness of his trauma affecting everything about him.
The ending is an ambiguity, but not all ambiguities are the same. An ambiguity should not have clear decisions like this film does. It defeats the purpose, but the film is very exciting nearing the end. I kept thinking about how Nolan is a good craftsman of action sequences, but I also sat through a lot the film kind of bored as the story kept going back to continuously repeat and re-affirm new logic rules to dreams as they came up. Even the original Matrix is wordy of its own theoretical levels, but I remember being more touched by the human component of that film.
Has Nolan touched on the ending at all?
Quote from: P on July 18, 2010, 10:58:18 AM
Dude, put your spoiler warning before you talk about the ending.
BEFORE.
This shit gets released here on the 22nd.
THE 22ND.
Please accept my apology. I have fixed it.
GT is the Armond White of Xixax.
Haha, I have no idea why I even bother.
first thing's first: this movie is as hollow as they come. that said, inception marks yet another triumphant restoring of grandeur to hollywood movies from chris nolan. this is a big fucking movie, and it's awesome for it. there are, however, copious problems. the screenplay is exhaustively "well constructed", both to the film's credit and detriment as it verges on tedium and hilarious convenience. there isn't an ounce of elusiveness to this film, nothing to bring to the table by the audience except an inordinate amount of focus to follow along. cold, this film is not, as there are some genuinely moving bits, but it is mechanical. because nolan's execution is so sharp, these mechanized emotional cues are fairly successful. in some ways i see nolan as the high brow, chic, english answer to tarantino. his movies are clearly the work of a man who loves movies and knows how to make good ones, but what he has to offer doesn't go much further than the movies.
at no point is the frivolity of inception more clear than with the final shot. at best, it's a post-modern touch, reminding the audience that it's a movie and that cinema at large is a dream (hardly an original statement). otherwise, it only invites inane speculation to ends that are completely unearned by the film itself. like gt said, that the ambiguity of the ending has such clear decisions renders it inconsequential. really the only thing that can be taken from it is either that it was all a dream or it was reality, and i don't consider this type of "leaving it to the audience" to be productive or particularly interesting. seeing it a second time while considering the possibility that the ending suggested that this is a loaded movie with complexities worth contemplating only highlighted just how little substance there is to this film, and that it's best appreciated as the extremely well made diversion that it is. it capitalizes on a cool idea in terms of making for an immensely entertaining film. inception is there for awe-inspired gawking, of which it elicits much of.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS (Seriously, P; Just stay out of this fucking thread for the rest of the week)
I don't have time to delve too deeply into my impressions, since I have sleep to catch up on, so instead I'll link you to a very nice article by Devin Faraci at CHUD, in which he very persuasively makes the case for the all-dream interpretation of the film. He also lays out a very eloquent reading of what a few here have touched on, that the film is an allegory for the art of cinema itself. Lots of good points.
http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html (http://chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html)
I guess we'll have to wait for the sequel.
I'm going to see this film a few more times so I want to keep my comments tentative, but I gave a tentative review over on my blog: http://filmsplatter.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/inception-1st-viewing/
To the people who have no interest in my argument, don't worry, what you read will sound like Charlie Brown's teacher talking so you can skip this blog entry.
I heart Film Splatter.
Oliver Stone references and all, I love reading your blog, GT.
spoils of courseQuote from: samsong on July 19, 2010, 02:21:22 AMotherwise, it only invites inane speculation to ends that are completely unearned by the film itself. really the only thing that can be taken from it is either that it was all a dream or it was reality, and i don't consider this type of "leaving it to the audience" to be productive or particularly interesting.
you're being so dismissive it hurts. polka's article is filled with evidence. there are so many cool theories floating around based on very specific things in the movie. the idea that cobb is the real mark is a favourite of mine. and that's certainly taking things a step or three further from simply "it was all a dream."
Quote from: modage on July 18, 2010, 03:43:01 PM
D. Everything is a dream, dream invasion technology doesn't exist and none of this happened.
But that's too disappointing to ponder.
That CHUD article is great and basically fleshes out D to be the most likely option now.
doublepost:
Chris Nolan 30 min interview on The Treatment podcast: http://media.kcrw.com/podcast/show_itms/tt
Long Q&A w/actor Dileep Rao: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/07/inceptions_dileep_rao_answers.html
Salon explanation: http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/07/19/inception_explainer
Quote from: Stefen on July 18, 2010, 04:03:46 PM
Has Nolan touched on the ending at all?
Elvis Mitchell: Because there was such a kind of incompletion in the protagonists [in your earlier films] that there was that kind of a "now what" sense at the end of those films that you don't have here.
Nolan: [pause] Yes...I don't want to talk too much about the ending, but I think that depends a little bit on how you read the film as well. But I would agree with that. I think what I'm looking for in the story, I'm looking for that completion, I'm looking for that emotional fulfillment. I've found that that wish fulfillment has become more and more important to me.
Samsong hit on what bothered me about the film. I really enjoyed watching it (the shifting-gravity fight was the most jaw-dropping thing I've seen in a movie in years), but I left feeling fairly empty, and I suspected that the over-constructed screenplay was the problem. I can't exactly bring myself to call it a criticism, but I was very aware that almost every explanation at the front end of the film was placed there in order to solve a logical problem that the filmmakers ran into in the latter end. I felt like the movie was thought through backwards, which is fine, except that it made it difficult for me to get emotionally involved while watching it frontwards.
I have more to say, but I'm writing on my phone right now and it's getting unpleasant.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!
Okay, just read the Chud article and am about to read the Salon article, but I wanted to get some stuff out first.
When I read blackmirror's theory, I fought it for the same reasons the Chud article explains, but once I thought about it more (and before I read the Chud), I started to accept it, mostly because of the mysterious agents who are after Cobb in his "reality".
Now that I've read the first article I've allowed myself to read about this movie (I avoided almost everything about Inception before seeing it), I'm running with it.
Another theory that I just started to consider is this: What if in the reality we don't see in this movie dream sharing STILL exists. Why are we assuming it's all part of a dream within our own reality?
What if the whole movie is Cobb's inception? Perhaps by his father.
Maybe in the true reality, his father has gone into Cobb's dreams to help him get over the death of his wife and be able to look at his children's faces again. His father gives him an awful lot of advice throughout the movie and perhaps he (or someone else helping him) is posing as Mol to make Cobb think that he's reaching this realization on his own.
This may be way off base, but I'm going to keep it in mind the next time I watch it.
Okay, on to the Salon article (which will probably make me change my mind again).
spoils?
Quote from: modage on July 19, 2010, 08:50:53 AMElvis Mitchell: Because there was such a kind of incompletion in the protagonists [in your earlier films] that there was that kind of a "now what" sense at the end of those films that you don't have here.
Nolan: [pause] Yes...
that yes is so funny. by yes he means no, you're completely wrong.
Haha, yeah. That is clear when you listen to the podcast. He's probably thinking "Elvis, I can't believe YOU missed this!"
***maybe spoilers?***
yep samsong got it spot on. the problem with this film is there will be little to no replay value, 90% of the dialog is explaining the plot and the technical aspects of the universe. something that has to be done to follow it, but at the end of the day what brings an audience back should be more than tour guide driven characters and abstract setting reveals. the emotional parts of the movie arn't enriching enough for me to care to revisit it. the performances aren't enough either (though not poor by any stretch). i see this film easily becoming the contemporary matrix, it will be over analyzed and infused with pseudo-philosophical ramblings that mask how 'hollow' it really is.
i really enjoyed the film with that said lol, it's very well crafted and the visuals in the 2nd layer were pretty amazing. i'm interested in seeing it again only to test my suspicions regarding it's long term value. something i'll do when it comes out on dvd.
It's interesting to say there is no replay value but you'll revisit the film on DVD. I'm curious to rewatch The Matrix now to see how much of the dialogue is taken up with explaining what the hell the Matrix is. I'm guessing a lot of it. Though I will admit it is noticeable in Inception, I'm okay with it.
I really enjoyed this. Even though I saw it at the cheaper theater with crummy seats and sound (it sounded like surround had been compressed into Mono) I got lost in the multiple storylines. No one talked at all until it was over and then I covered my ears as to not hear their opinions.
***spoils***
I brought up the kids not aging and wearing the same clothes on IMDB, but someone who had seen the film twice said there are actually multiple actors in the credits and that their clothing is not exactly the same. I wondered if Michael Caine is dressed the same as well. Nothing I thought to take notice of on first viewing.
For some reason I have the theory that it was actually Leo who felt as Mal did (that dream was reality) and the entire thing is constructed by Mal in order to give him peace. I would have to see it again to remember why this thought came to mind.
***SPOILERS***
Quote from: modage on July 20, 2010, 07:24:53 AM
It's interesting to say there is no replay value but you'll revisit the film on DVD. I'm curious to rewatch The Matrix now to see how much of the dialogue is taken up with explaining what the hell the Matrix is. I'm guessing a lot of it. Though I will admit it is noticeable in Inception, I'm okay with it.
well it's my hypothesis, because i've only seen it once. maybe it does have great replay value. i thought i was clear on this. however if i wasn't, the purpose would be to watch it again on dvd is to test the hypothosis, to see if it's enriching beyond the stuff that serves a first viewing. i doubt it will be, and i believe i'm correct in my educated guess. i'd actually put money on it, but can't say for certain because it's just me pontificating until i do :)
another side note, as some of you might have noticed i get this way with certain films. ones that tack on so much depth that reveal themselves as shallow. many people stop upon first inspection to infuse all this bullshit into them that i just can't seem to see. i attacked fight club, matrix and a few others in previous threads. so i guess i am bias, but i just hate when movies pretend to be something high brow when they're simply action movies. this is his first movie that did this kind of thing, dark knight was amazing, memento is great, and i even really liked the prestige (which had many similar tone based layers but never tried to come across as philosophy)
oh and the last shot is bullshit cop-out nonsense, it's been done so many times. the movie would be so much more rewarding if i'd never seen total recall or countless other films with the same device. i would have A: not included the shot (or end of the shot) or B: hold long enough to give the answer, it either keeps rotating or topples. i know this isn't the 'point', but a decisive ending would have been much more rewarding.
Pretty tedious, but occasionally breathtaking. Nolan is a bit adventurous, both intellectually and visually - he can construct a pretty decent action scene (that hallway fight!) - but it all seems so lifeless.
I can't knock the film too much, though. Anything with this many ideas executed at a grand level is admirable even if it doesn't totally succeed. Ultimately, I'm envious of anyone who this film completely won over... it would be nice to have more to say about it.
Doesn't reconfigure my perceptions of Nolan, though - just reaffirms them.
This is fabulous:
Dora the Explorer explains Inception (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrYPJ4Yc31g) (no spoilers)
SPOILERS:
I do respect the film for how intelligent it is. There are few films of this scale that challenge your ability to keep track of information, and your ability to use that information to actively engage with the story. I think most people are able to follow along, so it doesn't demand a high IQ or anything, but it does demand that you pay attention. It makes you want to pay maximum attention, and for that, I say, "Bravo."
That said, my favorite films are ones where I don't have to pay that much attention. It's fun to have a mental exercise like this, but it leaves little room for the mind to wander. I do think that one's mind subconsciously projects things onto a film, but this film, by explaining that we're seeing the subconscious projecting this and that, robbed me of the opportunity to let that happen. This is why my favorite films are ones with very simple storylines (or barely a storyline at all); I fill it with a million things upon every viewing, and the experience becomes very personal. Because nothing in this film was significantly ambiguous (I agree with those who say that the ending is not that ambiguous, because there are only two, MAYBE three possible ideas that you can get from it), I must say that I never related to any of the characters on screen. Cobb is the only one who I came close to caring for, but even then, not that much. All of the other characters had no dimension to them, which Nolan kind of gets away with by casting very charming actors. Everyone smiling at each other during the airport scene at the end was laughable to me, as they have every reason to hate Cobb for putting them in that kind of jeopardy. Their whole motivation for the last half of the movie is to survive this situation that Cobb put them in for his own gain. Maybe this part was a dream then; it certainly didn't feel like reality to be all smiles toward the guy who almost got your brains scrambled.
