Inception

[Mike Renzulli]

Monica and I went to see Inception last night. All I can say is: Run, don't walk, to see it!

Aside from it having a great storyline, acting, special effects, etc. this is a film every Objectivist would adore! I was drooling with the themes displayed in this film and it's final message.

Inception not only delves into the nature of reality but also answers philosophical questions such as: Does existence exist? and Do you know what you think you know? If so, how do you know?

The movie is a combo sci-fi and action film that takes place in the present focusing on a team of individuals who place themselves in people's dreams in order to extract information and manipulate people usually for reasons of a clandestine nature and are for hire.

However, despite the actions of the team not being moral due to their attempts at manipulation, this is not the main focus of the movie.

What Inception is about is Leonardo DiCaprio's character (Dom Cobb) struggling with philosophical contradictions and his attempts to make sense of them and overcome them.

I won't go more into details but agree with one reviewer said Inception is the best film of the 21st Century!

Edited August 7, 2010 by Mike Renzulli

[blackhorse]

I thought 'Inception' was a fantastic movie, too. It really spoke to the idea that A is A. I highly recommend this movie. I real fun thinking mans thriller.

[BaalChatzaf]

-Inception- is visually stunning, very kinetic and does not stand up to logical analysis. But who cares? It is entertainment.

Question: did the spinning thing at the end wobble or not.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited August 7, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Mike Renzulli]

-Inception- is visually stunning, very kinetic and does not stand up to logical analysis. But who care? It is entertainment?

Question: did the spinning thing at the end wobble or not.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes the movie is entertainment for those looking for a good .... er .... great movie to catch.

To answer your question, yes the spinning top did wobble at the end.

[Dennis Hardin]

I thought it was an excellent film. Chris Nolan is an amazing director. I did not think it was as good as Nolan's last film, The Dark Knight, but I did find it fascinating and challenging on many levels. On the other hand, I also concur with this review by Lisa Shwarzbaum:

Beware the critic who claims the ability to analyze Inception authoritatively after one viewing. As engrossing and logic-resistant as the state of dreaming it seeks to replicate, Christopher Nolan’s audacious new creation demands further study to fully absorb the multiple, simultaneous stories Nolan finagles into one narrative experience. First time around, the movie — part sci-fi fantasy, part gun-toting heist pic, part mindfreak, all filmmaker brio — is dazzling and buzzy. It’s a rolling explosion of images as hypnotizing and sharply angled as any in a drawing by M.C. Escher or a state-of-the-biz videogame; the backwards splicing of Nolan’s own Memento looks rudimentary by comparison. Only repeated exposure can clarify for each spectator not only what’s going on, but also whether the emotional payoff deepens enough to warrant the arbitrary complexity of the game.

"Dazzling and buzzy" is putting it mildly.

[sbeaulieu]

I thought it was an excellent film. Chris Nolan is an amazing director. I did not think it was as good as Nolan's last film, The Dark Knight, but I did find it fascinating and challenging on many levels. On the other hand, I also concur with this review by Lisa Shwarzbaum:

Beware the critic who claims the ability to analyze Inception authoritatively after one viewing. As engrossing and logic-resistant as the state of dreaming it seeks to replicate, Christopher Nolan’s audacious new creation demands further study to fully absorb the multiple, simultaneous stories Nolan finagles into one narrative experience. First time around, the movie — part sci-fi fantasy, part gun-toting heist pic, part mindfreak, all filmmaker brio — is dazzling and buzzy. It’s a rolling explosion of images as hypnotizing and sharply angled as any in a drawing by M.C. Escher or a state-of-the-biz videogame; the backwards splicing of Nolan’s own Memento looks rudimentary by comparison. Only repeated exposure can clarify for each spectator not only what’s going on, but also whether the emotional payoff deepens enough to warrant the arbitrary complexity of the game.

"Dazzling and buzzy" is putting it mildly.

Now I might just have to see it. I like movies that require more than one viewing to get the full picture.

~ Shane

[Philip Coates]

It was better than I thought it would be from the trailers. The dream within a dream within a dream within a dream could have been very confusing, but wasn't. The logic of how i) a force or a drop or a swerve affects you when you are dreaming, ii) how you need a "shock" to awaken you, iii) how time slows down in what might be in reality a quite short dream was impressively applied not just to one dream to dreams in 'levels'.

