For those not in the know:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/

This review is ridiculously spoiler-ridden.  If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you probably don’t want to read my review.  Why write a review then?  It’s more a snapshot of my own thoughts after having seen the film than an attempt to convince anyone to see/not see a film.

Christopher Nolan has got to be one of the best film directors alive at this point, in my eyes.  Not necessarily the greatest ever, or the most visionary (though he is certainly approaching that status level), but because every time I know I am about to sit down in front of one of his films I know I am going to be entertained.  Not just on a surface level either, oh no—I will walk away from that theatre or pull my ass up from that couch pondering the deeper meanings of the film at just the right level as to think, not be left perplexed or wondering about some vague & pathetic attempt at “leaving it open for interpretation.”

Inception is a perfect example of this, and I am fairly convinced when I go see this film for a second time and later third or fourth years down the road, I will pick up on different things and meanings.  But what makes this level of depth work is I don’t have to care.  I see this and want to explore it because I’m curious, not because he’s force-feeds you a story that makes no sense until you see it another time.  “I Can Feel a Hot One,” by Manchester Orchestra is an example of a piece of work that’s so entirely vague that people can come up with a million ideas and conclusions as to what was meant—while I recognize it takes a certain level of skill to do such a thing, I also think it’s even more impressive when you can tell a story that has multiple layers you can pull back at your own peril—or simply be left entertained from the first layer.

Anyhow…I am rambling.

So, Inception is all about the polar opposite of what Leonardo DiCaprio’s character does for a living…in the film he breaks into people’s dreams, steals information and then turns that information over to his clients.  He is approached by his most recent victim, however, to do just the opposite—he wants him to put an idea into the mind of a target.  The problem with this revolves around how simply the mind can tell when an idea is not it’s own (the film beautifully makes an example of this with the “don’t think of a purple elephant” trick…you think of the elephant, and you KNOW that wasn’t your doing).

Going into one’s mind successfully requires a team of specialists filling a variety of roles…an Architect for creating the dreamscape, a Forger to fake certain characters and events, a Chemist for the drugs that put you under, and so on.  With the fake world created, the target is brought inside and their mind populates the world with projections of their subconscious.  Where the absolute brilliance with this concept truly shines is the projections…your subconscious mind will try to repel these invaders (like white blood cells, DiCaprio explains at one point) and Nolan does the most amazing job driving this home.  Pedestrians on the street, random people walking through a building suddenly start looking at you, and eventually coming after you intending harm to repel you from their owner’s mind.  On top of this just amazing concept is that some people have been trained for this very possibility—and their projections will carry guns and track your ass down the second you get into their world.

I suppose some of the elegance of the solution rests with how simple an idea that really is, it’s simple enough to grasp the concept immediately and I’m fairly certain that within that simplicity lies the reason you believe it.  Unlike a cleverly designed plot point that was done to be cool, or save money, or be surreal, this basic concept is just accepted by you immediately and helps to immerse you in the film’s world.

Another cool mechanic is how  time works in the dream world…at the first level a dream lasts 5 minutes but inside of it an hour goes by.  At the deeper levels, and under special sedations, it can last years and years.  Essentially, just this basic concept alone can be applied to explain other things like people stuck in comas or other mental traumas…it’s never really insinuated, but it was a conclusion I came to while watching the film and have a hard time believing others wouldn’t have too.  Even as I write this, I have to wonder if this was intentional or not…I’m often left wondering how deliberate these little cause & effect moments are when it comes to plot points and devices.

Dreams within dreams become part of the major con as the crew struggles to complete their task of planting an idea in their target’s head, and the core conflict that comes from this is how to plant the most basic seedling of an idea that you know will then sprout to grow and become the intended result.  In the story’s case, it’s convincing a young man inheriting his father’s massive company to break it into pieces and sell the whole thing off rather than just fill his shoes.  To do this, they come to the conclusion that they must make him believe his father wanted him to become his own man—an idea that is familiar if not simple once again, and yet further complicated by his strained relationship with the man.

In the end, we get a happy resolution—and for this I’ll not spoil, though the final shot leaves you wondering how much of what you watched was, indeed, happening or just part of a larger dream.  I’m hoping the answers are there the next time I watch the film but it may be left open for interpretation..a concept my own mind tends to dread, I like more concrete answers, but I’ll live.

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432290/

This is, truly, a very unique film.  The first 5 minutes of it I was half tempted to turn it off while bitching and moaning to myself that it was another shitty independent film…I could not have been more wrong.