I suppose my main criticism of the film is that it all feels so calculated. Most of the moments onscreen were there as a solution to a logical problem, including Cobb and Mal's dramatic relationship stuff (solving the problem of what motivates Cobb). This is why I think some people are calling the film "cold" or "lifeless." The only part that felt like a pure cinematic moment was the hallway fight, which kind of exists on its own as a set-piece (one of the most amazing ones I've ever seen). It wasn't necessary. Indeed, it was the only moment of the film that wasn't necessary, which is part of what makes it so damn fun, and the best scene in the film.
I did enjoy this more than The Dark Knight. The editing in The Dark Knight really bothered me. Too much stuff was happening all at once, and all too fast, linked together by Hans Zimmer's score. Every scene felt just a bit too short. There was a similar amount of stuff going on in Inception, with a similar intercutting-to-Zimmer's-droning-score strategy, but the pacing was better, and the scenes felt more balanced.
To me, this film was like an impeccably-dressed model, who exactly fits the size and proportion of beauty, and is measurably perfect. She's gorgeous, but she's not the one who'll linger in your mind, or even be truly sexy. And you'll never fall in love with her.
You sonofaguns that don't live in méxico don't know how lucky you are.
This was supposed to premier today but apparently wb wanted a bigger slice of the pie and the cinemas didn't agree to it, only one company did and they have the crappiest movie theaters here, it's like watching an old vhs, and I know that because when I saw TDK on imax and later at one of those theaters the image and sound quality was horrible.
This is bullshit.
they fucked us in the ass.
this could be the final straw in a series of colossal fuck you's the big theater chains and the latin american branches of hollywood studios pull in mexican cinemas.
it's to offensive to even explain it, i'm just glad piracy is a constant in my life, and if i ever get sued by the MPAA for downloading so many GBs of illegal material, it will be with a smile of cynicism.
Loved, loved, loved it. I'm looking forward to reading all the theories now (#1 of the ones Mod posted is what I assumed happened and I'm fine with it). This is such a tired cliche but this movie was a true roller coaster. I felt exhausted when it ended, which is good and bad. I definitely agree with the following:
Quote from: picolas on July 18, 2010, 02:41:00 AM
there's a long passage of the film as everyone's preparing for the job and giving exposition to set up the rules that is simply too relentlessly paced. every line of dialogue feels so crucial and it's just flying into your brain like encyclopedias and dictionaries off a treadmill on max speed. i think the score was going unbroken for like 30 minutes.
It was longer than 30 minutes. Hell the whole film has score! I can only recall a very brief 5 minute scoreless interlude. This was my same beef with the Dark Knight, that the film never stops to take a breath. Does Nolan just not have time to slow things down? Come on our attention spans aren't
that short.
Quote from: RegularKarate on July 16, 2010, 04:53:01 PM
SPOILERS
ILaM, I was really fine with the way the majority of the dream-world was so realistic. The only way the unnatural is going to really stand out is if the world surrounding it is natural. If everything is nutty, crazy, dreamlike, we're not really going to notice the cool subtleties built into the dreams.
Agreed. I think by keeping the dreams real it raises the stakes for the characters. "Dreams feel real while we're in them" and that whole bit.
Quote from: samsong on July 19, 2010, 02:21:22 AMit capitalizes on a cool idea in terms of making for an immensely entertaining film. inception is there for awe-inspired gawking, of which it elicits much of.
Okay, and why is that not enough? Even if the film is as hollow as you say (and I definitely disagree that it is), I think we all have to remember that this was a freakin $160 million summer blockbuster that was not a sequel, a super hero movie, a sequel of a super hero movie, or any other of the very few formulas that are getting green-lit these days. The fact that this was an original and very complex film made on a grand scale for adults is a pretty outstanding and admirable feat.
As for the exposition-heavy script, I knew about that complaint going in and I have to say it didn't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would. It is at its core a heist movie, and part of the fun of those is learning the rules and whatnot. I do think it would have benefited if Nolan had added more humanity via humor. I'm not talking hard jokes or anything, but just little smiles here and there that let the characters (and us) come up for air.
Quote from: ©brad on July 23, 2010, 10:16:59 AM
Okay, and why is that not enough?
it's not enough because it's all we can hope for these days. the bar is set so low that anything marginally above (or in this case considerably above but still not too impressive) is herald by all.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 10:20:30 AM
Quote from: ©brad on July 23, 2010, 10:16:59 AM
Okay, and why is that not enough?
it's not enough because it's all we can hope for these days. the bar is set so low that anything marginally above (or in this case considerably above but still not too impressive) is herald by all.
Maybe the bar isn't that low, maybe your expectations are just too high. I agree with some of your criticisms, particularly with the construction of the script. I just don't think the film is as empty as you claim. The blogosphere (ugh that word) is rife with debates and theories on this film. Hollow films generally don't do that.
quick review after one viewing, more thoughts later:
best heist movie of the last fifty years.
best dream film of the last 10.
best nolan film.
best use of special effects this century.
nolan is smart. even if the way some ideas are explained in the film might seem simplistic or even the opposite, overly convoluted to the point of being ridiculous, that is simply the dialogue. the films ideas are not in the exposition but in its structure and in the way he has used the most minimal of genre elements to make a hybrid film that epitomises originality AND perfection of previous material. his use of the heist genre is so genius that it makes it almost mandatory to revisit his entire filmography and reassess what exactly he has been doing all this time.
haven't read anything that says "spoilers" in this thread so i will come back after second viewing to join in the bullshit. just want to reply to this minor point:
Quote from: ©brad on July 23, 2010, 10:16:59 AM
Does Nolan just not have time to slow things down? Come on our attention spans aren't that short.
this doesn't make sense. how does not slowing things down = assuming ppl have short attention spans? you're confusing fast cutting (of say a tony scott or michael bay) with fast plotting (of say a top-of-his-game scorsese). if plot points come thick and fast, this means the complete opposite of a short attention span is required.
to the mexicans:
you mean this will not be released here on the IMAX CINEPOLIS THEATRES????
you mean we are stuck with cinemark or some crap like that for this?
Quote from: P on July 23, 2010, 10:57:59 AM
Quote from: ©brad on July 23, 2010, 10:16:59 AM
Does Nolan just not have time to slow things down? Come on our attention spans aren't that short.
this doesn't make sense. how does not slowing things down = assuming ppl have short attention spans? you're confusing fast cutting (of say a tony scott or michael bay) with fast plotting (of say a top-of-his-game scorsese). if plot points come thick and fast, this means the complete opposite of a short attention span is required.
You're right. The movie's relentless pace demands you keep up with it and someone with a short attention span would probably be either playing a game on his phone or twittering or something. I just wonder if the idea of giving the film some breathing room between set pieces was deliberate or some studio-mandate to keep things exciting out of fear of boring a mainstream audience.
***SPOILERS***
Quote from: ©brad on July 23, 2010, 10:33:49 AM
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 10:20:30 AM
Quote from: ©brad on July 23, 2010, 10:16:59 AM
Okay, and why is that not enough?
it's not enough because it's all we can hope for these days. the bar is set so low that anything marginally above (or in this case considerably above but still not too impressive) is herald by all.
Maybe the bar isn't that low, maybe your expectations are just too high. I agree with some of your criticisms, particularly with the construction of the script. I just don't think the film is as empty as you claim. The blogosphere (ugh that word) is rife with debates and theories on this film. Hollow films generally don't do that.
true, but
who is participating in the debating is also a factor for me. that sounds bad doesn't it. if 70% of the population's opinion i don't revere, and their the ones debating an issue, they win the numbers game but don't necessarily infuse meaning for me in the material.
it just seems to be a simple trick and a simple debate. is it a dream? are they still in the matrix? who is tyler derden? that kind of thing was cool to me once, but I've grown past it because I've come to realize there is no meaning in the debate and more importantly there is no answer to be found because it's constructed to not give one. it's as complex as a repeating record, which stimulates because you're in a maze with no ending, but at some point you have to abandon it.
debating a paul thomas anderson, or todd solandz, or a lars von trier film is much more interesting because it's not debating paradox. and paradox is just paradox at the end of the day. the fascination lies in the interplay of what is reality, yet there is no meaning. it's a simple trick and in inception it's all laid out in front of you. the only thing to debate in the entire film is the last shot, which is another manifestation of that simple trick. the last shot insults the entire film, and in turn the audience. it succeeds in spawning that age old boring debate, which agreed will make it money and get people talking about it, but it's the illusion of depth. paradox isn't meaningful, it's a formula with no answer. yet people love to get their bill and tedd's "whooa" every time they see it. being able to point out said formula and lack of answer over and over in different films never gets old sadly...
now I'm not trying to be like I'm above the film, instead i'm saying this element of the film is beneath us (yes there is a difference!) if it was what it was without the "debate" i would have liked it even more. in my mind a movie should have whatever depth is needed to tell the story and make the point (if there is one being made). but movies with very little depth that masquerade as profound really bother me.
Quote from: Alexandro on July 23, 2010, 11:08:14 AM
to the mexicans:
you mean this will not be released here on the IMAX CINEPOLIS THEATRES????
you mean we are stuck with cinemark or some crap like that for this?
yeah, only plaza real will have it here, and if you've been there lately you know what I talked about, so for the moment we're fucked, apparently mmcinemas will have it next week, if they hava a digital theater ill see it there, cinepolis OTOH hasn't said yet when they are going to release it.
here's an article in spanish about why this happened, I hope you non speaking spanish folks don't mind.
from elnorte.com
¿Es dinero 'El Origen' del conflicto?
Aseguran que no aceptan pagar Cinépolis y Cinemex a Warner Bros. la mitad de taquilla.
Ciudad de México (23 julio 2010).- En un hecho sin precedente, un estreno de verano de 160 millones de dólares no acapara las salas cinematográficas del País.
"El Origen", cinta dirigida por Christopher Nolan y estelarizada por Leonardo DiCaprio y que durante sus primeros 3 días de estreno en Estados Unidos la semana pasada recaudó poco más de 60 millones de dólares, no se estrenó hoy en los complejos de Cinépolis y Cinemex.
Entre ambas cadenas de exhibición suman 3 mil 826 salas de las aproximadamente 5 mil que hay en todo el territorio nacional.
Ni Warner Bros., compañía productora y distribuidora de la cinta, ni las directivas de las dos cadenas de exhibición emitieron su postura al respecto, sin embargo, fuentes del sector revelaron que se trata de un conflicto de intereses.
Warner Bros., coincidieron los informantes, solicitaba a Cinépolis y Cinemex el 50 por ciento de su taquilla, cuando en títulos de esta categoría y temporada, los acuerdos suelen ser no mayores al 45 por ciento.
Las negociaciones no progresaron y, por ello, de las 800 copias con las que se pensaba lanzar la producción cinematográfica, sólo serán alrededor de 200, en complejos de Cinemark y Cinemas Lumiére, así como en otros más pequeños alrededor de la República.
Aunque no precisó el porcentaje que pagará Cinemark, su director de programación, Jean Pierre Leleu, comentó en entrevista que su compañía sí accedió a dar más dinero a Warner debido al potencial comercial que ven en el filme.
"Ambas partes estuvimos de acuerdo en la negociación. Es una película cara porque Warner le metió mucho dinero. Iba a salir con muchas copias porque en verano nadie se arriesga a perder".
Destacó que los 30 complejos de Cinemark tienen al menos dos copias de "El Origen", las cuales proyectarán en horarios preferenciales.
Allegados a la exhibición informaron que tan sólo Cinépolis, que es la cadena más grande en Latinoamérica, con presencia en la India, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras y Perú, rechazó 430 copias para sus salas en México, las cuales están resguardadas en una bodega.