So you get a van taking 2 seconds to fall off a bridge and hit the water (thus providing the "shock" to awaken the sleepers), while the dreamers inside are experiencing 2 minutes and being thrown around a hotel corridor or weightless because of the motion of the van. and in that dream, putting those people to sleep again causes them to experience 20 minutes (a fight in the snow at a mountaintop retreat). But if someone is put to sleep again in that one, the experience will be an order of magnitude longer again.

And the sequence of explosions and impacts needed to awake people up through all the levels!

So that by the time all this is done, the van still hasn't quite hit the water!

Very, very clever.

Edited August 20, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

Lastly, in the fourth level down, it takes decades to find Sato so that so much time has elapsed in that dream world that he has become an old man.

[Starbuckle]

"I thought ['Inception'] was an excellent film. Chris Nolan is an amazing director. I did not think it was as good as Nolan's last film, The Dark Knight, but I did find it fascinating and challenging on many levels."

I'm curious to see "Inception," but if it is not even as good as "The Dark Knight," "Inception" is a worse film than many in the thread are saying it is. The bloated and often heavy-handed "Dark Knight," despite several scenes thrilling in isolation, represented a steep descent from "Batman Begins."

[kiaer.ts]

Southpark does it better:

Insheeption.

[Starbuckle]

I've now seen "Inception." It is a stunning movie, so good that it made me momentarily forget my distaste for diCaprio.

However, my zero belief in Ed Koch as a movie reviewer--based solely on his unpersuasive review of "Inception," which I had read a couple months ago--has now declined even further. Koch dismissed the flick as nothing but "junk," nothing but special effects and pretension; and declared that the critical praise for it was nothing but "hype." He also complained that it's emotionally unengaging, although I find the (psychological and secret) plight and struggle of the protagonist to be quite vivid, and nicely revealed in stages. My suspicion is that hizzoner either didn't pay very close attention to what was happening in the movie, or is no fan of challenging speculative fiction to begin with, or both. But it is the job of the critic to be honest and fair even when the item under review is not to his taste.

The one gripe I might have is the music, which seemed too bombastic.

In story and in execution--dare I say, even in inception?--"Inception" is much superior to "Dark Knight." For one thing, the theme does not take the form of a giant hammer to be pounded over the viewer's head at periodic intervals.

For another, major motives in "Inception" actually make sense, as they often did not in "Dark Knight." In which latter, for example, Batman seriously considers revealing his secret identity, and jeopardizing everyone he knows and cares about...to appease a terrorist? Really? And the Joker really burns a shitpile of money just for the fun of it? And Batman really lets the Joker live when he knows he's a mass murderer and the Joker is bragging about how he plans to keep it up? And the citizens of Gotham have such fragile and stupid senses of right and wrong and the truth that the only way that they can possibly continue to respect these is if they're grossly lied to, about Dent's character and the Batman's? If Batman had offed the Joker when he should have, that could have been set up as a much more valid and interesting motive for a Batman-hunt, with Gordon sympathetic but conflicted. But the storytellers had a Theme, and apparently everything had to be rammed and distorted and shoehorned to conform to that Theme (portentously announced first by Dent and then portentously recapped by Gordon as Gordon explains to his boy why betraying the hero who just saved the kid's life is The Only Possible Way). Viewer can swallow all this is only if he allows spectacle--and there is some truly terrific and mesmerizing spectacle in "Batman Begins"--to occlude his awareness of every other element that makes a movie a movie. Story. Character. Intelligibility. Things like that.

I hope Nolan isn't too deluded by the surfeit of off-target praise he got for "Dark Knight." He shows with "Inception" that he still has what it takes to craft a clean, tight, persuasive dream. Even "Batman Begins" had too much baloney at the margins, but the hokum and blunders of "Dark Knight" really weigh it down. Nolan should forget about trying to be even more spectacular with his third Batman outing, or throwing in every kitchen sink he can think of to please fans and critics, and find a vision that he can give his all to. Start with the story. Get the story right. Something streamlined, searing and convincing. How about Batman as a ruthless, driven avenger, not Batman as thumb-sucker?

Edited December 9, 2010 by Starbuckle