Flannel Pajamas is a story about Stuart and Nicole falling in love, their lives intertwining and then slowly unraveling over time.  The concept sounds like it’s been done before, but recently I’ve been on this “studying material” kick watching romance film after romance film looking for the kind of serious and real take on a relationship like what these two have.  There is real chemistry, real complications, and the reality that these characters are far from perfect along with the consequences imperfection brings us all.

What’s neat about this film is it isn’t so much about the plot points…there are no major stingers that pop up anywhere or shocking surprises, really you kind of get to see where everything is going well ahead of time as any outsider can when looking through the window at a relationship.  The many honest moments they have with each other echo quite a few (of course tweaked to some degree) experiences we have all had in any relationship, and I rather like that they show both of them are the problem instead of making just one character be the jerk (though I tended to think Stuart the idiot myself)…they both succeed and fail in different ways and it’s the beauty of that portrayal that really shines.

MAJOR SPOILER…

The ending was jarring.  I’ve plenty surprise moments, shocking moments, scared moments and disturbing moments watching films throughout my 31 years on this planet.  Never, ever have I felt so violently jarred out of a film than I did when this movie ended.  You don’t see the ending coming at all–and no, I’m not talking about a surprise ending.  I mean, literally, the film ends.  It left me sitting there, mouth open a little bit from the blow, and it took me awhile to decide how I felt about that.

Ultimately, the ending was the perfection finishing touch to the film.  Perhaps I am reading into this, but my own interpretation was it was meant to be so jarring because it was the end of a relationship.  You almost get to feel the full force of the character’s problems right then and there.  Perfect.

Definitely recommend watching this.  It’s a wee bit slow at times, I was in the perfect mindset for watching it so I was sucked into it the whole time…make sure you are too.

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

I can’t say I’ve been this pleasantly surprised by a film in quite some time.  Granted it felt somewhat low budget and was far from perfect…but when you flip a movie on thinking it’s going to be mindless action it’s surprising when it isn’t!  I’m developing quite the love for South Korean cinema (if you haven’t, you must see “Lady Vengeance”).

The basic story goes something like this…it’s the year 2080, I assume you’re in South Korea, and robots that look/act perfectly human (“cyborgs”) are prevalent in society.  The one catch is they all have a shelf life of only three years, which is never fully explained as to why though it felt pretty clear to me it was to keep continued demand for purchasing new models.  The MP officers (military police?) hunt down combat-trained cyborgs and terminate them, our main character R being one of said members along with his friend and superior officer Noma.  R has fallen in love with a cyborg, Ria, and she happens to be expiring in a few days.  Expiration’s almost like accelerated Alzheimer’s disease, their memory quickly becoming corrupt and basic functions failing as they near their inevitable death.

The setup doesn’t make it sound all that interesting, but several things stand out very quickly that caught me off guard.  One, the futuristic city is fairly believable…there were only a couple of cases where it was painfully obvious something was fake, and even then that was more because I was looking for it than anything.  The characters all feel very much real and thought out, be it R’s conflict with himself over choosing his cyborg love (which is a relationship portrayed as real love and not some kind of sexbot) or Noma’s own struggle with fulfilling his duties as an officer and helping his friend.  R has obviously fallen very far from where he once was as he’s taken to stealing and selling items on the black market to fund research being conducted that could tranfer Ria’s consciousness to another body (thus saving her life). The scientist conducting the research, Dr. Giro, however turns out not to be quite so honest and eager to help R as you would think which serves as a nice twist later on when you find out exactly why that is.

I wasn’t very fond of R’s character and found him to be more pathetic than anything, but that was what I actually loved about the film.  He had great faults, and it made it interesting to watch them unfold as well as considering the controversial relationship between a human and synthetic being.  If anything, my major critique of the story comes down to that one element…I think the director could have put forward more effort to really explore that dynamic and make Ria a stronger character than she was in the film (by far the simplest character in the cast).

The fight scenes were pretty simple and nothing to write home about, but they weren’t bad enough to destroy the otherwise smooth ride.

The cinematography and lighting worked in beautiful harmony from start to finish, with CG added to spruce the environment up just enough to be fathomable rather than ridiculous.  The only points deducted here would be for the really, really annoying (this may just be my own personal taste) shaky-cam frame-dropping crap.  Pelham 123 did this a lot too, and it always makes me feel like my ex-wife got a hold of the camera (re: can’t hold it straight to save her life)…I get artistic takes on things, but this strobe camera crap drives me insane and always feels very amateur.

All in all, if you want to see more of a drama than action flick and have a couple of hours to kill, I’d definitely recommend it!

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