Cinemex, perteneciente a Grupo México y que aglutina los complejos MM Cinemas en el País, tenía contemplado programar alrededor de 150 copias.
En ninguna de las cadenas mencionadas hay publicidad o cartelones del filme y empleados de taquillas informaron que no tienen registrado en el sistema el estreno de "El Origen" ni siquiera para la próxima semana.
Víctor Ugalde, director, guionista y presidente de la Sociedad de Directores de Cine y Medios Audiovisuales, explica cómo se reparte la taquilla en México en su análisis "El Reino de la Incertidumbre", que acaba de publicar la revista de cine Toma.
"De cada boleto, el Gobierno recibe el 16 por ciento por concepto del IVA, pagado por todos los sectores de la cadena; después se descuenta el 1.65 por ciento, por concepto de los Derechos de Autor en todas las películas mexicanas y de los países que hayan firmado la Convención de Berna (éste criterio no aplica en cintas estadounidenses)", detalla.
"El monto restante se divide entre exhibidor, con un promedio del 63 por ciento, y distribuidor, un 37 por ciento".
Según Ugalde, del pago que recibe la distribuidora se descuentan los gastos de publicidad y elaboración de copias, con lo que su ganancia es de alrededor del 25 por ciento de los ingresos brutos de taquilla de una película.
Por ello, resalta el trabajo del cineasta mexicano, el mayor beneficiado con este modelo económico es el sector de la exhibición, dañando así al resto de la cadena productiva en la industria.
"¿Es justo que los exhibidores hayan obtenido ingresos por 4 mil 111 millones de pesos sólo por concepto de taquilla, más otro tanto por ventas -con lo que superarían los 8 mil o 9 mil millones-, mientras que los productores sólo recibieron mil 810 millones de pesos aproximadamente, de los 340 estrenos que hubo en 2009?", cuestiona en el escrito.
***SPOILERS***
the coolest concept introduced in the film was "the kick" and i really like how dream layers affected eachother, i just was so dissapointed when they suggested the age old "is he still dreaming..."
the first two things i mentioned were fresh, and the last is boring lame and done a million times for no other reason then to have it.
***SPOILERS***
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 11:24:16 AM
who is participating in the debating is also a factor for me. that sounds bad doesn't it.
Yes, it does sound bad. It sounds elitist.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 11:24:16 AMnow I'm not trying to be like I'm above the film, instead i'm saying this element of the film is beneath us (yes there is a difference!)
Okay, what's the difference, then?
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 11:32:05 AM
the coolest concept introduced in the film was "the kick" and i really like how dream layers affected eachother, i just was so dissapointed when they suggested the age old "is he still dreaming..."
the first two things i mentioned were fresh, and the last is boring lame and done a million times for no other reason then to have it.
Why is it no other reason than just to have it? I think you've kind of proven that you've dismissed the possibility of it meaning more than what you've decided it means because you feel you're above it.
I think the last shot is made to question the entire film, not just "oh, is he still dreaming?".
Quote from: Alexandro on July 23, 2010, 11:08:14 AM
to the mexicans:
you mean this will not be released here on the IMAX CINEPOLIS THEATRES????
you mean we are stuck with cinemark or some crap like that for this?
Hey, you know who doesn't even have an IMAX either? Me. In NEW Mexico. Old Mexico, New Mexico, whatever, IMAX doesn't like us. It's racist!
they are showing the goddamn shrek movie at the imax right now.
SPOILER-FREE OPINIONS, I GUESS:
Went to Cinemark to see it, whatcha gonna do...
P beat me to it. This movie was as heisty as they get. (I'm pretty sure I've seen that french warehouse in either Ocean's 12 or a history class) It also had film noir themes and moods without being obvious about its style, which is one of the reasons I loved Batman Begins if you research that thread, or the dark knight thread, i can't remember. You don't have to put hats and cigarettes in everybody's face to make a movie feel like a noir. It's all about the main character running from justice, longing to be a decent man again. Nolan is a master at making things look as organic as they can with concepts that might seem childish to respectable and boring adults. Inception might be a rip off of a million things I haven't seen, but it made everything feel fresh. Look at that fight scene with Gordon-Levitt and the guards at the hotel. Even with the awesome floating, it was more like Brian De Palma's Mission Impossible than The Matrix, instead of boring us with a gimmicky new special effect.
I imagined watching the movie with my mom and my aunts and people who get confused, almost offended whenever there's a dream going on in a movie. And I'm not saying I understood everything fully, but I thought it was funny that they took the apparent convolutions of dream logic as the concept to follow, like saying "we'll make an entire movie where people never know if what they're watching is a dream, AND MAKE THEM FEEL smart or at the very least entertained AT THE SAME TIME".
This is the kind of story I watch and feel frustraded by the elegance of the structure. Frustrated because I think I will never come up with something as original. I 'm going to make a very snob comment and say that Borges would've liked this movie. It had all the elegance in its presentation and resolution to make a labyrinth builder like him feel proud. It might seem mechanical, like samsong pointed out, but it was really a privilege to see what I consider precision in storytelling.
Random things:
-Anyone else thought this movie had echoes of Assassin's Creed, Echochrome and Call of Duty 4? Prove me wrong, Ebert.
-I thought Lukas Haas was going to reappear at one point. I hope he's doing well back in the cave where they took him from to shoot his part.
-and i think no one has mentioned the awesomeness of Tom Hardy in this movie. What a bad-ass.
***SPOILERS***
Quote from: RegularKarate on July 23, 2010, 01:01:27 PM
***SPOILERS***
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 11:24:16 AM
who is participating in the debating is also a factor for me. that sounds bad doesn't it.
Yes, it does sound bad. It sounds elitist.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 11:24:16 AMnow I'm not trying to be like I'm above the film, instead i'm saying this element of the film is beneath us (yes there is a difference!)
Okay, what's the difference, then?
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 11:32:05 AM
the coolest concept introduced in the film was "the kick" and i really like how dream layers affected eachother, i just was so dissapointed when they suggested the age old "is he still dreaming..."
the first two things i mentioned were fresh, and the last is boring lame and done a million times for no other reason then to have it.
Why is it no other reason than just to have it? I think you've kind of proven that you've dismissed the possibility of it meaning more than what you've decided it means because you feel you're above it.
I think the last shot is made to question the entire film, not just "oh, is he still dreaming?".
elitist in the sense that don't trust everyone's opinion then sure. but i bet we're all like that. it was suggested due to the fact there were bloggers going crazy about, internet debating somehow validates the movie's depth. that's just silly.
the difference is that i'm not above the film as a whole, i just think the element i'm suggesting insults us the audience. if i was above the film then i'm looking down on it, i think we should all look down on that age old device as a cop out. a device like that is cheap because it focuses the film on something new right at the end. it works the same way a loaded statement does in an arguement, it's just a conversation ender.
how did you question the entire film? all it implies is that at the end he didn't make it out, and he created it all to remain sane in the dream world. and why the shit do we need to question the entire film, or part of the film at the end. the emotional and intellectual pay offs were fufilled. it's a clever gimmicky footnote.
i second the tom hardy love. didn't like bronson at all but he was great in it, and was great in this.
cbrad, my commending its positive attributes were just that: giving credit where it was due. unlike a few people here, however, i found it wholly problematic and nowhere near a masterpiece. as for whether or not those things are enough, sure they're enough, but to an end, and that end does not include cinematic greatness. your point about it being an " original" blockbuster is fine but it supports an on-going trend of overrating based on relativity that i hate. and after the success of the dark knight, christopher nolan could've made anything at any budget and it would've been put out the same way and met with the same kind of enthusiasm. because nolan is a man of great taste and ability, it so happens that his follow-up to his leviathan financial success is a very good movie. it's not like hollywood invested in some new talent and took a risk; nolan's had to prove himself. in that regard it isn't cause for celebration. it's great though that nolan is working, making the movies he wants to make.
my deeming the film as hollow has to do with my belief that the form and style -- overtly/overly instructive dialogue, "airtight" plotting, rigid adherence to genre (i for one didn't find its execution of the heist genre to be particularly original outside of it involving the subconscious) -- betray whatever wealth of subtext there might be to glean from the film. i'd like to think that i'm pretty good at meeting a film on its own terms while engaging with the material and i found this to be inaccessible as anything other than an immaculate, ephemeral entertainment. all the theories and discourse are nice but i don't buy into any of them. and it really does hinge on whether or not you believe it's all a dream or it's all real, or some hybrid of the two, which is all you can really draw from the ending. the rest is interpretation based on which way you go with it. but it's something that i feel is tacked on at the end and isn't something that's developed throughout the film. i've seen it a second time after reading other people's thoughts and none of it holds any water for me, and if anything considering all those things made it a bit of a chore--in other words, far from enlightening.
This is pretty crazy, but mostly just curious: Hans Zimmer's score vs. Edith Piaf (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM)
I guess Hans Zimmer was listening to this song as he fell asleep and it got incepted into his mind and shit.
Wow that's fucking brilliant.
I've been working the past three weeks heavily and thats why I've been missing around here. This film is genius. Complete genius that needs repeat viewings. I really don't know how nolan can top this...
Quote from: Gamblour. on July 23, 2010, 09:42:35 PM
This is pretty crazy, but mostly just curious: Hans Zimmer's score vs. Edith Piaf (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM)
I guess Hans Zimmer was listening to this song as he fell asleep and it got incepted into his mind and shit.
Zimmer said in an interview that I thought I read here, but maybe not, that Nolan had told him that Edith Piaf song was going to be used throughout the movie, so he specifically tailored the score so that the score and the song would seamlessly weave in and out of each other.
well put samsong, you once again typed it in ways i couldn't.
Quote from: polkablues on July 24, 2010, 01:18:53 AM
Quote from: Gamblour. on July 23, 2010, 09:42:35 PM
This is pretty crazy, but mostly just curious: Hans Zimmer's score vs. Edith Piaf (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM)
I guess Hans Zimmer was listening to this song as he fell asleep and it got incepted into his mind and shit.
Zimmer said in an interview that I thought I read here, but maybe not, that Nolan had told him that Edith Piaf song was going to be used throughout the movie, so he specifically tailored the score so that the score and the song would seamlessly weave in and out of each other.
Well then holy shit. :bravo: Hans, bravo.
Quote from: cronopio 2 on July 23, 2010, 03:37:04 PM
Went to Cinemark to see it, whatcha gonna do...
fucking cinemarks of mexico city are like ten times more decent than the piece of shit here in mty. I went there a couple of months ago to see that crap edge of darkness and had to leave at the half hour mark. out of focus, no sound, no color. just absolute shit. I will wait for this, sadly.
the best dream film in the last 10 years is Spirited Away, which doesn't even have a character dreaming - but it's one that follows the dream logic most closely. I use P's comment as a springboard because this film, while it's about dreaming, actually doesn't feel very dreamlike. instead it invents its own world, much like the matrix, with its own logic, based on observations Nolan's made about dreams. reminds me of Waking Life that way: both are about dreaming but really have a much more pronounced cinematic style that uses "dream" as an excuse to get there. nothing wrong with that though; it's just an observation and in my opinion, a difference between this and the gondry movies about Dreaming.
I do like myself a well-put together thriller though, and this one is very much that. only complaint I have is the climatic action sequence in the snow feels a little random/ video game-esque and not particularly relevant to the rest of the movie in terms of tone or visuals.
Quote from: pete on July 24, 2010, 07:37:49 PM
only complaint I have is the climatic action sequence in the snow feels a little random/ video game-esque and not particularly relevant to the rest of the movie in terms of tone or visuals.
He had the "Chase Dream" and the "Floating Dream," i kinda thought he was trying to go for the "Movie Dream" here. Are those not as common as the other two types of dreams or did Noland just indulge all us cinephiles?
my friend has a funny theory that Eames wishes he was Bond.
- he's really british
- he gambles
- he loves disguises
- Eames is one letter away from James
- his dream is straight out of goldeneye
Quote from: picolas on July 24, 2010, 08:57:11 PM
my friend has a funny theory that Eames wishes he was Bond.
- he's really british
- he gambles
- he loves disguises
- Eames is one letter away from James
- his dream is straight out out of goldeneye
:bravo: :yabbse-thumbup:
Plus, if my friend came up with that, I would have come on here and said "I have this theory..."
Kudos for honesty.
--SOME SPOILERS--
I thought this was neither the Kubrickian masterpiece nor the monumental folly it's been made out to be, but somewhere in the middle. A good movie, not a great film. My biggest problem with it was similar to what others have expressed: for a movie that keeps rattling on about the subconscious, and dream logic, and labyrinths and mazes and the strangeness of dreams – none of the dreams, or dreams within dreams, ever felt all that "dreamlike". With the exception of the crumbling city shoreline towards the end (a haunting if not entirely original image), this movie kind of made it seem like dreams are slick Gotham city-like metropolises, or five star hotels, or mountain retreats defended by men on jetskis with guns straight out of an 80's action movie. I don't know about you, but my dreams are not like this at all. The movie completely ignores the psychosexual/Jungian/Freudian/symbolic/mercurial nature of dreams in favor of big action movie cliches. I can't remember the last time I was attacked by a group of Bourne Identity-style euro assassins with automatic weapons in a dream. More likely the attacker is unseen, unclear, ominous and omnipresent. When was the last time you had a big car chase in your dream? Why did they need to get in a van to go to hotel? If it's a dream, why do you need transportation? Characters keeping asking other characters, "You know how you know you're in a dream? You don't remember how you got here," but then in the next scene they're all piling in a van to get to the next part of the dream. Dreams can be very pleasant one second, then turn on a dime into nightmares, and then back again. Nolan's dreams are far too consistent.
I don't think Nolan is the auteur he's been made out to be. He's a very competent director of action movies. I give the movie credit for not patronizing the audience, and not fully insulting my intelligence. I think it's audacious, and somewhat original. But it's no "2001: A Space Odyssey". Nolan, unlike Kubrick, seems afraid of not spelling every last detail out. One of the beauties of Kubrick's masterpiece is that it operates on many levels and is subject to myriad interpretations. It's far more dreamlike than anything Nolan could muster.
Quote from: adolfwolfli on July 25, 2010, 11:26:25 AM
--SOME SPOILERS--
The movie completely ignores the psychosexual/Jungian/Freudian/symbolic/mercurial nature of dreams...
i
have a feeling hope that they are in there, just very well hidden. susequent viewings should makes these easier to find...
just saw it today, not much to say that hasn't already been said, except that i think Christopher Nolan is a very sad person.
explain?
Quote from: adolfwolfli on July 25, 2010, 11:26:25 AM
The movie completely ignores the psychosexual/Jungian/Freudian/symbolic/mercurial nature of dreams in favor of big action movie cliches.
Oh man, i feel you. I was disappointed that it didn't talk about polar bears losing their homes due to global warming. How was that possible?
SPOILERSQuote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 08:14:09 PM
how did you question the entire film? all it implies is that at the end he didn't make it out, and he created it all to remain sane in the dream world. and why the shit do we need to question the entire film, or part of the film at the end. the emotional and intellectual pay offs were fufilled. it's a clever gimmicky footnote.
That's all it implies TO YOU. Maybe you're not reading the rest of this thread and the articles linked, but there are theories that question the reality of the entire film, which then brings up further questions about why this isn't considered a cop-out (people shoot the theory down as one, but I think this is a rare exception).
Quote from: adolfwolfli on July 25, 2010, 11:26:25 AM
The movie completely ignores avoids the psychosexual/Jungian/Freudian/symbolic/mercurial nature of dreams in favor of big action movie cliches. entertainment
fixed
Quote from: RegularKarate on July 26, 2010, 12:03:09 PM
SPOILERS
Quote from: socketlevel on July 23, 2010, 08:14:09 PM
how did you question the entire film? all it implies is that at the end he didn't make it out, and he created it all to remain sane in the dream world. and why the shit do we need to question the entire film, or part of the film at the end. the emotional and intellectual pay offs were fufilled. it's a clever gimmicky footnote.
That's all it implies TO YOU. Maybe you're not reading the rest of this thread and the articles linked, but there are theories that question the reality of the entire film, which then brings up further questions about why this isn't considered a cop-out (people shoot the theory down as one, but I think this is a rare exception).
i have read them, or at least the majority of them. the basis, even though backed up by trivia tidbits in the entire film, has far less weight without the final shot. even if what you (or the articles) suggest exists, then the previously mentioned cop-out becomes a slightly more elaborate cop-out. it enriches nothing in the film. actually it essentially ruins all the drama the same way it did with JR in Dallas, because the escalation of dramatic tension is gutted due to no real parrel. we are asked to follow a sequence of events to one desired outcome, yet at the last second it might have all not mattered. lame and obvious. there is nothing in the film to make you question this until the surprise of the last frame, at that point you can go back and notice little things, but that's kind of cheap. the rest of the argument for the dream is comprised of these small observations on dramatic/aesthetic choices.
I saw this again over the weekend and it didn't hold up as well.
Still the best movie of the year for me, but the initial viewing is the best because you're really not sure where it's going to go and that's the most fun. In my second viewing, I found myself just waiting for the cool parts to happen (and there are many cool parts)
oh yeah, spoils
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMi have read them, or at least the majority of them. the basis, even though backed up by trivia tidbits in the entire film, has far less weight without the final shot.
yeah but there is a final shot. so that logic is like "there'd be, like, far fewer lies in the world if there weren't any liars, maaaann."
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMeven if what you (or the articles) suggest exists, then the previously mentioned cop-out becomes a slightly more elaborate cop-out.
how is it a cop-out? it's not answering a question in an unsatisfying way. it's posing a shitload of new questions in the space of a few seconds.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMit enriches nothing in the film.
it makes people write long interesting theories about the true nature of the events of the film backed up by very clear stuff that happens that they may not have noticed otherwise. it makes people question the ultimate meaning/intention behind the movie. that's like the
definition of enriching.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMactually it essentially ruins all the drama the same way it did with JR in Dallas, because the escalation of dramatic tension is gutted due to no real parrel. we are asked to follow a sequence of events to one desired outcome, yet at the last second it might have all not mattered. lame and obvious.
i really question if you've read the articles at this point. it does matter for a variety of possible reasons. dreams matter! IDEAS matter! that's the cornerstone of the philosophy behind this movie.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMthere is nothing in the film to make you question this until the surprise of the last frame, at that point you can go back and notice little things, but that's kind of cheap. the rest of the argument for the dream is comprised of these small observations on dramatic/aesthetic choices.
again you're just refusing to acknowledge the evidence in the articles. it goes beyond aesthetics. there are very tangible suggestions throughout. the whole interruption of cobb spinning the top is not a dramatic choice. it's written into the script.
Everyone I know is seeing this twice.
I haven't had a second viewing yet but I'm pretty sure that even with its flaws this film is still better than the dark knight and better than fanboys and haters are giving it credit for.
Dream films, the good ones anyway, always suffer from the problem of everyone just focusing on getting the pieces to fit together and rarely ever get to the point where anyone discusses what the film was actually about. It has always been beyond the scope of interest for the average moviegoer in the most conventional of movies to care that a film may have some thematic considerations informing the creative choices evident in the final product, but even for cinephiles who are not averse to delving into the minutia of details it seems acceptable to somehow completely avoid a closer reading beyond solving the structural puzzle that a film like this may offer. The same can be seen with Mulholland Drive ten years ago.
The problem of communicating an interpretation of a film that goes into the MEANING of it to someone who doesn't think movies have any meaning outside of what's verbalized or literally shown on screen is exactly what's happening here.
***SPOILERS***
Quote from: picolas on July 26, 2010, 03:46:04 PM
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMi have read them, or at least the majority of them. the basis, even though backed up by trivia tidbits in the entire film, has far less weight without the final shot.
yeah but there is a final shot. so that logic is like "there'd be, like, far fewer lies in the world if there weren't any liars, maaaann."
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMeven if what you (or the articles) suggest exists, then the previously mentioned cop-out becomes a slightly more elaborate cop-out.
how is it a cop-out? it's not answering a question in an unsatisfying way. it's posing a shitload of new questions in the space of a few seconds.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMit enriches nothing in the film.
it makes people write long interesting theories about the true nature of the events of the film backed up by very clear stuff that happens that they may not have noticed otherwise. it makes people question the ultimate meaning/intention behind the movie. that's like the definition of enriching.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMactually it essentially ruins all the drama the same way it did with JR in Dallas, because the escalation of dramatic tension is gutted due to no real parrel. we are asked to follow a sequence of events to one desired outcome, yet at the last second it might have all not mattered. lame and obvious.
i really question if you've read the articles at this point. it does matter for a variety of possible reasons. dreams matter! IDEAS matter! that's the cornerstone of the philosophy behind this movie.
Quote from: socketlevel on July 26, 2010, 12:46:34 PMthere is nothing in the film to make you question this until the surprise of the last frame, at that point you can go back and notice little things, but that's kind of cheap. the rest of the argument for the dream is comprised of these small observations on dramatic/aesthetic choices.
again you're just refusing to acknowledge the evidence in the articles. it goes beyond aesthetics. there are very tangible suggestions throughout. the whole interruption of cobb spinning the top is not a dramatic choice. it's written into the script.
Quote 1. because it's easy and cliche. A let down.
Quote 2. because it's easy and cliche. A let down.
Quote 3. not enriching by my standard, because their insights are easy and cliche; one could almost take a "philosophical" review of eXiztenz or the matrix and just replace the word inception in the title. it's a fun reality game, nothing more nothing less.
Quote 4. cool, dreams matter ideas matter, doesn't mean they're any good. it's just not as profound as the energy put into analyzing it. yes, that is like my opinion... man. it's just another example of paradox used to be cool, there is no meaning. and as i stated before i don't mind this by default, i just don't like the attention put on it suggesting genius strokes.
Quote 5. Cobb spinning the top is written in the script it's true, but it doesn't mean it was put in to question the entire film. though i agree there is a good chance it is. however, it possibly just comments on the ending when he's stuck with the client in limbo. that he created an ending to cope. but ya sure you're right 0.1% of the film could have been made to justify that last shot. still lame easy and cliche. walking into the film someone could have asked me "do you think it will all be a dream?" and i'd respond "I hope not, that's how it always happens"
i was referring to the moment saito interrupted cobb's spin.
i'm not going to spend any more time trying to compel you to enjoy this movie and/or accept the fact that other people enjoy analyzing it. just read P's reaction you seem to have skipped over.
I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast...
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg710.imageshack.us%2Fimg710%2F5552%2Fcommunique.jpg&hash=07a2ecd2a6baff29b89a76f1898f8534c5eb303f)
whoa, cheers. and how the eff did you get the text to fade like that??
^^ click "Quote" for details.
Also:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia2.slashfilm.com%2Fslashfilm%2Fimages%2FZZ79EABF11small.jpg&hash=ff04287a3fda522bfe56e8149a64debc952f100a)
Haha check out the lines around Yusuf's crotch.
Whoever made that is a genius.
That should come as an insert on the dvd. (Remember inserts?)
i like this one too
(SPOILS)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwegotthiscovered.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Finceptionexplained.jpg&hash=11e52d04ca800a685026c4c9d8e9ec630df6c963)
So, is the last one Cobb's dream or a shared state? Not that I particularly care for the movie, but still.
Quote from: picolas on July 27, 2010, 03:00:35 PM
i was referring to the moment saito interrupted cobb's spin.
i'm not going to spend any more time trying to compel you to enjoy this movie and/or accept the fact that other people enjoy analyzing it. just read P's reaction you seem to have skipped over.
fair enough, though i don't need you to compel me to accept the fact that other people enjoy analyzing it. i'm already sure they do and never claimed otherwise.
and i do enjoy this movie! lol i stated that a few times. my experience in the theatre ending at enjoyment was kind of my point.
Quote from: modage on July 27, 2010, 10:27:07 PM
^^ click "Quote" for details.
Also:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia2.slashfilm.com%2Fslashfilm%2Fimages%2FZZ79EABF11small.jpg&hash=ff04287a3fda522bfe56e8149a64debc952f100a)
this is a really cool poster, I've always dug this kind of schematic/airline help brochure aesthetic.
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on July 28, 2010, 04:29:59 AM
So, is the last one Cobb's dream or a shared state? Not that I particularly care for the movie, but still.
That's a very good question. I thought they were in Limbo when he meets with Mal, but that doesn't make any sense if you think about it. Do we ever see Limbo? Are there are any real consequences to Limbo?
Limbo is a blank slate unless one of the team has been there before, then it's based in the world they created while there.
SPOILERS
Pic's poster has it wrong. I still think "Level 1" is part of the dream. I think it's Miles' dream (maybe).
I'm also starting to think Ariadne is Nash.
Quote from: picolas on July 27, 2010, 10:04:26 PM
...and how the eff did you get the text to fade like that??
!
I cannot reveal all of my secrets...
My initial response was similar to Blackmirror's in that I think Inception was essentially about the moviewatching experience, and the Filmmaking experience, and the connection between them. Nolan takes his oppourtunity after the success of The Dark Night to write a great big thank you letter to Cinema and the Lover's of Cinema. He delivers to the audience everything we love; Big action with draw dropping effects, a touch of romance and drama, and as seen with pretty much everyone who's seen the movie, a debatable paradox. Was it all a dream? Was it all real? Oh, I'll never tell! People love this stuff, and Nolan wants knows it. I think the film, and it's ending, are not serious questions about the dreamstate or however you interpret it, but is about generating the exact response it's getting; audience members creating theories and meanings, blogging/posting/facebooking it, and getting excited to talk about movies again. Thus, any meaning from the film is created after the fact BY YOU THE AUDIENCE. Nolan gives enough evidence, some specific, some broad, to illicit many interpretations of the film, and really isn't that what every filmmaker is doing? Now, if this is Nolan's true intention it could be interpreted as just an ambiguous, hollow trick, and is really an insult to the audience. Personally I think it's beautiful that people I know aren't interested in movies beyond the summer blockbusters, are actually seriously considering the film, and that the conversation is going further than "cool" or "badass," and that they love doing it. People love talking about this film. These are the same people who loved Transformers, but never got past "And that one scene where the Robot fucked shit up!" or "Megan Fox is sooo hot i want to sex her" but here with Inception are creating and discussing their own ideas of what the film means. Although, I'll admit almost all these discussions are about whether it was all a dream or not, but still.
And Nolan didn't just make this film for us too. This is a very personal film, and not personal in the dealing with some sort of anguish way (which doesn't necessarily = personal, but come on, when described as personal that's what we generally think of), though he may or may not be using it to deal with some father issues. What I mean though is Christopher Nolan loves movies, and for him Inception is about his filmmaking career. The Mountain section really reminded me of Batman Begins, which is a somewhat interesting reversal for what was a training ground in that film, is the climax in this one. Other moments that I can't recall atm made me think of the Prestige and of Memento. Adrianne's first dream with Cobb really reminded me of Following. This could be because going into inception I know who Cristopher Nolan is and have seen his films, I can predict his storytelling style and connect it to his past films. It could also be these little kicks, if you will, are intentionally placed by Nolan because he want's to express that making the film's he has have been like a dream to him. He pays homage to himself not to be self indulgent, but to show his gratitude to everyone that has made his dreams come true, in the biggest film of hi career so far. It also What I really love, and what I feel legitimizes the film, is how original it is. For Nolan to really pay his respect's to his craft and to the audience, his Blockbuster of Blockbusters MUST be a completely original Idea. Inception wouldn't hold the weight it does (at least not in my mind, or in relation to my current reaction to it) if it had been a comic book adaption or a superhero franchise. No. This is a one time film, a one time event. Hopefully, as pointed out earlier, this will lead to more original, ambitious, stand alone films ideas to get made. But, also as pointed out, it probably won't. Oh well. We'll always have Inception, I guess.
In conclusion, Christopher Nolan mindfucked me.
Also, I just realized that Blackmirror didn't really say any of what I was saying, although I do agree with him mostly.
Oh No ! It's Happening!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hans Zimmer Extracts the Secrets of the 'Inception' Score
Source: NYTimes
Having systematically picked apart the critical arguments for and against Christopher Nolan's film "Inception" and the many possible meanings of that dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream caper, the Web this week went another level deeper on the movie by focusing on its music.
In recent days Internet denizens have gotten very excited about a viral video (posted above) that compares the Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien" to Hans Zimmer's score for the movie. When the video's pseudonymous author, camiam321, plays the key musical cue from that score – two ominous blares from a brass section – followed by a slowed-down version of the Piaf song (which the "Inception" characters play at regular speed as a warning to wake up from a dream state), they sound nearly identical.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Zimmer, a film composer and producer who won an Academy Award for his music for "The Lion King" and was nominated for films including "Rain Man" and "Gladiator," said the sonic similarity was not only intentional but the one element of an enigmatic movie "that wasn't supposed to be a secret."
Speaking of the viral video, Mr. Zimmer excitedly said, "I've seen it. I've seen it. I was surprised how long it took them to figure it out."
The musical cue, Mr. Zimmer said, "was our big signpost" in the film of its characters' moving from one level of dreaming (or reality) into another. "It was like a drawing of a huge finger," he said, "saying, O.K., different time."
Mr. Zimmer said the idea for this musical game began with Mr. Nolan, the film's director and writer.
"He had the Edith Piaf always written in the script, the 'da-da, da-da,'" he said, imitating the cadence of that song. "It was like huge foghorns over a city and afterward you would maybe figure out that they were related."
Technically, Mr. Zimmer said, his score is not a slowing-down of the French song, which was composed by Charles Dumont and recorded by Piaf in 1960, but is constructed from a single manipulated beat from it.
"I had to go and extract these two notes out of a recording," Mr. Zimmer said, using a little bit of "Inception" lingo. "I love technology, so it was a lot of fun for me to go and get the original master out of the French national archives. And then find some crazy scientist in France who would actually go and take that one cell out of the DNA."
"Just for the game of it," Mr. Zimmer said, "all the music in the score is subdivisions and multiplications of the tempo of the Edith Piaf track. So I could slip into half-time; I could slip into a third of a time. Anything could go anywhere. At any moment I could drop into a different level of time."
In this sense, the score is Mr. Zimmer's personal interpretation of "Inception," which many viewers have read as a commentary on the nebulous boundary between dreaming and reality.
"Everybody thinks the dream is the important part," Mr. Zimmer said. "For me, the time was the important part – the idea that, in a peculiar way, Chris had made a time-travel movie that actually worked."
Mr. Zimmer, who in 2008 was briefly excluded from an Oscar nomination for the score to "The Dark Knight" that was deemed to have too many composers (the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences eventually reversed itself and allowed him and a co-composer, James Newton Howard, to compete for the award), said he had no idea how awards bodies would react to his "Inception" score's incorporation of the Piaf track.
"I didn't use the song – I only used one note," Mr. Zimmer said. "But look, I so couldn't care less about awards. I know I'm not supposed to say this, but when you work with Chris Nolan, when you work on a movie like 'Inception,' it's for the adventure."
Quote from: OrHowILearnedTo on July 28, 2010, 02:47:07 PM
Oh No ! It's Happening!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, so it is!(my respects for figuring out the code, kind sir)
. . . if we are going to perform Inception then we need
imagination.
Quote from: blackmirror on July 28, 2010, 04:06:05 PM
Quote from: OrHowILearnedTo on July 28, 2010, 02:47:07 PM
Oh No ! It's Happening!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, so it is!
(my respects for figuring out the code, kind sir)
. . . if we are going to perform Inception then we need imagination.
Dude, as modage said, all anyone has to do is quote you to see how you did it.
the quoting does nawsing!!
unless people are actually okay with doing something that tedious.
http://patorjk.com/text-color-fader/ (http://patorjk.com/text-color-fader/)
I love black mirrors complicated posts!
Quote from: Stefen on July 28, 2010, 09:05:46 PM
I love black mirrors complicated posts!
Yeah me too with images and fading and whatnot. They are big budget. :yabbse-thumbup:
He's the Chris Nolan of posting. Or maybe the Zack Snyder. Haven't decided yet.
having now read everyone's theories and opinions..
i think it's enough to say that the dullest people on the board thought the film was dull, refusing to invest any imagination into the very real possibilities that the film offers, and that the most interesting people thought the film was interesting, themselves offering many thought provoking theories and proving that the ending is not cheap stupid silly nonsense but an invitation to make the dream real.
the only exceptions being GT and Samsong, who i believe may actually be smarter than Nolan.
Quote from: P on July 29, 2010, 09:18:43 AM
having now read everyone's theories and opinions..
i think it's enough to say that the dullest people on the board thought the film was dull, refusing to invest any imagination into the very real possibilities that the film offers, and that the most interesting people thought the film was interesting, themselves offering many thought provoking theories and proving that the ending is not cheap stupid silly nonsense but an invitation to make the dream real.
the only exceptions being GT and Samsong, who i believe may actually be smarter than Nolan.
awesome, the popularity game is back! pick me pick me. why do you always pick fights with the least amount of blowback? samgsong and GT you get in the clubhouse don't worry! lol. it all looks like you don't give a shit and will say anything, but really it's calculated, xixax old boys club minded and... safe.
now please tell me how your bait worked so well on me.
i don't think the movie was dull at all, i just think it's easy and cliched and should be seen as nothing more than a entertaining picture. it's true i'm not investing any imagination into this picture, cuz it's not as creative as everyone says it is once you get through the facade. i guess in ten years when the next action movie that has a "is this all real?" subtext comes out the same fanboy jizz in my pants reaction will apply.
sorry i don't get a hard on walking out of the theatre and post outlandish claims calling it the best this-and-that of cinema (which one such claim was appropriately and astutely challenged by pete a few posts later). truthfully, it will devalue the broad impact of your opinions in the end because you're just short-sighted gushing... cut to Avatar thread.
American Cinematographer article (http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/July2010/Inception/page1.php)
Quote from: Ravi on July 29, 2010, 11:20:53 AM
American Cinematographer article (http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/July2010/Inception/page1.php)
Fantastic article! Thanks, Ravi!
"The underlying idea is that dreams feel real while we're in them, which is actually a line in the film," says Nolan, speaking to AC after the production wrapped. "That was important to the photography and to every aspect of the film. We didn't want to have dream sequences with any superfluous surrealism. We didn't want them to have any less validity than what is specified as being the real world. So we took the approach of trying to make them feel real."
(marquee says NOTHING GREAT IS REAL)
Quote from: modage on July 29, 2010, 12:29:54 PM
"The underlying idea is that dreams feel real while we're in them, which is actually a line in the film," says Nolan, speaking to AC after the production wrapped. "That was important to the photography and to every aspect of the film. We didn't want to have dream sequences with any superfluous surrealism. We didn't want them to have any less validity than what is specified as being the real world. So we took the approach of trying to make them feel real."
Yea, but for me, one of the amazing aspects of dreams is that they always start out very realistic but turn out to be surrealistic. While we're in them, we accept the changes wholeheartedly because we are drunk with interest in what we're witnessing. Dreams change our perception possibilities. The more I think about Nolan's dream concepts, the more I think he was operating on a convenience level for what he needed to make his elaborate plot work out. Some people argue he is still discerning about dream ideas and I can't fully disagree with them yet since I still just have the memory of the one viewing.
Going back to my original idea that the film should have begun from the objective of the relationship and gone from there, it could have made surrealism more possible by making the reality with his wife so uncertain. They could have had a rocky relationship and DiCaprio could have not known what was real with her or wasn't. Since all bad relationships start with need for the lie, his road to the truth of her memory could have been a dance with idealization over reality and it could be utilized to continue to examine more points of their relationship.
It could have also played with the physical reality if where they lived used to be concrete and whole when they were together but somehow became war torn since she died. Parts of the city would be whole and parts would not be and DiCaprio's character could live for the memory of all the places he cared about that once were but no longer are at all. Mix in some rational ideas of how environments can change in real time and make Nolan rely less on special effects and more on illusion and he could make a film where the audience is less certain about what is real and what isn't. DiCaprio's memory would be with him everywhere so he would see his environment with a different lens anyways. The audience would be confused since they were witnessing his perspective. Towards the end in Inception, you see dreams breakdown by things falling apart literally. It's too obvious of a metaphor. This and other special effects is what makes the film less penetrating to my emotional core. It also what makes me think the action sequences will stand out by the end.
I admire the film and Nolan for trying, and it kept me entertained, but there are some issues I have with this, and I think they will only get worse when I see it again, just like what happened with The Dark Knight.
First of all, for a movie that challenges conventions, or so it seems that's what people are saying, there's a shitload of expository dialogue explaining everything that's going to happen, except, of course, when it's not convenient for us to know ahead of time. Right from the start, we know that there are people trained to defend themselves from dream invaders but for some reason, when it turns out that Fischer was trained in dream defense or whatever thay call it, well, Arthur just says "oh, my bad!" and everything proceeds as normal, as if it wasn't, like THE FIRST THING ANYONE IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD DO. I mean, were the guys in the dream be loaded with guns if they didn't think there was a possibility that they could die and never wake up? Well, a couple of rushed lines of dialogue and a guy who desperately needs to get back to his kids should answer that. This is just an example of a moment in the movie when I felt like I was being treated as if I was 5 years old, which was disappointing in a movie with such clever ideas.
But to me, the most serious issue I have with it is the way Nolan compromises some potentially great action sequences by cutting too much. I mean, for a movie that was first presented as something that took place in the architecture of the mind, or something like that, its sense of space frustrated me as well. The fight in the hotel would have been the best action sequence of the year, if only we were able to look at a shot for more than 2 seconds to really appreciate it. Nolan has been doing this since Batman Begins, when it comes to shoot action, and there is absolutelly no sense of what's going on in some scenes. Ditto for the whole snoe dream, which seemed quite generic in its scenes, and could be shot by either Michael Bay or Chris Nolan. Nothing in that whole sequence captivated me the least.
The final 15 minutes or so, however, were quite good in my opinion. I really like DiCaprio and loved the whole thing Cobb had with his wife. I thought the ending was quite powerfull and saved the movie to me. As for the last shot, I have to say I don't really see the problem in it. It can make you question the whole movie, it can make you question only if Cobb is dreaming a life with his kids, or if it's all real or not. To me, like for instance in Shutter Island, each and every movie that has the balls to be so ambiguous these days when everybody needs everything so chewed and ready to eat, deserves all my recognition. Even if in this case everything else feels kind of rushed and sometimes (and I reinforce sometimes) feels, I must say, like any other blockbuster around.
Oh, another thing, does Zimmer really need to use music in almost every fucking scene? It all felt like a monotonous tone that sometimes pissed me off. I hate to be in this position, but it seems like Nolan's most acclaimed movies, his last two, are my least favourite, but that's the way it goes. I may not hate Inception at all, but I also don't see why it's getting as much credit as it is.
I was listening to an a/v podcast on this movie and they brought up an interesting point, that as fun/frustrating as it might be to debate the ending, ultimately it doesn't really matter because it doesn't seem to matter for Cobb. Remember he spins the totem but walks away and never looks back.
Panda I'll agree with you on some of the action. I hate it when action scenes are shot in hand-held close-up as many of Nolan's fights are. I guess only so many directors know how to do fights in masters without cutting every 2 seconds.
Quote from: ©brad on July 30, 2010, 10:00:26 AM
I was listening to an a/v podcast on this movie and they brought up an interesting point, that as fun/frustrating as it might be to debate the ending, ultimately it doesn't really matter because it doesn't seem to matter for Cobb. Remember he spins the totem but walks away and never looks back.
This is the main thing that I picked up on when watching it. I was surprised that the camera even shows the totem again, because I thought the real ending was that Cobb's obsessive checking of reality didn't matter anymore; he was finally with his kids.
Quote from: matt35mm on July 30, 2010, 02:09:07 PM
Quote from: ©brad on July 30, 2010, 10:00:26 AM
I was listening to an a/v podcast on this movie and they brought up an interesting point, that as fun/frustrating as it might be to debate the ending, ultimately it doesn't really matter because it doesn't seem to matter for Cobb. Remember he spins the totem but walks away and never looks back.
This is the main thing that I picked up on when watching it. I was surprised that the camera even shows the totem again, because I thought the real ending was that Cobb's obsessive checking of reality didn't matter anymore; he was finally with his kids.
Yes. This is what I wanted to say when I commented upon the ending but didn't. Despite my problems with Inception, that final shot really worked for me.
SPOILS OF COURSEThis is fantastic on IMAX, so glad I could wait.
First of all I love Nolan's film craft, along with Fincher right now he's the best at merging real awesome sets and cgi, all his shots are flawless.
Quote from: blackmirror on July 18, 2010, 10:34:59 AM
Cobb's children did not age when they reunite, which hints to the possibility that we remain in a dream. Cobb repeatedly asserts the notion of planting the seed of an idea deep into the subconscious to take root for its purpose to take effect. If this is all a dream, imagine how deep Cobb has descended.
more than the lack of aging, they are wearing the same clothes, and to me when he entered that room and looked exactly like he remembered that meant he was still dreaming, even the day light was the same.
To me is crystal clear that the final scene is a dream, since he once said in the film that he needed to reconstruct that image of him seeing his kids, and by having seen their faces a huge weight will be lift off him and all that regret of not seeing them at moment will be gone, this imo will lead to a path of waking up.
Quote from: ©brad on July 30, 2010, 10:00:26 AM
I was listening to an a/v podcast on this movie and they brought up an interesting point, that as fun/frustrating as it might be to debate the ending, ultimately it doesn't really matter because it doesn't seem to matter for Cobb. Remember he spins the totem but walks away and never looks back.
But he doesn't have a chance to wait and see for himself as he is timely interrupted by his father, so he directs his attention to him and finally seeing the faces of his children.
In conclusion, Nolan's dreams are better than mine (so far). btw, I dreamt that after the final shot there was another scene, Cobb was trying to escape and he was on a building that started to separate from the city ( it was going up), cars that were parked around it started to fall, then the damn alarm clock went off.
Saw it on IMAX. So far the best IMAX experience i've had. Enjoyed the hell out of it, maybe it's too soon to say masterpiece, but it's amazing for sure. i don't care to endlessly discuss the possibilities or theories regarding the story and ending. I like that they are there, and that people are discussing it, but I don't really care that much about it. What I loved is that the film carefully incepts the viewers with the very same idea that the main characters are probably incepted with. So we as an audience share this experience with them in a kind of metaphysic way.
In any case, the film is beautifully executed from start to finish and demands, just like Memento, that the audience really makes an effort and gets involved to follow just the basic story of what's going on. I didn't find the ending insulting at all, or empty, it's the perfect ending for the world the film has created and an inspired act of showmanship from Nolan. Literally the entire theatre roared with complicity when the screen went to black. Great move. great film.
This made me chuckle,
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1939332
cobb's therapist, that's a good one.
that video is funny and it illustrates better than anything how skillful Nolan and everyone involved were to make that industrial amount of total nonsense into an exciting, coherent, logical and emotionally involving experience in the cinema. This is why I don't care about what's a dream or not, or the different sets of rules or whatever. It's frustratingly futile. More than anything, I'm pretty sure it all makes perfect sense in the end.
I know the whole pixar trailer mash-up is played out, but I still enjoyed this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY69-AgUmDQ&feature=player_embedded).
http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?s=date&loc=D2002-033
Quote from: pete on August 03, 2010, 08:01:46 PM
http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?s=date&loc=D2002-033
You just blew my mind. Thank you.
Quote from: pete on August 03, 2010, 08:01:46 PM
http://disneycomics.free.fr/Ducks/Rosa/show.php?s=date&loc=D2002-033
holy fuck.
that was seriously great.
*spoilers for that Scrooge McDuck comic*
i'm sure there are lots of stories that somehow echo the concepts in Inception but this has to be one of the best. there are so many similarities i wonder not that Nolan got some ideas from it but that there must be an original source (intuition? common sense?) from which both stories derived some of their rules. especially mind blowing is the use of THE KICK, and the fulfilment of scrooge's lifelong desire to be with that broad (in a setting so similar i almost feel it MUST be an influence).
the fact that the ending is so similar justifies the ending of Inception by showing it from a different angle, this time from the perspective of us, the participant/observers. not that the ending needs any further justification, but the way that Donald and crew walk away from the dreamer (scrooge) is essentially similar to the way Cobb leaves behind the spinning totem and the way that WE as viewers leave the cinema/totem as well. the image of the totem in the final shot is no longer to function as the way the film itself has described but rather as a visualisation of the process of dreaming, made explicit by Cobb's illustration to Ariadne when explaining the basics, which is about to end. the common dream shared by us and cobb, as well as us and the co-viewers, dissolves AND continues.
*END SPOILERS*
for anyone wanting any context. the comic precedes Inception by about 8 years. it was written by Don Rosa, whose long contribution to disney comics can be seen in the directory from which this comic is taken. wikipedia tells us that his story is kind of tragic (so far), in that he has had to retire from writing and illustrating comics due to increasing vision impairment, and that he has never got any money from Disney's redistribution of his work and use of his name to promote their wares. such a shame, i've never heard of the guy before now but if this thing goes viral (i'm thinking that if it's being posted here it already has), then it could just be the final bittersweet tribute/insult to this unheralded living legend.
I can't imagine Chris Nolan spent a lot of time in the early 2000s reading Scrooge McDuck comics, but he and Rosa were clearly filling their cups from the same faucet of the collective unconscious. Of all the cool things that have sprung up of and about Inception since it came out, this to me is the coolest.
donald duck has a mom?
she died young or something?
damn.
Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_26?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=life+and+times+of+scrooge+mcduck&x=0&y=0&sprefix=life+and+times+of+scrooge+&ih=20_5_2_2_2_0_0_0_0_1.22_175&fsc=23)
Forgive the hyperbole, please.
I grew up with this, but reread it a couple of years ago and it's wonderfully moving. Rosa tells the story of Mcduck as a Kane and places him in a hilariously detailed environment, peopled like an Altman or a Tati (gags are allowed to develop in the background, enriching the world and without distracting from the plot, like the Jessie James gun-gag in the one posted above).
It's got a Proustian thing going with Scrooges intense yearning for his childhood, and how he only lives for his memories because no one really knows him.
A recommended read for everyone who liked the excerpt linked to above.
admin edit: fixed link
I haven't seen this yet and it's killin me! I'm one of those horrible "can't go to a movie alone" types. Missed my opportunity at a midnight showing with close friends when it was first released. But based on the peeking through one eye approach to this thead, looks like I need to get out and see it anyway.
Quote from: pete on August 06, 2010, 12:34:08 AM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F28.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_l6i9qzWBG11qznvdro1_500.jpg&hash=c4ceb8078ca84086f2d89f850d90990cdcc4e1c8)
☼ Random IMAGES thread ☼ did it. (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=10564.msg294855#msg294855)
http://9gag.com/full/31323
I'm waxing philosophical today, and riding a tremendous wave; so please be warned – not so much regarding Inception spoilers, but the following post may contain spoilers that unleash the mysteries of the universe...♪ A man has dreams of walking with giants
To carve his name in the edifice of time ♪
For the daunting, elaborate purpose of establishing this as Xixax's premiere thread of all things meta, while not abandoning the concepts fostered within Inception's realm, we shall proceed. It is decade two of century 21, and everything of the past ten years shall now be forgone – utterly reverential – as we move forward along the space-time continuum that reclaims its elements, taking you away bit by bit. And how I must rhapsodize how fast you folks catch on! I read with wonderment as I happened upon pete's Scrooge McDuck post, followed by Mr. P's analysis (perhaps that ties into the lucid lyrics introducing this post). Essentially this post is about storytelling, and the place our minds go to create the tales that entertain. I'll demonstrate as I tap into a neuron tucked deep within my imagination (Imagination, imagination, imagination! It sustains, it alters, it redeems!):
You can see a spray of billions of stars across the heavens each night, and think nothing of their wonder. You can sit on the beach before an ocean stretched out to the razor edge of the horizon, and be more concerned with the sand that has gotten between your ham on rye than with the majesty of the seas. It is human nature to take the most magical of worlds for granted, turning each one into black canvas passing upon the chance to paint the lives of those who would live there.(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg12.imageshack.us%2Fimg12%2F82%2Fstarsrh.jpg&hash=7c897a00b0e31019581ddcd4dbd1e78d1060e7f4)
Now let's return to this thread, as we resume its evolution. Indeed the illumination is transpiring. In Saul Bellow's 1964 novel, Herzog (http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1580/herzog.jpg), he proclaimed the main enterprise of the world, for splendor, is that every man should be open to ecstasy or a divine illumination. And here we are 46 years later. Something is catching up, or maybe beamed into our consciousness from afar. Mr. Bellow tells us, "It may interest you to know that in the twentieth century random association is believed to yield up the deepest secret of the psyche." Enter Stephen King. Mr. King is one who believes that everything in this world, not just the people, but our books, stories, ideas, etc., are interconnected and cogent to a higher manifestation. Everything imagined or created by the human mind exists, existed, or will exist somewhere in the universe. The point is that the story never ends and all stories are connected because they come from the same matter that makes up writing mechanisms. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, he called it the "star stuff" between our ears. So did Mr. Nolan borrow from Mr. Rosa? Until Mr. Nolan addresses it, we will never know – and I doubt we ever will. However, the enlightenment gained from the striking comparisons soundly confirm the ideas of Mr. King and Mr. Sagan that our creativity originates within the confines of an ever-expanding dimension. Even Mr. Bellow notes, "Think! Demographers estimate that at least half of all the human beings ever born are alive now, in this century. What a moment for the human soul!" He explains that once upon a time that the earth and the planets were sucked from the sun by a passing star. And in those worlds life appeared, and within that life such as we – souls. Yet, right now is when living souls have been most abundant. (Just imagine the amount of dreams produced from this populace!) Mr. Bellow declares we live in a post-quixotic, post-Copernican world, where a mind freely poised in space might discover relationships utterly unsuspected by a 16
th century man (
Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with God (http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/9503/copernicus.jpg)) sealed in his smaller universe. There lay man's 21
st century advantage. Only in nine tenths of his existence he was exactly what others were before him. The other tenth is absolutely modern, with one foot into the future. Our planet has billions of passengers on it, and those were preceded by infinite billions and there are vaster billions to come. It's also worth noting that 20
th Century physicist and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, solidified Mr. Bellow's view in his book The Future of Man (http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/4360/omega.jpg) where the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of complexity and consciousness. The maximum level of its transcendence is the Omega Point.
"The more complex a being is, so our Scale of Complexity tells us, the more it is centered upon itself and therefore the more aware does it become. In other words, the higher the degree of complexity in a living creature, the higher its consciousness; and vice versa. The two properties vary in parallel and simultaneously. If we depict them in diagrammatic form, they are equivalent and interchangeable."
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man
, p. 111I believe Mr. Nolan is constituting these ideas of complexity and progressive consciousness within Inception, yet in reverse, as his characters descend into subconsciousness kick after kick rather than transcend into autonomous space and time. And so, I refer back to Mr. King whom ventures into the astral, endeavoring to bridge the gaps that allow our minds to jump time, and tap into the "star stuff", perhaps paving the way to the Omega Point. He shares insightful glances into the realm of the subconscious in his book On Writing . . .
So let's assume that you're in your favorite receiving place just as I am in the place where I do my best transmitting. We'll have to perform our mentalist routine not just over distance but over time as well, yet that presents no real problem; if we can still read Dickens, Shakespeare, and (with the help of a footnote or two) Herodotus, I think we can manage the time gap. And here we go -- actual telepathy in action. You'll notice I have nothing up my sleeves and that my lips never move. Neither, most likely, do yours.
Look -- here's a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg299.imageshack.us%2Fimg299%2F6996%2Frabbitr.jpg&hash=f2bf7d07f59cabb289138587c2da96e9f86ae076)
Do we see the same thing? We'd have to get together and compare notes to make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary variations, of course: some receivers will see a cloth that is turkey red, some will see one that's scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To colorblind receivers, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and welcome -- my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out.
The most interesting thing here isn't even the carrot-munching rabbit in the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-five. It's an eight. This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room...except we are together.
We're close.
We're having a meeting of the minds.
I sent you a table with a red cloth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We've engaged in an act of telepathy. Not mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy. I'm not going to belabor the point, but before we go any further you have to understand that I'm not trying to be cute; there is a point to be made.###
I would even challenge Mr. King's depiction between telepathy and writing as limited, and refer him to Upton Sinclair's personal research on the subject in his book Mental Radio (http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/8995/mentalradio.jpg) that details his wife's documented psychic abilities. It is a fascinating read, especially given Albert Einstein's recognition of the unthinkable's prevalence, as he writes in the preface of the book. Nonetheless, Mr. King tells us there is a point to be made, and that point is that the stream always continues and connects us to a larger, shared, unseen existence. Enter Christopher Nolan. The magnitude of Inception captures the space and time our modern world spins.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg706.imageshack.us%2Fimg706%2F7167%2Ftopai.jpg&hash=9360301fcc7c95bdad4918aa1fe13d68816a5dee)
And it captures the
imagination. Quoting Mr. Bellow once more, "the career of our specie is evidence that one imagination after another grows literal. All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically: imagination. It is a force of nature. It is enough to make a person full of ecstasy." I predict Mr. Nolan's film (along with the collection of his films this past decade) will bridge a general philosophical gap between the 20
th and 21
st Centuries regarding our present human condition of existence and its course into the future. If so, I believe Mssrs. Bellow and Teilhard de Chardin would applaud Mr. Nolan's talent of proving the human intellect as one of the great forces of the universe, as well as raising the modern collective consciousness. Mr. Bellow claims that intellect cannot safely remain unused -- the boredom of so many human arrangements has the historical aim of freeing the intellect of newer generations, sending them into science. But a terrible loneliness throughout life is simply the plankton on which the Leviathan feeds. The soul requires intensity. Mr. Nolan does indeed passionately inject intense, thoughtful ideas into his films, eradicating boredom, and has shaped a post-modern trajectory into the new decade. With Inception, he takes it a step further and weaves our psyches into the telepathic territory of dreams – layer upon layer. Most important is that his films represent a notion of the mystical
1, that all stories/characters/experiences are connected to the larger sphere, generating from that one true source -- the "star stuff". This is how I account for the viral breakout calling attention to the overlaps and similarities of Inception to Shutter Island, The Matrix, Alice in Wonderland, the Edith Piaf soundtrack sample (as well as the real world within fantasy world fusion of Mal's Marion Cotillard's Academy Award winning performance as Ms. Piaf (http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4765/edithe.jpg)), and now Scrooge McDuck – which takes on a deeper context when considering Mr. Rosa's history reflected upon the character of Scrooge McDuck and his Inception-style capers. This list will continue to grow authenticating the whim that the creative realm knows no bounds – it is infinite with endless possibilities taking on forms both curious and mysterious. As I conclude, I realize not much was discussed regarding the plotline of Inception. Rather, it was commentary to shed light on the greater realm of storytelling and Mr. Nolan's films' fit within a metaphysical plane. I believe there is interconnection, in all its mysteriousness. And I believe it is going to appear more frequent and rampant as this century progresses. Call it déjà vu, telepathy, precognition, tapping the unknown, our transfiguration towards the Omega Point, whatever, I believe it exists, and Inception certainly qualifies as an example of this phenomenon. My intent behind this post was to approach the discussion of this movie from another angle, which I hope I have achieved and have provided new meaning. If not (I apologize) and if it fried your brain (I doubly apologize), as its nearly done to mine, you can join me for a drink (virtually, subconsciously, telepathically – whatever floats your boat) as I dwell on my selections for my next Xixax mixtape exchange submission which I am tentatively entitling "Cloud Cuckoo Land".
♪ and this all feels like spinning plates ♪
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1Not the "Mythy-Mountain shit" kind of mysticism that Mr. King alludes, but the kind which attests that within the labyrinth of our inner mind rests the answers to the universe.
tl;dr :)
yes! finally i get to use this..
Quote from: cine on March 03, 2007, 02:47:06 AM
hey pubrick blackmirror george clooney, maybe stop posting your personal thoughts.
I hereby nominate blackmirror as newb of the year.
What a post!
Quote from: P on August 10, 2010, 06:11:30 AM
yes! finally i get to use this..
Quote from: cine on March 03, 2007, 02:47:06 AM
hey pubrick blackmirror george clooney, maybe stop posting your personal thoughts.
and now blackmirror shukes himself
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kittyridge.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F03%2FPoo-Barf-Emoticon-30-by-60.gif&hash=d8861bd619e1ba0489eb4b7aa7309c6940462a60)
Let's not overlook how nicely presented the post is, though.
♪ Before the mortar of his zeal, has a chance to congeal
The cup is dashed from his lips
The flame is snuffed aborning
He's brought to rack and ruin in his prime ♪
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg805.imageshack.us%2Fimg805%2F41%2Ftopse.jpg&hash=ed4f4c285cd775a724b880a3cac56ebc983f32b1)
I love looking at blackmirrors posts!
Saul Bellow would not like Inception.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg530.imageshack.us%2Fimg530%2F6103%2Fincept.jpg&hash=1314e5d4999927ae8d644c639f2d655b5cb77e92)
Haha that is a pretty big plot hole.
Mike Cane!
Michael "Mondo" Cane, we used to call him back in Camberwell. What a tosser.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg690.imageshack.us%2Fimg690%2F8197%2Fincept2.jpg&hash=815e3f1eb2198cda72e5a4ed5ce0c3c62eafd37a)
It's like the Shawshank Redemption when you wonder how he put the poster back up after he escaped.
EDIT: Next page? Seriously? Come on.
OH SHIT, HOW DID HE DO THAT!?
it was only attached at the top. he crawled under the bottom. this is clearly shown during the explanation-montage where he's chipping away underneath the poster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUhZuEtYWSo#t=6m19s
ps. i love universe spoilers.
this is the most confusing thread ever.
i guess when i finally see this movie it might make sense then?!?!
Quote from: Gamblour. on August 10, 2010, 07:42:50 PM
Haha that is a pretty big plot hole.
no, it's not.
His dad can't just kidnap the kids and take them to another country. He wouldn't even be able to get them on a plane without some kind of consent. The whole point is that the legal issue was going to be taken care of for him. If he took his kids from the US, he would have been hunted down even more.
Also, it doesn't matter since seeing his kids again is all in his mind and has nothing to do with the US v France.
Quote from: picolas on August 10, 2010, 10:02:27 PM
ps. i love universe spoilers.
!
One more for you: it ends in a
twist!Quote from: jtm on August 11, 2010, 02:10:47 AM
this is the most confusing thread ever.
Curiouser and curiouser.Quote from: jtm on August 11, 2010, 02:10:47 AM
i guess when i finally see this movie it might make sense then?!?!
jtm, if I were in your neck of the woods, I'd tell you to grab your hat, and we'd go catch it. In fact, I'd round all of you up to go see it again. One last hurrah before summer 2O1O vanishes . . .
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Quote from: RegularKarate on August 11, 2010, 12:25:18 PM
Quote from: Gamblour. on August 10, 2010, 07:42:50 PM
Haha that is a pretty big plot hole.
no, it's not.
His dad can't just kidnap the kids and take them to another country. He wouldn't even be able to get them on a plane without some kind of consent. The whole point is that the legal issue was going to be taken care of for him. If he took his kids from the US, he would have been hunted down even more.
Also, it doesn't matter since seeing his kids again is all in his mind and has nothing to do with the US v France.
now you're making up legal complications.
Michael Caine DEFINITIVELY explains how Inception really ended
Source: SfyFy
If you're still trying to figure out that ending to Inception, you don't have to figure any more. Because the answer's out, from someone who should know—Michael Caine, who portrayed Leonardo DiCaprio's mentor and father-in-law in Christopher Nolan's mind-bending movie.
During an interview on BBC Radio 1 this morning, Caine was discussing his autobiography The Elephant to Hollywood, and the conversation came around to Inception's cryptic ending. (Hey, if YOU had him in the studio, wouldn't you bring it up?)
Asked whether DiCaprio's character Cobb made it home, or ended up trapped in a dream, Caine replied (and you'd better stop now if you really don't want to know):
"It's real life. ... If I'm in the scene then it's real. I'm never in the dreams."
Apparently, that's not only what Caine felt, but what Nolan intended to convey
That's probably just what Nolan told him, so he wouldn't try to play it as "crazy dream Michael Caine."
Nolan wouldn't lie to Caine. He's Mike fucking Caine.
It's all Michael Caine's dream.
And overrated.
Quote from: Stefen on September 30, 2010, 02:57:02 PM
Nolan wouldn't lie to Caine. He's Mike fucking Caine.
On the commentary track to the movie Sphere (yes, I've listened to the commentary track for Sphere... yes, I own the DVD of Sphere, deal with it), Sam Jackson talks about how, for the scene in which he first encounters the titular sphere, he was told that it was going to be silver, but the special effects people later decided to make it gold instead. What we see on screen, Sam Jackson explained, is his silver sphere performance. His
gold sphere performance would have been totally different.
I've never been able to figure out if he was kidding or not, but I know this; Michael Caine would not kid about that. He would have a gold sphere performance, a silver sphere performance, and a rainbow sphere performance in his back pocket just in case. If you tell Michael Caine that the scene is taking place in a dream, goddamnit, he's going to give you a this-is-a-dream performance. Chris Nolan is a smart guy. He knows how to handle a Michael Caine.
Quote from: polkablues on September 30, 2010, 05:25:22 PM
Quote from: Stefen on September 30, 2010, 02:57:02 PM
Nolan wouldn't lie to Caine. He's Mike fucking Caine.
On the commentary track to the movie Sphere (yes, I've listened to the commentary track for Sphere... yes, I own the DVD of Sphere, deal with it), Sam Jackson talks about how, for the scene in which he first encounters the titular sphere, he was told that it was going to be silver, but the special effects people later decided to make it gold instead. What we see on screen, Sam Jackson explained, is his silver sphere performance. His gold sphere performance would have been totally different.
I've never been able to figure out if he was kidding or not, but I know this; Michael Caine would not kid about that. He would have a gold sphere performance, a silver sphere performance, and a rainbow sphere performance in his back pocket just in case. If you tell Michael Caine that the scene is taking place in a dream, goddamnit, he's going to give you a this-is-a-dream performance. Chris Nolan is a smart guy. He knows how to handle a Michael Caine.
Haha sweet post, totally agree.
To me it is an absolutely certain that the end means one of two things:
1: It's a dream.
2: We can choose what we want.
For Michael Caine to say that Nolan wanted to convey that this is absolutely real life makes no sense. It's just obvious that he told Caine that so he could have a certain performance.
This is absolute proof that it was a dream.
Quote from: matt35mm on September 30, 2010, 06:05:50 PM
This is absolute proof that it was a dream.
Yeah I would almost say so too.
Quote from: Pas on September 30, 2010, 05:56:44 PM
To me it is an absolutely certain that the end means one of two things:
1: It's a dream.
2: We can choose what we want.
This could be said about any movie ever.
It was never meant to be a dream and Nolan probably thinks you're all giant dorks for thinking that it was and also wishes that you were never born.
Quote from: // w ø l r å s on October 01, 2010, 12:03:25 AM
Quote from: Pas on September 30, 2010, 05:56:44 PM
To me it is an absolutely certain that the end means one of two things:
1: It's a dream.
2: We can choose what we want.
This could be said about any movie ever.
It would be idiotic to say it about every movie ever.
This particular film asks us to consider the question of whether it's a dream as it is central to its themes.
Raging Bull does not.
Quote from: // w ø l r å s on October 01, 2010, 12:03:25 AM
Quote from: Pas on September 30, 2010, 05:56:44 PM
To me it is an absolutely certain that the end means one of two things:
1: It's a dream.
2: We can choose what we want.
This could be said about any movie ever.
Haha most pathetic attempt at
using a brain being a troll ever.
too bad Gandhi's ending wasn't a dream, that was a nice guy
I like to imagine Walrus posts from an alternative universe where people don't have the concept of fiction, so at the end of every film, the main character wakes up and says, "Phew! it was all a dream." Credits.
I wasn't trolling I was making a joke that Gamblour vaguely alluded to (though it's not some sort of alternate dimension, it was just a jocular statement.)
If you choose what you want, then you can choose it was a dream or not. If it's strictly a dream, then why would it be up for interpretation? But even then, the intended humor was in that every movie is in and of itself a dream state that your brain is left to make sense of.
I'm glad that Gandhi and Raging Bull were cross referenced to prove how thoroughly you guys can only read your own jokes on Xixax and take everything else too literally.
this thread still rambling on is a dream.......the bumpin threads of The Master & Tree of Life is real life.
Quote from: // w ø l r å s on October 01, 2010, 12:36:00 PM
I wasn't trolling I was making a joke
You're always/often making these one-liner jabs and this one felt particularly weak, the counter was too tempting. So, my apologies if it was meant as a joke. I fail to understand it, but whatever.
Quote from: Pas on October 01, 2010, 01:30:34 PM
Quote from: // w ø l r å s on October 01, 2010, 12:36:00 PM
I wasn't trolling I was making a joke
You're always/often making these one-liner jabs and this one felt particularly weak...
Quote from: // w ø l r å s on October 01, 2010, 12:03:25 AM
This could be said about any movie ever Pozer.
Quote from: Pas on October 01, 2010, 01:30:34 PM
Quote from: // w ø l r å s on October 01, 2010, 12:36:00 PM
I wasn't trolling I was making a joke
You're always/often making these one-liner jabs and this one felt particularly weak, the counter was too tempting. So, my apologies if it was meant as a joke. I fail to understand it, but whatever.
Dude, I like you. I wasn't trying to antagonize you. If you fail to understand it, you're overthinking it.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashfilm.com%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fimages%2FZZ053CACCA.jpg&hash=a390830c97a2fc18594f15c492cea9faf0aa2cb4)
Awesome alternate unseen Inception poster REVEALED
Source: SyFy
Turns out the posters we saw in theaters and online for Christopher Nolan's Inception might not have been the best of them. Because an awesome unused poster just popped up that might convey the film's dizzying dreamworld better than any we've seen yet.
Check it out below and let us know if you agree.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblastr.com%2Fassets_c%2F2010%2F11%2FAlternateInceptionPoster112410-thumb-550x815-52143.jpg&hash=03d1edcdeea51156cf2ef1c05e046d4aa9ce84f5)
that is the best poster, i bet they used it in europe. NA and commenwealth countries suck in this department.
Quotemore than the lack of aging, they are wearing the same clothes, and to me when he entered that room and looked exactly like he remembered that meant he was still dreaming, even the day light was the same.
To me is crystal clear that the final scene is a dream, since he once said in the film that he needed to reconstruct that image of him seeing his kids, and by having seen their faces a huge weight will be lift off him and all that regret of not seeing them at moment will be gone, this imo will lead to a path of waking up.
I know that this topic is pretty old, and most things have (probably) been laid to rest concerning theories on Inception's ending, but this post by Fernando prompted me to share an article I came across awhile ago regarding the film.
Nolan's costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, gave an interview this past July talking about various aspects in creating the film. The inevitable question of the ending came up, and Kurland was pretty definitive on certain aspects, such as the children's clothing.
QuoteCOF: How much does costume reflect the inner machinations of the plot, particularly in a film such as Inception? For example, Cobb's children are wearing the same clothes at the end of the story as they are in his dream 'memory' throughout the film. Is there something to be interpreted here?
JK: Costume design reflects greatly on the movement of the plot, most significantly through character development. Character development is at the forefront of costume design. The characters move the story along and with the director and the actor the costume designer helps to set the film's emotional tone in a visual way. In a more physical sense the costumes' style and color help to keep the story on track, keeping a check on time and place.
On to the second part of your question, the children's clothing is different in the final scene... look again...
Forgot to add the link, and tried to edit my original post but to no avail; wouldn't Save.
http://clothesonfilm.com/inception-jeffrey-kurland-costume-qa/14317/
Quote from: MarxFischer on January 22, 2011, 09:26:29 AM
Quotemore than the lack of aging, they are wearing the same clothes, and to me when he entered that room and looked exactly like he remembered that meant he was still dreaming, even the day light was the same.
To me is crystal clear that the final scene is a dream, since he once said in the film that he needed to reconstruct that image of him seeing his kids, and by having seen their faces a huge weight will be lift off him and all that regret of not seeing them at moment will be gone, this imo will lead to a path of waking up.
I know that this topic is pretty old, and most things have (probably) been laid to rest concerning theories on Inception's ending, but this post by Fernando prompted me to share an article I came across awhile ago regarding the film.
Nolan's costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, gave an interview this past July talking about various aspects in creating the film. The inevitable question of the ending came up, and Kurland was pretty definitive on certain aspects, such as the children's clothing.
QuoteCOF: How much does costume reflect the inner machinations of the plot, particularly in a film such as Inception? For example, Cobb's children are wearing the same clothes at the end of the story as they are in his dream 'memory' throughout the film. Is there something to be interpreted here?
JK: Costume design reflects greatly on the movement of the plot, most significantly through character development. Character development is at the forefront of costume design. The characters move the story along and with the director and the actor the costume designer helps to set the film's emotional tone in a visual way. In a more physical sense the costumes' style and color help to keep the story on track, keeping a check on time and place.
On to the second part of your question, the children's clothing is different in the final scene... look again...
Thanks for that Marx. Has anyone with the dvd gone back to see how different the clothes are?
i did actually and yes, they're different but I had to look a few times the scenes from his children in the beginning and that final shot, the clothes look the same to the untrained eye but they do have a subtle variation only discernible to an acute observer that reflect the many moods, the many shades, the many sides of Cobb's children.
having said that, im sticking with my interpretation.
This is a pretty long video, but it's worth a watch. Great interpretations on Inception. Akin to Rob Ager's stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ginQNMiRu2w
That was interesting. I wish I had my own nerd to explain everything for me.
I want to slip a Valium into that guy's drink, but his energy levels notwithstanding, he makes a few interesting points that I hadn't heard before. Especially the bit about the nature of the totems and how Cobb's top doesn't really make sense as one.
What intrigues me most is how although his interpretation is superb and thought-provoking, it is extremely fragile; which I would suppose is a testament to Nolan's film. There is so much evidence that may suggest one theory's plausibility and just enough to challenge it so that the whole discussion remains... in limbo.
oh no i didnt :nono: