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INCEPTION just never fully took with Harry
Now - before we get too far into this, let me explain what happened with INCEPTION, and why it has taken me so damn long to formally comment for y'all.
The initial screening of INCEPTION I saw was about a week and a half prior to release, but was the day after the FAMOUS MONSTERS CONVENTION, which I absolutely got next to zero sleep during. Capone is a late night raider if you know what I mean. So there I was at 10am, a tad sore, and excited to see INCEPTION, but severely sleep deprived. Not a good state to be in for a movie about sleeping & dreaming.
My initial impression, from that screening, where I missed easily 30-40 minutes due to napping... well, I thought the film was exquisitely crafted, meticulously slaved over - but honestly... it put me to sleep. And I don't sleep during movies. I'm the guy that does BUTT-NUMB-A-THON - this was a film that I was mad excited about, but it just felt like I was missing something that the world had attributed to the film.
I decided that I couldn't review the film till I saw it fully charged and ready to go. That's when Comic Con slammed down upon me. Over the course of the next two to three weeks, the world conspired to keep me out of the theater. About a week ago, Yoko and I finally got back into the theater to see it.
INCEPTION is a film made up of great performances by actors that I absolutely love. Seriously, Tom Hardy is going to own our shorts when George Miller unleashes him on FURY ROAD - of that I am positive. Marion is just amazing. The photography in INCEPTION is immaculate. The story is tight, intricate and the sort of story that promotes great conversations about the perceptions of what it all means. INCEPTION is a coffee house film discussion.
But it still kind of underwhelms the shit out of me.
None of the action, save for Joseph Gordon Levitt's amazing zero G hall fight is close to being amazing for me. In particular - I was incredibly disappointed by the Ski sequence. It was obviously ripped straight from the realm of James Bond, but I'm sorry - in ON HER MAJESTY"S SECRET SERVICE - it was done better, with more emotion, more at stake, more to care about. Because this is all a dream, I just don't invest weight into anything that is happening.
I cared about Leo's tormented psyche in Scorsese's vastly superior SHUTTER ISLAND earlier this year. Here... I got no sense of who Leo and Marion were as a couple. All we get is the damaged reflection, of a guy who steals ideas... and here is planting an idea that isn't to end a war, to save anyone, but he's just a fucking corporate tool. Someone that is being sent in to destroy a company that has a rival company that wants to be more powerful. Fuck everyone involved. Seriously, I could care less about all of this.
The most quotable line of the film is the "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." well, that's the line that haunts the entire film for me. Tom Hardy delivers the line with relish, but even the punchline, pulling up that grenade launcher is... frankly lame. Because if you can "dream" a weapon up - that makes me wonder what the hell these people are doing dreaming up regular firearms.
If it goes back to the notion of not wanting to call attention to the dream itself - well, after the Hotel layer, everybody involved in the Dream Sting is now fully aware that they are in a dream, so take the rails off. Let's dream BIG. And when I say dream big, I'm not talking about a subpar wannabe James Bond ski assault.
I also got zero sense of research for these Dream Landscapes. There's nothing peppered from the targets interest. Other than a couple of business contacts. Does this guy not have a girlfriend, a best friend... anything? I mean, Ellen Page is an architect that creates a landscape for Cillian Murphy's character is supposed to project everything he is into. Apparently he's a guy that watches James Bond movies, cuz that's what he projects into his dream.
I don't know. As much as I appreciate the loving care that everyone in this film put into this - it just doesn't work for me. Leo is acting his ass off here, but I don't know if I like his character. He's a pretty loathsome fella to me.
I came away from INCEPTION, thinking about how much I prefer WIZARD OF OZ, DREAMSCAPE, SPELLBOUND, BRAINSTORM and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART III: DREAM WARRIORS.
There is more pure imagination at play when Ellen Page is first playing in the dream construct with Leo - than at any other point in the film. I kept wanting the world to be turned upon its ear. I wanted to see impossible things as simply the landscape for the mind. I don't know about you - but my dreams are influenced by artists, emotional states, memories both lived and watched... in dreams I can fly, the ground can suck you under, there's more to it than just putting one foot in front of the other.
For a dream, INCEPTION is just too grounded. To Nolan I would repeat his own line, "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."
The reason that bugs me so is here we have a filmmaker that can capture in lucid clarity pretty much anything, and when he creates a property that could deliver anything, he delivers a very limited level of imagination.
I found myself returning to Terry Gilliam's THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS - where there's a far more personal, imaginative and superior imagination on display telling a greater metaphoric story and not getting half the response from folks.
Of course - maybe these are the dreams of executives. In which case, I'll choose the dreams of artists. Every time.
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I AM YOUR MASTER!
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now that everyone is hating on inception harry had to throw in his 2 cents on why he hated it. if he wouldve been the first one to see it then he wouldve been all over this movie. i lose more and more respect for harry everyday cuz you can so obviously see through his bullshit
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Nolan is overrated-sorry fanboys,its true. Both Batman Begins and the Dark Knight have some major flaws,one of which is...they're boring. Nolan is so intent on making everything "real" that he rejects everything thats made Batman popular in the comics for 60 years. Boring=Morgan Freeman monologuing for 20 minutes about where he got the tires for the Batmobile. Entertaining=Jack Nicholson asking "Where does he get those wonderful toys?". Nolan is pretentious,but all the fanboys refuse to see that the Emperor has no clothes. Just because something is "dark" or "serious" doesnt mean its also entertaining.
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Michael Cera is a comedy genius.
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Aug 14, 2010 7:14:42 PM CDT
Finally someone who isn't gaga over this overrated flick
by the_floating_skull_of_robert_loggia
I enjoyed Inception, very much like I enjoyed The Dark Knight, but neither were the be-all-end-all they were made out to be by rabid Nolan fanboys!
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...here comes the mob, and they got de torches. For the record, I didnt care if you EVER reviewed it. I liked it just fine without needing validation from anyone.
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ITS EVERYONE ELSE WHO OVERRATED IT. IT WAS JUST A SOLID FILM, NOT A HOMERUN, JUST VERY WELL DONE AND CONSISTANT. BUT SINCE EVERYONE TALKED ABOUT IT, EVERYONE HATES IT NOW.
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I hope you're ready for a massive shit storm.
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I left the theater feeling blah! I just didn't care about what was going on in the story. I found it boring.
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Agreed completely
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...this reminds me of the whole "werewolves and vampires" part of Harry's Matrix Reloaded review. But he does have a point; for dreams, everything that happens in the movie is surprisingly earthbound. I still think it's an awesome meditation on individual reality, though.
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The movie fried Harry's brain and he is just now recovered enough to string sentences together that make sense (just take a look at his Expendables review for evidence of this).
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I thought it was a great flick .. maybe not an instant classic .. but entertaining at the very least. I will get it when it comes out on Blu ... As for Pilgrim being better? .... different movie ... I'd watch both over multiple times ... and will be getting Pilgrim on Blu. Cera Vs. DeCaprio ... you be the judge
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It's all a dream. It's worse than the ending of Lost. At least that happened.
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It's good to have this.
And loved Expendibles!! -
Aug 14, 2010 7:19:37 PM CDT
"I cared about Leo's tormented psyche in Scorsese's vastly super
by horrorfan81
Otherwise known as the quote that makes Harry Knowles completely irrelevant to me.
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Finishing the quote.
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Well to me it is more a "heist" movie than it is a "dream" movie, and with that in mind I had absolutely no problem with the dreams being so "normal". Plus, they EXPLAIN in the movie that the people they're stealing from must not know they're dreaming... And how can you not love that gravity-less hallway sequence?
First you disliked TOY STORY 3 beacuse the kid gave away his toys, now you fall asleep with this because there wasn't enough dreaming. And yet you loved A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SHIT REMAKE. Well I guess I keep coming back here so the joke's on me.
Oh and THE ILLUSIONIST is far better than THE PRESTIGE. Right. -
good, yes. very good sporadically. but clunky and emotionally weightless. in my opinion.
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I quite enjoyed Inception, but I don't understand the hype at all. It felt cold to me and the same for you as well. Nolan has said his films are cold, but Inception was freaking freezing.
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Aug 14, 2010 7:21:29 PM CDT
So now some of you bitches can go and get stuffed!
by hollywoodhellraiser
The man had said his peace about Inception! Now you true haters of Harry can move on and bitch about something else!
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"Yeah, great plan, The Joker. As long as everyone behaves exactly as you've somehow predicted they will, it should go off without a hitch." Absolute shit, from start to finish. Luckily Nolan made it dark and "realistic" so everyone thought they were watching 'The Godfather Part II'. "Ledger might get the Oscar! It's the mainstream acceptance we've always craved!" Hopefully people are now mortified by how enthusiastic they were for 'The Dark Knight'.
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Is a film that I really loved, and I really fell in love with the characters....where Inception was good, but boring. JGL and Tom Hardy were the actors that made me believe in the characters they played. Sure, zero-G fight in the hall shows the dedication JGL put into his character, and the stunts...but every actor in Imaginarium were very dedicated into the characters. Nolan has that great eye for scenery and scope, but in my eyes, Gilliam has a better one because of his own Imaginarium.
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I just can't even fathom how someone could have seen this movie and describe the dream state sequences as "too grounded in reality." The hotel near-zero-gravity fight scenes? What exactly did Harry expect, here, I wonder? And no, Harry...watch Dreamscape after seeing this movie and it will be Dreamscape that seems one-dimensional - and I have always loved that movie.
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Was the only thing that annoyed me in this otherwise great movie.
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Why is it when Harry reviews a movies I haven't seen, he writes a spoiler review. When it's something I saw twice a month and a half ago, no spoilers. I read movie reviews to help decide if I want to see something or not.
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That's the douchey thing to do. Now it's cool to not like it. There's a backlash of morons who don't get it. In no way is Harry a moron and I'm sure he gets it, but now it's cool to not like it. Why really the wait? Personally I think it's the best film since "There Will Be Blood". But I wouldn't wait to tell y'all that.
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You're doing it wrong.
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Welcome to the revolution...
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But I also disagree. I think you can get as much out of Inception as you put into it. The characters are archetypes, cut outs devoid of personality for the most part, but that let me sort of imprint personalities onto them in a way. Aside from that, the real genius of it is that it adds weight to the idea that they aren't real people at all, just Leo's dream friends while hes stuck in Limbo. Anyway, glad to hear your thoughts finally big man, and i respect them. But at the same time, I almost always disagree with your reviews more than anyone else on the site, so I don't really think its accurate, personally. It's just hard to take seriously when you basically jerked off over The Expendables (with stallones dick in your mouth) but you find Inception underwhelming. Just a little incongruous, but everyone has an opinion. I mostly just feel bad you didn't see what I saw.
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I'm never wrong.
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THANK YOU FOR EXPOSING THIS VASTLY OVER RATED PIECE OF SHIT
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Harry...not cool.
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You didn't understand it at all, did you? The subtleties, the subtext the visual nuances. It all went over your stupid fat head.You spent the first few paragraphs making excuses why you didn't review it sooner, and when you DID finally get down to the nitty gritty its obvious you sat there open mouthed for two hours while Nolan fucked your primitive cerebrum with concepts you couldn't hope to appreciate in a million years.This so-called review of yours should have been written in crayon. You wanted people to fly? Any credibility you had left as a reviewer has just flown away for good.
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dream land. They can't mess too much with a person's dream, or the "projections" get suspicious and start attacking the outsiders, like white blood cells against infections.
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I enjoyed the hell out of it. Yeah, the dream sequences could have been a little more trippy, but I think I would've had a seizure if they were!
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At, least he doesn't rush to say a movie is bad.I liked Inception better than Expendables or Scott Pilgrim.
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Today is the day Harry is revealed to be a TOTAL movie idiot. LOL .... YOU JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT, did you?? Admit it fucker and stop hiding.
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No one said this is a flawless movie. There are in fact a lot of criticisms that can be made by an alert and informed critic who truly loves movies. Nolan worked on the script for 8 years and it shows. There is too much explanation, death to a movie screen play. Yet for all that, the movie is endlessly fascinating and warrants the full attention of anyone who loves movies (not that phrase). Writing "I don't get it." which is essence is what Harry just did, just doesn't cut it. It's so weak as to be embarrassing. This is a low point for AIC. Now back to our regularly scheduled Scott Pilgram plugging! -- which is bombing, btw.
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You jerk-off about Expendables for years and then give a clear biased review and then piss all over Inception the same time. Hard to follow the logic.
Look the "hype" is coming from blogs and websites like this where critics and fanboys are trying to show off how smart they are. Almost all people i know went to the movie and really enjoyed it. That's that. That's not hype. That's good word of mouth. The movie is successful for a reason. People dug it. Don't lump in we fans of the movie with whoever is shoving the hype down your throats. Sounds more like a bitchy backlash because people can't stand when one of their own becomes mainstream popular.
And Scott Pilgrim? Yeah all five people who saw it might agree that it's better. -
Everyone speaks very dull, everyone also strangely has this robotic motivation in this movie, no one says things like "hello, so how are you doing?" Its something like "we have to break the fourth dream wall and we cant to this because that" everyone hits the ground running when a convo starts up, also that creepy guy from Batman begins looks like a wax statue, and i couldnt concentrate on much except for Leo's furled brow and those two lines in between hish eyes.
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Damn typos.
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"I failed to pay attention. Therefore, I didn't like it."
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It's a solid and crafty heist flick but it's not the be-all, end-all of intelligent cinema as some make it out to be.
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I expected to be blown away. Frankly, I wasn't - at least not for the entire flick. It was up an down. There were moments that made me giddy to the point of tears almost (shit blowing up in Paris in Ariadne's first dream experience), Zero G fight, the shot at the end...and other parts where I was like "God this could be so much better." The first 40 minutes were plodding. I appreciated the exposition the first time through, but I have seen it again and I must say it gets bogged down.
Overall though It was a good-to-great movie. It just wasn't the total package. I've still spent more time reading reviews/interpretations for this than almost any movie I've ever seen, so it does have that going for it. I still like talking about it... -
and go totally apeshit, or the projections get wise and try to kick you out. They made that explicitly clear in the movie. Maybe in your own dream if you realized you were dreaming you could do some funky shit, but in other people's dreams you have to show some restraint.
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Count me in the 'enjoying it for what it was' group. Seeing it opening day was pretty nice cause I got to come to my own consensus before this seemingly hip backlash came up (even the constant debate over the final shot got pretty exaggerated). I agree with whoever up there just called it a Heist movie. I still really don't see why it's necessary for Harry to keep comparing every movie to it, it's just kinda rubbing in that it didn't take for him and it's only gonna create more shitstorms in here.
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Dream sequences always bleed out a little drama for me. Also, I thought that the balcony scene was setting up the main dilemma for DiCaprio: was HE still dreaming, and was the only way back to his kids going to be to kill himself? That never even came up as a possibility. I mean, what if DiCaprio kills himself to get back to his kids but the audience is left to decide whether he succeeded or simply committed suicide.
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DENSE, yes. But SUBTLE and EMOTIONAL it's not. Just because some of us were completely underwhelmed by the movie didn't mean we didn't totally get it. Yeah yeah yeah, meditation on identity, dissection of reality, we fucking get it. Just not that impressed.
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I haven't been completely blown away by a movie in the theater in a long time. Last one I can recall was maybe the first Matrix. I was also a teenager on psychotropic drugs too, so maybe I just needed something stronger than a flinstones chewable to be blown away by this...Good flick though, overall.
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You're too emotional. Nolan is a fairly emotionless director.
Who cares if Cillian Murphy ever had a girlfriend? This is a heist movie. Its about getting the quarry (or booty). Some people love to look at dreams as wonderous things where anything can happen. I think this movie just eschews fantasy for function. -
This coming from someone who loves nearly every Scorsese movie more than life itself. Except that Buddha one. I even think that Shutter Island is a very well done movie. I certainly liked it a lot when I first saw it. I knew something was up from the beginning and was primed for a "twist" and had the whole thing pretty much figured out about a third of the way into it, but I still had a lot of fun getting to the end. The performances were great, the shots, the music, it was Scorsese firing on all cylinders. And at the time, was the best mind-fuck movie to come out this year.Then Inception happened.Tried to watch Shutter Island again afterwards on the divid. Just isn't happening. Still a great little thriller, but sadly doesn't hold a candle to Nolan's breathtaking imagery. I really liked all of the characters, from Cobb to Ariadne to Eames. Even Cillan Murphy's Fischer has some moments of real fun as he gets in on the plan and real pathos as he confronts the memory of his father and all of his father's perceived failings. In Shutter Island, the only character I felt anything for was Teddy's partner Chuck, and he doesn't even really exist.There's nothing at stake with Cobb in Inception? Bullshit. If he doesn't succeed, he doesn't see his kids again. Or if it's all dream, if he never makes peace with his complicity in the death of his wife, he never wakes up again. Equally as heavy and tortured as what Teddy was dealing with in Shutter Island. And frankly, Marion Cotillard truly brought home the damaged psyche of Mal in a way that Michelle Williams creepy but still one-note "thriller" performance of the "crazy wife" just didn't. I'll give you that the ski scene went on too long and wasn't inventive enough to compare with the rest of the movie. Tom Hardy tho played his part well. I just wish they'd actually shown the labyrinth that Ariadne had devised rather than sneaking through the back door. Then again, they had to set up that Cobb knew the way in so that Mal could confront him. Story wise, this had to happen. Doesn't make me 'dream' of a better set piece tho. That doesn't really matter because by that time we'd seen a city fold in on itself, a breathless chase through a crowded city, a zero gravity fist fight ten times better than anything in the Matrix, the creation and destruction of an entire dreamcity, and the healing of two damaged people. Too bad you didn't get all that, but maybe you dozed off during those scenes. For my money, this is the kind of thought-provoking, visionary, daring action I want to see, not some tired 80's action retread, full of bad writing, lazy plotting, tired acting, and horrendous cgi.
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He knows what he's talking about.
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will turn the dream world on its ear for you Harry! I'm hoping it will for me!
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It almost worked as a cool Lost episode. You even had a Smoke Monster of sorts.
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...and couldn't even be arsed to review it properly. That's one of the shortest Harry reviews I've ever seen.
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You can dislike Inception if you want. But preferring Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors to it? Come on...
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Actually it's OK. I like that I'm absolutely crazy about a movie that the whole doesn't necessarily love. I'm a little shocked when people don't get Inception; but hey, that's life.
I saw it, with a friend who agrees, with me on movies a good 90-95% of the time; and he didn't love it. Like Harry, he wants to see it a second time and try to figure out why I thought it was so great. For me, I loved that the dream element was so layered that you can argue that the entire thing was a dream designed to rescue Leo's character, from his crumbling dream world. That way Harry's hated corporate dickheads aren't really what's at stake; they are just pieces of an intricate rescue mission.
Anyway, good on ya, Harry, for not being a cinematic lemming, claiming to love a film just because everyone wants you to or thinks you should. -
Shutter Island to Inception? I seriously don't even know how to respond to that.
But really, I'm beyond tired of the word "overrated", it's become the new favorite buzz word of the younger generation, plus it just seems like anything that really catches on with the masses automatically then is deemed as overrated just on principle, and that's really quite lame. For geeks, only a very limited number of people are allowed to like something to make it cool. If it gets too big it then becomes "overrated". -
Scorsese took a tight little crime thriller and nailed it. Nolan aspired to do something huge and mind-bending and succeeded for the most part, but with some very big flaws. Winner: Scorsese.
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If Harry didn't like so much garbage.
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Inception should have been bigger. What like... Transformers 2 bigger? Honestly, turning the 'dream a little bigger' quote on Inception is crazy. I defy anyone to name another film from this year or the last 10 that 'DREAMED' bigger than Inception. Harry fell asleep in Inception. Harry took a piss at the exact moment when SlyWillisSchwarzenegger finally came together. I'm afraid your heard doesn't really seem to be in this anymore. Perhaps you should hand the website over to... anyone else, and just concentrate on the monster magazine shit that you seem to care so much about. Apologies if this post seems harsh, but saying that INCEPTION needed to dream a little larger is like saying The Notebook needed to be more emotionally manipulative. Come on Harry, credit where credit is due. If you can wank off over The Expendables (which was hardly originaly) Surely INCEPTION (which is, imo the type of film with ideas which we unfortunately rarely get) deserves more than that. A response, maybe?
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I was confused by this the first time as well. I stepped out for a bloody bathroom break and missed one of the most important bits of info in the film - Ken Watanbe's character explaining that the Fisher company had so much control over the world's energy resources that they were going to destroy the world. Watanabe's character, I get the sense, is doing it more for this reason than just to make his company more competitive. So the ehole movie IS a fight to save the world!
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...is in no way capacitated to speak of something as beautiful as Inception. How can a guy who deliberately keep this ugly site feel capacitated to speak about art? Harry dont know shit about art, he only know about geeky stuff and overblown shitty movies... Way to go...
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Right he's an honorable chap that Harry. Like he's not giving Expendables all this press and positive buzz because Sly Stallone is his new pal. No sir, he's no lemming.
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but I'd really like to break Scottpilgrimfan's nose.
What a fucking annoying, attention seeking little cunt. Every time I turn around on this site him or one of his many aliases is there talking shit. -
A lot of people seem to have this reaction that the dream worlds needed to be more imaginative aka trippier or crazy or whatever. Clearly that was not the point as there was absolutely NOTHING like that in the dreams. Why take them to task for not doing it the way you'd like it to be done? Besides that it would defeat the purpose of having ambiguity between what is not real and what is if it was patently obvious thanks to surreal, typical dreamlike imagery. I think the movie was terrific but if someone has problems with it I understand, of course. I just think this particular gripe isn't legit.
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I didn't like Inception as much as I thought I would. I thought I'd love it, but I left the cinema thinking it wasn't as good as it could have been. Too much Bond action imho, and not enough of the lucid dreaming stuff. I also think the corporate glass-and-steel setting may have contributed to my ambivelance. Watch Paprika by Satoshi Kon, and THAT is what you do with a 'lucid dream' story! It may also be because I just watched Shutter Island a few weeks before Inception, and from the fog-horn like score to the reality-bending and dark secret with his wife -- it was probably too much of the same for Leo. I still enjoyed Inception -- the hotel fight scene is worth the price of admission alone! -- but it just didn't move my world like the Matrix or Paprika.
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I usually fall asleep during the name dropping and wandering personal stories that fill out the majority of Harry's bloated reviews.
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Aug 14, 2010 7:45:01 PM CDT
PS Was Leo channeling Jack Nicholson in Inception
by hardboiled wonderland
Or was that just me?
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it a classic. I've seen inception 3 times now and I find the last scene more haunting and moving each time I see it. It is very open ended and tragic / sad. Dom may have had the happy ending he was hoping for, but we as the viewer will never know since the film cuts just as we are about to find out if what he is experiencing is 'real'. He may have given up and decided any type of experience where he is with his children is enough for him. All reality is subjective since we are slaves to our senses and can never really know if what we perceive to be reality is just that. We are all Dom lost in limbo and having to decide what we want to believe to make life bearable. Very rarely have a film touched such a deep part of me like this and expose this haunting truth of what it means to be human.
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Yes Harry you just go back to watching Van Helsing and leave the amazing and intelligent films to us.
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You know it's true.
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This is the first "Inception" review I've read that perfectly captures my thoughts on this over-hyped film. Thanks Harry... You nailed it!!!
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With respect, your assertions wouldn't make Harry a lemming so much as a sycophant or possibly a leech; but certainly not a lemming.
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We've all had one, the dumb girlfriend you take the movies and have to explain everything to. This review could have been written by a stupid blond bitch. Harry equals the brain of a stupid blonde bitch inside the body of a fat cunt.
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Aug 14, 2010 7:49:30 PM CDT
"and leave the amazing and intelligent films to us. "
by takingscorpioscalls
Yep Inception sucked.
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when Kirk and Picard get caught up in a deamworld Nexus.
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Watch Inception again, but LISTEN, don't just watch. Zimmer's score is a movie in itself, the way it alerts you to different levels of dreaming/reality, and Leo's state of mind. Brilliant work by one of the best composers in the industry.
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that's about as deep as the movie gets.
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I don't mind if people love Inception, it was certainly different. That being said, there were parts I found to be ridiculous. What the hell is the technology they are using? How the hell is Ellen Page "architecting" the levels? What is she studying in college that makes her so profoundly talented in creating this dream world?
All of the characters were somewhat boring and stock, played by wonderful actors. Ellen Page was just a perky college student, third rock kid was a guy in a suit.
That being said, I will still buy it on DVD and watch it again, because there was more good stuff in it to interest me than ... geez, 99 percent of the movies out there. -
Where's the Ed McMahon obit?
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Right with you Hardboiled, it's an utterly amazing score that fits the scenes of images perfectly.
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First of all, I loved the movie. Loved it. But I don't think it's a masterpiece. The problem is the amount of disbelief you're willing to suspend and if you're willing to accept the internal logic of the movie. Well, I loved it for what it was — a ride — but once you start dissecting it then it doesn't make much sense. And I think you nailed it on the head. If conjuring up a better gun can be done in another person's dream then why not take it further and fly? Why not make yourself invisible? There's also the premise of the dream layers. Leo does a phenomenal acting job of selling the idea but it seems a bit to clinical to me. It's almost as if it's a known scientific fact in this world that there are dream layers and that for each one time slows down as you enter it with exactly the same amount of time. It makes me wonder about how many people have actually done it and if there test studies to prove it? Like I said, loved it for what it was meant to be, a ride. The problem is the rules that they make up for the world.
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For Kick-Ass there was Christopher Tookey
For The Dark Knight there was Jonathan Ross
For Inception it's Harry Knowles
He'll see it again in a few months on Blu-ray and go "Oh it IS better than The Forgettables" -
My memory's hazy, but Zimmer's score covered the entire running time, right? That's an incredible job, considering what he had to make the music do.
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You proclaimed Scott Pilgrim the best movie of the summer before you even saw it, and openly admit to sleeping through large tracks of inception. There are times you almost, repeat almost sound like a real critic, then you blow it all away by posting fanboy gush all over the place for films you've convinced yourself are great well before you ever see them. I wonder, at this point, why you even bother watching the damn movies. You clearly form your opinion before you see them and adjust your perception while watching accordingly. Since you know the quality of new films without seeing them, what's the best movie of the fall oscar season Harry?
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...trying to understand a film about adult concepts. seriously, I love this site sometimes, but Harry's inability to grasp concepts outside of guns, vampires, explosives and killer robots leaves much to be desired.
this move requires you to think - and when there isn't a lot going on intellectually inside one's mind, it will, well... put you to sleep. -
Surely every film is only good 'for what it is' and 'based on the rules of it's world'? That can never be a reason why is doesn't work.. especially in fantasy of sci-fi. Were the rules in Inception explained properly? I think so. So what's the bitch about? You just didn't like them? That is personal preference my friend. If you don't like laser-swords, then Star Wars is probably gonna be crap.
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Aug 14, 2010 7:59:35 PM CDT
"zero gravity fist fight ten times better than anything in the M
by nerd rage
uh, when's the last time you watched the Matrix?
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I'm sorry you screwed yourself over by watching it under less-than-ideal circumstances, Harry. I have a feeling you would've liked it more had you seen it with both fresh eyes and an unspoiled mind...
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saw it and was not blown away,why do people presume if you dont like it you dont get it?,nolan couldve dreamt of anything..and apparently he watched a bunch of heist films before he went to sleep.
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This movie is a calculated look at dream manipulation...NOT a free-for-all dream-anything type of flick. I suspect you might come to disown this review at some point. The script goes to great lengths to explain the rules. The "you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger" line tripped me up only in the trailer. Say someone were to dream up a fucking robotic Tony Jaa with laser-beam eyes, the projections would flip their shit and destroy every foreign presence. They need to operate stealthily. They are professionals.
Also, just because the characters are within a dream does not mean there is nothing at stake. To me, the prospect of limbo sounds far more terrifying than the quick death a gunshot to the head might bring about.
This is a movie/puzzle that sticks to its rules, ALWAYS, which is why it's solve-able. -
Where everyone is so stupid that anything remotely approximating intelligence is derided as "gay" - and then everyone laughs hysterically at a guy getting variously racked in the nuts, in the top rated show on television. I see Harry heap raves upon The Expendables, then turning around to claim Inception didn't deliver, and why weren't people flying in the dreams...while the masses of mouth-breathers cheer him on in moronic agreement. Mike Judge was right, we're doomed. Go watch a Wayans brothers flick, dummies.
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if you're swallowing Nolan.The Matrix is better in EVERY conceivable way as a film, in terms of execution of a "dreamlike" concept. Even Dark City as a whole is much better than Inception.
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my thesis is this: everyone who saw Inception before it was hailed as a masterpiece had the time of their life. We all knew how cool it looked from the trailer(s) but we only really understood the depth of the movie once we saw it. And then, after getting blown away, we all told our friends who what happened to us on that faithful day. And because they had been prepared for it, they didn't experienced it the same way we did, hence to them, it is overated. But truth be told, what you call overated movies are actually greatly admired movies, it's just you who don't get it because you received feedback before seeing the movie for yoursefl. Face it, you ruinued it for yourself and now you think Inception is pretentious. I was all in for Pilgrim but now that i saw some people saying its better than Inception, i probably won't like it as much as i would have if i stayed away from this site and others like it. The comparison will kill it. And this, l&g, was my two cents.
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How can a guy that runs a site primarily about cinema have no real grasp about what is good and what isn't. I'm not saying that Inception was the best movie ever made but it was a pretty damn good one. Also, the comparison the Nightmare on Elm Street 3 made me laugh. Keep the jokes coming!!!!
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thank you.
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He had himself declared sane by THREE DIFFERENT DOCTORS!!!
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it feels like a movie you need to be in the right mood for though. it is kind of like fargo to me. which itself felt like a dream of a movie. i am convinced that the entire movie is a dream and that his wife is not even dead and the whole technology does not even exist in real life. it's all just a dream about how one might deal with death. i really love it. but i admit i had more fun with Van Helsing. as did you Harry. i think we both just have a more hyper imagination than Nolan. Nolan is anything but hyper.
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The Matrix Revolutions. Not to say it wouldn't have been an improvement but....
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If you love the movie, who cares what Harry thinks? You all sound insecure, as if you needed validation and, not having gotten it, are freaking out.The movie was only okay IMO. Great hotel fight, some cool shots... I actually liked the scene in the vault with the dying dad, it seeemed plenty emotional to me. But I too was annoyed at the blandness of the dreams. The excuse that the mark had to think it was real seems, to me, disingenuous: as if Nolan added that specifically to cover his lack of imagination in those sequences. Indeed, Cobb even says outright that you never realize until you wake up that "anything was strange." They could have done so much more with this...
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I can actually picture mortsleam watching bullet time and saying "ho hum."then watch Levitt float in a hotel and go "OMG! THAT WAS FUCKING AMAZING!"lmao. To be clear, I'm not making fun of that particular scene. It was alright (not amazing). But to say it was ten times better than anything in the Matrix is really to be riding Nolan hard. especially when the influence of the Matrix on this film is clear.
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DiCaprio's crazy wife turns up at the wrong moment again... but this time a bolt of lightening places a wand in his hand and he declares himself "THE WIZARD MASTER!"
Oh and Harrys awake again!! -
Shutter Island is better than Inception? In what universe? Shutter Island is a grade B "thriller" with no real thrills and a "mystery" that my wife guessed as soon as they landed on the island and I had figured out half way through. If it didn't have DiCaprio and Scorsese attached it would have been instantly forgotten and probably straight to DVD. God, just an awful review, man. The only thing I do agree with is the ski scene could have been better, but the only reason I think so is that I couldn't tell who the hell was who. Other than that it's a perfect fucking movie. Didn't you give Armageddon a good review? You have zero cred with me.
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What's the matter big guy? Inception didn't have enough blue people for ya? You "LOVED" Avatar's story but hated Inception? Not enough bright colors to keep your spasticated brain occupied?Don't worry Harold, the Avatar re-release is just around the corner so dry your little eyes. Brain still hurting after Inception? Awwwwww. Avatar will make it all better for you. Blue people jumping around, that's what our Harry loves!
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It was a heist film that used dreams as the crux of the plot.I can see how if you expect the movie to be surreal it would dissappoint.
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Classic Fanboy:
* Not seeing a movie and having no basis on which to criticize it, but bad-mouthing it anyway and justifying their non-opinion by citing bad box office (ex: Scott Pilgrim)
* Selecting a genre film with decent acting and direction and imagination and declaring it THE BEST FILM EVER OMFG!!! and if you don't agree with them, then you're a fucktard who JUST DOESN'T GET IT!!! (ex: Inception)
And on a sidenote, I liked 'Inception' more than Harry did, but I basically agree with the essence of all his complaints. And 'Shutter Island' is definitely the supiorior movie. -
it seems in parts of this review you did't fully understand the rules that Nolan created for his dream world...
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...it just knocked it down from ★★★★★ down to ★★★★☆.
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And ask him to release a cut on DVD that features on-screen "KA-POW"s and awkward teenagers. Then your attention will be held.
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With all of your..."No...you just didnt GET IT. Inception(and the Dark Knight) are too SMART for you." No...we "got it" just fine. We just didnt like it. And you sound like pretentious Nolan ass-lickers when you claim to be smarter than everyone else.
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...has never preceded a statement that wasn't stupid.
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Spot on Harry. The movie did nothing for me. I didn't find it complex. It did not captivate me. And it wasn't terribly original.
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They are inconsistent and illogical.
But thanks for creating this site!
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They already made that movie, it was called What Dreams May Come. And, simply put, it wasn't very good. This whole review reminds me of Harry's review for the last Harry Potter film. One it got dark and serious and wasn't all candy and childish whimsy and wide-eyed wonder, Harry completely checked out. He has the mind of a child.
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I'm sorry, but after I saw it I couldn't figure out why either Leo or Scorsese would attach themselves to such a hackneyed "twist" movie. You actually felt there was some connection between Leo and his dead wife in that movie? Really? She just came off as some crazy bitch. The part where he's screaming while picking up his dead kids in the water reminded me of the same feeling I got while watching Tom Cruise dance at a nightclub with a mask on: these guys should have known better. The ONLY thing I think Shutter Island had going for it was the decision Leo made in the end. Other than that it was predictable and WAY overproduced for what it was. I can see myself popping in the blu-ray for Inception now and then, but why the FUCK would I ever rewatch the depressing dreck that is Shutter Island again? You guys are way off.
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Drew McWeeny: "...a logical and orderly descent into a trippy but airtight exploration of the way we frequently chase illusory versions of the people in our lives while ignoring the real flesh-and-blood imperfections that we don't want to acknowledge."
Harry Knowles: "My initial impression, from that screening, where I missed easily 30-40 minutes due to napping... well, I thought the film was exquisitely crafted, meticulously slaved over - but honestly... it put me to sleep. And I don't sleep during movies."
Drew McWeeny: "Inception is an exhilarating cinematic experience that suggests there is still room, even in the blockbuster world, for big ideas and dangerous emotions, and that may be the single most thrilling thing about it."
Harry Knowles: "For a dream, INCEPTION is just too grounded. To Nolan I would repeat his own line, "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." " Says it all really doesn't it. -
oh christ. Harry you really missed the point on this one. I know it wasn't GI JOE and it hurt your ADD, but really????? Wow. Harry, harry, harry. Worst review ever.
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...most of the team's work involves fooling the victim into not realizing they're dreaming...hence the realistic scenarios.
But they spent a lot of time building up the dread and anticipation for Level 3...and at that point Murphy knows what is going on. All hell should have broken loose.
Limbo was a bit of a disappointment too, although I can see why they treated it the way they did. As initially described, Limbo seemed truly chilling...a psychological version of the Christian hell. Die in the dream, and spend all eternity in a place where hope and logic have no meaning... -
Those complaints are valid. I would say that since everything is neatly explained in the movie that you should look at it from that perspective. I do agree that we don't get enough time with Cobb and his wife, but because I think the rest of the movie is so well done, and so well crafted, I can forgive a little character development issues. Neverthless, this is one of my favorite movies of the years and everyone that I have talked to either loves the movie or really likes the movie.
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Aug 14, 2010 8:18:44 PM CDT
I'm finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by sailor rip
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I am disappointed, Harry. But to each his own. I disagree with the Academy on most of their choices for awards too.
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Aug 14, 2010 8:20:06 PM CDT
Thanks for the dissent, though I liked it a bit better...
by lettersoftransit
...than you did. In the days after this I had to keep my thoughts pretty much to myself for fear of being told I wasn't able to follow it or something. But that was the problem. I followed it so easily that I saw huge plot holes, devices used for contradictory results, and more. And I get that it's a useful story trick to make scifi more accessible by grounding it in a simple story, but I think he's in danger of being the guy who always takes that concept too far. Dreams can be invaded, shared, manipulated and on top of all that can do so on multiple levels... and all we're doing with it is corporate espionage? That's almost as bad taking a story in which a guy has invented a teleporter, and nobody seems able to come up with any better or more interesting use for it than to create a magic show.
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I felt about it. that's why I've been coming to this website for over 40 years.
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Fuck all of these Nolan dick-riders lol!
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It says that two critics disagreed about a movie after watching it.
Harry actually waited to review it until he'd had an opportunity to see it again under more favorable circumstances. But you didn't realize that because you're a tool with with mad willfully- misconstruing skillz. -
waited before he could be bothered to WAKE THE FUCK UP before he reviewed a film? How decent of him.
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Aug 14, 2010 8:24:59 PM CDT
Harry was paying more attention to his corndog
by bp_drills_america_a_new_asshole
than to the film. ** Homer Simpson voice ** "Yummy yummy corndog!"Harry looks at screen.Corporate es-pi-o-nage. Dream ar-ch-i-tec...Harry looks back at corndog."Yummy corndog!"Looks at Yoko.Looks at Yoko."Mommy, I'm bored. Can we go home now?"
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...exposition. Would have been better if they could have figured out a way to cut some of that.
Still, very good movie. -
Aug 14, 2010 8:25:16 PM CDT
and thats the nail in the coffin for me taking harrys opinion...
by thewizardofoz
...really? nightmare on elm street 3? really? Imaginarium was a mess of imagery with no characters, no emotions, no comprehensible story tying it together. I did get some good zzz's during that one, however.
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Finally, someone nailed it.
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Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is the example I use to show how movie dreams are fake...cause no ones dreams look that crazy, and if they do, they can't look the same. So trying to "portray a dream" is impossible. Unless you go the inception route...because my dreams DO look and feel real. Maybe in different times or places, but they are usually consistient. Unlike the surrealistic ones of Dr. Parnassus. And I suspect many other peoples dreams do too. Coupled with a logical reason to make the dreams be realisitc, and the fact that it was a heist movie about false reality and I thought it was done well.
Also, I never saw Shutter Island. Mostly because I guessed the twist from the trailer. I asked my friend to check for me and I was right. Why see a movie hinging on a "mystery" I can solve from the trailer? -
...when to sneak out for a fucking piss!
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It seems anything that reminds people how they wasted their childhoods gets the originality/creative stamp around here.
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Aug 14, 2010 8:27:23 PM CDT
SCOTTPILGRIMFAN = PEDOPHILE FAGGOT SHIT EATING CUNT
by mjs_cold_dead_pale_corpse
FACT
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Wasn't that bad, but had nothing to do with actual dreams (maybe, lucid dreams).I'd rate Waking Life better at being a dream movie over any of the Nightmare movies.
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Posts are alternating between "Harry now has zero cred" and "wow harry nailed it".
I think the point that the haters are missing is this: Was Inception the type of film we should be encouraging hollywood to make, or is Transformers 2 the type of film we should be encouraging them to do? -
...and I'm not afraid to admit it. It seems to gloss over the most interesting aspects of the concept. And the characters are so poorly developed, there's no way of becoming involved in the story. The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich, Vanilla Sky, hell even Total Recall dealt with incredibly similar ideas so much more effectively and interestingly.
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Aug 14, 2010 8:28:41 PM CDT
This coming from a guy who ranted about The Expendables.....
by bruda5000
Harry while I agree that Inception is from from bring the greatest film ever made, it is leaps and bounds better than The Expendables. I sometimes question your taste. This being one of those times.
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Um. Yes, that is decent of him. I'd think you were a total dick if you pulled an all-nighter, got no sleep, was dragged to a movie that you couldn't keep your eyes awake through, then used that single viewing as a basis for an informed opinion.
I'd much prefer you wait until you had a chance to see the film while wide awake and in command of all your mental faculties before you shared with me what you truly thought about a film.
Just because you complain with all caps and use swear words doesn't make everything you say self-evidently true. -
Is that it? Is that really the best that you can do after three weeks and saying that you needed more time and a second viewing to properly coalesce your thoughts? After posting at 5.19am last Tuesday that you were right on this review to piss that out on Saturday? Another burn notice has been served.
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...I was going to write something very long. Because, as you know, that's what I mostly do. But then I saw your brilliantly succinct post above. What Flickapoo said, except I always use a ten point scale and would say about seven. Thanks Flickapoo, on behalf of anyone who would have had to wade through my post.
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I got as far as "I cared about Leo's tormented psyche in Scorsese's vastly superior SHUTTER ISLAND earlier this year." and then had to stop reading. I respect your viewpoint, Harry, but Shutter Island was one of the most mis-advertised, dragging letdowns I've seen in a long time. There's no denying that there are thematic siilarities between it and Inception, but Inception is a far superior movie. End of story.
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Oh, Harry...you are a wicked genius...
I hope everyone is enjoying what will surely be the longest TalkBack in AICN history, already in progress... -
Godwins Law...
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I really enjoyed Inception, I have lucid dreams sometimes, and the other characters in my dreams get EXTREMELY upset when I fly or whatever, that aspect of the movie alone had me hooked, but Harry is right, Parnasus kicks Inceptions ass in EVERY way, better acting, better dreams, better themes. Tom Waits. Spider-kid. Better looking girl. What else... oh yeah there was a fantabulous lack of dicaprio in Parnasus, which is my main yardstick for any movie. Also Harry was right about the Zero G Fight. It ruled. I wish they put that in Parnasus, just no explanation at all put that scene somewhere in the middle, then back to the story.
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I'd much prefer that a film critic went to a film screening expecting to actually WATCH the film... not sleep during most of it and remember a few bits which then seem boring the second time because you've already seen them once. Obviously your opinion of the film, and your investment in what is going on is going to suffer. And by the way, its really cool to throw an insult at the person you are replying to each time. Keep it up.
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I'd much prefer that a film critic went to a film screening expecting to actually WATCH the film... not sleep during most of it and remember a few bits which then seem boring the second time because you've already seen them once. Obviously your opinion of the film, and your investment in what is going on is going to suffer. And by the way, its really cool to throw an insult at the person you are replying to each time. Keep it up.
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I'm not bitching about the movie, as I stated, I loved it. I may have stated the obvious when I talked about suspending disbelief. Sure we do it with all fantasy/science fiction flicks. My intent was to just remind Harry that there are rules that you have to buy into, which is a hard thing to do with a film like inception because it's main idea is about dreams — nebulous, ephemeral, unconscious states of mind that don't obey rules. BTW, they're called light sabers, not "laser-swords." See, I bought that premise, I can be flexible. Peace, my brotha.
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but it didn't, because there was never anything at stake.
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to show you realistic dreams,but visual artistry as it was conceived in the mind of the creator of the movie.if you believe its the other way,then you simply have never understand what kind of an artist Gilliams is.
imagination is better and more interesting than realism. -
Enough already.
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you are right. My point was that whilst they don't obey rules, they only NEED to obey the rules of the film, which I thought they all pretty much did. Nice to not be insulted by someone in their reply :)
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...or in this case, tired minds.
It was all I could do to string those few thoughts together tonight. -
Hm, yes I suppose the prospect of never seeing your two motherless children again is meaningless
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Never had I said this with regard to his reviews. But he is right. "Inception" is a good, well acted, well crafted movie that did not "wow" me at all. It is full of exposition, so I am confused as to why people were so confused by it and needed to see it so many times. Everything is fully explained, and Ellen Paige even asks questions on behalf of the audience. Again, good film, but I don't think I ever need to see it again. Once you have seen it, and see the plan in action at the end, I don't see how I can sit through all the explanation again without FF to the hallway fight. (which was the only good piece of action in the film). The snowmobile chases and that entire sequence in particular was directed in a choppy way. Dom and Mal were supposedly good architects, yet the fantasy world they created looked very uninteresting. Ariadne was supposed to be some great architect, yet all she designed were plain looking landscapes, and a hotel... Those are minor things I am thinking of now and I'm not going to go too into detail. But the movie over all was cold and leaves you waiting to see something you haven't ever seen before, but then it never delivers. And we now live in a time of extremes. There is never a middle ground anymore. People either love something, or hate something. And with this movie the people who love it have overrated it to a degree I have never ever seen. And anyone who disagrees with "Inception" being THE BEST MOVIE IN THE HISTORY OF LIFE! is "Stupid" or "Didn't understand it". What is there to not understand when everything is explicitly spelled out for you when watching the film? The fact that so many complained and complained that Harry didn't review the movie was so odd. For what? Just so you can argue?
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... either had it massively hyped to them to a point beyond where any movie could possibly go, or was someone who I already considered "not very bright." At least half of Harry's criticisms seem to stem from not having a basic understanding of what is going on (like the "dream a little bigger" part - it'd take too long to explain what should be common sense to someone who sees way more movies than I do...).
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First I wanna tackle the James Bond stuff. I thought that was brilliant. Because it's so meant to be recognizable as a James Bond call back. Because clearly in his dreams Fischer (C. Murphy) casts himself as James Bond. Who wouldn't do that if you could? Even I wanted to be James Bond as a kid. But I don't know if, writing a story about people walking around in their own dreams, I would have ever been able to think up something so spot on and universal. I thought it was a stroke of genius.
Second I think lots of people expected crazy dream stuff and that's why they're disappointed. But honestly I think I'm an imaginative and sometimes kooky person but my dreams are boring as hell. They usually rehash crap from the day like little jumbled up summaries. On top of that I think the "dreams" are supposed to be realistic so the other people won't know what's happening. If the background characters know they're just figments of the dreamers imagination, they turn on you right? So I think it has to be more realistic than something like the Matrix. Right? I dunno. Maybe I have that wrong.
I kinda wished you like it more. Which is an assy thing to say because it's none of my business. You can like and dislike what you want. I just, I dunno, feel bad. -
Great premise, concept, but inadequately realized. The Dreams were in large part underwhelming and dull in execution--especially since we had seen amazing things in the Training session with the new architect. And yes, the ski stuff was stunningly ordinary and dull.The one fundamental premise failure was that dreams needed to be "ordinary" in order not to let the target realize he was dreaming... It designed dullness into the dreams. And it was stupid: Utterly ridiculous things happen in dreams, juxtaposed locations, people, events, things and it seems and feels completely real while in the dream.This trap came from the spinning top thing--it was almost like that was one of the first things he wrote--he was so enamored of that spinning top scene, it drove the whole story: you can't tell if you are dreaming any other way, so that means the audience can't be allowed to tell any other way, either. So the dream sequences had to be so realistic rather than surreal.Shame, that.... coulda taken the surreality to a level beyond the Matrix. Started to, in the training sequence, then pulled back--guaranteeing that, except for the hall/fight scene, the sequences would be less impressive & interesting than the architect training scene.
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I'm sorry but it is. By no means a bad movie, but I agree with the majority of the 4/5 star reviews. Certainly isnt the best film of the year , but would rate in the top 10 of the year i'd imagine ( based so far ). Every one thinks Nolan is a God due to Darkl Knight, but remember Batman Begins was although solid, quite average
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I don't mind that it was late. I like your honesty. i think for me it also a movie that was almost right, but not. eh hows that for almost sentence.
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What I was trying to say is that the only way to show a movie dreamworld that is the primary setting for a film is to make sure the audience buys it. And the only common dream people have is realistic dreams. Or flying/falling etc.
I mostly think its bullshit that all the "Nolan Haters" or "SP fanboys" or whoever knock Inception...which managed to make the most talked about summer movie blockbuster be a relatively original film about dream espionage. Whether you liked it or not, thats true. It DID something. Meanwhile, someone takes a pretty hackeyed story (geek in love proves himself), makes it a literal movie version of a comic book/video game (seen it: Batman in the 60s, Stephen Chow etc etc) and the movie the fails. But the same group says its "breaking new ground". Talk about cognitive dissonance. Nolan may not make movies for everyone, but he sure as hell can do something new that a lot of people end up liking. I personally don't think he is one of the greats, but shit, he could be in a few years...I mean look at his fucking potential. His last movies have all be pretty damn good and original. And all damn hard to pull off on films. Imagine The Prestige, a Batman resucitation and Inception in the hands of anyone else in hollywood (shudder...) -
I only noticed you as i was pressing submit
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Is wrong. It's "I couldn't care less". To say you "Could care less" means you already care to some degree and are capable of caring less than that. "I couldn't care less" means you already don't care...
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that the husband/wife relationship in Shutter Island was more fleshed out than in Inception. Shutter Island provided no evidence that Teddy Daniels and his wife had any good times at all.
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I found that movie alot more rewarding than "Inception" because it actually was playful and inventive with dreams and dream logic instead of a convoluted bank heist movie that chases its tail.
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deserves to be quoted: "Imagine The Prestige, a Batman resucitation and Inception in the hands of anyone else in hollywood" Exactly.. it wouldn't happen. Because nobody else could make a movie like Inception. Which is why it deserves more from Harry than a botched first viewing and having decided he didn't really like it all that much, a rather disinterested second viewing.
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It may seem strange that Harry would rate a film like Expendables amazing then watch Inception and have an extremely underwhelming response.
But that really is the beauty of movies / music / art. Its not just about the quality or story of the film but also the state of mind and season of life you are in at the time of viewing that forms your experience.
Movies have the amazing ability to put stories on to the screen that can draw out narratives that are happening within yourself.
When I watched "The Notebook" the frst time i was alone in a theatre after fighting with my wife. It totally ROCKED my world and I was in tears.
I watched it a second time in my living room after work and i nearly fell asleep. Ok I admit there are some movies which are horrible but the format in itself is ALIVE. It changes and you notie different things with every view.
I loved inception, Im an architect and I had been running a series of creative therapy workshops for kids with trauma at the time that I watched it and it spoke to me in my season. I loved it!
But I guess it just didn't do it for Harry in his season. He does have some good points! It could have been crazier. I just dont think people need to defend the film or what they like by putting someone down for their opinon of their experience.
I've seem people act like that somewhere else and its with religion. If someone elses opinion of that something provokes you to need to defend it with anger, it shows that other peoples opinions mean alot more to you than the thing you love.
It seems like alot of people here are looking for validation of their opinions, and I'd like to validify all of your experiences right now, If you loved it, so did i!! If you didn't like Harry totally cool and I'd love to hear more of why it wasn't great for you and your DREAMS of how it could have spoken to you better. -
No one is going to give two shits about anything you write ever again."These are the dreams of executives, I'l take the dreams of artists". Are you fucking serious? You honestly think Inception is crammed with the imagery of studio suits and Nolan just sat back and said "Yeah, sure whatever". If you believe that Harry, there really is no hope for you.Also the length of your "considered" review speaks volumes. You hated the movie but were unable to elaborate why. This says two things - you are a piss poor reviewer and you didn't understand the film's concepts. Sorry to say this Harry, but Devin Faraci PWNS your ass. If Faraci hated Inception he would have been able to go into detail about what he didn't like about it. You stopped with some ramblings. You are a hack writer Harry. Live with it. Accept it. And don't write another review again if you have any self-respect left. Putz.
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is the only adult in the room.
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...was not the whole "storming the castle" conflict, it was the act of trying to coordinate something like that while keeping everything going on three different levels of dreams, AND making sure the inception process took root (although that mostly went without a hitch all on its own), AND THEN getting out by making sure all the "kicks" lined up properly before everybody ended up in limbo. The action parts on that level were just too keep them distracted from the actual problem and ramp up the tension. That's like bitching that the fight scene between Luke and Vader at the end of ROTJ (to use a newly topical example) wasn't dynamic or exciting enough. There is more shit going on there than a motherfucking sword fight.
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I like that the dreams had rules and structured boundaries that could be followed. I totally agree that dreams don't occur like that, but it works well for this story. If he made the dream world an "anything goes" type place it would have been a CG infested mess. I much prefer the live in-frame action. It gave the film a beautiful timeless quality that you couldn't get without the dreams being as grounded as they were.
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Precisely the wrong thing to find fault with in the movie.
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Where is it? And yeah Harry nailed it, on another note going to see The Expendables in one hour fuck yeah!!!
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Which was better... The Matrix, when there were rules about what Neo could and couldn't do.... fight all you like but RUN from an agent... or The Matrix Revolutions where Neo is superman and theres a million Smiths and they fly together and punch each other a million times??? Which was the more engrossing story?
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BTW YES YES!! Waking life totally caught the feel of dreaming! I loved that film too!
it mae me fall in love with the tango!! HAHAH!! -
I tolerated the exposition because I trusted that the elaborate rules, premise he was setting up for us would be truly amazing. The architect training sequence convinced me he was going to deliver on the promise & potential of the premise.But the "necessity" for "realistic dreams" was the flaw that kept this from being GREAT. The idea that somehow the audience must not really be sure at the end, meant that the characters had to experience dull dreams all the way thru. Bad choice.If not for the need to have us wonder about the gimmick ending, the characters could have been in the midst of crazy ass dreams that we got to see as crazy ass, but they didn't notice--they just operate in the dream as if everything is fine, don't notice that elephant in the intersection, or that one second they are in their office, the next they are standing on a beach....The underlying story about Leo and Marion was good, very good.
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I loved Inception immensly. I love all of Mr. Nolan's movies immensly, but don't call me a Nolan fanboy, I just love his movies. But I do agree with Harry that it was too grounded. There's alot crazier and awesomer things that could've happened, but they didn't. You people, including you Harry, need to stop whining about what you didn't get, and enjoy what you did. This movie gave everything that the trailers promised, and I'm satisfied with that.
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Inception
What kind of movie is Inception? A mystery? Sci-fi? A heist movie? Or is it more than a movie meant for entertainment. Is it, as Nolan himself has playfully suggested, a movie about movie-making, and thus by extension, a post-modern film, self-consciously referencing itself and its medium? And if this is the case, does it do so only as an ironic wink to the audience, or in order to say something about the status of film as a cultural product?
If we begin with sci-fi, then we notice that the most obvious element missing in the movie is any attempt at scientific realism. On the contrary, Inception instead undermines such rigid conventions: by representing dreams in an overtly mathematical and geometric manner, Nolan highlights the fact that this is intuitively contrary to the more chaotic and abstract way most people experience dreams. So, no, it’s not sci-fi.
If it’s a ‘heist’ movie, a genre even Nolan has alluded to in interviews (but not exclusively; he also mentioned James Bond movies, and Fellini’s 8½), then it’s interesting that Inception lacks a clear villain or nemesis acting as a notable foil to our heroes’ plans. Cobb’s first target, Saito, not only quickly becomes their next contractor, he even ends up becoming an important member of the team. The next target, Fischer, is less a nemesis than an innocent victim, who would draw more empathy than scorn or fear were it not for the fact that his company is about to dominate the world’s energy market. After that, there’s nothing left to go on.
The movie’s moments of peril and risk then rely on anonymous characters that work for either a nameless multinational conglomerate (Cobol Engineering) or are the manifestation of Fischer’s psyche, pre-emptively trained [programmed] to protect it against foreign elements. But Cobol’s role is quickly reduced to nothing once Saito saves Cobb back in Mombasa (and conveniently just in time), which only leaves us with Fischer’s psychological bodyguards, who are too nondescript, and ephemeral, to be menacing. It also does not help that we’re told from the very beginning of the movie that death has no serious repercussions except for waking up the dreamer.
Add to this chase and shoot out scenes which seem more reminiscent of earlier James Bond movies, with impossible stunts and crashes that don’t seem to impair our heroes from continuing with their plans (the van rolling over itself a couple of times is the best example). Cobb himself looks like he’s been trained in a bit more than just erecting imaginary buildings and bewildering mazes, though it does help that even in the real world nobody quite knows how to aim; while being chased through the alleys of Mombasa, for example, we see him getting shot at close range, and yet no bullet hits Cobb. The same goes for the dream scenes; Cobb and his team are all excellent marksmen, but the enemy a bunch of lumbering amateurs.
One member of the team does get hit though: Saito. But even this serves mostly as a plot device, since his weakened state becomes the catalyst for Cobb’s journey into limbo in the next level (if he dies Cobb loses his chance of being reunited with his children). After this, the movie’s sense of urgency is drawn from the pressures of time. That, and the mystery surrounding Cobb’s dreams and his relationship with Mal.
Indeed, the only constant antagonist throughout the movie is Mal, who irregularly appears in Cobb’s dreams. Although we learn early on that she’s a residual projection of Cobb’s own memories, we also quickly realize that she’s a considerable obstacle to any of Cobb’s plans. Even more importantly, she poses a significant existential threat to Cobb, entangling him in a web of guilt and doubt that makes him question what is real.
Of course, by then we too are wondering whether the ‘real world’ is really real after all. This is the enigma that thrusts the movie forward, and the resolution to which we all want to see satisfied one way or another. In planting that seed of doubt in Cobb’s mind, who is constantly spinning his spindle in order to prove that he’s not in someone else’s dream, we too are infected with this uncertainty. So subtle is this McGuffin that we may even forget that the use of this or any other totem does not disprove the possibility that Cobb might be in his own dream, something he undoubtedly realizes but that we are never explicitly told. We can only infer this from the explanation given about the use of totems: that they work only when the owner is exclusively acquainted with its physical properties, the rationale being that these properties would otherwise differ in someone else’s dream, much like the polyester carpet that alerted Saito that his mind had been infiltrated.
So if the movie is a mystery, how does Nolan navigate us into engaging with characters and a plot that may not be real? Even in the Matrix we are led to identify with Neo, and thus with his journey of awakening, because it is slowly unfolded throughout the entire first movie. Plus, all the action in the Matrix is grounded, and thus made relevant, by another ‘real world’. This is partly the reason why so many were so disillusioned by the sequels, which did everything to undo what the first movie so ingeniously had set up (implicitly stating that the monomyth itself is a potential hegemonic tool that can be used to perpetuate an even more totalitarian system of control). If Inception’s approach to solipsism is reminiscent of The Matrix, it nevertheless approaches things differently by placing the status of reality in doubt from the very beginning, and then re-emphasizing this in the last image, without ever making it clear one way or another.
And what about Cobb? He seems far from being your common anti-hero: an imperfect individual, like most of us, that must transcend his own limitations or petty self-centredness for a greater cause. Here, all events are driven by his self-seeking desire to be reunited with his children. An understandable pursuit, though this should not lead us to ignore the fact that he is nevertheless willingly placing other people in [existential] danger along the way. So even if we could stretch our sympathies enough to identify with his plight, and disregard the questionable approach by which he seeks to achieve this goal, the very fact that everything – from particular events to reality itself – is left undetermined, should nullify any likelihood of identifying with the story. In other words, if we enjoy the movie, it cannot be because we engaged with either the story or the characters, because we’re left with nothing to show for our investment.
And yet we did. At least, most people did, as is demonstrated by box-office results and critical reception. How is this possible, if both Cobb and the movie are left undetermined? Was it the special effects, or the marketing of this movie as an original concept, that elevated the movie to the status of a cultural phenomenon, much like interest in Avatar was driven more by its technological innovations than by its story-telling?
No, these are insufficient explanations. Enough effects-driven Hollywood tent-pole blockbusters have failed to disprove this point, and if anything it was the story and its original, albeit effects-driven, approach to an age-old intellectual problem – the mind/body, reality/illusion dichotomy – that made this movie stand above the more usual summer fare. But even this is not reason enough, since plenty of movies have come and gone tackling the same subject, including the dramatic angle about loss and reconciliation, without resonating with a larger audience. And this still leaves open the moral and epistemological ambiguity of the movie.
Maybe Inception as a movie proves Nolan’s premise in The Prestige even more so than that movie did. That movie asserted the conceit that no matter how much we try to figure out what the director-as-magician is ‘hiding underneath his sleeve,’ we still want to be fooled. This is what allows the clever director the space and power to craft an illusion real enough for the audience to accept and surrender to. And from this follows, the better the director, the more he can bend the illusion without losing his audience. But while in The Prestige this is directly related to the experience of a particular movie, in Inception this is transposed to not only movie-making in general, but also ordinary experience, by dealing directly (albeit figuratively) with the power of ideas.
Consequently, the fact that he leaves unanswered what the audience is being lead to question (whether Cobb’s real world is a dream or not) is therefore [another] example of Nolan’s sleight of hand leading the audience astray. Yet the exercise is not meant to be self-gratuitous. He constructed this maze in such a way as to make it possible to retroactively retrace the methodical and well-thought out way in which it was built. For beneath all this there seems to be a genuine examination of the way that these [reality/ideas] are grounded, possibly tilting to either faith or reason.
Before doing so, it may be useful to first take up the corporate rivalry that prompts the movie’s plot. According to ‘The Cobol Job’, a short graphic novel that was made available shortly before the movie’s premiere, Cobol Engineering had initially hired Cobb to extract information from Kaneda, a senior officer working for Proclus Global, Saito’s company. The motive seems to be an oil-pipeline being built along the eastern coast of Africa, financed by Fischer Morrow, the energy conglomerate Saito wants to split up in the movie. It appears that Cobol is bidding to build this pipeline, and to this end it thought that by extracting information about Proclus, it could then offer it to Fischer in return for a stake in the pipeline contract. Because Kaneda doesn’t have access to Proclus’ confidential information, Cobb’s extraction fails. He is then hired to extract the information from Saito, which is where the movie begins.
Already in the beginning of the movie this plan is given an unexpected twist. Not only is Saito aware about the extraction plan, he also used it as a test to recruit Cobb for his own plans to infiltrate Fischer’s mind and persuade him (through inception) into splitting up his father’s company. As he explained to Cobb, Fischer Morrow is on the verge of consolidating its dominance of the global energy market, so such a decision would be to the benefit of Saito’s company Proclus Global (and indirectly, one is lead to assume, the global consumer).
But setting aside this high-stakes, yet highly convoluted, corporate espionage scenario, one is still left wondering how Saito knew about Cobol’s plans to extract information from him, or that they would hire Cobb to do so. It appears strangely convenient, considering how Saito quickly moves from being an enemy to part of the team, first peripherally, then by establishing himself as an important member whose initiative (and deep pockets) make the plan possible, to ultimately ending up as a friend partly responsible for Cobb’s quest for redemption.
Not only are we led to forget Saito’s questionable motives, not to mention methods (what happened to Nash, for example?) but we also forget about Cobol, which started this whole series of events by hiring Cobb to infiltrate Proclus and Saito in the first place. And why would Cobol seek to punish Cobb and his team for failing to extract information from Saito? One would think that insisting too much in this direction would be counterproductive for Cobol, considering that less of a rival to Proclus, which Fischer Morrow is, they are ultimately dependent on both businesses for this and any other future contracts. It’s not as if now that Saito is aware that they had hired Cobb to extract information they have anything more to lose. The cat’s out of the bag, right? In fact, shouldn’t they be worried that Saito may want to hit them back? Aren’t Saito and his Proclus Global higher up the pecking order of things? You would think so, considering the ease with which Saito has exploited his financial and political resources – resources that seem almost unlimited, unless you compare him to the average Bond villain.
None of this makes sense, unless we rely on mental gymnastics in order to make the pieces fit together. Even the Dark Knight seemed more grounded in reality. Or we can consider the possibility that this was all a ruse to get Cobb in contact with Saito; to get him to choose, out of his own initiative, to work for Saito. Isn’t this, after all, similar to the way Cobb and his team set forth to plant Saito’s idea into Fischer’s mind? Both Cobb and Fischer are kidnapped, presented with a new scenario explaining the circumstances in which they find themselves along with a new offer that might help them, indirectly given a choice of participation (though preceded by a convincing argument in favour of cooperation), and then given enough space for their own actions, just enough to sustain the illusion of autonomy so as to accept inception without arousing suspicion.
Yet the whole point of the heist plot is to implant an idea into somebody else’s mind.
If we extrapolate further, we could even say that both Saito’s and Mal’s roles are clues that the movie is not really about the heist – i.e. the plan to plant an idea in Fischer’s mind – nor is it about Cobb’s own redemption – his reconciliation with his wife’s death (due to inception) and his choice to leave his kids to avoid being imprisoned. Consider first the banality of the assignment commissioned by Saito (to convince his main rival that it is not in his best interests to consolidate his business into a monopoly, even though it is), and then of the plan itself (manipulate his emotions, namely the feelings conditioned by his strained relationship with his father).
Both these plans rely on a very simplistic understanding of the human psyche, and seem to be based on outdated psychological theories (auto-suggestion and the behaviorism of Pavlov and Skinner come to mind). But these are allayed by several coincidences that seem like forced plot points meant to keep the story moving (and the audience from noticing Nolan’s sleight-of-hand): 1) Fischer’s relationship with his father – which misses a coherent clarification for his father’s contradictory decision to keep him in the business despite his disappointment – comes across, particularly during the death-bed scenes, like a lazy narrative device used in soap operas; 2) the convenient happenstance that Fischer will travel on the longest non-stop flight, precisely what Cobb and his team need to accomplish their multi-layered inception… 3) and that Saito also happens to have anticipated, which is why he pre-emptively bought the airline (as if buying an airline is something that even the biggest company can easily justify to its shareholders).
Of course, if we follow this train of thought, then more questions regarding the plot arise. For example, whatever happened to Nash, Cobb’s first architect? Would it be too much to belabour his absence, or to wonder whether he was killed or tortured? Doesn’t his ostensible rendition to an unknown and shadowy group compromise both Saito’s and Cobb’s morality, and thus the audience’s ability to sympathize with them?
Or we can probe even deeper. Why doesn’t Miles (presumably Cobb’s father-in-law) bring Cobb’s children to Paris? Wouldn’t this have nullified Cobb’s most urgent dilemma; his not having seen his children since Mal’s death? There is, if you think about it, nothing that impedes Miles from doing so; he is already acting as an intermediary anyways, bringing Cobb’s gifts to them, and later it is also Miles that is waiting at the airport to take Cobb to see his children. And why is it that Miles teaches in France anyways?
There are so many questions that one could ask about everyone in the movie, all of whom seem to be only perfunctorily portrayed. Even his team, some objections notwithstanding, seem to go along quite easily with Cobb’s plans. From Arthur who warns about taking Saito’s assignment, to Miles who has misgivings about allowing Cobb to corrupt “another” of his students, to Ariadne who agrees to join the team, and even continue onboard despite being the only one who really grasps the threat that Cobb’s subconscious poses to the team. Even Eames and Yusuf go along quite easily, but not without the formalities of dissent that precede their membership. All come across as the usual suspects in this type of movie. But maybe that’s the whole point. All except for Cobb. He’s the only whose history we are forced to analyze if we want to understand movie.
Typical as these narrative short cuts may be in most action movies, we can’t simply explain them away in favour of narrative expediency, or as plot holes irrelevant to the overall purpose of the story. If this were the case, it would contradict the moral argument of the movie: that ideas matter, and that we are responsible for their dissemination and their impact. Far from presenting a frivolous, if seemingly intricate, series of events, one should therefore assume that every scene and every action in the movie does have a reason. How could one expect any less from a serious film maker that is known for his meticulousness and his attention to detail. (Though he may have been, albeit prematurely, compared to the late Stanley Kubrick because of his working style, Nolan has nevertheless stated his admiration for Kubrick [who hasn’t?] and admitted that his work has been of great influence.) So if something in the movie seems off, or doesn’t ring true, then far from ignoring it as irrelevant we should fix our attention upon it, for it might be intentional, and thus be a clue that helps elucidate more about Nolan’s intentions.
So if we return to Saito, we cannot ignore that it was he who insisted in joining the team, or that he is the only member of the team to get hit by a bullet (except Fischer, but he’s not a member) when all the others had been much more exposed to a flurry of bullets, even at close range, without so much as a scratch. And we cannot ignore that it is this injury, along with Fischer’s temporary death (thanks to Mal), that induces Cobb (and Ariadne) to travel into limbo. Otherwise the inception would have succeeded according to plan, though without Cobb’s final reconciliation with Mal’s death. Also, this scenario would not have culminated with Cobb’s final meeting with the elderly Saito with which the movie began. And both Saito and Mal ask Cobb to ‘take a leap of faith.’ So if we admit that the series of circumstances that lead to these events seem coincidental and unwarranted, the obvious question is what is Nolan trying to say?
But if we take seriously the possibility that this whole plan itself took place in Cobb’s mind, and that it was therefore the result of Cobb’s own subconscious struggle (desire/fear) to seek meaning and peace, then we must consider the possibility that this the idea of inception itself is a red herring, or maybe just the virus that needs to be eradicated, but that there is another idea being inserted into his mind. Who is behind all this, and why? And can we trace the origin of this other idea?
Maybe all of this is taking place in Cobb’s mind, and everyone involved is a manifestation of his attempt.
Let’s explore this scenario.
What if Mal had been correct, and that the real world that we and Cobb accept as real (and which cannot be proven to be so according to the rules presented by the movie) is not real after all? If this were the case, Mal would supposedly have woken up without Cobb, who would have remained in the illusion in which we find him in. It is also safe to assume that she would do anything to wake him up, including the planning of an inception, which she would presumably be capable of doing since she was just as proficient in her skill as Cobb was (having a lifetime of experience in the dream they had shared) – she was also the one that had taught Cobb about the use of totems – plus she was probably the student (and daughter) that Miles refers to in his conversation with Cobb (the first to be corrupted by Cobb). If Mal were the one manipulating Cobb’s dreams from outside, this would also explain the ease – if not the offhand way – with which Miles yielded to Cobb’s request, which lead him to Ariadne, who as we see in the movie, is the only one who truly probes and confronts him about Mal. Maybe her role is similar to her mythical namesake in that she does indeed help Cobb out of the labyrinth that he had created in his mind.
But recall that Cobb argues that dreams always seem to begin ‘half-way,’ and that the beginning somehow fades into the distance, as if it did not even exist.
We learn, for example, that he had already achieved inception on his wife’s own mind, with disastrous results, which is the driving motivation for his actions in the movie. But we also learn that it was Miles that taught him everything that he knew (interesting that he is both father-in-law and teacher/mentor). So the obvious question arises: did Miles start this notion of ‘inception’? Or is Mal behind this?
But if we follow this line of thinking then the real significant event feeding his sense of guilt, the one he could not bear to confront, but also not ignore – his abandonment of his children – is questionable. One cannot help wonder how it was that Cobb and Mal willingly chose to spend so much [psychological] time in their dream world, separate from their children, in the first place. Is this the behaviour of a normal parent, even one guilty of fantasizing a child-free life in a moment of weakness, burdened by the stress and the responsibility that comes with the role as a parent? No, of course not. One may dream the most wildest and incongruous dreams, it doesn’t mean we would willingly act upon them if given the chance. For all intents and purposes Mal and Cobb did, even if in a shared illusion (compare that family in the opium den). Except here it was only the two of them. This means that even the status of Mal, as both mother and wife, is suspect. Even if she is the one responsible for manipulating Cobb’s mind, we have no way of affirming who she really is, since everything we learn is mediated by Cobb. The same goes for Miles and Ariadne.
So barring the possibility that Cobb is simply a bad parent, and his yearning for his children false, the other possibility is that his children really do not exist. It could explain even better Nolan’s choice for the Edith Piaf song used throughout the movie, which talks about regretting nothing. Indeed, he may not need to regret anything, because there is nothing real to regret.
They therefore represent, at least potentially, an idea (that of parenthood, as a means to evoke love and longing) that was once planted in his mind. And this would mean that his belief that he had left them could also be the result of another inception. Maybe the idea of parenthood simply arose while he and Mal were spending time in their dreams. It would make sense, for despite the extraordinary experience that living in a tangibly real world that we can manipulate like gods may be, it’s a novelty that in time would probably lose its appeal. Even if we could create new worlds, none of it would be satisfying unless we could also create life. And not just pale imitations of the real thing, derived from our memories, but real autonomous life.
These are a lot of maybes, and it’s probably beside the point to continue speculating if the little that we are told about his life is presumably fake. The point is that we, the audience, cannot take any of it seriously, particularly when we consider that everything, including the explanations about the rules and the logic of dreams, is mediated by Cobb.
Like I mentioned earlier, the only thing we can and should take seriously are Cobb’s emotions (otherwise we really do have nothing to hold onto in the movie). This would make his children the most significant element in the movie for they, whatever they may represent, are directly related to Cobb’s expressed sense of guilt and regret. Maybe Cobb and Mal willingly created the conceit that they had real children, either to see if it was possible, or because they couldn’t have children in real life.
In that case, it is interesting that the status of Cobb and Mal is similar to that of Adam and Eve before the Fall. There too it is woman that tempts man into accepting fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which not only leads to the loss of immortality, but also loss of any memory about the Tree of Life; i.e., that they still live in Eden (whether this is called reality, illusion, or limbo doesn’t matter, the point is that it is separate to God, the Architect, or the ‘One’ as source and essence of everything), albeit now populated by their progeny, all of whom are ‘cursed’ with mortality. (The point of the myth is that, both mortality and the original temptation, and thus the role of the Devil as representation of Desire, were according to God’s plan, i.e. a necessary consequence of some unknown anthropological/cosmic principle). But whereas in the biblical genesis (the word was used by Arthur when arguing that ideas cannot be planted externally because they can always be traced to their genesis, i.e. origin, moment of inception) we are told of the role of God as Creator/Architect, in this movie we are left in the dark as to the ultimate source of Cobb’s fantasies (are they the result of auto-inception, or is somebody else, for good or for ill, manipulating his mind, like the neo-platonic Demiurge/Architect), or whether there is some ultimate ‘reality’ grounding all events in the movie.
Whatever the case, his leaving his children is the one regret that was the result of a conscious decision, and whose consequences would be echoed by Saito when he asks him: “Dare you take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone.” So whether real or not, everything that takes place in his mind is meant to goad him onto this path of redemption (and out of the maze).
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Let us take up this question from a different perspective. Let us consider the possibility that Cobb is stuck in some kind of memory loop (i.e. a maze), which would both begin and end with his meeting with Saito. In this hypothetical loop, every time he met the old Saito at the dinner table, their conversation would jolt him into remembering their first encounter, part of his attempted extraction with Arthur and Nash that originally took place in the train. From this we may surmise that everything that follows during the movie happens as usual (as far as the loop is concerned), since it all leads to his final encounter with the old Saito. But at the end of the movie this final encounter does not jolt his memory back as it did in the beginning. Why? If we take the possibility of this recursive loop (a limbo of sorts) as our starting point, then a new element must have been introduced into the sequence of events that somehow brings this recursivity to an end. If we want to trace this event, the easiest way may be to move backwards from this final meeting with Saito. By doing so, we notice that the conversation is slightly different from the beginning, and that it also ends abruptly with Cobb waking up in the plane. Somehow, something crucial happens during the movie that leads to a difference in the conversation, which in turn [hypothetically] jolts his memory in such a way that it avoids rebooting itself back to that initial conversation with Saito with which the movie and the plot formally begins. Instead, he wakes up from this recursive loop, though not necessarily into reality.
With regards to recursive loops, this is a phenomenon with an extensive and well-known history. One that Nolan may be indirectly alluding to throughout his movie. He may even have borrowed some of his ideas from ‘Gödel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid’ by Douglas Hofstadter.
The book (GEB) uses a problem in set and number theory to explain a more general problem about the relation between language and meaning, in particular the paradox it produces when we try understand one from the perspective of the other, and then tries to contrast this to the nature of human consciousness. The crux of this problem is that a formal axiomatic system of representation (e.g. the real world) cannot account for all the parameters that establish the validity of that system simply because these are potentially infinite and because the propositions (or algorithms) it must rely upon to do so (e.g. the totem) must itself exist outside the originally established parameters (representing the axiom in question, or in this case, reality) it is meant to account for. Translated in the context of the movie, the original axiom (e.g. the ‘real world’) remains incomplete because its status has not been proven one way or another by the totem; as a result we cannot infer the validity of Cobb’s reality, and nor can Cobb. Like Cobb explains, totems only help determine whether one is in somebody else’s dream or not.
This may seem like an awkward way of explaining the problem (and is probably better dealt with in the field of hermeneutics, or Hegel’s Logic), but this is also the starting point of the book (associated to Gödels Incompleteness theorem). Aware of the difficulties involved with explaining something so abstract only specialists understand or are interested in, Hofstadter also uses the kōans of Zen Buddhism, the paintings of Escher, and the music of Bach to explain the phenomenon of recursivity and self-reference (strange loops) in formal axiomatic systems, only to contrast these to the process of thought involved in human self-consciousness. As Hofstadter states in another of his books (I Am a Strange Loop):
“What I mean by "strange loop" is ... an abstract loop in which, in the series of stages that constitute the cycling-around, there is a shift from one level of abstraction (or structure) to another, which feels like an upwards movement in a hierarchy, and yet somehow the successive "upward" shifts turn out to give rise to a closed cycle. That is, despite one's sense of departing ever further from one's origin, one winds up, to one's shock, exactly where one had started out. In short, a strange loop is a paradoxical level-crossing feedback loop.”
So this reference to Hofstadter may not be superfluous. For one, Hans Zimmer admits to having been influenced by GEB in the composition of the soundtrack; e.g. the ominous foghorn sounds used in the trailers and with which the movie begins turns out to be slowed-down version of Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, je ne regrette rien,’ demonstrating a mutual correspondence between the manipulation of time in the music by the composer and the use of the same music to coordinate ‘kicks’ in different temporal speeds by characters in the movie.
Another possible reference to this book in the movie are the use of the Penrose stair (twice, by Arthur) to demonstrate how physical properties in a dream can be manipulated to create spatial paradoxes, much like Escher famously depicted in his paintings. And then we have that important scene where Ariadne, learning how to create and distort these physical properties, literally depicts Cobb and herself in the middle of an infinite, recursive, reflexion when she creates and positions two large mirrors across from each other. Something that surprises Cobb, and then worries him when he realizes that Ariadne is recreating from her memories (notice that he realizes this because of his own memories), something that he warns her may lead to difficulties in distinguishing illusion from reality. This is interesting, since this warning comes immediately after her having depicted the illusion of infinite recursivity and then shattering it, when he recognizes the place from his own memories with Mal.
If we take seriously the possibility that the movie serves as a metaphorical representation of the problem of recursivity (strange loops), what warrants the movie’s “incompleteness”? The director and the audience. Or better, the shared reality of the director and the audience, and the internal coherence of the axiomatic rules presented in the movie. For, no matter how fantastical or absurd the world being depicted in the movie, we can only derive meaning from the experience of watching a movie if there is a correspondence established between the world of the movie and the real world as experienced by the audience. The establishment of meaning (which like any subjective taste, can vary between individuals) is what impels us to confront and question what the movie represents, whether it is an emotion, a moral dilemma, or a hypothetical scenario.
And here we see the strong possibility that Nolan is not only questioning the tropes of film narrative and the medium itself while relying on them at the same time. Or, in other words, that he is questioning the purpose or status of film as a medium without positing an alternative, albeit one meant for the audience to fill in. This may be narrowed down to the question of meaning, and the hegemonic status of film as a tool of symbolic representation in establishing meaning, much like ideas and dreams, and even Cobb himself, are being used to manipulate people in the movie. Cobb’s search for meaning in his life, the movie’s attempt to represent this quest metaphorically, and the correspondence with our (the audience’s) own attempt to derive meaning from life in general, and the movie in particular, are all being compared isomorphically. This too is similar to Hofstadter’s original intention, as he explained in a later preface to GEB: "A crucial part of my book's argument rests on the idea that meaning cannot be kept out of formal systems when sufficiently complex isomorphisms arise. Meaning comes in despite one's best efforts to keep symbols meaningless!"
What is the main axiom that the movie posits? [Reality/consciousness] That one of the levels depicted in the movie represents the real world. This needs to be the case, since it is from this level that all other dream levels depend their temporal logic and spatial architecture. In other words, their ability to manipulate space-time depends on their belief that they are starting from the ‘real world’, which serves to ground their incursion into the subconscious. Like I said, this faith is corroborated by a token, which apparently only maintains its original physical properties (which only the original owner knows) in the real world.
Of course, these ‘physical properties’ are themselves based on scientific presuppositions, precisely those governing the so-called traditional laws of time and space. These also happen to be the ‘laws’ or logic that the audience tacitly concedes to when it accepts these tokens as a plot device, even though these ‘laws’ are no more axiomatic than the so-called rules governing the subconscious, or the correspondence between reality and the dreams. In other words, any knowledge of the precise correspondence of each subconscious level with the original level (the real world) is based entirely on a presupposition, i.e. faith. Notice that it is not even important whether this original level is the real world or not; the point is to use it as a reference with which to coordinate their actions in the subsequent levels.
If we remain on the subject of strange loops, there is therefore yet another plausible scenario worth exploring: Cobb is himself an algorithm – i.e. a computer program – derived from COBOL. COBOL could refer to one of the oldest programming languages. According to Wikipedia, its “name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.” This would make sense, if we look at how the notion of mathematical precision regulating the dream world is a tautological falsity, especially if it’s a dream-based presupposition to begin with. In other words, the ‘mathematical’ argument may be a subconscious idealization meant to grant the conscious self (e.g. Cobb) the semblance of control and security in a world otherwise devoid of meaning. The argument is therefore akin to Cobb’s reliance on the spinning top (the notion of harmony or some natural law grounding the structure of reality, even human subconscious). It is the alternative to the ‘leap of faith’ argument.
Within this context, perhaps the fact that Cobb begins by working for Cobol and ends up in the service of Proclus which is owned by Saito, who is in turn opposed to both COBOL and Fischer, is meant to denote this shift in his awareness of the nature of reality and his relation to it, even if intuitively.
PROCLUS, may also represent a program meant to prompt A.I. in Cobb, or an external force (deus ex machina) representing the genesis of the original inception that leads Cobb out of limbo/false reality (much like what happens to Neo throughout the Matrix trilogy). Here too the name may be a clue.
Proclus was a philosopher (and mathematician) who lived in a time of great change, when competing ideas that on the surface seemed antithetical to each other – ancient pagan philosophical traditions and Christianity – were increasingly at odds with each other. From our perspective, his work looks both backwards and forwards. In its neo-pythagorean and neo-platonic influence, it venerates ancient traditions whose influence was in decline, and would soon be considered antagonistic. And yet it helped transmit what would remain an essentially neo-platonic core in the heart of Christianity, a system of thought whose power and influence would come to dominate most of Europe (and beyond).
What is relevant to us is that Proclus’ system is the complete antithesis of what a formal algorithmic system like COBOL represents. And this because, despite their awareness of the mathematical nature of the universe, [neo-]pythagoreans saw in natural patterns, harmonies, and geometric symmetries an expression of an even more fundamental principle; one which in the wake of Plato would be narrowed down to a monistic essence, e.g. the One [gk. to Hen], or God, governing all of existence. Reality.
It is also a tradition that would infuse in the western mind the drive to understand and explain the paradox of existence; one which wedded to Christian pragmatism, would steer this drive towards experimentation and the desire to control nature and one’s own fate. Western liberalism, humanism, capitalism, universal rights and education, all these are offshoots of that fundamental struggle between a nascent individualist conscience and the mystery of an intelligent kosmos. A struggle that was and is essentially human, and thus universal, though it was ironically allowed to flourish in Europe thanks to the Christian promise of the Kingdom of God and a universal brotherhood of mankind – a doctrine that was gradually forced to defer, though not without a fight, to the autonomy of reason and individual agency.
But regardless of what Proclus/Saito may represent, the point is not to posit the ‘reality’ of Proclus/Saito within the context of the movie, but to approach Proclus/Saito as the symbol of our need to look elsewhere/outside for the source of any meaning (much like the monolith in 2001). Otherwise we fall into the same mistake of substituting the shadowy COBOL with the ‘benevolent’ Proclus Global, which leaves us empty-handed with regards to the movie and its use of strange loops. Besides, part of the argument is that the movie is using a sleight of hand in order to set us on the wrong foot, making us use the wrong axiomatic system to categorize and understand the movie’s depiction of reality. This is also the reason why asking whether the movie’s ambiguous ending is meant to suggest the possibility that Cobb was and is still dreaming – that he’s not in fact in reality – itself already relies on a false premise: that the movie is structured upon the premise that life is based on the well-known illusion/reality duality (mind-body). The point is that Cobb finally returns to his children. If we want to understand the ending, then we need to interpret what this event signifies to us.
If we instead consider the dichotomy of truth/being, we can more readily accept that whether or not the ending still takes place in a dream is irrelevant; the question is shifted to the truth of the event, and of Cobb’s emotional experience, not to whether these take place in ‘reality’ or not (remember, ‘reality’ is an incomplete axiom which cannot be proven within the parameters of the movie). The important question is then whether Cobb has overcome his fears and reconciled with the truth of his actions (more importantly, if he has found meaning). The mere act of looking at his children symbolizes his willingness to confront this truth (that he’d forsaken his children out of fear and guilt) – something he was unwilling to do before. His children turning around and approaching him in turn symbolizes his reconciliation with this truth. Whether or not the spindle keeps spinning or not is irrelevant, now that Cobb has transcended his fixation with the question of what is real (which is what destroyed Mal, and was about to destroy him too). Having the movie end in this way is not so much a tongue-in-cheek gesture by Nolan, but a challenge to the audience, not only to look beyond the surface structure of the film, but to do so with experience in general, beginning with our the way we usually approach movies (and art). The question is therefore not whether his children are real or not (if they are, he was a bad parent to begin with), or whether he’s still stuck in limbo or not, but what is the [ontological] status of limbo. I.e., is it meant to be a dream, an existential limbo, a spiritual purgatory, a strange loop, or all of the above?
In a way, Inception fits in that growing list of films that seem to appeal to audience members to question not only the movie’s artistic depiction of the ‘problem of reality’, but their own subjective experience of reality as well. If it were only about the artistic process itself, then Synecdoche New York should be seen as its superior; it is a movie that not only better depicts visually the world-creating aspect of story-telling, but triumphs in demonstrating the extreme emotional tension that can arise between the artist and that which he or she creates, including its effect on other personal relations. By contrast, Inception is less interested in pointing to itself or movie-making in general than it is about using the movie as a medium to compare our every-day experience and the dangers that lurk underneath when either are taken for granted. In effect, it is a warning against simply viewing movies as passive entertainment. One could therefore argue that it builds upon themes introduced in the Prestige and his Batman movies; the craft of movie-making as magic, and the [political] power of images.
If anything, Inception seems less successful as a movie and more so as an interesting thought experiment on the nature of reality. Accordingly, the depiction of dream states serve less to elucidate the true nature of dreams than to describe our perception of reality, particularly of space and time. The movie’s thesis, then, could be that ‘reality’ is determined by the interrelation between autonomous choice and the function of memory. In other words, that our experience of linear temporality is nothing except an infinite sequence or recursive loops capable of spawning infinite different scenarios, and that each such scenario is itself an infinite recursive loop. The only thing guiding such a system ‘forward’ is the instigation of desire (e.g. for meaning) with produces change within the system, which is then catalogued by memory as the perception of change. (Different myths and individual thinkers have proposed various elementary desires as responsible for the ‘genesis’ of consciousness, such as fear, lust, hunger, to glory or the desire for knowledge.)
The same could be said about the relation of the movie to the audience. The point of inception is to plant the seed that Kant thought would enlighten mankind onto the path of enlightenment: sapere aude (dare to know). But in planting the seed, it also seems to point to itself, perhaps as a motivation to take the movie seriously, that it is not just simple entertainment. It may want to suggest that it doesn’t need to plant any seed, because that seed is already in all of us; it is inherent in all our actions, all our desires, and all our dreams. In other words, the movie may want to revivify an even older instruction: gnōthi seauton (know thyself).
Following this theme of moral autonomy and responsibility, it is interesting that Nolan’s work does seem to focus somewhat on the ramifications of making the wrong choices in crucial moments. In Memento we find out that the main character had made up his whole history, and shot an innocent person, just so he could forget a painful memory (that he’d accidentally killed his own wife). In Insomnia, we find a similarly morally compromised individual choose to hide an error – the death of his partner – despite the consequences this would have on innocent people (he even begins to question whether he did in on purpose or not; he may have subconsciously wanted him dead, and acted upon that urge without thinking). Even the Batman movies are saddled with the moral implications of certain decisions, though The Dark Knight succeeds the most in contrasting the moral equivalence of two opposing extremes (order and chaos), and the willingness to confront their implications that ultimately distinguishes Batman from the Joker (though in Nolan doesn’t hide that Batman nevertheless choose the end as a justification of the means when he uses technology that overrides the right to privacy of the citizens of Gotham).
Inception is also subtle in its criticism of the potential consequences of corporate hegemony: it begins using the struggle for global dominance as a backdrop for what will follow, and to explain Cobb’s involvement. This struggle, though, is not between competing political and ideological systems of thought, but of global conglomerates seeking control of the energy markets. The difference could be attributed to the fact that nowadays, with the fall of communism in the West and the adoption of capitalism by China, there is no longer a viable alternative to capitalism, even though it is still uncertain whether the Chinese model – which still leaves little space for the private and individual liberties that we have grown accustomed to in the West (and that we use to justify our rhetoric of universal human rights; i.e. our moral superiority, despite our ongoing military and economic subjugation of third world countries whose sovereignty we can undermine through moral arguments, despite their obvious falsity) – will evolve into a different capitalist model capable of challenging the western liberal capitalist model.
Considering that this struggle between China (or the so-called BRIC countries) and the West partly depends on access to energy resources, it may not be a coincidence that Cobb’s mission is set upon this backdrop, which will play out in Africa (just as it is now being fought in the Middle-East and Southern Caucasus). The indifference with which Cobb runs through the streets of [Morocco?] may seem like the usual chase scene set in an exotic location, but it may actually represent the disdain and lack of respect with which we intrude into other nations for own self-interests, gamble with their money and their lives, and then leave without a word, leaving behind a trail of destruction. And even when they tell us straight to our face that they don’t want us there, we’d rather pretend we don’t hear them, like the scene with the owner of the café that shouts at Cobb for his intrusion, reprising what would usually be a moment of relief in an Indiana Jones movie, but is now set in a post-colonialist backdrop of warring conglomerates seeking control of a dwindling energy resource. So yes, we will stay, even if it means having to bear with the narrow-minded intolerance of the locals; people that may look different, but want the same things we do. Indeed, like the old man in the opium den full of dreamers tells Cobb, “They come here to be woken up. Their dream has become their reality. Who are you to say otherwise?”
But like I said, these critical hints are subtle, and serve only as a background to a much larger struggle, whose depiction is more ambitious. The structure of the movie may even be meant as a heuristic device for exploring the nature of consciousness and memories. But whether it is related to the problem of technology, of dehumanization, or the limitations of thought, my point is that any description of this problem remains part of the problem unless it includes in it the medium, and in inner logic, by which it presents this description. It is altogether precarious if it knowingly hides this process, and how it works. COBOL may be playing HAL (Heuristic ALgorithm) to our Bowman (Cobb). Either way, the message remains the same.
This may all seem academic, but there really is something at stake. The question about the status of art as a medium of meaning is only one part of the equation. The other is the possibility of art as a medium of autonomous thought, where thought can represent its own symbols separate, even in contradiction, to the overall parameters of the dominant system. With regards to Inception, the question is whether Nolan seeks to challenge the hegemonic system upon which he must rely as an artist while simultaneoulsy creating a space or rupture upon which new representations can be established and made to flourish.
So here’s the executive summary:
Limbo is the infinite recurrence of a sequence of events in-between the scenes with young and old Saito. In other words, Saito is not in ‘limbo’, but is, like Mal et al., a subconscious projection of Cobb trying to alert himself that he’s stuck in a loop (i.e., limbo). Hence Cobb’s need to save Saito from ‘limbo’; his promise to arrange his entry into the U.S. to be reunited with his children represents the final obstacle necessary to get out of this labyrinth he somehow got stuck in. However, this does not mean he returns to ‘reality.’ Redemption, in Cobb’s case, is simply the return to a previous dream state, in this case one where he returns to what he believes are his memories of his children, but also one in which he is reconciled with the death of his wife, and his role therein. His letting go of his wife’s totem, the spindle/top, represents this reconciliation; a penance of sorts, for the damage he has caused by playing with powers and ideas beyond his understanding. But a step up from limbo nonetheless.
What lies further up the ladder? That is left unsaid.
Inception
“Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.”
“Through the years, a man peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his own face.”
Jorge Luis Borges
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Good example.
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... I couldn't disagree more. I loved the film. I was stunned and emotional drained after that movie. It hit me like a sledge hammer. I swear on the grave of Orson Wells that nothing has hit me like this since 1977.
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didn't sleep in Inception.
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I will buy the dvd, will watch it again.But I will fast forward thru 90% of the snow sequence.
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away from your children. Then see Inception again. Then see if you think there is not emotional depth to the story.
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It is too surreal to take seriously, while Inception's dreamscape is too real to (not) take seriously.
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Thank you, Harry. Inception doesn't deserve half the accolades it's been receiving. It's like a Dan Brown book.
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You ain't the king or master of anything. Yes, I liked Scott Pilgrim but you seriously just need to fucking blow a load, get a coke, smile and shut the fuck up. Christ.
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Exacatly what I was going to say!
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Harry ignored, flat out ignored, one of the biggest releases of the Summer, one opened to wide critical acclaim and great film community enthusiasm. He kept on responding to people asking his opinion of it in talkbacks that he was working on it, he'd get to it. Four long weeks passed (for most movies that's their entire lifetime in the theater) before he deigned it worthy of slapping together a mediocre review of it. During that time, he slobbered hyperbolocally all over Expendables, which he reviewed before it hit theaters, and which he had an obvious personal investment in-- being close friends with the Director and openly attacking an early negative review of. In said review, he also made a note that, though he hadn't seen it yet, he knew Scott Pilgrim Vs the World was the best movie of the Summer. I'll say it again, at this point he had ignored the thusfar highest anticipated movie of the Summer, refusing to acknowledge it with a review, rushed out an over the top, gushing review for his personal friend's movie, and declared a movie he hadn't even seen the best film of the season. If you can't see why that annoys some of us, I'll have to choreograph a puppet show for you to explain it in terms you might better understand.
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Really?
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thinks Harry's review is inconsistent and full of shit.
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I've heard Harry say Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report and Inception aren't all that but the expendable, twlight or any of the shit movies you compared inception too(including a fucking Freddy Cougar movie). Inception is no revelation but what is wrong with you thar you get so much wrong about the plot? As numerous people have stated they can't dream bigger or they will be attacked you tool and ruin the whole point of the heist. The guy can't get wise to the fact that he's being conned. Fuck your just writing a review like this get to this kind of response out of people otherwise you wouldn't have bothered with that halfassed review.
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especially when Inception is about as original as cinema gets, and The Expendables.... isn't.
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Can't hold your pee, falling alseep throughout a movie? you are such a spoiled brat
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The movie was empirically awesome. Fact.
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How many of us would go to the cinema with someone we thought was going to run off for a piss as the best bit, or sleep for a large portion of the new Christopher Nolan film??? So the next question would then be.... wtf are we doing on this website?
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Let's just think about that for a moment. He rates NOE3 higher than Inception. Let's just think about that for a moment. Now I ask the question - why do we give this fucking insane human haggis the time of day?
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But shhhh, don't tell anyone otherwise the subconscious will think somethings up....
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Harry's opinion seems to be that he would rather of had someone else do it more loosely and less grounded (like Gilliam or something) instead. I'm fine with thinking that but that means nothing to the movie that actually exists. I also hate talking back on the review sections on here honestly. Everyone just puts their opinion here as fact and claims everyone doesn't get it or anything. Just let it go and enjoy it yourself. Reviews on this site are usually pointless fanboy banter anyways (actually all reviews are useless, just see it yourself). If you liked it then nobody is gonna take that away from you. BUT you dont need to make everyone else like it. Harry, I disagree with your review and I like the fact he kept it grounded instead of being some Speed Racer/Gilliam amount of zaniness going on everywhere. Its more Nolan's style and I'm happy he has a style. To each their own.
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Scott Pilgrim is far more of a 'dream' movie than Inception. It literally hitches the whole plot on a dream/vision.And, it it being reviewed by Harry in the same 24 hours that he reviewed Inception (which has been out a whole month).
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Aug 14, 2010 9:05:23 PM CDT
"ignored the thusfar highest anticipated movie of the Summer"
by mr. profit
How do you know it was the highest anticipated film of the Summer? How can you be so sure when you say that. Maybe it was the highest anticipated film of the Summer for you. But everyone's tastes in their entertainment options is different. Judging by popularity alone, Toy Story 3 grossed the most of all movies released this Summer. So one could say that was the highest anticipated movie of the Summer. But then again, the same could have been said about "Eclipse" since it's box office gross is currently sitting higher than "Inception". My point is, don't speak for everyone when arguing your point.
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it was my most anticipated movie of the summer.
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Aug 14, 2010 9:07:44 PM CDT
Sweatin to the oldies just never fully took with Harry
by chocolatejesusman
Why are we all clamoring for a review from Harry seeing as he has become a fat douche with the writing skills of a retarded chimpanzee who sold out his journalistic integrity years ago
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Too busy playing with your Barbie dolls? C'mon defend yourself you fucking cunt. What you've done is the equilvelent of drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa and then hide under the stairs. Come out of hiding and defend yourself you anal polyp.
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The plot, honest to god, was stolen from a Duck Tales comic. Look it up.
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film of the Summer the same way I can say that Avatar was the most anticipated film of last winter. Because it obviously was. The hype level was huge, particularly around here. I can't quantify it, can you?
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That's it, man. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course, but you are just one over the top review after another, praising the shit out of mediocre films (Kick Ass), and now you can't get into the most nuanced, detailed film of the year. I'm done with you.
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Heavy anticipation means a ridiculously huge opening due to the anticipation being so great. That's why The Dark Knight SLAYED opening weekend. The high anticipation was there. If referring to that film, you could argue that it was the most highly anticipated film of that Summer since it made major waves in box office gross in it's opening weekend, broke records, and continued its run to the #3 highest grossing (Non Adjusted for Inflation) movie of all time in the US. Inception's opening weekend? 63 million... Bad? No. But that figure doesn't show high anticipation. The film has had great staying power though. But again, don't speak for everyone.
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I don't know why Inception has this reputation as a "mind-bender" or some deep-thinking concept, or ... whatever. Keep in mind I loved it but I think all this in-depth criticism, while interesting in and of itself, exists quite discretely from the film, which is basically a better mousetrap, 3-D chess, what have you. Nolan himself called it a heist movie, and I agree with that description. All the quasi-existential "questions" people bring up are well beside the point. Most of the ambiguity of the film is in service to the emotional state of DiCaprio's character as it relates to his wife. It's not some treatise on the meaning of life or something.
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The matrix. It just wasn't that big of a deal.
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Nothing in Inception felt like someone's dream. it felt like The Matrix where you can alter a similar reality. Dreams never make sense..well at least mine. Dr.Parnassus seems more along the lines of what I was thinking but you know not so in your face.
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Your readership demands it. Give the people what they want.
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For every over rated comment, I could show you one that under rates it. The fact that it divides audiences shows that between the "mehs" and the "WOWs" the general consensus is it's a great movie. No need to debate it
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You're right, it's not a treatise on the meaning of life... as Chuck_Chuckwallla and I were saying earlier, the film creates it's own world, it's own characters and it's own rules... and it STICKS TO THEM. Unlike most summer movies which make shit up as they go along, not caring what they established at the start. And that is to be commended.
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I stopped there. There was no point in reading any further.
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You mention the fact that you're disappointed with the face that after Ellen Page's twisting of the world, that in the actual "Heist" the world isn't contorted that much at all. But didn't it make sense that with Ellen Page's character being the "architect" if you will, that she would try to keep the world "grounded" (I use that term in quotes, given the "Call of Duty" snow sequence!!) so that no-one else in the team flipped-out? And the wants and desires you have are there in another movie - the Matrix.
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the wants and desires Harry wants are in The Matrix Revolutions.
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there wasn't enough homoeroticism in it.
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Aug 14, 2010 9:22:26 PM CDT
So FUCK YOU and every other idiot that nods off during films
by anything but tangerines
then comlplains about how they "didn't get it" ITS BECAUSE YOU WERE ASLEEP IDIOT
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TRIANGLE? Now THAT was a real mind-bender even without elaborate special effects!
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they are much worse than overactive ones
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Sorry Harry, I know that you've been busy and such, and I know that the talkbackers can be a cruel kind, but why did you post your review for Inception? The review itself feels like you felt obligated to write something, but rather than give the movie a chance you didn't feel like you wanted to - and instead you're concentrating on the Expendables and Scott Pilgrim. I've seen you do this before, when you slaughtered Oceans 11 (stating that you thought the utter crapfest that is 3000 Miles to Vegas was better. And all because you were still pumped-up on Fellowship of the Rings!!). Harry, I'm not slating you for your enthusiasm, but rather I think at times that its misplaced, and like a badly-mixed cocktail, the heat isn't throughout the drink.
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tell him he should be ashamed of doing Nolan and Inception the disservice of falling asleep, and than no amount of "i'll review it later-shit-ya-pants" is gonna make up for it. Review films properly Harry, or don't review films at all.
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Harry's feelings towards INCEPTION epitomizes what wrong with geek culture. Time after time Harry's taste in film show us that HE CAN ONLY TRULEY VALUE ART BY HOW WELL IT HELPS HIM ESCAPE REALITY. The danger of escapism is the point of Inception. And Harry (along with all you pasty vitamin D defecient nerds) are the evidence
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I was thinking the exact same thing - but I also remembered certain moments in Reloaded.
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such as the Expendables.
whatever Harry... -
Aug 14, 2010 9:28:05 PM CDT
Now that scott pilgrim and the expendables are throughly blown
by canvasseamonkey
here's his inception review, 1 month later. something is odd here
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I was looking forward to the film, but the problem started for me when I saw the trailer, and wasn't moved *at all*. Does nobody realize this film wouldn't even exist without The Matrix? And those movies engaged both the mind and the *heart*. I love to think in the theater, and I acknowledge those who still care enough to engage my mind. But unless you can touch my heart as well, you ultimately fail, And that's the failure of Inception. It's a pretty puzzle, an attractive architecture, but it doesn't move the soul or touch the heart. The Matrix did...and Scott Pilgrim does, too. Nolan only seems to muster any emotion when he's making movies about Batman. He has a lot left to learn.
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Hilarious!
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You're really expecting us to read that shit??? Give me a break!
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DiCaprio gets to see the faces of his children again. You cold hearted monster.
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Inception, or Expendables?
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Movie of the year for, seen it a couple of times, seeing it again today. If I had any movie making talent, and money behind me this os the kind of movie I would want to makeToy Story 3 comes in at secondWould agree with Harry on one point you shouldn't watch this movie when you are tired, should be watching something short and brainless if you are tired
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Short and brainless.
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Short and brainless.
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Inception-crapToy Story 3-crapExpendables-masterpiece (and not just because I'm best friends with the Director) Scott Pilgrim-best film of the year (I knew before I even saw it that it was the best; watching it was just a formality!
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because it wasn't a dream? Just a theory
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The reason why the dream had to be grounded in reality is that it is based on the premise that infiltrators won't have difficulty entering intothe dreamer's subconscious. There is a need for familiarity for the dream thieves within the subconscious if they are to execute their plans well. Just imagine if the dreamer dreams about other worlds or worse, outer space. That is why there is a need for an "architect" to put the dreamer in a state which makes him more vulnerable to manipulation.
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now, i am not talking about the fact that harry doesnt like the film - in fact, that actually makes me still believe in harry's credibility as a journalist. i like that harry doesn't necessarily fall in line with every other review on the planet. what im getting at is the way that all of a sudden harry is specifically attacking a guy he use to ADORE. harry - man up & spill it: what did nolan - or someone from his camp - do that turned your opinion against this guy? and please dont say its his filmmaking you dont vibe, because the last film of his you reviewed, you were praising his work (in admitted hyperbole!!) for those of you who dont believe me, please re-read harry's review of TDK. again, i could care less that harry doesn't like inception, i just wish he'd be honest about why he's all of a sudden calling nolan a corporate tool - yes we can read between the lines. if they did something that is truly shitty, then im on your side harry, and id even defend/side-up with you. but the words you are choosing, and the demeanor you are expressing is just really fishy & too many red flags are going off. i guess i just love your enthusiasm for cinema too much to believe that all of a sudden you think chris nolan lacks imagination.
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i admit i was expecting more fantastical dreamworlds but i liked how grounded in reality it mostly was. can't speak for anyone else but 99% of the dreams i remember tend to be based in reality. its very rare i have these off the wall "hollywood" like dreams. i mean sometimes the subject matter might be odd or whatnot but its still happening in the "real world".
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Like this "reviewer" allows for his environment to influence his opinion on films he reviews. I bet if he saw Inception during a comic con setting like Scott Pilgram he would have given it an "omg I just geek jizzed in my pants y'all" review.
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No one is seriously reading Harry's reviews are they ? Lets be honest Merrick's son is a more committed and much better film critic than Harry. Definitely much better written.I read them for the entertainment factor and the talkback that follows. They tend to come across like the stereotype of a 12/13 year old boy watching the movie, i.e. short attention span, wants everything spoon fed, lazy, not objective when "friends" are involved.
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"The Expendables" and "Scott Pilgrim" for the first time while "Inception" rots in the dollar bin at Wal Mart. Surely.
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It's been like a month since the movie opened. We don't need to hear you take on it.
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Nolan is overrated. DiCaprio displays more ham than the Deli at my local grocery store. And when did Michael Cera get the idea that he was a movie star?? I don't care how bad THE EXPENDABLES may be, at least it's full of leading men that actually look like grown men, and not 16-year-old-facebook-twittering-Starbuck's-drinking-dipshits.
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If you keep that kind of tally of Harry Reviews for the year will be some very funny reading
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Harry, Inception is a fucking great movie.
You don't have to agree, but at least give a detailed analysis to back up your opinion. You know, maybe go into the notions & concepts a little? Perhaps even delve into specific scenes & say why they don't work for you, like an actual reviewer might?
The fact that it took you so long to write this (& only did do under duress) is pretty fucking shameful already. -
You praise the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, but find fault with this? Yikes man, yikes.
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I love this site for those absolutely rediculous comments, its hilarious. Sometimes this site is like Bizarro world, i.e. critically acclaimed + popular = overrated
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I new he wasn't going to like this film, now, if it was an indie film that ascreened at some loser fesival he would be all over it. Harry is a sellout
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so, you didn't thing the vast cityscapes were awesome. Honestly, the final frame of that film changed the meaning of the entire film for me. Everything up until that point is about Leo battling his guilty sub-conscience. Everything that was perceived to be reality was actually a dream; thus marion cotillard actually woke up when she killed herself. Her visitations were not of Leo's actual construct. She literally wanted him to wake up. Thus even the 'real world' scenes were of Leo's construct. Everything that didn't click with you is everything that really makes the film's logic gel the most. If it had been done bigger and weirder, I think it would have come off as a big 'yeah right' type film. I appreciate Nolan's restraint in some areas. I find it more respectful to an audience's intellect and sensibilties, than say, what micheal bay would have thrown at us. Well, i'm just disappointed we might disagree on this, but that's okay. It's not the first time; but really, why this review bugs me is that I sense that you might not be seeing the whole picture on this particular film, given your reasons for not really getting along with it. You might change your mind in time.
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Fatality.
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I think I am officially done with this site...harry dislikes a great movie yet orgasmed off expendables? Please enemy, create IICN.com (isn't it cool news)
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A game of Twister is less convoluted.
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I have been coming to this site for 10 years but I have never participated in a talkback until now. I am done with this shit. I have defended Harry for years against the claims of being a sellout and a shill but now I am done.
I encourage others to go the same rout. There are plenty of sites with reviewers who don't fall asleep or go piss during big films.
Used to be a fan of Harry, I even own his book, but I am officially done with this shit.
The only time I will read anything associated with Harry again is when his fat ass eventually dies from some fat fuck related illness.
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to get some Terry Gilliam like surrealist bat-shit crazy dreams, I'm sure Inception wouldn't "fully take" with me either. But I went in knowing it was a Heist film, and it delivered in spades.
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in a world where the audiance interest is in the promise of experiancing a dream on film. Yeah if nolan ever needed to blow shit up good and go overboard with the special effects. This was that film. Dark city is way beyond better than this movie. I held my breath fearing a nolan lynch mob. Actually you know what. Dark City had wondeful character work, and a really cool fucking effects in play for it's time. Mr hand was some creepy shit.
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Imagine the pain of reading your painstakingly well thought out & brilliantly executed work of art, being trashed by a man with a neck beard.
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Everyone has seen the film by now anyway.
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Why would you fast forward through the climax of the movie? And to all the other people who said they started to tune out during the snow scene, what's wrong with you? You start to lose interest in a movie just because one action scene isn't quite as good as the rest of the movie? All you haters think you're cool by hating something that's completely fine.
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He didn't pander and kiss the ass of the film no one can stop talking about. He was genuinely unimpressed by it, and at the risk of being unpopular, he said what was truly on his mind. You don't have to like it. His personal integrity remains intact. Personally, I liked Inception, there is so much of it that is really well-done on a technical level, but I agree that it felt like something was missing.
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I'd respect the opinion of a talented or thoughtful critic who somehow didn't like Inception if it wasn't from the same fucking moron who went gaga over Expendables and any other damn movie he has to like to keep an in somewhere. I know you built this site, Harry, and I"ve been here since the beginning (rarely posting but always reading), but this shit has gone too far. You're an idiot. Let the big boys talk about big boy movies. Stick to your '70s erotica or whatever else the fuck you want to go on and on about you lazy fat fuck.
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Aug 14, 2010 10:10:09 PM CDT
Harry, you're "Michael Bay" audience. Massa is Nolan's audience.
by ricarleite2
You're a stupid fat fuck who gets excited by crap like GINO, Bayformers, Phantom Menace. Regardless of how successful this website is, your reviews are worldwide known for being biased, pathetic, laughable at best some times. So, you not liking Inception - and fucking SLEEPING on one of the most exciting and well-directed thrillers out there - only tells how poralized this movie's audiences are. You are part of the morons who didn'r get it - and that, Harry, makes this movie EVEN better. Now, Massa did not sleep on the job EVER, even when watching Daddy Day Camp or Bratz. No, he fucking endured it, and wrote the BEST reviews here. I just PRAY Yoko lets him take over the editorial part of AICN when you die.
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There seems to be one or two movies that just completely blow me away. Last year it was District 9. This year it was Toy Story 3 and Inception. Reading Harry's ridiculous review of The Expendibles, and reading this review just shows me how much he is out of touch with everything. completely pathetic review.
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No Harry I don't care to elaborate?
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I really liked the film 'Inception'. I don't think it was the best film of the year.
Why is it so hard for some of you to accept that those two statements aren't mutually exclusive? This is seriously "The Dark Knight" all over again. Just because the Nerd Legion really really likes something, doesn't mean that other people can only like other things at their peril.
Those of you shitting on the 'Inception' detractors are doing so on no other basis than the fact they disagree with you. Jesus. Can you please be open to the fact that other people might have a different, yet equally valid, take on things?
And since i'm nothing if not consistent: Seph_J is a knob. -
They are so fucking far fetched each and everytime, the bullet recombinator. the mad gas microwave plot for bb. th ebat cell sonar shit from tdk. when we watch the bus leave the bank and fall in line with the other buses. Sometimes someone needs to tel this man hey, brudda, that shit is fucking stupid man. What he does when he does this is he spits it out very quick, and tosses somethign else at you so you dont have time to think about how fucking stupid it is. thw worse was the prestidge, oh fuck who is killing who again. and if it might be you why did you do it, never knowing. I'm sorry that isnt brillance...
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It's HIS site, and yet he doesn't ban free exchange of ideas, even when people who don't even know him personally attack HIM, not just his opinions on film. When everyone and their brother is falling head over ass trying to praise this heartless wonder, do you think it's easy to dislike it? I *like* brainy films. I also still like Dark Knight. But Inception misses the mark.
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...better than Inception? I am truly speechless.
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People who use big words. Have small dicks. Somepeople just like to masterbate in public, some have enough poride over the size of their dick to do it with the dick others have to use words to spank the brain. Who goes to hitfix anyways.
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oops
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Now all of you whiny shitheads who can't think for themselves can stop asking Harry for his review.
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cause we get blurays of star wars in 2011. i cant spell for shit right now. It's as if a million moms and dads 30 year old basement dwelling kids cried out in pain and were suddenly silenced.
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Remember that shit? Of all the crap to be pissed at Matric RELOADED ABOUT>>>HE WAS pissed there weren't vampires and fuckin' werewolves in it!
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Aug 14, 2010 10:28:25 PM CDT
And with that, I close the book on Harry Knowles...
by rockhardtobascoslimjim
I will still come here for Quint. But between this, the constant obvious pandering to lesser films where money or goods have obviously changed hands in exchange for said cock slobbering and FUCKING MERRICK AND HIS SON... this site is going the way of the Lucas. George, that is.
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The rules and reason why dreams couldn't be crazy on the person being Inceptioned were explained.I guess you weren't paying attention. The movie has layers but shouldn't have been hard to follow.
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Your points are all the same as http://bit.ly/cO3j9i
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..he would pan Shutter Island. In fact most people WOULD have panned Shutter Island if Scorsese hadn't been the director. If it was some anonymous shmuck you'd never heard of it it would be considered in the same category as an Ashley Judd thriller from the late 90's. But because it's Scorsese you dumbasses are giving it undeserved praise -- and at the same time dumping on people that like Inception as just "being on Christopher Nolan's dick". Guess what, it works both ways. Even Scorsese does trash work, and Shutter Island was trash. If you don't have the balls to say so, don't be giving the people who liked the best movie of the summer a hard time. We want MORE movies like Inception, and you twats are dumping on it.
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In time you and your friends on the Endor moon will realize this.
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He means Capone walks around in drag at night ala the guy who directed Die Another Day/XXX.
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Wow. Better than Inception? I can't be the only one who just decided your reviews don't mean anything anymore. Inception is the best movie of the last few years. Fuck the hype. It's just great. P.S. Parnassus was a nice ride, but pretty forgettable now. I'll be thinking about Inception for a long time. Limited imagination??? Go jerk off over the Expendables again, now that you've forgotten your own supremely bad taste.
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the ski/snowmobile/snow battle scenes were ordinary, uninspired filler.Nothing "dreamlike" about them, just cheap action flick crap. At that particular stage of the movie, at that duration point in the movie, it needed to be frakkin amazing stuff to hold interest. I was just waiting for the conclusion of that dream layer at that point. "just get on with it" I remember thinking to myself. That cheesy snow fighting was distractingly ordinary in what should have been an engagingly extraordinary film.Like I said, I liked the film, the ambition and thought that created it, the premise and promise of it. But it fell short of its promise and potential. It was a 7 when it shoulda been a 9, 10, or a Spinal Tap 11.
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Are fucking retarded. Period. It got glowing reviews, huge box office, and was one of the few original (re: non-sequel or adaptation) films of the year. And you fucknards are bitching about it because you just HAVE to be the guy that decides that there's a Christopher Nolan bandwagon and you get more troll-power if you're not on it.
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"Shutter Island" was far better than "Inception." Then I stopped. Don't get me wrong--I enjoyed "Shutter Island," but it was no "Inception." I think I'll be skipping Harry's reviews from now on--even when I agree with them, they don't really make any sense.
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-- a good take on the movie. Glad you took the time to write up a review.
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I say thee nay, foul fiend! Memories of Lily Cole's cleavage will still haunt my dreams long after Half Price Books shelves will be flooded with used 'Inception' DVDs!
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Aug 14, 2010 10:40:52 PM CDT
The thing that really bothers me is that Harry is about to...
by rockhardtobascoslimjim
Sullen the great and historic name of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. One can only hope that Quint wises up and starts his own site soon. He's single handedly keeping this site going with his interviews and quality coverage and reviews. It's just kinda sad to see a site that was once a really great place to come and get some views from folks a bit on the level of the common man. Sadly it's now become the Batman & Robin of internet movie sites. Irony, your name be Knowles.
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He said Harry is welcome to suck Edgar Wright and Sly's dicks, but he's going to keep his pants tightly zipped. No Nolan cock sucking for you, Harold.
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Fucking amateur. You NEVER should have written this review. That ship sailed over a MONTH ago. Should have just let it be instead of stirring up this hornets nest. Oy, I shouldn't have had a bottle of wine with no food on 6 hrs of sleep in two days.
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Mr. Nolan doesn't need Harry to suck his dick. There are plenty of people in this talkback who have that job covered in spades.
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Aug 14, 2010 10:44:58 PM CDT
And in TEN FUCKING YEARS, they have yet to add...
by rockhardtobascoslimjim
A motherfucking EDIT FUNCTION!
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That you are a child. Just hurry up and die of obesity. Posting this shit at fanboys requests. Also, you're wrong, but then again Nolan never gave an interview, so I'm sure that played into it
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To quote, "One could therefore argue that it builds upon themes introduced in the Prestige and his Batman movies; the craft of movie-making as magic, and the [political] power of images."
You are forgetting an essential movie. One that is key to unlocking the decipher art within Inception. Our totem, of which derives it's name through such a similarity, while also another movie directed by Christoper Nolan.
Though how many people will walk out of the theater with an passive understanding of this movie, compared to an active? -
"I need to see it again before I review it bc I feel it's the kind of movie one needs to witness many times to understand it's depth." Now the excuse is "I fell asleep and missed 40 minutes." Whatever man. Either one line is bullshit or they both are.
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Aug 14, 2010 10:48:15 PM CDT
Harry I hope you like your new asshole
by bp_drills_america_a_new_asshole
that we've ripped for you. Now Edgar Wright and Sly can both fuck you at once. And hopefully you'll die from a ruptured anal artery.
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Aug 14, 2010 10:58:24 PM CDT
HARRY: THERE'S YOUR FUCKING INCEPTION REVIEW, NOW FUCK OFF!
by judaspriestly
JACKASSES.
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"I need to see it again bc it's the kind of deep movie that needs multiple viewings to understand." "I fell asleep the first time." Just tell us the truth.
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Can one of you tell the BP_drills and Davidia guys to shut the fuck up? They're giving you all a bad name. Wishing death on someone who disagrees with you about a movie? Really?
Name calling? Fine. Fat jokes? Kind of douchy and not my bag, but okay, whatever. But violent death fantasies?
I kind of want to like 'Inception' less just so I'm not on the same side of the arguement as those guys. -
because I figured out what was going on when Ariadne found Dom in the basement, hooking up to a dream machine. She is just way too mature and balanced for a 20-year old, and then the scene is an abrupt (read REM state) shift from the previous scene. She is clearly a projection of what is best (and worst) in Dom, creating M.C. Escher buildings on one hand, and ignoring his warnings about creating buildings from memory. After that, it was just a dream-movie, nowhere near as deep as Memento, where we see Lenny's last day on earth (just before Natalie phones Dodd) and we care about him. For all the grim faces, and pounding music, I never felt that there was anything at stake. The dream technology just wasn't real enough for me (Cerebro made much more sense), and so I just enjoyed my quality popcorn, and my free pass.
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Aug 14, 2010 11:00:38 PM CDT
Anyone lese get a "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" homage feel.
by ufoclub1977
from some of Inception? I was underwhelmed by some of it (just like I wasn't that into Dark Knight which did have great cinematography, music, and effects...) but by the time Inception ended I did like it. I think it trancended my irritation I have with Nolan overblowing it with the operatic music when the story doesn't support the entire horm section blasting off with BASS. But in the end I did like Inception. A lot more than Dark Knight. The best parts of the batman movie were the villain which were great. The parts with Batman were stupid.
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He didn't like Toy Story 3, didn't like Inception...but had an orgasm over The Expendables...yeah I'm not reading anymore of his review anymore. His taste in movies is shit.
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I wish death on harry not for his opinion, even though I think it wrong. I wish death on him because he just did nothing but look like a weakling instigating douchebag by reviewing a movie a month to late just because his... "fanbase" wants him to. I.e. he fell to the pressure of these people and in that will do nothing but create a backlash. This is typical behavior of this socially askew mutant, and not the first time his insecurities have shined through his administrative actions.
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Harry admits that this movie was "deep" in his previous excuse for not posting a review, then mentions nothing of the film's themes or depth in said review.
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Ah Dreamwarriors. With that said, Inception is a decent movie in a below average summer. I'm not sure if that is one of the reasons for its popularity. It has some insightful things to say about dreams and living a life but is only borderline interesting when it comes to the overall narrative.
BTW, I don't care how good a dream-warrior Leo is (or whatever his title is) but when you're dragging your own personal Freddy Kreuger into these dreams (Marion Cotialard) you should probably retire because you're a detriment to the team. Like a Hall of Fame athlete who will never be cut from a team but can never walk away gracefully and thus they hurt the team more than they help it.
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"Capone is a late night raider if you know what I mean. So there I was at 10am, a tad sore," Haha. Harry, you choice of words are priceless, like the overuse of the words tickled and giggled. Always a good laugh.
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Yes, and using the anonymity of the internet to throw around hyperbolic vitriol and death wishes isn't a sign of social awkwardness or insecurity at all.
State your case and move on, dude. What is the point of being so ugly about it? Do you honestly think being so melodramatically obnoxious will make people more likely to see things your way? -
Aug 14, 2010 11:10:49 PM CDT
The Ski scene was SUPPOSED to be a lame Bond imitation.
by dailysportspages
Think about who was dreaming.
The guy looked like the type of over confident douche bag who probably spends time in the mirror holding his fingers up in the form of a pistol pretending he's secret agent and humming the James Bond theme.
He's a pretentious rich kid who probably does go on regular holidays to these ultra exclusive ski resorts open to only the elites of europe.
So his subconscious puts it all together to form this narrative.
Anyway, the movie is not about any of that.
This movie at its heart is dealing with the same themes as Shutter Island and the late Sergio Leone's final move Once Upon A Time In America.
All three are masterpieces dealing with the same thing. They just all wrap different plots and stories around it.
OUATIA wraps it around a Crime Drama, Shutter Island around a Noir Mystery, and Inception around a Sci-Fi Heist film.
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Aug 14, 2010 11:12:36 PM CDT
And yet you loved The Expendables.
by danielplainviewonvacationinboston
What's the point in reading your reviews anymore? I'm done. I'll stick with Quint, Capone and Massawyrm, thank you.
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You ruined it for yourself when you saw it tired... derp
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You say that it wasn't imaginative enough? Terry Gilliam creates more of the LSD induced types of dream sequences. Inception is pure subconcious, not hyperconcious. Not all dreams have to be crazy and insane and twisted...sometimes dreams are pretty realistic and true to life. Which is why when your dreaming, you don't know it, you think its all real. And thats what 'Inception' accomplished, the film felt real to me, dreams felt like real dreams, not like mind bending abstract renderings of an artists vision.
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Obviously it is an exaggeration of my feelings, but I do hate him. Throwing around "OMG U USING INTERNET PUSSY!" means nothing, as you're doing the same. This is a public forum, which despite its internet implications also means a group of people free to speak their minds
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I just finished reading that. The last time I read a movie theory that long I think it was for LOST HIGHWAY. Anyhoo, I don't think it's meant to be that complicated. It could be but, I feel like we're too obsessed with loops. LOST didn't end with a loop as much as people wanted it too, and you've managed to get Inception into a loop. But when I watched the movie and I was worried about the characters being in peril I was worried that Cobb would run out of time and end up in limbo and/or dead. Why would he make a limbo state the thing to be avoided if Cobb was already in limbo?
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You really are a pathetic fuck. You have zero writing skill. Your reviews aren’t funny or illuminating or witty and your beard is disgusting. Maybe you mean for it to be a kind of physical trademark, like Gene Shalit’s mustache. But, it makes you look like trying to hide your fat neck. You resemble a Jim Henson puppet gone bad, like something made of pork and yarn. Like the freakish offspring of Frank Herbert and an orangutan. I hope my sincerity is coming through. I’m being genuine when I say that you should be housed behind glass at a local zoo, swinging from a tire and eating your own vomit.
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rocketing into the the stratosphere I guess that makes him an expert on what makes a great movie...please someone create another website we can all congregate to!
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Seriously, what were you smoking? Who's your dealer and what's his number?
Oh, and Inception: Christopher Nolan is the Dreamer, you are sharing in the dream. It's a movie about movies, how everything is staged, but still feels real to you viewing it, and can pass on ideas that weren't there before.
Your welcome.
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You crack me up! HAHAHAH!
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Shutter Island screened way early for BNAT. Harry likes that kind of thing. He doesn't really take the quality into account sometimes. Although I do love me some Shutter Island.
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Inception is not very good.
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Well, bud, I'm not questioning your right to say what you want and share your opinion. Yes, you can say anything you want to. I'm wondering *why* you'd chose to express yourself in the manner you've selected.
There's room for a lot of various opinions on this site, some more coherent than others. We all come in here and throw our thoughts at each other and its chaotic and messy and sometimes people get rude and offensive but whatever.
But how does stuff like "hopefully you'll die from a ruptured anal artery" and "hurry up and die of obesity" contribute in any way? You seem to want people to share with you the opinion that 'Inception' is massively awesome, but everytime one of you wishes violent death on Harry, I like it less and less, and I'm kind of pissed at you guys about that, because I actually liked the damned movie, and resent that you are making me associate like it with you.
Yes, you're free to say anything you want on the internet. But what does it say about you that you're chosing THAT as your thing to say? -
was pretty bad actually. Good review.
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Aug 14, 2010 11:34:03 PM CDT
Harry: the ski sequence is the opening level of nintendo goldene
by ultratron
Perhaps it's Nolan's favorite videogame or there because that character played the shit out of it. And the girl and levitt are Leo's kids. They've been trying to wake him up for years. Just kidding
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And Leo is into espionage so his dreams wouldn't be fantasy based either so your argument doesn't have much weight - you're simply wanting to see what your dream worlds would be like and that's not what the movie is about. I think they ended up revealing too many of the wow moments in the previews and commercials so it ruined the movie a bit for me as I knew what beats were coming. I thought the last half of the movie was still very successful.
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You didn't really like inception but you had a joygasm for that overrated pathetic star wars clip???
Inception was awesome and your star wars clip was crap like everything about the Star Wars universe. There I said it. I used to like Star Wars but honestly I will never watch original or prequel ever again because it is overrated crap that has been sold out like a European hooker in the middle east. -
I am truly sorry I am going to give you nightmares and sincerely apologize. If harry lets what I say abut him get to him, than he's in worse trouble than I thought.
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Good job,Harry.
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Aug 14, 2010 11:39:50 PM CDT
And once again you show that you REALLY know nothing about film.
by elgato73
And that's you Harry Knowles. I've been coming to this site since it was created and over the last couple of years I really just could not give two shits whether this site continues or not. You throw superlatives and hyperbolic praise onto an absolute piece of shit like The Expendables and here with Nolan's Inception you think the studio trumped his vision? What fucking planet are you on? You've got Sylvester Stallone and all your other B, C, D, E, and Z grade talented friends stuck so far up your fat crippled ass that you don't even know what's decent anymore. Far better writers on this site have reviewed Inception and had something intelligent to say about it. You know what Harry, you and George Lucas should get together and fuck each other in the ass because you both are mediocrity whores...
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as De Palma is Discuss...
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Your opinion shouldn't be hampered by you not liking some of the people that share it. I'm against war. So is that asshat Keith Olbermann. But listening to Olbermann doesn't make me cheer on the military.
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Dude, you're not giving me nightmares. You're that guy at the bar nobody wants to stand next to because he smells bad but he won't leave you alone and keeps asking everybody for cab fare and we kind of like this bar but don't actually want to come back if there's a chance you're going to be there again.
Or at least that's what the ugly comments make you sound like. Ditch the vitriol and just state your opinion and we can just be two guys having a vigerous arguement about cinema. -
Before dishing up a negative review of Inception, I have a confession to make: except for Memento, I have never been a fan of Chris Nolan’s films. In general, they strike me as cold, trudging exercises in technical show-offery. As my grandmother once said to me after a seal show at Sea World: “I was amazed, but not amused.”
With that out of the way, let me say that Inception really just isn’t that great of a film. It has two main weaknesses: narrative sloppiness and weak characterization. As far as I’m concerned, the latter is the more egregious of the two, but the former is less endemic to modern big-budget filmmaking, and really strikes as the heart of what people like about Inception, so I’m going to spend most of my time discussing the sloppiness (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
Any film has its own internal logic. In The Matrix, humans are necessary as power sources for the AIs. In Blade Runner, androids are identified by a Turing-type test. Do either of these make sense? No. But we accept them for the duration of the film – we suspend disbelief – because that makes it fun. When a film starts contradicting and playing fast-and-loose with its internal logic, however, it is punishing you for suspending disbelief. And this is what Inception does at every turn.
For example, take the “limbo” dream-state, in which you are trapped if you happen to “die” in a dream while under sedation. Apparently you get out of limbo by…dying again? How does that make sense? And how does this make limbo a threatening prospect? “Oh no, I have to kill myself TWICE!”…?
Then there is the “kick” that is used to wake someone up from a deeper dream level. In the example at the beginning of the movie, a kick at the upper dream level is sufficient to pull DiCaprio (or “Dom Cobb” as he is known in the movie, which is odd because he doesn’t look Burmese at all) out of the lower dream level. But in the film’s climax sequence, it seems as if a simultaneous kick at the lower dream level is also required for the kick trick to work. Even putting aside the fact that the time-dilation between dream levels would make simultaneous kicks INCREDIBLY hard to arrange, this seems like a pointless change of the rules.
And then there is the issue of “dream powers”. If I can pull a grenade launcher out of nowhere in a dream (as a guy does in one scene), why can’t I fly? Or strike my dream-enemies down with a well-placed meteor? And if Cobb and his wife can age a lifetime in dream-limbo and then restore themselves to full youth right before they lay their heads on the train tracks, why does Saito let himself get old when he’s stuck in limbo? Etc.
The list goes on, but I’m already running out of righteous indignation. The fact is, these holes in the film’s logic are not negatives for the film either commercially or critically, because what people enjoy about a film like this is the chance to argue about it afterward. Inception is a hit because it allows people to spend hours debating whether or not DiCaprio is REALLY dreaming at the film’s end, or what this or that little visual cue meant about what was REALLY happening. Of course, these debates never end, because the film is so sloppy, so careless with its own rules and logic, that any detail or anomaly could potentially be a deliberate cue, or it could simply be a piece of lazy writing. Nolan can’t lose.
So if people are happy with the film’s incoherence, why am I unhappy? Because I suspect that this “feature” was accidental. Sloppiness is on display throughout the entire film (as when the pronunciation of Ken Watanabe’s character changes from “SAY-toe” to “SIGH-toe”), leading me to believe that many of the little discrepancies that so delight fans and critics are just dirt on the lens. And while people might call Nolan a genius for setting up a story structure that makes an asset out of sloppiness, I have to say that this just bores the hell out of me. Come on, now…everybody hates the “And I woke up, and it was all a dream” ending, don’t they? So why do people like a movie that sets itself up from Minute One so that the ONLY possible ending is a big fat question mark as to whether or not it was all a dream? Inception’s ending is the most telegraphed punch in film history. If this qualifies as a “mindfuck,” then I guess I like sex to be spontaneous.
But even if the film were as tight and clever as, say, Twelve Monkeys (or, say, as Memento), I still would have had to stifle the urge to walk out halfway through. To explain why, let me write a sentence I’ve written many times before, and will sadly write many times again: I just didn’t care what happened to the characters.
I’m not sure if weak characterization is more common in recent big-budget films, or if only films that have strong human stories are able to become classics after the novelty of their special effects becomes dated. Either way, I think I’m less tolerant of weak characters than much of both the film-watching public and the film-critiquing elites. Even if a film is a good intellectual exercise (which Inception is not), it’s generally not enough to hold my interest for 2.5 hours; after all, I get plenty of intellectual exercise in my PhD program. What I need is to care about the characters.
And in Inception, as in all of Chris Nolan’s films except Memento, I did not care. The movie is filled with the stock characters that have become a sort of standardized shorthand for the theater-going public – the business mogul, the technical specialist, the serious assistant. As for the protagonist, the film resorts to what is rapidly becoming my most hated filmic cliche: the “perfect wife and kids” characterization. (Let me take a second to elaborate on this particular peeve of mine. Film critics will rant and rave against “pet the dog” characterization, where a protagonist is shown to be sympathetic by doing some random act of kindness. Well, these days, action movies try to make you like the guy in front of the camera by showing those glowy slow-mo sequences with him and his looks-ten-years-younger-than-she’s-supposed-to-be wife and his pair of smiling towheaded children. You know the movies I’m talking about. Inception is one of them.)
Add to this the fact that Leo DiCaprio will never ever be a good actor, and that Marion Cotilllard did a weak job as well, and even the quality acting skills of Joseph Gordon-Levittt and Ken Watanabe couldn’t make me care whether or not all of these people were thrown into eternal dream-limbo or not. In Memento, I shared an emotional connection with the protagonist through his fear; I sympathized with the hideous, nightmare terror of daily memory loss. I understood Leonard Shelby’s rage, his desperation, his fear, and so I wanted him to win. In Inception, all I could think was that if I woke up and found I had Dom Cobb’s ideal life, I would probably go back to dream limbo where I could dream myself up a grenade launcher.
Sloppiness and weak characterization were enough to sink the film from my point of view, but there were little things too. There was precisely one moment of levity in the film: the scene where Joseph Gordon-Levitt tricks Ellen Page into kissing him. That was it. You’d think humor and warmth wouldn’t be a “little thing,” but in the Age of Nolan they’re more of an unexpected bonus when they do occur. And why didn’t we get to see more of the dream-producing technology? Apparently in the script, the technology is called PASIVE (Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVEnous). Good thing someone somewhere bothered to write down that train-wreck of an acronym; I’d probably have gone with WHOOPDESHIT (Weak Hole-filled Overly Obvious Plot DEvice SHIT).
All in all in all, Inception is best summed up by the unintentionally hilarious line DiCaprio tosses off to explain why his and his wife’s idea of dream-heaven was an infinite forest of rectangular office towers: “We love buildings of this type.” Chris Nolan decided he loved films of this type, and set out to make one without worrying overmuch about details like logical coherence, characterization, and humor. And the public ate it up. Um…I’m looking for a devastatingly witty ending line here…think I’ll just go with: WHOOPDESHIT. -
Amen! I totally agree with you. It could have gone so much farther and been so much greater for it. This movie was weak.
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in the movie and are never awake. Leo never woke and his wife and micheal Kane are trying to wake him up the whole movie.They even say all that corporate espionage is bullshit. His wife and Kane used the espionage to get him to come out of it finally.
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If you know a lot about the plot it simply won't work for you and Harry probably knew quite a bit going in.
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Aug 14, 2010 11:49:13 PM CDT
Harry'll come around, some movies have to stew under the beard.
by stereotypical evil archer
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I didn't think the kicks had to be simultaneous. You just had to wake up from the deepest level, then the next, and next until you wake up in real life. Like opening a series of doors. You don't open them all at once. You have to open the first before you can open the second, etc., etc.
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It's still making money. Funny, how the few that always make the biggest use of the word. There's always the 3% of the population that say meat is overrated too, and they tend to be the biggest douchebags. And go see Scott Pilgrim.
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i am a long time reader of AICN. this is my first time participating in the talkbacks. i've always respected the reviews and interviews put up on this site. All articles are always insightful and interesting to read. Almost all of the reviewers on the site i usually agree with on movies. the person i most disagree with is Harry, although ive always respected his opinion as a fellow movie lover. However, after reading this, I just cant stay silent any longer. I completely and utterly disagree with Harry. I get that some people just dont connect with some movies. And Harry even concedes that its a film ripe for discussion. But I personally just cannot fathom someone not being even somewhat moved or affected by this movie. I'll admit im a bit biased towards nolan simply because im a life long batman fan, and no one has interpreted batman better on the big screen as he has, but inception is something so wholly original and thrilling that i am just truly baffled that even Harry cannot get enjoyment out of it. I still try to respect everyone's opinion, but No, i just cant agree with Harry's.
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I actually read all of that. Nice. I caught the cobol reference too... i just thought it was a variant of Cobb. I ended up concluding(as best as one can) that the whole thing is just Cobb working out life in one of his dreams. Everything from being 007 to getting stuck in a tight space to people who are totally disconnected from each other saying the same things to him over and over. And the fact that he yells at... I forget his name... his boring but dependable sidekick... when they discover that their target has been trained to deal with people invading his dreams... he says 'you were meant to deal with this'. Not you were supposed to. You were meant to. He invented all of these people. It's all one dream he is having. He is just not aware that he is dreaming. Maybe Nolan is doing more with this film. I have watched it twice and I am pretty darn good at catching big picture patterns. It's what I do for a living. But maybe there is a bigger picture than I am seeing. Also... it seems like the kind of dream I would have to be honest. Though I have never had dreams within dreams that happened in parallel. I have just woken up from a dream in a dream and then again and again and again. I had telekinesis and I was able to fly. When I realized that I had dreamed of this(many many many times) I tried to wake up but I then only dreamed I woke up. Then I had the idea that maybe my dreams had always been some way for my mind to teach me to use these powers and I would try them out and they would work in real life! And then I would wonder if I had not actually woke up. Then I would dream I woke up. And again and again and then finally I really woke up and no matter how hard I tried to throw the alarm clock across the room with my mind I could not. :P Anyway. I enjoy that the movie was a puzzle to try to solve.
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i wasn't gonna knock your review until you equated Inception with a fucking Freddy movie? Even if you don't like it you must give it credit for its ambition. Be careful, before you know it the general public will crave more Transformer movies before ones that make you think; another spoke in the dumbing down of America
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...I've seen pretty much everything this summer (missed The A Team but I think that's probably okay for the purpose of this discussion. And I liked Inception. By my reckoning it was the second best movie of the summer behind Toy Story 3. But... ...someone above suggested it was a movie they would one day be excited to introduce to their children. No, it's not that good. I just checked Metacritic, where they rated it at 74%. And that seems just about right. This was a good but not exceptional movie. And understand, I am as happy as anyone to get an original film and a film that doesn't feel compelled to dumb down or over-explain every single thing happening. In the current movie environment that is extremely admirable and I am very happy that Inception is all but certain to make enough money to be considered a win. But that doesn't make it a masterpiece. Inception isn't a masterpiece. It's the second best film of the summer and the best grownup movie by a pretty wide margin. As for Nolan, he is a director with a superb visual style and the daring to swing for the fences, and I have been and will continue to be excited to see what he does next. But he is not yet a great director. Great directors can break your heart with a single shot, they can pull you so deep into a character that you have a hard time sorting yourself out. Great directors provide more than visual feasts or fun roller coaster rides or middling intellectual exercises. Great directors make films that engage the heart. Nolan must still take that all important step. Is Nolan better than Ratner and Watersports Anderson and their ilk? Of course, so much better that he is barely of the same species. Is he better than Snyder? Sure, and you know I still have pretty high hopes for Snyder one day making a whole movie, even though 300 was the cinematic equivalent of a twelve year old boy masturbating into his underwear while watching an Ultimate Fighting Championship. He is one of the best and most promising directors working today. But damn, guys. In 2006 two movies were released about stage magicians. One was a mature work with extraordinary performances, a plot where actual stage magic wound a clockwork plot into a truly magical story that revealed heartbreaking truths about the human spirit. The other one was The Prestige. The Prestige was one gimmick laid over another until they collapsed into a basement containing one of the most ridiculous reveals in recent cinema. The female characters (and although he has come closest with Inception Nolan has never created a fully actualized female character, which is another step still ahead of him) were the most shallow plot moving foils. And there was very little genuine in the film's linchpin relationship, that between Bale and Jackman. Compared to the relationship between Norton and Giamatti in The Illusoinist it was a one dimensional cartoon. Harry's review of Inception is an outlier, and I agree it's fairly wide of the mark. But it's no farther off in its direction than an awful lot of the comments in this talkback are off in the other.
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...damn it! It didn't help. I still did it.
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The first scene with Old Saito is not the same as the last scene with old Saito. Different dialogue, etc. I really think people are missing something there and perhaps you've done a decent job at explaining it. Why show what appears to be the same scene twice, yet it's not? Also, why make such a scene the first thing we see in the film? Good questions?
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You guys seem to have slightly differing opinions on the film, but I had trouble understanding your points, what with the glaring lack of fat jokes and death threats.
(Kudos to both of you for demonstrating how to have a civil difference of opinion) -
Aug 15, 2010 12:20:47 AM CDT
Shutter Island vs. Inception
by ooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuutttttlllllaaaaa
It was okay; kind of predictable, but it was decent. Overall, I enjoyed Inception more. My main complaint with Inception is the same complaint I have for Prestige -- the story structured a little too tightly. (And I love The Prestige.) Everything is wrapped in a nice little bow. I think the biggest surprise in Inception for me was the fact that there wasn't an additional dream layer. Going into it I was completely expecting the team to complete their mission and for DiCaprio to get the resolution he was looking for. When they got to the final dream layer I was then expecting them to jump all the way back to the plane and then... I was expecting the airplane to begin to crash. And in free fall, they would get kicked one more time. That didn't happen and it was great. If it were any other amateur film maker, I don't think they would've been able to resist. "Let's put it a surprise ending!" "Yeah!" *high five* It's something M. Night would do.
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I thought that Devin Faraci over at CHUD had an excellent take on the film.
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html -
writing, weight or website...then do the rest of us a favour and fuck off!
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right?! dude, my post is just a little further above yours, but ive been saying the exact same thing as you: harry is not being honest whatsoever. something else entirely is going on. harry's just being full of shit & contradicting himself left and right. a little honesty about the whole thing would renew my faith in the guy, because i can understand someone enjoying the expendables more than inception, but i cannot see how an established film critic can insinuate that nolan is a weak filmmaker, especially after the way harry gushed about TDK. i 100% agree with you - we are being fed a ton of bullshit on the whole matter.
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Aug 15, 2010 12:27:45 AM CDT
If you ask 10 different people what Inception is about..
by ganymede3010
You'll get 10 different answers. The movie is far to ambiguous. He tried way to hard. I was more entertained by Iron Man2.
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I LOVE how they explained EVERYTHING for you. I'm pretty sure at one point the archetypes were breaking the third wall and talking straight to the audience; "hey audience, this is what's about to happen and why. I know we don't have time to show backstory or character development, but we did show you a dream city bending on top of itself if you need CG work to keep you interested in the movie." Some heavily explained, geeked out concepts, some mindless action and not an ounce of heart. But yeah, takes a lot of brains to appreciate a fight in zero gravity in a dream. Two guys floating around and fighting? Wow. I remember it being much more exciting in Moonraker. So exciting I busted out my iPhone and played Solitaire. It was such a FX masturbation-fest I kept looking around for Michael Bay. And I thought Wanted was the worst, dumbed-down Matrix clone...
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...first the obligatory: I'll kill you all with fatty foods. And then thank you. And thank you for mentioning Jordan. Welcome to the world of talkbacking, Jordan. Hope you stick around and do more. And hey, we do agree about one thing. Nolan's done Batman proud.
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means Harry hates,
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But I sincerely wonder why you have to be so VULGAR in your opinion of me! What mean things to say! Stop hiding behind your internet anonymity dude! Before I go I have one question, on a scale of 1-10 how bad is your downs syndrome?
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I liked the second half of the film though. And the vault reveal is one of Nolan's best shots ever. Overall though this film was a bit disappointing when I look at it. Nolan shouldn't write his own script. Shoulda asked his brother again.
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in tight fitting outfits! Same reason we like Underworld, right. Different criteria altogether, dude!
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but not as good as Avatar or Scott Pilgrim. To each his own
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Stay classy, Davidia.
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that's the great thing about the movie! Just like great art or music; the best works are those that spark debate and different interpretations. Fuck all you haters, go watch Jackass 3d
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tell me the last movie where people were debating it months later... Mr Nolan, please keep the bar high.
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Coming from the guy that obviously is a sell-out. Yeah, the new Nightmare on Elm Street is a good movie. You are an ugly asshole who is desperate to try and seem still relevant.
And I will seriously fight anyone that defends him. Seriously. E-mail SmrtGuy1982@yahoo.com and meet me in NYC anywhere so I can kick your ginger loving asshole. I figure all of you are pussies though and not capable of any type of human interaction. I'm waiting, ladies -
...fine, bad as Underworld was it did have Kate Beckinsale in skintight leather outfits, and for ten-fifteen minute bursts (bad word choice, there) on cable that is sufficient. But for Van Helsing it would have taken Beckinsale, Jovovich, Mitra, Larter, Dawson, Lokken...and all the other action actresses I'm forgetting...in a hot oil battle royale. I mean they had Q's Vatican branch workshop. They turned poor Faramir into Sancho Panza. They put someone's face in the clouds at the end of the movie. Besides, you can see the same movie actually done competently and with some heart by watching Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter. And it had Caroline Munro, who, when you think about it, was kind of the Kate Beckinsale of her day.
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is going to be released here (its next week ffs) and i got sick from what a witnessed:
9.1/10 from 150k voters,placing it at no3 of the top250 imdb list.
a lot of reviews which not only consider the movie as one of the greatest movies of all time,but they also compare Nolan with giants like Tarkovksy,Hitchcock and Kubrick.
all the topics in the imdb forum of the movie,keep praising Nolan and his film and all the users there act like they havent see movies about dreams before.
what the fuck guys? i havent seen in my life so much zombified fanboys who act in the most absolute exaggerated way towards a specific artist and his body of work.and i cant understand what caused this.
i mean they are the ST,the SW,the HP,the TW fans and so on,but i havent witnessed an artist with so much dedicated and over-jealous followers-zealots.I am a huge Cameron fan ,i love all his movies and i think he is one of the most brilliant humans who ever walked this planet,but ffs i have never compared him with Kubrick and i have never considered Avatar the greatest movie ever although i have seen it 10 times on cinema.i always try to keep my criticism and perception of things in check,i always try to find my inner biased fanboy in balance with my inner unprejudiced moviegoer critic self.
But that thing with Nolan and his Nolanoids is out of proportions,it hasnt happened before fans of a director to follow him so blindly.I am almost sure,and i have already explained in another talkback, that most of those guys are nothing more than Batman geeks who found their messiah who resurrected and popularized in the most rewarding way,their dead movie super-hero and the.which might also explain the pointless comparison between Cameron and Nolan (Cameron trashed the BO place of TDK,a fact that infuriated the Nolanoids).maybe its something else i dont know.
The thing is that what is happening with the Nolaoids,how they think and they react,its very very sick.Thats why i will reserve my judgment for Inception until i see it.Because frankly i cant believe anything that comes from the Nolans fans,even if some of them are not that hardcore.anyway. -
Personally, I think the film will get better for you with repeated viewings. Kinda like with my experience with "Blade Runner."
But I was really rooting for the character of Cobb's in "Inception." I wanted him to succeed, and it was heart breaking to see that he didn't, which makes the ending so powerful and impacting with it's originality. I was emotionally impacted by the film, but it's not as emotionally resonating as "Memento", "The Dark Knight", or "Batman Begins." But it's probably his best script to date, and I was amazed by the imagination that Nolan put me through.
I also loved "Shutter Island", but it was too drawn out, long winded, and predictable to be considered a great film. So I definitely prefer "Inception." :) -
you haven't seen the movie; your post is irrelevant, next
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The way Harry feels about these films reveals a lot about him. Mainly. He likes to feel good. Have fun. He's got a big imagination and he loves to have his imagination matched by art. There is nothing wrong with that. I loved Van Helsing. I know it's trash. But, as Harry says, so is sugar cereal but it still tastes good. That is exactly how I feel about it. And I can see why Inception felt bland to Harry. It's probably just what he says. He prefers a film in a dream to have more fantastical fun. He wants the scene in The Matrix where Neo flies up into the sky in the end. Cause that is what Harry would do if he were in the movie. But that's the thing about Harry and many movie goers. The movies transport them. They go on a journey. Kind of like a dream. They put themselves in the place of the characters and live through them. We all do that really. Harry just didn't have a good time in Nolan's dream. Not a big deal. Harry doesn't write critiques of films he writes about his thoughts and feelings having experienced a film. This review is the same as all of his other reviews. Reviews for some people are about deciding where to 'stand' on a film. I find that to be about as fucking pathetic as reading a magazine to find out what to wear this season. It's fine for people who want to be apart of a herd. But for those of us who just want to say something about art... a review is just an expression. It's not about grading the film like this is a contest. It's just about talking about a film. That's it. If you want to feel like you belong because of what you think of a film or if you want to feel smart because you graded a film... you are on the wrong movie website. This is aint it cool.
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hey, not knocking Harry, i luv this site, will be coming back for as long as its around. The only problem i have right now is that Harry equated a Freddy movie with Inception; i must sleep on that one.
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Aug 15, 2010 12:57:12 AM CDT
Nolan is a cold filmmaker, that's why he's wrong for Superman
by kal reeve
He has no business "godfathering" Superman. The World's Greatest Superhero requires a visionary with a vibrant sense for the fantastic.
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This talkback is a shared dream and Harry's on a mission to implant an idea in everyone's head. That idea is that Inception isn't so great. But Harry said Dream Warriors was better and it alerted everyone's subconscious. Now Harry's running for his life as everyone's subconscious tries to kill him. BUUUUUURRRRR BUUUUUURRRRR
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Inception, Shutter Island and Dr. Parnassus are all great movies from great directors with great actors. I prefer Terry's movie, an original and very personal tale. Terry rocks. Seconded by Shutter Island (still my best movie of the year), awesome soundtrack, atmosphere, photography and acting (you get two movies in one). And for last, Nolan's original fiction. The simultaneous kick - at the end - was super cool, but not unforgettable cool. The action scenes (except the zero gravity one) were...weak, just like watching someone playing a predictable game (maybe because they were inside a dream). Waking Life is a better movie about dreaming, no doubt. And still waiting for Scott Pilgrim to arrive here, sigh. Cheers.
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While you asswipes are hating on Nolan; why don't we just get Joel Schumacher back on the Batman movies.
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exposition,then what that sounds to me is this: Nolan wanted to make a very smart,intellectual movie.But he also wanted to make a mainstream movie in order to get the necessary budget to fulfill his dream-project.But he didnt have much to the intelligence of the average movie audience,he was afraid that the movie would turn out too complicated for them to understand,thus they wouldnt like it which would eventually doom the BO performance of the flick.Nolan and the studio didnt want this thing to happen,so he decided to have his characters to explain everything to the audience in order to ease their way of understanding of his film.ofc he used a lot of ambiguous details in his film in order to provide a bit of a challenge to the audience (ie the last which everyone is talking about)
Frankly if thats the case,then i dont understand how exactly Nolan deserves to been as an artist who made a personal movie when essentially he made a product,a well-done product,but a product nevertheless to sell to the audience.
Kubrick would never have someone to explain whats happening in his 2001,because his intention was to let the audience to find out that by themselves.Nolan in the Inception seems to following the opposite route,but still he is compared to Kubrick.hhmmmm.anyway i have to wait until next Thurdsay to see by myself whats the fuss is all about. -
I really was expecting the man to love this film. Kind of crazy to see he didn't. The more I think about it, the more it does seem kind of silly to apply your own film rules to dreams, something that clearly could never have defined rules. But that's the fun thing about movies, I guess. It makes it even worse that Scott Pilgrim did end up being my favorite film of the year so far. Maybe I am a mid 20's, dorky hipster, but that movie just entertained me on so many more levels than Inception. Tom Hardy needs to be in everything though. Literally, everything. Even a contestant on Rock of Love.
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the movie,it was about the fans.you lose,i win.again.next.
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he didn't explain everything to the audience. That's why people find it chic to hate the movie now; Inception is a movie that sticks with you. I saw it twice, will see again, and fuck everything else this summer
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Why must you continue to plunge the otherwise CIVIL AS FUCK talkbacks into degradation with your filth!?
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Aug 15, 2010 1:03:34 AM CDT
" Capone is a late night raider if you know what I mean....
by conspiracy
...So there I was at 10am, a tad sore..."I stopped reading right the fuck there. TMI dude...
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Of course, Harry is entitled to his opinion. In fact, because he is so well versed in a variety of cinematic genres and film history, I'll actually put a little more credence in what he has to say over most people who blather on about movies and haven't watch anything more than 10 years old, let alone something silent or in monochrome. That much said... One thing I've notice about Mr. Knowles is that he's primarily a sensualist, not an intellectual. Think of the infamous tears shed at the conclusion of Armageddon, the joyful cries of "MANINSUIT!MANINSUIT!", or the ubiquitous use of the terms "geekgasm" and the insightful "bliss". I'm sure you can cite plenty more, if you think about it. Inception at it's core does not telegraph emotions; Dom Cobb is really the only fully fleshed out character in the piece (primarily, I think, because the entire scenario is a construct of his own psyche, but that's best left discussed elsewhere), and his primary motivations are guilt, redemption and, ultimately, reconnection. These are contemplative emotions, and for all the whiz-bang action, it is a largely meditative film, not given to wild and heart-on-sleeve emotive outbursts. It has more in common with Ozu than with Capra, if you get my drift - and may be more pretentious than I give it credit for. Harry referred to it as "boring"; and for an individual wired into emotive diarrhea and cheap sentiment, I can see how he might find it boring on an affective level. The film expert in him recognizes Nolan's skill as a craftsman, but the emotional base can not recognize beyond the surface, and with a narrative that functions on at least five or more surfaces, it may be too much for him to process. Harry, this is not a criticism, just an observation; you may not be emotionally mature enough to comprehend the whole of Inception, but with the changes going on in your life currently, I hope that one day you'll recognize what you missed this time around.
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of course there will be ambiguity.
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Picking fights online, mmm mmm mmm. Asking an overweight handicapped man to meet you for a fight, mmm mmm mmm. Wow, Christopher Nolan is quite lucky to have a soldier like you.
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people on this site are defending the movie. for a second there i was gonna give up on AICN
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probably
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This Summer Nolan is a cheap fuck.No Checks, no swag.My Piss falls like leaves on Inception.
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didn't like prestige kiiik, next
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Harry, you're taking a lot of heat for this one. I really did love the movie, but I understand your position. The first time I saw it I had a really hard time connecting with the characters on an emotional level. I just didn't care because I was thinking the whole movie was a dream. I also just kept thinking to myself, this is a lot like The Matrix only not revolutionary. But I was sucked into certain scenes and thought they were amazing. The second time I saw it I had a deeper connection with the characters and got a lot more out of it. I think it's a great movie, but I totally understand where you're coming from.
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Why don't you wait even a little longer to post reviews, say 2 years. That way people won't even remember the movie to defend it. P.S. This review is shit.
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you hit it on the head. You gotta see it twice
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I forgot.
I love open endings as much as the next person, but fuck. I hate when a movie expects you to invest in characters, only to play around with the idea that they never exsisted in the first place.
It's such a lazy way to make your movie seem thought-provoking.
I swear I actually did enjoy this movie, though. -
Case in point, The Expendables. Stallone never asked for a favorable review directly, but the celebrity made a brief personal phone call to Harry to see how he was doing. Harry Knowles declares Expendables the best movie of the year.
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... Harry's finally lost it.
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I think you're analysis of Harry and how to approach his reviews is pretty astute, but I think anybody dismissing a negative review as 'not getting it' is a bit off the mark. I liked 'Inception', but I can see exactly what Harry means in his criticisms, which I don't think have anything to do with emotional immaturity.
Yes, there is a lot of exposition. For me, that's a minus 1. For others, like Harry, its a minus 5. The lackluster ski battle was a little ho-hum. For me, that's a minus 2. For Harry, its a minus 8. The lack of inventiveness within the deeper dream levels, especially after the subject knows he's dreaming and a dependence on realism is no longer a functional defense mechanism, is a little disappointing. For me, a minus 2. For Harry, a minus 15.
We understand the movie. We get it. Harry's problems with the film are not due to emotional immaturity. The film has flaws. For me, they add up to a small little chink in an other wise impressive film. For Harry, those flaws add up to something more, something that detracts to the point of fostering a lukewarm review. I think accusing people who don't like it of 'not getting it' is a little condescending. -
Brevity, dumb fuck. Brevity. You're bashing this and that about a director who has a 1.000 batting average while at the same time you can't even boil down your own thoughts into a well thought out paragraph or less. They teach it in writing 101, apparently you missed it: brevity.
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really? Someone liked that predictable snooze fest?
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we all wanted him to post his reviews, but some things are best left unknown...Sad, really.
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Someone had to say it!
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It's gone. You are officially a dumb fuck.
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cinema is art. I luv open endings. That thing inside your cranium does work
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Nobody knows what the hell the movies is. Sad really. :(
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"Oh yeah, I totally agree, this film was terrible." This sucked, Batman Begins and Dark Knight? Oh, they sucked major cock. What the fuck is up to your high and mighty standards anymore? Can you not enjoy anything? My apologies for spewing so much vitriol here, but come on folks. It's OK to like a movie. That's what we are here for right? To BS about shit we like. Fuck, you bitches are depressing.
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I don't care if only one person sees it, it still rock the house.
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he got this one wrong; he's entitled to his opinion. Btw, Inception is a great success. Better than sum shitty ass Expendables.
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When did Harry say The Expendable is the best movie of the year? The Expendables is a kickass movie where the last 30 minutes are pure fucking action, I loved it, but still, I think Toy Story 3 is the best of the year and Nolan's best is Insomnia
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with your generic cliche Inception beef of "omg it's not dreamy enough". Were you expecting fucking unicorns or some shit? The whole point of how grounded the dreams were was to blur the line between the dreams and reality. Inception wouldn't have been possible if you had extremely dream-like/unrealistic scenarios.
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Scary scary image, will have to store that one for later when I have an erection at work and need to stand up quickly
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Aaargh ... the damn trailer window keeps popping out on my screen constantly ... and I'm noticing that the lead guy looks way too much like Michael Cera ...
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Get a grip. and that goes for people threatening to leave because of the review too.
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Blast from the past, I know!
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don't think too many of the sensible people care that Harry didn't like the movie, but there is a lot of laughable stuff in his review which ends up making it a joke rather than a fair negative review. D Vader also pointed out that Harry has changed his tune a few times on what delayed the review. I think looking back and when he is in a better place emotionally, health etc Harry will regret this, not necessarily not liking it but the style and his complete lack of professionalism.
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Didn't the Talkbackers joke about this when they announced a Commando remake? http://www.newsinfilm.com/2010/08/14/commando-remake-attaches-sam-worthington/
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Anyone wishing literal death on Harry should be completely ignored
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pathetic
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If the Matrix stance on reality is that it's a fabrication of the system and Avatar's stance on reality is that we maybe better off escaping to an alien fantasy world, then what is Inceptions stance?
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I'm sorry Mr Knowles thatis an incorrect answer, so we must subtract yet another significant portian of your credibility.
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Good points on that line from Hardy and the ski sequence. I love me some Gilliam as much as the next guys, and all those tripped out dream movies, BUT some dreams are also more normal. And Parnussus was too much in that regard, ya go numb to the weird visual to the point of almost boredom. Shame on you Terry for the CGI. More smoke!! But c'mon, all movies have flaws, even our favorites. Inception was fantastic! Too bad you didn't feel it. I was totally wanting for Leo to see his kids, and routing for him to come through and felt the pain and love of his wife. Good show!
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THe end.
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here, Harry. And for once not written like some sixteen year old jerking off. But why then didn't you see the awful failure that THE EXPENDABLES is?
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because the movie was about not being able to tell the difference between sleep and awake. The audience had to be unsure. Instead of conveying what dreams look like, Nolan is conveying what dreams FEEL like. They feel real and you buy into their reality. It's only when you wake up that you realize...blah blah blah...Get it?
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It was boring as he'll. I might of like this a bit more had I never seen Dreamscape which I think is a much better movie and certainly more entertaining. A lot of the time you can't even tell they are in a dream until they start talking. So definitely a missed opportunity.
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Really, I found myself struggling to stay awake through it as well. Good call Harry.
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That I didn't want to disturb the others in my row was the only reason I didn't get up and walk out. Literally. I disliked it that much. First, Nolan makes the silly mistake of telling you "don't believe anything you see or hear. Anything could be a dream" so why bother paying attention? Next, yes, DiCaprio's character was detestable, knowingly putting everybody at risk while pretending otherwise. Then there's Harry's accurate observation that "makes me wonder what the hell these people are doing dreaming up regular firearms." Just like MATRIX where the hero can be anything from superman to Galactus, and all he comes up with is kung fu?! The film's logic doesn't hold up with some laws of physics holding true and others being ignored depending on the needs of the plot. Oh and the ending was telegraphed from light years away. Terrible, simply terrible. Which is a pity given the interesting concept they had to work with. But what can you expect from the director who gave us a Batman movie where they forgot to include the batman?
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but I laughed out loud at your first two comments.
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enjoyed Inception, dozed off the second time I saw it (too little sleep).
some cool spectacle, but the dark knight was a lot better on a story level. -
U have no cred fat man
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I love this site. I really do. Geeks getting together to talk Geek. Nothing better in the world. And it's great to have a place that is provided by people you absolutely respect and feel no guilt about kicking the ass shit out of their inevitable stupid comments. The low marks you give "Inception", Harry, have finally made me question your reliability. I don't even need to ask the question because I know that you would take "Avatar" over "Inception". And that is really sad. Are you sure you're not Uwe/Ratner/McG fan? If you speak so lowly of "Inception" and so highly of "Avatar", I take pause to wonder.
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the abuse Harry engenders with his inane reviews. His Phantom Menace review is great - a work of unintentional comic genius. Google it if you have read it (i.e., re: Jar Jar, "And guess what... I LOVED HIM!!!")
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I'll always come back to this point - you gave a GLOWING review to G.I. JOE - and then this? Really, my man? I just don't know what to say... CRACK!
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Shit. I just saw what was partially a Commando remake/homage called The Expendables. Between that and Taken, what's the point of a reboot?
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At least Nolan gives a damn about the audience's intelligence and doesn't serve some cheap crap that was though up during an exec meeting. Thought Inception was great. A visionary filmmaker in total control of his craft and the movie he was making. WB would be smart to give Nolan a contract like they gave to Kubrick in the 70s. Make movies for us please and we won't harass you with those pesky studio notes. Given the financial success of his past movies for them it should be a smart move on WB's part.
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but it had that amazing doll-headed sex ginger in it, which I liked. Her acting is on the fence, but...
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I agree with the "dream bigger" issue, but this movie was original and the narrative so perfectly done, how can you not like this but love "the Expendables"?????!!!
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... FUCKING CRACK COCAINE, dude.
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Harry couldn't let himself shit on a Nolan film. And notice he put the review on the regular news section. That means it'll disappear within a day or two when new items are added. If he had placed it in the review section it'd last a few weeks. Harry, don't worry, some other studio will pay you off. For now, enjoy the Scott Pilgrim money.
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Aug 15, 2010 2:40:12 AM CDT
There are rules in the dreams because the dreams are shared.
by stereotypical evil archer
Cobb's team is supposed to make the dreams seem real or at least hyper-real because this will help the actual Inception take hold. Of course more can be done with dreaming, but this was purely a mission of business sabotage. Now take into account how stable things have to be in order for several people to enter into another person dream, the "almost reality" is an interactive requirement otherwise any random happenstance within a dream could cause a "kick" and thereby end the shared dream ability; at least for the one who felt the "kick." Thinking that there should be much more "weird" in a movie about dreams doesn't hold up to contrivances needed for the well thought out plot. It amazes me that people will turn themselves off from a smart movie when it engages the mind in more satisfactory ways.
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I thought you were slipping for a minute there, pal. Your reviews had gotten WAY too personal and I felt like any movie you got exclusive interviews/BTS info on, you then sucked its dick in the review. But you've nailed it here. You're 110% correct about Inception, I agree whole heartedly, couldn't have said it better myself. You're off the shitlist, my man.
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The entire point of the dreams is to make the target believe they are in a dream. Maybe the trailer played up the special effects too much? This isn't a movie about crazy dream sequences. sigh...
I think Inception was an incredibly smart movie, but it has definite flaws. The amount of exposition is just too much at times and the film would have been sharper if they could have cut out 20 minutes or so.
The bias Harry has towards film makers he has a relationship with just gets worse and worse. -
I'm over aicn, where should I go?
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Huh.
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you lost me right there, that film was ass. i won't read any more of this review. goodbye.
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"take the “limbo” dream-state, in which you are trapped if you happen to “die” in a dream while under sedation. Apparently you get out of limbo by…dying again? How does that make sense? And how does this make limbo a threatening prospect? “Oh no, I have to kill myself TWICE!”…?
You get out of limbo by dying, it takes you one dream higher. The problem with limbo is that you dont know that you need to kill yourself. You think it is real. And because you are dreaming within a dream, no one can save you, because you have to get yourself out of limbo first. Thats the problem with limbo: That you don't want to leave, can't leave, and don't realize you can. Thus you lose your grasp on reality and go insane.
"Then there is the “kick” that is used to wake someone up from a deeper dream level. In the example at the beginning of the movie, a kick at the upper dream level is sufficient to pull DiCaprio (or “Dom Cobb” as he is known in the movie, which is odd because he doesn’t look Burmese at all) out of the lower dream level. But in the film’s climax sequence, it seems as if a simultaneous kick at the lower dream level is also required for the kick trick to work."
Do you mean when they jumped off the building? That was just an easy way to die in Limbo
"Even putting aside the fact that the time-dilation between dream levels would make simultaneous kicks INCREDIBLY hard to arrange, this seems like a pointless change of the rules."
It wouldn't make it harder because the people in the dreams that occur at a faster speed can exit at a more precise time. Also, the kicks dont have to be simulataneous, just in series, and close enough so you can ride them up.
And then there is the issue of “dream powers”. If I can pull a grenade launcher out of nowhere in a dream (as a guy does in one scene), why can’t I fly? Or strike my dream-enemies down with a well-placed meteor? And if Cobb and his wife can age a lifetime in dream-limbo and then restore themselves to full youth right before they lay their heads on the train tracks, why does Saito let himself get old when he’s stuck in limbo?
Yeah, so no one EVER exhibited dream powers....its said in the movie that the architecht builds the world etc etc. No one dreamt a grenade launcher, he either asked Ariadne to dream it up for him like all the other weapons. Also, you can't fly because it would alert the subject. Cobb and his wife's appearance is possibly metaphorical, or just for effect; they aren't really old. Saito appears old because he doesn't know hes dreaming, he is just living in limbo unaware.
My question is, how does Mal get into all these dreams? If Cobb isnt the architecht, he can't change the world or add stuff. I guess he could just "bring her in with him" kind of? -
And it's finally proven that Harry knows shit about films. He only cares if he can hang out with his "cool" hipster friends like Eli Roth.
Otherwise good documentary though Roth comes across as the biggest tool (think less interesting version of Turtle in Entourage) -
Aug 15, 2010 3:06:26 AM CDT
Review reads like he didn't even pay attention
by guy who got a headache and accidentally
The third dream, the james bond dream, was Tom Hardy's, not Scarecrow's, and doesnt Harry think it was all a dream at the end? He's a fucking retard who couldn't make sense of a simple heist movie.
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but this is how I felt about Inception when I walked out of the theater. It wanted to be interesting and smart and exciting, and the premise underwhelmed the promise. There were also too many gimmicks and hooks that required lengthy setup which slowed it down. And the big twists felt telegraphed down the line.
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thats why i love films, its all personal opinion. I liked Inception alot. I thought Expendibles was fucking awful and I watched Pilgrim last night and think its a movie for 16 year olds or people who don't have sex. Its really quite retarded, well made but retarded none the less.
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Seen it all b4 shame really could have been amazing had they given us somthin new to imagine. Harry well done with this review spot on!
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...it's about the talkbacks. We make AICN awesome.
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inception = hugely overrated
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Aug 15, 2010 3:23:51 AM CDT
Dark Knight is not the masterpiece so many Nolan fans claim it i
by kal reeve
When Batman is the weakest part of a Batman movie, there's a problem.
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Best damn film I've seen in ages. And I'm no rabid Nolan fanboy. I liked BB and Dark Knight, as well as his other films besides Insomnia, but wasn't drooling and doing cartwheels into the Grand Canyon over The Dark Knight like some where two summers ago.Anyways, I do agree with one point that Harry made. Basically that the stakes could've been raised a bit more if the idea at the center of the inception that Cobb and crew were trying to implement was something like stopping a major war from happening in place of getting a guy to dissolve a company. It would've ratcheted things up a bit more. Still though, that's a minor nitpick for me. The film was top notch.As for the snow fortress sequence, I liked it. Not every action sequence in a film has to be something mind-blowingly new. Remember folks, movies are still about telling a story, not R&D for who can make the craziest action set piece.
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Knowles you are a pathetic big disgusting tasteless manchild. Leave the smart movies alone. they are not your turf. go back to blow EXPANDABLES.
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"It's not what *I* wanted it to be" Harry's review.
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I am, FOR ME, this is one of the best, if not the best movie of the last 5 to 10 years, like i said, FOR ME, maybe it is overrated, but that doesn't make it bad, i don't know how can anyone say with a straight face that Inception sucks, it just doesn't maybe is not a 11 out of 10, but it must at least be a 7 out of 10, we complain about getting remakes of remakes, reimaginings, sequels and when a movie like this comes out, that is at least partially original once it gets some recognition it's cool to bash it, go fuck yourself Harry, i say it from Venezuela, you're just a disgrace, at least do a real review, and base yourself not in what you wanted out of every movie about dreams, the fantastical, but review what you saw, with the rules it was explained to you.
By the way, just because you are in a dream it doesn't mean you are supossed to have super powers, i have had strange dreams, stuff out of something like Robotech, but 99 out of 100 dreams are about mundane stuff based on reality.
Fuck yourself Harry, you're a sad little person who doesn't deserve any respect. -
I rarely, rarely disagree with Harry. I'm not sucking up, why would it matter, is he gonna send me some free DVDs? :p So as usual I'm totally with you Harry. Inception just didn't do it for me either. I don't think it was a bad film, visually it was gorgeous. The zero gravity scene was amazing. The actors were great but I just never felt that invested in the characters and what they were trying to do. Totally agree too that dreams tend to be crazier than presented in this movie, it was too grounded in reality. I think Nolan is a great director, but this was my least favorite film of his. Just my 2 cents
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Aug 15, 2010 3:43:24 AM CDT
Fair play, Harry. Sounds a bit like your Last Action Hero issue
by mr nicholas
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Anyone please clarify...
Does Tom Hardy 'conjure' a gun out of thin air or not?
That seems to be the 'loose thread that unravelled the whole movie' for poor befuddled Harry. But I don't think he did make a gun appear on the fly. I thought it was just one of several guns that the architect or whomever had 'placed' in the dream for their use. We never see an item appear in the dream world, and as far as we, the audience, know the big gun Hardy wields is one that was already there? -
In a heist movie, the stakes are never that big, like saving the world. It's about if they get the job done and if the people doing it don't get killed. On that level I think it works.
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id give it 7/10 , ellen page is a great actress but this was the wrong part for her. i enjoyed the film but they needed to explain more about the dream machine for me to believe in it , just a bit more back story would of helped. i will have to watch it again maybe to understand some of the story , like harry says its just a bit boring at times which is sad because theres an amazing film in there somewhere.
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If you think DREAMSCAPE is a better movie than INCEPTION you may have a rutabaga in the place where your brain should be
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isn't a good movie.
if there is no character development you wont care about the characters and if you don't care about the characters action sequences are pointless as you wont care who lives or dies. honestly, inception is nolan's worst movie. -
I'd also say that I found INCEPTION to be very powerful emotionally.
The final ten minutes with Cillian opening his vault and seeing his father... Leo releasing himself from his wife... to the moment where his children's heads turn to see him.
I'm man enough to admit that I was choked up big time throughout the finale. -
spider_neil, Nolan's started to be compared to Kubrick in some quarters.
And that fits in with your question about character development, because... where's the character development in 2001?
2001, considered one of the greatest films ever made. Far more character development in INCEPTION than in 2001. (in particular Cillian Murphy's epiphany in the vault and Cobb letting go of his past). -
..just kidding, good review. I agree with almost all of it.
And just kidding about the just kidding1. Fuck your iPad and your considering having one front page news. Change the website to "Aint it cool news and harry's personal life blog and a place where the forum trolls are fucking furious oh and now we have gigantic advertisements on our front page .com".
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by Inception just illustrates the problem with going into films with preconceptions of what YOU want the film to be.
Inception is so vastly superior to any other 'event' film, this is the reason people have been bitching so much about the lack of Harry's review. This is the Blade Runner of our time, I cant believe people dare stoop to compare it to the Matrix.
For the record I thought the action was the weakest part of the film (aside from the zero g fight) and I hope Nolan becomes more consistent in that area. But the film worked so fantastically on every other level I could forgive some of the bland action. -
I think that is what adds some weight and resonance to the inception about the dissolving of the company, mainly because Fisher goes through a catharsis and comes to some conclusion on his father's death, even if it was all a subliminal con job from his perspective.It is interesting that both Fisher and Cobb go through major cathartic and psychological transformations, whilst one knows it on both a conscious and subconscious level, and the other strictly on a subconscious level. In a sense, there were two inceptions in the film. One for Fischer and one for Cobb.I don't understand where those people harshly criticizing Inception are getting the notion that this film was cold and calculating. Sure it was put together with clockwork precision on a structural level, but it also had a very powerful emotional core and resolution to it.
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I don't like 2001 either, I think that spartacus is a better movie because it has a stronger story with developed characters. first and foremost a movie should be about the story and complex characters. memento doesn't have a fraction of inceptions budget but is a far superior movie for reasons I just listed.
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You're not sorry, asshole!
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Did we really need 4 levels of dreams in this movie? They could have stopped with a dream within a dream, but...4??? Inception just got too involved, and there was no sense of fun, or wonder, and the James Bond sequence was ridiculous. It played like Nolan's audition reel to direct a Bond film. Really, Inception is just an overdone rip-off of far superior films that came before it, from Dreamscape, Dark City, and The Matrix, to The Thirteenth Floor, and The Cell. Shuffle those films together in any combination you like, and you have Inception. Nolan either should have remade Dreamscape, or Altered States, the latter, another great film, and called it a day--instead of throwing together a bunch of heady science fiction concepts that he doesn't fully understand, intellectually so, beyond the visual aspects. Nolan got lost in the technology of it all, and trying to overly explain that technology, as well as seemingly endless action scenes--scenes with no villain to fuel them(?), instead of focusing on the drama, and proper character development, which is necessary above all, to a film and story, therein.You can bet that Inception was created between Nolan as spurred on by a Warner Brother's executive who told him, "Hey, The Wachowski Siblings screwed-up The Matrix franchise, and they are weirdos anyway, so we would like you to create something that takes the best elements from The Matrix, and turn it into a new possible franchise for us, absent Joel Silver and the Wachowskis." This wasn't a film born from the heart, it was born of greed. BTW, previously, Warner employed the Wachowskis and Joel Silver to rip-off Dark City, a film...produced by Warner's subsidiary, New-Line Cinema.
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If nothing else you people are hilarious...
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All deal with dreams/what is reality? on some level. Yet each film is aesthetically different (of course Matrix and Inception are closer in this regard), as well as thematically different.Inception is about letting go, not living with regretThe Matrix is about finding the real and believing in yourself (faith)Avatar was about embracing the dream world over the mundane reality and fighting for logic against a certain type of madness, which was corporate greed and callousness in this case (Jake deciding to fight with and stay on Pandora as a Na'vi)
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A movie that is complex for the sake of being complex.
This is a movie that says nothing about anything remotely relevant. Its a movie whose complexity is utterly meaningless and exists solely to muck up the narrative in unnecessary ways. Its a movie that continually stumbles through its interminable exposition, which half the time is nearly inaudible due to the woeful sound mixing and omnipresent score.
Inception is the movie that fans of Nolan want us to believe is the return of Intelligent and daring blockbuster filmmaking. But in reality, it is utterly empty, and worst of all, lacking in imagination.
But hey, JGL looks nice in a suit, and that Zero G fight was kind of cool I guess. -
Research the production history of Inception to see that it was not done out of greed.
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It is a completely different approach than Inception took, but a totally awesome film nonetheless. Check it out if you haven't seen it and are itching for some nice cinematic dream imagery.
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Aug 15, 2010 4:27:37 AM CDT
Never taking = Never got a Set Visit
by harry_knowles_fell_asleep_during_incepti
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Aug 15, 2010 4:28:25 AM CDT
LV_426: Nolan Is On Record As Saying He Stole Inception
by media messiah
Nolan, in an interview, said he stole the idea for Inception, but he didn't know where??? Further, before that, in another article, it was strongly implied that he acknowleged having been inspired by Dark City, The Matrix, and The Thirteenth Floor.
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how can any sane person slobber over a film like expendables (which can be enjoyed. not admired or thoughtfully discussed) and neglect one of the most respected movies in years. its fucking #3 all time on IMDB with 150,000 votes. thats no fluke.
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Everyone should have fucking stopped reading at "I fell asleep"..lol..jesus fatman..you have one fucking job to do..REVIEW MOVIES.
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Don't have the time to see if somebody already mentioned this, I hope they have. But here we go. I really liked Inception. It was a breath of fresh air for me, it slapped me awake and I was suddenly brutally aware and furious about how low Hollywood has sunk in recent years. This film sucked me in like I haven't been sucked in a long while (yeah, yeah).
But I'm not one of those fanboys who will attack or reduce the opinion of anyone who badmouths this movie. If what you saw in that film didn't do it for you, good on you. Sorry you didn't get your money's worth, but your opinion is 100% valid.
Here's what I think is invalid: this criticism that can essentially be boiled down to "I don't dream like that." "In MY dreams I can fly." "In MY dreams every woman walks around naked with perfect fucking tits." "In MY dreams my beagle can turn into a gun-toting bionic dragon on a whim." Well, fuck you. Go to sleep and bask in your own self-indulgent dreams. We're here at this movie to see Chris Nolan's dream world. Not surreal enough for you? Doesn't stack up to how you THINK dreams should be portrayed? I don't give a flying fuck. You didn't touch this movie. You have no say in how this world is presented.
What this specific criticism ultimately boils down to is a disconnect between your expectations of what a film about dreams should have been about and what Nolan actually chose to make it about. A valid criticism of a film is an analysis of what occurs within the actual timespan of the film. An analysis of what the film IS. "The pacing doesn't work, this performance is good, this relationship isn't fully fleshed out, there's too much exposition." Totally valid. But complaining about what the movie ISN'T? That's bullshit. That says zip. It adds absolutely nothing to the discussion of this work. "I would've made the dreams more surreal." Well congratulations buddy, but you didn't. This wasn't your film. This is the work of an artist, love him or hate him, and this is the world he created. Deal with it.
So Harry, learn how to a.) write, b.) edit, and c.) analyze a film on its own merits and not hold it to some absurd conceptual standard that doesn't truly exist. -
You are 100% right, the film is a goo solid 8/10 film and nothing more, nothing less. The Nolan Disciples need to accept that Nolan isn't god and that the film was good and thats that, The Matrix did it far better.
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Aug 15, 2010 4:33:37 AM CDT
Funny how Harry managed to stay awake for all of Phantom Menace
by harry_knowles_fell_asleep_during_incepti
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the more i reflect on it. its a fairly embarrassing piece of work.
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I don't mind spoilers. Really, I don't. I mind the fact that Harry doesn't label the review with "Warning, Spoilers".
And that includes that review of the expendables that read like the noises someone makes while they're being fisted. I might have liked the expendables - but now I can't watch it without thinking of Harry's prostate. Thanks for that.
So what's an AICN reader to do when the guy that runs the joint fails to observe the most basic ethic of a critic?
Swear off reading him.
I mean, sure, he's an interesting character. And he's had the foresight and grit to make a fine site. But if I can't read his reviews without getting these fine flicks spoiled, then I'm not going to read his reviews any more. I'll read the other guys here - most of them seem to actually still have a clue.
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Harry not liking the flick is his way of combating the people that bitched at him for not reviewing it for 3 weeks. This movie isn't for everyone, but Harry is the type of guy that would be moved by atleast part of it. This review is a weak defense and nothing else. Fuck the expendables, Harry, you're in Limbo.
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Well done Harry. Here's an incredibly ambitious film that, depending on box office outcome, could encourage studio suits to invest in big, original ideas, rather than churning out remakes of horror films (whether they're: "effin' awesome & creepy as all fuck!" - Harry Knowles, Nightmare on Elm Street Remake review and maybe they're 'the dreams of executives'). BUT we should all go and see The Expendables instead, because your mate directed it and because the action sequences in Inception just aren't up to scratch. Bollocks. You, darling, need to dream a bit bigger, rather than relying on the bits-in-the-film-where-things-blow-up- and-you-don't-go-to-the-toilet to keep you hooked. You stay at home and watch Transformers 2 and I'll go and see Inception for the 3rd time, without falling asleep.
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"depending on box office outcome, could encourage studio suits to invest in big, original ideas, rather than churning out remakes of horror films"
damn good point. and i think the numbers are in. -
but you were wrong about scott pilgrim owning the box office and the world. It'ss all you talk about. You have nothing left. You are just reapting yourself like sad idiot. So what's the point in you now?
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its a lesson in repetition and its way to offbeat for most (for all the wrong reasons). it fits nicely between art like INCEPTION and semi entertaining garbage like THE EXPENDABLES
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as for inception. I've yet to see it. seems to be spiliting folks down the middle here. Nolan has not made a movie I don't like yet. Suprised Harry didn't dig it. Be interested to see his opinion after repeat viewings.
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The only way for the Russian Doll structure of the dream sequences to have worked was to make the dream sequences simple, otherwise the plot holes would have yawned open and no-one would have been able to follow what was already a convoluted plot. If a van falling off a bridge has such a massive effect on the next layer, what would a Salvador Dali melting clocks world of absurdity do?
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Avatar sucked
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and enjoyed twilight 3. remember that!
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So a bland, dull and predictable "thriller" is your idea of "vastly superior?" What the fuck is wrong with you, Harry?
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To the extent of going against Ebert while defending said underatted film.IMO he gets points for that alone.Can't co-sign (agree) on Twilight or GI Joe however.
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Aug 15, 2010 5:22:15 AM CDT
how anyone can give a movie a 'pass' with no character developme
by spider_neil
is beyond me.
where was JGL backstory? or hardy's? give me a break, how are you supposed to care about a character if you can't see what motivates them, and what is the point of a charater journey if that character isn't changed at the end of the movie.
definately the emperor's new clothes with this new movie. -
It's funny, the argument here is: I loved Inception VS I quite liked Inception. I think anyone that HATED it is thick, or trying too hard to go against the grain. The real argument is: Is Harry wrong? And the answer is YES.
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He trots out a bunch of positive reviews and he's a whore, a moron, etc. who never gives negative reviews. He doesn't join the ongoing wankfest for "Inception" among Nolan fanboys and he's a whore, a moron, etc. I don't even like all of his reviews but considering that he's going against the grain against a movie that was well received by critics and audiences, I think one can assume he's being pretty honest with how he feels about it.
I liked the movie quite a bit, but I had issues with it, especially all of the extra exposition. I can see where Harry's coming from, even if I don't agree with all of his points.
So Harry didn't like it. People bugged the shit out of him for an "Inception" review, and now that he's given it they're crucifying him for it because he didn't fellate Nolan the way everyone was expecting him to, the way they had thesmelves. How typical of the TB.
It's HIS opinion, for Chrissakes. He didn't find the film that imaginative. That's all he's saying with his "dream bigger darling" comment. No need to rip him a new one because he dreams differently from Nolan or because he feels differently about the film from those who liked it.
I couldn't give a shit if he liked "Expendables" (which I don't even intend to see); people like what they like and if YOU don't like what he had to say, why was it so important to so damned many of you that he review this movie at all?
The subtext I'm getting here is: "Harry is a whore, moron, etc. unless he agrees not only with the fact that I like/dislike this movie, but unless he also likes/dislikes it for exactly the same reasons I do." Wow.
Plus, this accusation that the people who didn't like the movie are those who "didn't get it" is just getting really old. It's unduly defensive and quite frankly childish. I bet you someone with a double PhD in psychology and architecture could come along and write a disseration on why he didn't like "Inception" and you tools would still insist that he "didn't get it" for the simple reason that he didn't agree with you.
Oh, and Harry DESPISED "Transformers 2." It was pretty clear, so if you're going to take cheap shots at him at least verify which brainless action movies he liked and which ones he didn't. -
come along as write a dissertation on why The Expendables is a better film than Inception? Like to read that.
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come along as write a dissertation on why The Expendables is a better film than Inception? Like to read that.
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You don't need to be a 'Nolan faboy' to like Inception. You just need to be awake.
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... I no longer place any credibility in your reviews, Harry. You go from practically fist fucking yourself with sheer elation over the extremely disappointing Expendables, to falling asleep in what I consider to be one of the top 3 films of 2010.
Dude, you need to change your meds. -
Aug 15, 2010 5:43:27 AM CDT
BETTER TO REMAIN SILENT AND BE THOUGHT A FOOL......
by christianterroristmilitia
THEN TO SPEAK OUT AND REMOVE ALL DOUBT. Words to live by Knowles....words to live by.
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Inception is a better film than The Expendables in the sense of Inception would win more awards and be more criticly acclaimed but i certainly enjoyed The Expendables far more.
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Bet I'm the only person posting in this talkback that hasn't seen the movie yet!
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Woah! Surely this is the whole point of Talk Back? I'm sure Harry can take it, you don't need to defend him. Or maybe he doesn't give a shit. I'm surprised by his review, that's all. This just goes to show that people listen to, and care about his opinion and in this case I think his review is quite destructive.
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I have seen it twice, and I did like it better the second time. Having said that, it is definitely not my favorite Nolan film.
Memento > The Dark Knight > The Prestige > Following > Batman Begins > Inception > Insomnia -
Harry, you're clearly on the payroll for a select few movies at a time mate, Inception fucking owns this summer, it's generating more debate than any other film I care to remember. Kudos for setting AICN up, but it's time to step away, every single thing you post is just damaging this sites credibility now. Admitting you fell asleep during the biggest film of the year, or had to pee during the most anticipated scene in action movie history, is enough rope to hang your fat ass with in my book.
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Well, Inception sucked, but Expendables was an action lubed, spicy sausage mangasm (or whatever stupid shit he said about that movie). Ugh, I know we have all said it before, but I really am finished with the reviews of the Red-Haired Port-o-Potty this time.It is fine to dislike Inception, but not when...oh, what's the point? Pathetic work, Knowles.
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He knows nothing about filmmaking.
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Aug 15, 2010 6:00:42 AM CDT
Harry? Did Nolan Trash Your Lights??
by harry_where_is_your_inception_review
ROFLCOPTER!!!!
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Aug 15, 2010 6:13:06 AM CDT
HARRY KNOWLES - THE FORREST GUMP OF WEBMASTERS....
by christianterroristmilitia
A fucking simpleton who has gotten through life on luck and no real effort apart from rolling over every few hours to have antibiotics administered to his bedsores. "EAT HARRY EAT!!!"..."NOM NOM NOM"!!!
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I would add the chick from Juno is just awful and should never have been in the flick with the calibre of actors around her. But like Harry said, in the end I just simply didn't care. Matrix and Blade Runner it certainly aint.
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The best sequence was when the Heath Ledger lookalike (Gordon Levitt Jr) was fighting in the hallway. The concept of the movie was awesome, the execution pretty average.
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Ugh, I just wrote a lengthy missive about how much you suck, but I deleted it when I realized that I'd be even more pathetic than you had I posted it. It was not appropriate, but neither was this worthless excuse for film criticism.
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I reckon Scarlett Johannsson's breast milk probably tastes better than most. Just saying...
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...talk about being awake...
...though to be fair I typed "thesmelves" in my original comment (and possibly other typos I haven't discovered yet) so we all screw up every now and then.
My point is perfectly intelligent, discerning people can watch "Inception" and not be blown away by it. Hard as it may be to believe, many of them actually pop up here and there on the TBs. Many of you obviously wanted Harry to like this movie, and had he liked it I'm sure he would have obliged you all with another of his hyper-nostalgic, self-indulgent, grammatically challenged love-fests. I mean, I sure as shit didn't have to know that he cried in the fucking men's urinal while he expressed his love for the first "Spider-Man" movie, but he threw it right in there, and he probably would have done something similar had he loved this film. I'm pretty sure you're all glad he spared you that (or at least you should be). But he didn't like it. It's fine to feel disappointed, but the attacks that have been leveled against this guy, while actually tame by TB standards, are pretty annoying considering how many people wanted Harry to weigh in on this film. -
it didn't do the things way Harry wanted it to? I think he would have preferred if each level in dream was a different genre [Film Noir, Fantasy, Horror, Si-fi] or something. Am sure that would have perfectly fit the dreams of all the corporate types.
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Aug 15, 2010 6:30:00 AM CDT
LOOK, THE POINT ISN'T ABOUT HARRY'S REVIEW.....
by christianterroristmilitia
It's that, for some reason, he didn't put out a review for one of the biggest movies of the year. I myself didn't think Inception was all that great, very good, yes, but not the masterpiece that people were claiming. Having said that, there was no reasonable explanation for Knowles not to put out a review of this flick even if his feeble brain couldn't comprehend what was going on. He’s the fucking OWNER of this goddamn site and it looks like he can’t be bothered to review anything unless he’s getting comped (Scott Pilgrim), getting attention from the film crew (The Expendables) or is on bad terms with the Director (Transformers 2). His indifference to Inception feels like there is something more going on. I suspect it’s because the studio didn’t cater to his demands for pwesants, freebies or a free screening. If he saw it and didn’t like it then I can respect that position, but with Knowles I just know something is up because he’s soo corrupt.
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Why didn't they dream up bigger guns? Harry was definitely not paying attention. And if it's now "hip" to dislike TDK and Inception, then I am going to be totally un-hip!
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I'm speechless. Hand over your man or your geek card or both. You can't be serious. Stay off the drugs kids, or this is what'll happen to you.
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Harry is only one guy. His opinion is his own. He's not some kind of movie-god who's word is the final one. So, he didn't like (understand) Inception. Millions did.
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I just smoked a cigarette, and became sad as I did so. We are eviscerating a guy who has created an internet community that we all enjoy, and who has no hope of anything resembling a normal life. He can't get up from his wheelchair, and is physically incapable of satisfying his "wife". He uses sexual commentary all the time, but has he ever actually had intercourse? There is a very good chance that he has not. He is morbidly obese and may not live long. Sorry for the harsh words, Harry. Really. What difference does it make how you feel about a movie? (Jesus, even my apology sounds mean).
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"Of course - maybe these are the dreams of executives. In which case, I'll choose the dreams of artists. Every time."
HARRY KNOWLES - the one critic on Planet Earth who unreservedly loved the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake corporate cash-in. Hypocrisy in action. Kerrching. -
Aug 15, 2010 6:41:55 AM CDT
OptimusCrime, NO, HARRY HAS NEVER HAD INTERCOURSE BECAUSE......
by christianterroristmilitia
The last person who put their hand under his rolls of fat drew back a bloody stump. This is why he's always telling us about his "girlfriends" and using sexual metaphors for everything.
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OptimusCrime, yes a nice chap but also a 'foolish earthling hurling himself into the void' - this is aicn dude, celebrating movies we like and ripping apart ones we don't is what goes on here.
The flaming is just collateral damage, in truth it's rarely personal. -
THey where supposed to look real so the subject doesn't know he's getting screwed over. If he thinks it's real he's more willing to give up the information. Creating too trippy, crazy unrealistic shit in the subject's mind switches on the mind's natural defense system. It was explained in the movie.
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Aug 15, 2010 6:46:35 AM CDT
YOU LIKED THE NIGHTMARE REMAKE? FUCK YOU KNOWLES!!!
by christianterroristmilitia
I REFUSE to ever watch that piece of shit because Michael Fucking Bay's shithole of a company Produced it and they couldn't even make a good Friday the 13th movie for fuck sakes.
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but Harry was asleep in that bit. He fell asleep dreaming of what the wachowski's would have done with the material.
And because he found it so tedious the second time he saw it, the film is therefore crap... -
You know, there's more to making a good movie than fiddly little bullshit about dreams-within-dreams, and, as Harry said, what kind of discussion you can have ABOUT the movie at the diner afterwards. Is the movie well made? Does it involve you? do you care about the characters? Inception failed on all those levels, ESPECIALLY the part about getting to know the characters and care about what happens to them. And for those of you claiming that this is intentional, because everyone is just a figment of Cobbe's imagination, so of course they aren't fleshed out characters ... that's not really dream-like ... people in real dreams tend to be quite vivid. Nolan failed to make a truly compelling film. So why is it so popular? 1. Dark Knight spillover ... that was the event movie of a previous year, and people were desperate for SOMETHING this summber 2. The "Emmperor has no clothes" effect ... where people who have seen it but don't like it are afraid to say so for being labeled too dumb to "get it". There wasn't much to get, the film explained it ad nauseum. What the film failed to do was make us care about wht it had explained, or clearly, visually, underline the exact details, or why we should care. On the snow level, did any of you manage to keep track of who was punching who in any scene, faceless snowsuited people punching others? That's a perfect example of what's wrong with this movie ... I could intellectually understand that it was our heroes fighting mental defenses, but the film poorly conveyed which was which, and why I should care. And as the film went on we went into different people's subconsciouses, but whose subconscious it was in didn't particularly matter much. Mal's suicide scene was the only moment of real power in the whole movie. That's not enough to call a movie "genius" on. It takes EFFORT to make a movie involving, easy to follow. When Nolan fanboys yell at people for being too stupid to "get it" they are damning Nolan for being such an inept film-maker that he failed to convey his story effectively.
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he want Matrix Revolution not Matrix no.1.
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That this is the last gasp for Nolan as a filmmaker of non-Batman films. People may be curious about this film, and have fun with the "Is it a dream or not" gimmick, but the next time they see Nolan's name on a non-Batman film, their instinct will be to ask "What else is playing?" because, like Harry, they just didn't have much fun at this. And I agree with Harry, as awful as "Shutter Island" was, it was way more memorable and effective than this piece of shit.
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That's not a slam or a praise. It just is.
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..."but he's just a fucking corporate tool."As are you, Harold, as are you.Oh, and Dreamscape is a pile of shit.
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Harry didn't really like "Inception" but he loved the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake that was absolutely horrible. Elm Street has a 13% fresh rating for a reason.
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All this talk about Inception, which is still surprisingly positive and civilized is hurting Pilgrim and the Expendables. Almost nobody is talking about those movies. It's all Inception this, Inception that. That can't be good for the box office returns of those movies. Inception is stealing the thunder Harry wanted those movies to have because of his attachment to the filmmakers, his friends. I can understand that, if were in his position I can't say for sure I wouldn't have done the same, even if it meant flushing down my reputation down the toilet and pissing some group of people off. Harry is not doing this get some cock or some presents or anything like that. He's taking one for the team again because he genuinely feels it's the right thing to do. I think we could all cut him some slack.
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This line floors me!! Is Harry suggesting that Inception is another empty summer studio flick? does he prefer the dreams of artists like Sommers and Bay??? Inception is wildly imaginitive in its plotiing, its complexity and ideas, it has one of the best endings in any movie I've ever seen, not becuase it says it was all just a dream but because it gives the audience something to go back and re evaluate on multiple repeat viewings (how many summer pop corn flicks ever manage to do that?). Making the dreams more surreal doesn't necessarily make the film any better, in fact in this particular movie it would have been severely out of place in what is essentially a heist flick that happens to be set within the mind, so to draw comparisons with Dr Paranuss is like complaining about TDK not having enough of the Schumacher day glo or Burtonesque gothic imagery in there. Harry I've always been strangly amused at how you could attribute imaginary qualities to movies like IM2, Van Helsing, Spiderman 3 and so on but yet when a genuinely terrifically written, acted, scored & directed movie such as Inception comes along you seem to do the reverse and instead ascribe imagined negative qualities while disregarding its obvious merits.
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The totem spins perfectly if it's a dream, it wobbled at the end, you didn't have to see it drop for the end to be real.
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Both are overrated.
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Aug 15, 2010 7:20:48 AM CDT
YOU KNOW THEY WERE WORKING IN THE SUBCONCIOUS RIGHT?
by christianterroristmilitia
Understand that what they were doing was planting an idea within a person’s SUBCONSCIOUS. They couldn’t just walk up to him in the dream and say “hi, yeah, give up your Fathers company”. They had to plant the concept by creating an emotional catharsis so that the idea would take root in Fischers subconscious, thus, making it feel like an organic idea of his own. In the first level, Fischer thinks he’s awake and they try to plant the idea in his mind that his Father truly loved him by having Tom Hardy pretend that he was Tom Berenger. This didn’t work because they learned that A: the relationship between Fscher and his Father was worse then the team thought and B: Fischer’s mind had been trained to defend against extraction/inception. So, this is the reason why they take him in the van and put him under so that they could proceed to level 2 where DiCaprio pretends that Level 1 is real and cons Fischer’s SOBCONSCIOUS into believing that Berenger was betraying Fischer so that he wouldn’t destroy his fathers company. Fischer wanted to know why he would do this which is why he agreed to go into, what he believed to be Berenger’s mind, when the team was really taking him into level three of his own SUBCONSIOUS. It was in level three where the team constructed the snow fortress which housed the information that Fischer thought was in Berenger’s mind when it was all an illusion to provide him with the emotional catharsis (his father telling him that he was disappointed that his son wanted to be like him) needed for the idea, of him not wanting to run his fathers company, to take hold. Level 4, didn’t really apply to Fischer as he was only being held hostage by Mal after the Inception was successfully completed. Once Cobb rescued Saito from limbo, everyone woke up including Fischer who now had the seed in his mind to give up his fathers company. UNDERSTAND NOW YOU FUCKING RETARDS?!?
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"Inception at it's core does not telegraph emotions; Dom Cobb is really the only fully fleshed out character in the piece (primarily, I think, because the entire scenario is a construct of his own psyche, but that's best left discussed elsewhere), and his primary motivations are guilt, redemption and, ultimately, reconnection. These are contemplative emotions, and for all the whiz-bang action, it is a largely meditative film, not given to wild and heart-on-sleeve emotive outbursts. It has more in common with Ozu than with Capra, if you get my drift - and may be more pretentious than I give it credit for. Harry referred to it as "boring"; and for an individual wired into emotive diarrhea and cheap sentiment, I can see how he might find it boring on an affective level. The film expert in him recognizes Nolan's skill as a craftsman, but the emotional base can not recognize beyond the surface, and with a narrative that functions on at least five or more surfaces, it may be too much for him to process."
my thoughts exactly dude, Nolan work transpasses conventional storytelling and it seems not every is well-equipped to get the alternative means of conveying complicated emotions. Personally i find it refreshing to have that, it seems everything has been done before, no matter what it is we've seen it and bored by it but Nolan has a new take on this. He weaves his stories in a new way that to me feels like seeing movies for the first time again. Harry on the other hand has already proved that hes opinions come from a different place, a place where movies like king kong, expendables and other crap gets him more excited. as for me, im not gonna lie to you, the only martin scorsese movie that i found to be watchable was gangs of new york, i dont get his movies and i dont care for it. Scorseses way of telling stories and his interests are so lame i chose to ignore it completely and same thing applies to other famous filmmakers. Nolan rescued me from all these previous losers, so thats where i come from. -
absolutely 100% spot on.
too much exposition, next to no character development= characters you didn't give a shit about.
as for people having a problem with harry wanting them to 'dream bigger' I'm 100% with harry that is how the fucking movie was MARKETED, i.e. matrix world bending effects so excuse the people that were expecting that.
inception is nolan's worse movie because the 'THE' main task of a film maker is to tell a story with complex characters that go on a journey (metaphorical) and are a different person at the end of the movie and that most certainly is not inception.
yeah but the people that point this out 'don't get it' rolleyes -
I disagree with Harry as I often do. In fact I was happy with Nolan showing some self restraint and not making this a completely over-the-top action extravaganza. Or worse, 3D. Without self restraint you might get shitty movies like the Matrix sequels or Avatar. Which, other than Inception, sucked. Inception is a feast for the eye and the mind which it couldn't be if Nolan wanted to fuck our eyeballs all the time. The film comes up with a nicely developed concept of dream sharing and piracy, sticks to it's strong internal logic, develops it further into a multi-level dream coup which you can follow very well at every point of time. It's illustrated with it's own mythology if you want so, the totems, the limbo, the Escher tricks and the ghosts of the past that haunt you. Making this a big ass action flick was absolutely not the point. Kudos to Nolan for not walking into the traps of CGI magic.
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I figured you would have been one of the main ones talking about how the flick was a massive mindfuck, how it literally fucked your brains, etc. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as Hitchcockian as most people have made it out to be.
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I'm not sure I fully understand this quote of yours'...
"how anyone can give a movie a 'pass' with no character development is beyond me. where was JGL backstory? or hardy's? give me a break, how are you supposed to care about a character if you can't see what motivates them"
In Alien, apart from Ripley and Ash, what are the other characters' backstories? What about Aliens for that matter? What are Hicks, Hudson and Vasquez's backstories? How's about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween or The Thing? All genre classics with large casts of characters minus backstories or motivations beyond what they obviously do onscreen. Maybe you didn't care about any of these characters, or movies, either. I don't know. -
Cobb wanted badly to be together with his kids again, his kids need a father, especially that their mother fucking killed herself. He wanted it so badly not just because he loved his kids very much, and he hasn't seen them in quite a while, but also because he feels responsible for them now being without a mother and practically without a father as well. That's a convincing character motivation if you ask me, Leo sold me on it. You must have dosed off when all that was shown on screen.
I read a review that said taking a bathroom break during this movie is at your own peril. So if you skipped 30-40 minutes of plot, you can't hold it against the movie, it's your own fault. -
like what donchild said above. man I have respect for Nolan for not succumb to to the need to go all crazy on us in these dreams, that tells me that Nolan isnt just some filmmaker who is getty about lazy storytelling like the others who rely on visual effects as a way to distract audiences from the shitty story. Here Nolan went all out to make the story stand out instead and the reality of these dreams were vital to that story. Harry is such a gloryhole of a nerd that he cant help but want silly crazy dream-worlds rather than complicated intellectual stories. and yeah that ending, is the best fucking ending in a movie that i ever seen in the past 2 decades.
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You really disappointed me, though you "could care less" I imagine (which does not mean what I think you think it means, by the way). 'Inception' was ambitious, original and thought-provoking cinema which you afforded a meagre review due to your misunderstandings.I think that is unforgivable for a man who claims to love the cinema.I can take you going all gooey over films that your 'friends' have made, such as Sly's highly derivative nostalgia fest, but to be so supercilious towards one of the more engaging filmmakers of our time is just crass, and smacks of ignorance.Poor judgment, sir.
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okay that is a fair comment (supporting cast having no developement) as I obviously love alien and aliens, the big difference been the thrust of the action was ripley not hicks etc therefore you cared if she lived or died, now had cobb been in the thick of the action then I would have cared as he was a developed character. the big problem was the movie focused too much on characters I didn't give a shit about. imagine if aliens without developing hicks focused on hicks for half the movie.
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Aug 15, 2010 7:41:47 AM CDT
WAS MICHAEL CAINE PERFORMING AN INCEPTION ON COBB?
by christianterroristmilitia
For all you fuckwads that think the movie was cold, it was very emotional. The team created a fake emotional catharsis for Fischer while Cobb experienced a true one by learning to let go, over the guilt he felt over Mal’s death, which he felt responsible for. This is the reason why I think that Michael Caine was the one performing the actual Inception on Cobb which was alluded to by Mal when she mentioned how Cobb himself must have thought it was strange that he was being chased by nefarious corporations, perhaps representing the feelings of guilt Cobb had in his subconscious. It also explains why Cobb’s children never change appearance. Also, the reason why he can’t see their faces is because of the shame his conscious and subconscious mind feels over his part in his wife’s death. That’s why the ending DOES take place in reality despite Nolan being cute with the top. Cobb was back in reality and his children looked the same because Caine had just performed the Inception. END OF FUCKING STORY!!!
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It takes about a week to figure out the plot. Then it blows your mind.
If you can't be bothered, go here
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html -
"this is the last gasp for Nolan as a filmmaker of non-Batman films"
Do you really believe that? Inception is demolishing the box office, people are going back and watching it more than once. Every single person I know who's seen it has loved it.
If you were talking about, for instance, M.Night who's films have been steadily failing crtically and financially more and more each time then I'd agree with you but we're talking about someone who's on the role of his life. You may not like it, but Nolan is here to stay. -
Aug 15, 2010 7:43:10 AM CDT
Although "surreal" is the right word to describe Inception world
by dioxholsterreturns
when your dead wife comes out of no where to kill your mission then thats definitly surreal and that scene where he paused and didnt shoot her and he was saying something about that it could be the real mal. Leo's delivery was ace i totally cried throughout that movie. so many cool scenes, its definitly a mindfuck but one with a deep emotional base and an adventure to boot. I dont think anyone can top that. Harry i cant wait to read your Sucker Punch review, maybe then you might realize your mistake.
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He didn't take a bathroom break the second time. He saw it a second time because he didn't feel he could review it the first time, having fallen asleep for 30 minutes the first time.
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Aug 15, 2010 7:49:45 AM CDT
HARRY, INCEPTION WAS ABOUT TWINKIES!!! UNDERSTAND NOW???
by christianterroristmilitia
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Aug 15, 2010 7:57:34 AM CDT
The thing about Inception is that YOU dont need to understand it
by dioxholsterreturns
I thought the plot was easy to follow and and there was enough explanations for the viewer to get whats going on. It wasnt a matter of not getting it but a matter of whether you understand the underlining theme to it. Ive learned alot about people by hearing or reading their explanations about the ending. you can tell whether that person is an optimist or nihilistic. Inception will be a hot topic on the philosophy circuit for sure.
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What Nolan made with "Inception" was an ugly, badly told, boring film about an interesting idea. The film's "popularity" rides on the interesting idea alone, not the pleasure the audience got from the way it was told, which was horrible. Nolan's popularity rides on being the director who lucked out in being attached to BATMAN movies. This is what impelled so many to go see this film (and because the film's marketing made it look good). As for people going back to see it twice? That's the "Emperor has no clothes" effect, where people missed plot details because the movie was so inept at conveying them, but were afraid of being labeled dumb for not "getting it" and going back a second time to try and "get it". A GOOD movie, a well-told movie, wouldn't force so many people into doing that. And come the next Nolan non-Batman film, I suspect a lot of people would rather skip the movie than have to deal with all that con-man "you have to see it multiple times to truly get it!" bullshit. They'll just go see some movie that looks enjoyable instead.
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Ringwearer9, INCEPTION "sucked" and was a "piece of shit"???
Dude, the people on this board saying it's good but not a masterpiece i'll listen to. But to call INCEPTION a piece of shit is quite frankly... ridiculous.
Ringwearer - you lose credibility with that comment. I'll also remember your prediction that this movie is 'career ending' for Nolan. We'll see how that plays out, eh?
WavingFlagsInSpace, *you* get it! -
I mean... what? I must have read ringwearer say that... but I also must have blocked it out. I mean... what?
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Just as KING KING 2005 was career ending for Peter Jackson.
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....who "dreamed bigger"... Chris Nolan with Inception... or Roland Emmerich with 2012. I just can't work it out...
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Its his opinion and i cant fault him for that, and he does make points that alot of other stupid critics make. They simply cant find anything to criticize the movie on, they simply go criticizing it for not being the movie they thought it was. THE MOVIE IS NOT ABOUT BIG LOUD MONSTROUS DREAMS STUPID! add to that it was shared dreaming, a lovely way of saying they go into the subconscious in a very controlled manner. plus most dreams if not all consist of worlds that are largely similar to the real world but with more creation freedom and opportunity to roam beaches to huge urban landscapes.
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Said it's a movie one needs to see multiple times to understand it's "depth". Now he says he fell asleep the first time. How can anyone trust this guy or anything he says web he contradicts himself and misleads and lies to his audience? His credibility and any attempt at professionalism is gone. I know he'll say he never pretended to have it anyway, but anyone who lies to his audience deserves to be called out on his pathetic behavior, and from now on, there is no reason why ANY of us should ever trust anything he says. I don't care whether he liked In Inception or not (though his explanations for his opinions are often hypocritical and lacking serious thought sometimes), I just care that he remains honest. And whatever vestige of honesty he had is now gone in my book with this debacle.
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It's not really that similar in comparison to Inception. Besides, none of this will matter when Enter The Void comes out to blow everything away. Gaspar Noe is THE REAL DEAL.
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Aug 15, 2010 8:13:29 AM CDT
Harry wants Cobb to fly over cities with a lightsaber!
by dioxholsterreturns
Harry would get a geekgasm!
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Damn auto spelling correct.
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first he cant control his bladder and now he sleeps through a movie. i watched Inception after midnight Harry, if i was ever sleepy before seeing it I FUCKING WOKE UP ONCE THIS EPIC MOVIE BEGAN!!!
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one of the most outstanding sequences ever put on film in modern times. I looked at it and thought How the hell did they do. you see that scene very briefly in the trailer but the whole sequence is incredible. and I as i say its the most outstanding sequence put on film in modern times. but the bond style sequence took me out of the film completely. but I didnt fall asleep. harry should give up writing reviews.
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Harry told the truth about why he didn't review it the first time ... he fell asleep during it. So what if he fibbed a bit about why he needed to see it again before he reviewed it in a few talkback comments? He did need to see it again, for whatever reason, and he came clean when he finally put down an extended review as to why. And many people who did NOT fall asleep during it felt they had to see it twice anyway.
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that incredible feeling of excitement which they felt about 20 minutes into Inception when it gradually began to become clear just how intelligent and engaging the film was. Hans Zimmer gave it an awesome atmosphere and importance. Think back to being in the cinema when you first began to realise what Nolan was attempting and then tell me he needed to "dream bigger!" Thats fucking annoyed me that has.
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Harry never said anything about falling asleep the first time he saw it until now. Previous excuses implied he felt the need to see it twice to understand it's depth. Those were his words (possibly paraphrased as I can't go back and check at the moment). Now systems he fell asleep. It's dishonest.
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Aug 15, 2010 8:25:55 AM CDT
harry didnt like the snow scene even it was the most surreal
by dioxholsterreturns
what a fucking hypocrite. do you want surreal or not?
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It was boring and repetetive, an endless honking, without emotion, or melody. HONK. HONK. HONK. HONK ... Jesus Christ, it was so heartless and incessant!
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Aug 15, 2010 8:27:08 AM CDT
Scott Pilgrim vs The World opens at #5 at Box office!
by dioxholsterreturns
suck it you pieces of shit wipe
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So what if he didn't give the whole story when being nagged in talkbacks. He told the truth in his review. That's what matters, right? Not some throwaway excuse in a talkback.
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Everything you just said is your own opinion, yet you state it like it's fact.
If you truly believe that the reason people who are going to see it again because they didn't understand it and don't want to look 'dumb' then fair enough, but I can't help feeling you are projecting your own thoughts and agenda here.
In my experience the ordinary film going public really don't care all that much about movies. They have far more important things in their lives to think about. Movies are entertainment and if they are entertained or affected either emotionally or intellectually (in a positive way) they'll take time out from their busy lives to pay to watch a movie again. I find it very hard that something as negative as feeling self-conscious they didn't understand the film would motivate them to rush out immediately and watch it again.
This is, as I already mentioned, just my experience of people. Maybe we hang out in very different circles. -
yes and I also think that Mozart was just endless BLARPING. BLARP BLARP! And beethoven... damn that TINKLING. TINKLE TINKLE TINKLE. I bet you would have preferred Zimmers King Arthur/Gladiator/RC scores to have been used instead though right?
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this talkback keeps getting funnier and funnier, are people trolling or creating "characters" to act as an insane person (see Mediah Messiah)Nolan for me was the director of the last decade, hit after hit and he has started off this decade with what for me is the movie of the year (so far).Spoilers belowthough I think this talkback is a free for all in regards to spoilersSaw it again today, and think I noticed the emotional/character aspects of the movie even more. The scenes involving Mal's death, Cobb reuiniting with his kids and effectively not caring whether its a dream or not and Fischer's confrontation with his father were absolutely incredibleAlso emphasised for me the brilliance of Ken Watanabe and Tom Hardy. Though have been a huge fan of Watanabe for a while. I don't want a sequel to this movie, certainly dont want a prequel, but would love to spend some more time with Eames and Arthur in some other format
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I've strongly disliked most every Nolan movie , HATED Batman Begins, but liked - not loved - Inception a lot...brainy and ambitious. Trying for more. Harry's review, while not saying he has to love it, shows he has no freaking business reviewing movies. Ever.
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to do what he wants, please Studio Execs give him everything the man is a genius!
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but didn't dig Inception? Time to stop reading Harry's reviews.
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I'm telling you now Inception will be up there with the likes of Blade Runner as a cult classic in a few years time...
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"He told the truth in his review. That's what matters, right? Not some throwaway excuse in a talkback." How do you know after he's lied in previous talkbacks? That's the whole point. You can't say "he told the truth in this review" because you don't really fucking know, do you? You don't know for sure. I don't know for sure. All I know, is I don't trust anything he says now after feeding us excuses for over a month, excuses that now don't agree with each other.
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Did he really care to get back to his kids when he and his wife spent so much time in their dreams? I felt he was a soulless, greedy, neglectful parent and though he may have finally redeemed himself his journey there--for me--was shallow and somewhat inhuman.
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Harry knows that (unless he really is a fucking soft-headed cretin) He thinks this is the only way he can make his stupidly late review relevant. By making it so completely wrong that everyone feels the need to comment.
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Reloaded ending when Neo killed the squids with his mind. Before we saw Revolutions we all thought the same thing: That what we thought was real was not. Nothing new!
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Where ever your misunderstandings of this film may lie, it's not for anyone else to say you have to like the film of course but you have really let yourself down int hat review by closing it;
"Of course - maybe these are the dreams of executives. In which case, I'll choose the dreams of artists. Every time."
That is a cheap shot, badly aimed.
I don't necessarily venerate Nolan but geez as Octaveaeon points out there is more going on in this film than the banal reading you took from it. -
But Revolutions completely ignored that and it never really came to anything. Which is why Matrix sequals = general failure. Inception made use of everything is set up, and stuck to its own rules.
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I loved the movie.
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I told a friend that I was about to watch Shutter Island on Netflix...he said "Ugh...I figured it out in 20 minutes."...after watching it myself, I had to call him back and say "That piece of shit took you 20 minutes to figure out? I had it before they got off the damn boat!"
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in the same way 2001 space oddessy or blade runner is seen today
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Cos you talk as much shit as him! Too long!
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I can understand and sympathize with all of your points and after seeing it 4 times now, I have many of these same problems. The story structure is weak, the character motivations are slim to nonexistent and the dreams themselves are bland and uninspired. I do have a major issue with you claiming that "Shutter Island" is a better film, because "Shutter Island" is a raging piece of shit and arguably Scorsese's worst film. I would also like to say that I wish you hadn't caved to the cunts who posts here (and seriously, you could lose this talkback and just have message boards and this site would be improved a lot!) and written this review. Who gives a fuck if you don't review this movie? You sure as hell shouldn't.
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It's about the delusions of a paranoid schizophrenic, his bi-polar/manic depressive wife, and the conscience of a man who would rather play crazy than deal with the realities of all that has transpired in his unfortunate life...
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Anybody remember Animal House? That scene where Flounder is in the middle of the riot at the end of the film? And he's just beaming as he takes in all the chaos? Remember that? And then he says,"OH BOY!!!! THIS IS GRRRREAT!!!" That's how I feel reading this TB! Thank you, Harry. Thanks for posting your review. THIS IS GREAT!!
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predictable thriller... WRONG! The story is merely the vessel for deeper themes, which ultimately make it VASTLY superior to INEPTion.
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Holeman, you hated INCEPTION so much you watched it 4 times?!
What do you do with movies you love? -
...a flaming ball of fail wrapped in a pseudo-noir coating ladled with a thin layer of Scorcese's inability to end a movie at the right place. Sorry, anyone who says different is just plain wrong. There is no wiggle room here.
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I liked Dream Warriors though, just not sure how it made it into this review!
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"Of course - maybe these are the dreams of executives. In which case, I'll choose the dreams of artists. Every time."
This quote strongly implies to me that Harry has some personal agenda towards Nolan here. This review is a month late and very, very short. I suspect if he hadn't been harassed, we'd have never seen a review.
In my opinion there is something else going on here. Exactly what we'll never know. My guess is that Nolan has snubbed or offended Harry in some way and his delaying the review and the subsequent publishing of a couple of token paragraphs is Harry's way of sulking, like the giant man-child we all know he is. -
He shoves them in your mom's pussy
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Spider_Neila and Ringwearer, most films don't set up back stories for the supporting characters. That would be boring exposition. What they do is create a compelling enough 'universe' that the viewer can fill in the blanks themselves.
In INCEPTION for example, I filled in the blanks to assume that JGL's character was Cobb's most trusted friend and had loyally done Inception's and dream heists with him for several years. Tom Hardy's character also had history with Cobb, they'd done at least one assignment together where they got the job done successfully but Hardy had shown himself to be more of a raconteur and a risk taker than 'yes man' JGL. -
hahahaha
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Aug 15, 2010 9:26:31 AM CDT
So He Didn't Like INCEPTION, But Orgasmed For EXPENDABLES?
by laserpants
Geez, Harry. You've just lost any fleeting, microscopic shred of critical credibility that you may have once had. You're just a sad, imbecilic Manbaby writhing in poopy diapers and cumming to cultural detritus. Maybe Nolan should have written you a bigger check? Clearly Stallone wrote a big one for you.
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MJs, how would you shove a movie into a pussy? Are you talking about the physical DVD box? Or more of a metaphysical thing? Or are you just a witless little man who lives to type unpleasantness anonymously on the internet?
I think the latter. -
a great movie right in front of you and you not seeing it. instead you earn for something different.
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So is it going to be "cool" now to diss on Inception? That's a club I won't join.
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held in the regard as blade runner 10 years from now is IN-SANE, this movie will be forgotten about in a couple of years (TOPS!)
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I have said my two cents worth and will not repeat myself here, other than to say each to their own, and not everyone will like the same things. Personally, I really liked the movie, and not for Nolan and his skills, but for me as its my kind of movie. If someone else had directed it, would it have been better? That is something that can be debated forever. Maybe Harry can grow further appreciation when it materialises on Blu Ray. Oh, and ScottPilgrimFan, you're a dick.
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About what some fat idiot said about a generally solid movie.
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Yes!!!!
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Aug 15, 2010 9:34:00 AM CDT
Scott Pilgrim Fan, I Don't Know If You're Paying Attention
by laserpants
But your movie? It was a BOX OFFICE BOB-OMB. Sorry! It looks cool, though. I like the comics. I look forward to watching the movie on dvd sometime in September.
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Inception and Blade Runner are two different animals. Blade Runner was something completely different when it was first released, and as such it will live on as a true classic.
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Anyone who thinks Nolan's career is over needs help.
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As per my previous post, SPF is a complete dick. I will enjoy watching him eat his own ill timed words as guff like the Expendables tromps all over SPVTW.
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I guess if after two viewings you don't actually get the basic rules of the piece then you're not in a good place.
To be blunt - if you're going to even try and be a bit professional then with a film like this wandering in when falling asleep on your feet is simply doing the whole endeavor a disservice, from the film itself to this site to your own status.
Next time skip the first viewing when you know you shouldn't and make sure your first viewing is when you're perfectly ready.
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I don't always agree with your reviews Harry, especially for tentpole films, but this review is bang on. Well done.
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Regardless of your final take on this movie, Harry... it seems very irresponsible of you to have gone into the viewing in such a state! It's like you set yourself up to dislike the film. You can hardly compare doing 'BNAT', where you're surrounded by a ton of people doing the same thing and the atmosphere is entirely different to simply not getting enough sleep prior to a regular film viewing in a regular situation like this. 'Inception' is not what put you to sleep, your lack of proper rest prior to seeing the film is the culprit! You've got a job where you're lucky enough to see a shit-ton of movies, the majority of which you get to see for free...but you've also got a responsibility to see said movies in a clear and fresh state of mind! There's no reason you had to see this movie THAT early after not having enough sleep and rest. Trust me, the patrons of this site would have waited for you to see a later screening before you posted a review. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to imply that had you waited and were "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" for the movie that your opinion would be any different, it just feels you didn't give the film a fair chance from the get-go!
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Nice to know you saw the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. It's been embarrassing watcthing the geeks go crazy for such a mediocre movie.
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Agreed. While I like what he did with Bats, Superman would be better served by a team that understands big irreverent action better than he does. I wouldn´t mind Emmerich, Sommers or even Bay having a go at Superman. It needs some fun and big action for a change.
As to Inception, I for once agree with Harry.
May taste better on second viewing at home, though.
But hey, throwing Nightmare 3: Dreamwarriors into the review just bc it´s also about dreams....come on, Harry. Totally different levels of film-making and content. -
This is exactly how I felt about Inception. Incredibly clever and well crafted, but totally lacking in character. The guy dreams about... hotels? Shadow Moses? That's it?
Maybe the sequel will add a little more character to the proceedings. -
Is that the dreams had to be grounded in reality for the Inception to take place. If there were green clouds and talking beavers then the targets would have thought something was " a little odd..."
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the mention of dreams in the movie has compelled Harry to sleep!
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Aug 15, 2010 10:04:47 AM CDT
Octaveon, insightful but I think it misses the point somewhat
by tallandagwood
All of us bring to and take out of an movie going experience different things. Some - such as yourself can extract a treatise that fully supports your own perception, while others will simply say they liked it or disliked because it was good/not good. With no further explanation warranted or needed. And that is fine, because movies like most entertainment experiences are primarily enjoyed at the surface level -you either like it or you do not. Certainly entertainments can achieve a visceral level of response, but it is still is a subjective level. A treatise such as your own, while providing potential insight into areas that may have been overlooked, still only serves as supplemental information to someone who has already decided they liked/disliked they same entertainment, based upon their own criteria. Simply telling someone to look deeper- and providing excellent guide marks for doing so, still will rarely alter a someones initial perception. An example: You view a work of art hailed as a masterpiece, but all you see are ugly brushstrokes. Someone who knows the history of the work provides insight into the artists angst while crafting it, his motivations and the thought that went into it. It helps you understand why he did what he did, but the work still looks like ugly brushstrokes to you.
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Hey, Harry. Here's a thing or two I learned about watchin' movies back in '90. I was in the Navy and I had just got off duty. Some of my friends were going to see Dick Tracy and even though I had been up for well over 24 hours I went with them. I should have just gone to bed. I remember the cartoon Rollercoaster Rabbit, some primary colored sets and costumes, and the credits (which is when I woke up). Never. Ever. Go to a movie when you NEED to go to bed! Dark room. Comfy chair. Dude, you're sleepin'! Save your money. Stay home. Lesson learned.
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Aug 15, 2010 10:06:37 AM CDT
sam jacksons wig ---- not to mention as an audience...
by dioxholsterreturns
...we as an audience wouldve not felt the danger the characters faced if it had been set in silly Tim Burton-style worlds. There had to be that consistent element of not being sure whether youre in a dream world or reality hence the totem.
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Therefore it is crap.
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Aug 15, 2010 10:08:43 AM CDT
Harry wanted Alice in Wonderland and not Inception
by dioxholsterreturns
what a joke of a review
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take previously explored ideas/stories/themes and approach them in a way that hasn't been seen before. Whether or not Inception has similarities with Dreamscape, Matrix or whatever else is irrelevant , every movie shares a connection with a bunch of others, its the originality of the approach that counts. Nolan has proven with each of his movies that he can take material whether it be a novel, comic book, another movie (Insomnia) and rework it in a way that actually expands and often improves on the source.TDK for example took the basic concept of a hero defending the city against a villain bent on destroying that city with a masterplan. A standard plot in a lot of mainstream movies, except Nolan puts an entirely different spin on things by having the villain attempt to destroy the city by corrupting its most morally respected politician a man who has brought a fresh sense of hope to the city through his fearless tackling of Gotham's criminal infrastructure. The hero then thwarts the villain's scheme by taking the fall for the crimes committed by said politician thus keeping the moral spirit of the people intact! Right there! what other director would put that kind of spin on such a run of the mill storyline. Nolan is the man
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Aug 15, 2010 10:19:07 AM CDT
Every movie has compromises, Nolan chose a less surreal world
by dioxholsterreturns
and for a very good reason. by now we all know that visual effects and all that nonsense gets old very fast. And for the last time it makes sense to have that way, not to mention how cool it is to see dreams mimic reality but in a flimsy way. yeah those enemy projections are bad ass. i got my own elite squad baby so dont even try Cobb, secrets stay with me!
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Goddamn I couldn't figure out what the big deal was about that movie. It was for pseudo-intellectuals who think they are smart.
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i also cant believe that Nolan is for real. hes too good to be true.
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before committing a single word to the page, Harry.
While I won't argue your points regarding character and plot, you're totally wrong in comparing it to IMAGINARIUM, OZ or DREAM WARRIORS. It is it's own beast; Nolan very much intended it to be more subtle than the films you make poor comparisons too.
I'm beginning to wonder if your heart is really in this anymore Harry. Maybe you enjoy producing, and participating in events and conventions more. But the sensible thing to do would be leave the site for someone else to worry about, and get own with the stuff you seem to enjoy more.
And yeah, the delay in this review seems a little 'off'. So you didn't like it. You didn't like Batman and Robin and look what happened there. -
Aug 15, 2010 10:30:38 AM CDT
Been with teh site since the start, Harry reviews never resonate
by stormwatcher
Mori, Quint, VERN, Masa is probably my fav now, but Harry is a critic masquerading as a fan and adores shlock and his 'friends' case in point 'THE SUM OF ALL FEARS REVIEW' remember that masterpiece? find his review. So many crap movies he champions and then shits on ones that are maybe not masterpieces but made by people he doesn't like so he's super harsh, example Terminator \salvation, not great, but no the bowel movement he makes it out to be. Inception was great, maybe there wasn't enough stuff like Serbian movie for him
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And now, much like Haley's Comet, I'll wait 76 years for that to happen again.
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so Harrys review doesnt matter. mainstream audiences loved it and this time they didnt go see the movie for the 3D or lame enviroments but for the story alone. Nolan did a terrific job and nothing harry or others could do about that.
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...sadly, you have put your finger on one of the aspects of Nolan's style as a filmmaker that mark him as not yet ready to join the first rank of directors. In science they call it confirmation bias. It is the psychological process of forming a notion of what you would like the result to be and then building your research to reach that conclusion regardless of whether the research actually indicates. And even though I pretty much love TDK that is certainly what Nolan did with the conclusion of the movie. Answer this question for me. Why couldn't everything Dent did be blamed on the Joker, his minions or some vengeful remnant of any of the mobsters' gangs? What was gained, for the spirit of the city, by Batman taking the blame on himself? Why couldn't have Gordon and Batman created any damned story they wanted? One that would have made Dent a martyr to Gotham's rebirth while placing the Batman ever more securely in the role as the city's extralegal protector? Give me a satisfactory answer to this question and I'll be glad to admit defeat. And when I say glad I really mean glad, because I do love the movie and that final chord strikes me as horribly, amateurishly false every time I watch it. Now it wouldn't have been impossible to craft the movie in such a way that Batman taking the blame would have been the only logical, reasonable outcome. And that would, I agree, have been a fantastic ending. But from any direction I look at it, that is not what Nolan did. And that is a mark of someone who had not yet fully matured as a filmmaker. Now you can read what I wrote above and hopefully understand that I think Nolan could become one of our great directors. And when I say great directors I don't mean a superior director of disposable summer tentpoles. But right now that is what Nolan is, a great go-to guy for making damn tasty chain restaurant steaks. For me that would be Lone Star, but just insert the one you like best. And hey, I'm grateful we have him, even in that capacity. But I look at Nolan's films and see hints that he's a guy who was a better destiny than being a better and more nuanced Raimi or Verbinski (and by the way I'm pretty happy Raimi's out there too, and think if Verbinski learned some discipline I would be pretty happy to have him).
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It's funny how utterly dumb some of the lovers are in here. You think you're all smart and hip that you "got it" while those of us who saw a mediocre film are just too stupid for a film like this, yet your defense of the film shows you had no idea what was going on! I guess if I was stupid I'd be ashamed to admit it as well, but I certainly wouldn't come to a board like this and underline my stupidity by making ridiculous arguments. The ski chase sequence WAS NOT FISHER'S DREAM! They just told him it was, they actually entered Tom Hardy's dream in that level. So all your blathering about how Fisher is a rich kid who fashioned himself as James Bond are DEAD FUCKING WRONG! Also, if Fisher's subconscious, when they're actually in his dream, is alerted to defend him, then what would it matter if they flipped the street over or did any number of amazing things within the dream? The projections WERE ALREADY TRYING TO KILL THEM!! What, if you start doing wacky things to escape them then they'll REALLY want to kill you? And since the only projections in the ski sequence are already trying to kill them, what's the harm in flipping the mountain over on itself? The movie consistently showed a lack of imagination. Leo says to that Cisco chick that they can build things that could never exist in reality. So of course when we go to his dream world it is just a regular cityscape with some water. Wow, amazing!And if Nolan had any inkling of being a great filmmaker, the entire third act would have taken place in Saito's limbo, and explore that aspect of the dream world more. Hell, was Saito's brain even scrambled when he woke up on the jet? The movie was boring as hell, and the twist that everything in the film is a dream revealed itself very early on, making the film even more boring. Do I really care about some rich dude and his company fighting some other rich dude and his company? Do I care if they break into Fisher's subconscious "vault?" And how lame was that? It's always a safe or a vault in the dream? How lame is it that Nolan could only think of an elevator as a metaphor for going deeper into Cobb's subconscious? I like how once the van is falling the next dream level is floaty and zero g, yet weren't they on an airplane before they went into the first dream? Shouldn't that fuck with gravity and movement also? Oh wait, then the movie would have to make sense. You know what, I obviously am too dumb to get it, how dare I ask such basic questions of such a flawless film! Forgive me...
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They say in the movie that a creator of an idea always knows the exact genesis of that idea, and how it came to firm in their mind. BULLSHIT! Anyone who has ever created anything or had what they think is a good idea half the time can't even really explain where the idea came from. They could explain some fragments of where it may have arisen, but a lot of times not even the originator of the idea knows exactly how it came to be in his head. Just another lame ass thing in this mediocrity.
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Nolan has probably made the best dream-related film possible. The trouble is, dreams are impossible to get right onscreen. The catch 22 is that while human beings buy into their own dreams while they're having them, no matter how "trippy," the audience for a film (as a collective) has to buy into what's onscreen. That's primarily why it's so grounded - not simply to serve the story. It's been said that nothing is more boring than hearing someone else ramble on about their own dreams. So to acknowledge that "Inception" is as good as it is (while not perfect) is quite an accomplishment in itself. I LOVED the movie on my first viewing but didn't care for it as much the second time because of some of the same gripes that Harry has. However, I don't necessarily blame Nolan directly for all of the shortcomings. It's an incredibly ambitious film, and certainly better than the Dark Knight (don't get me started on the awful ferry scenes) and I respect him for his attempt. As a whole I think it works because of his hard work, and what doesn't quite play is mostly because of how ambitious the concept is.
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than Inception! The burly brawl, the massive freeway chase, the Architect... not to mention well framed shot composition where you could see exactly what was going on!
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I did like the movie, but many of your criticisms of the movie are mine, too. And you're right about SHUTTER ISLAND, too. It's far better. DiCaprio should get Oscar consideration for that.
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...at least I didn't say Outback. Besides, I like the cheese fries and the free peanuts.
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you are embarrassing yourself.
The few scenes you mention from Reloaded? Worthless. They tried to expand on the concepts from the first Matrix and failed miserably. The Architect? Talk about convoluted. -
"Give me a satisfactory answer to this question and I'll be glad to admit defeat."
Red Ned I don't want you to admit defeat cos you always post interesting stuff, but I think the answer to your question can only be...
...Nolan has the story sketched out for the third BATMAN movie and this is where the chess pieces need to be at the start. -
great nod to the 60's Batman series where at the end of the episode Batman was faced with a dilemma that had two equally perilous choices. Same Bat-time! Same Bat-channel!
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I guess if they'd blamed the Joker it would have been a lie that could easily have been found out. Also, Batman and Gordan are both men of honour and I doubt that pinning it on another party is something they'd have been willing to do, a step too far.
At least with the lie they told, the target (ie Batman) was complicit.
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Reloaded took it to the next level
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See how quickly this review is moving down the page? This wouldn't have happened if it had been placed on the left column along with all the other movie reviews.
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Aug 15, 2010 11:02:41 AM CDT
REEEAAALLY starting to lose any interest in Harry's take on film
by braddavery
Seriously. It's like he glorifies shitty movies and shits on ones that are well made. What kind of twisted logic is that? You slam Inception but you hail The Expendables??? You are a hack, dude. Sorry. You can find faults with ANY film, but you go OUT OF YOUR WAY to find faults with movies that are generally held in high regard while propping-up turds like The Expendables as if they are God's gift. Shame on you. I know that film is subjective, but subjectively, I think your opinions are awful and you shouldn't be reviewing film. Just stick to watching your garbage and loving it and leave reviewing to people who can be objective and unbiased. WE GET IT,YOU LOVE SHITTY MOVIES AND DISLIKE "WELL RECEIVED" ONES. What's more pretentious, being pretentious or acting like things you perceive to be pretentious are below you. Your reviews suck ass.
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What are your top 5 favourite films of all time?
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I wouldn't worry, something tells me it'll stay up near the top of the talkback list for a while...
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See his review about Avatar, when he basically says he loves the movie because it's about a guy in a wheelchair who gets to walk, fight and bang a hot blue chick. He loves Expendable because it's about a bunch of old dudes on steroids who can still "get it up." He loves Scott Pilgrim because it's about a guy who actually gets to star in his own, completely self-obsessed, self-involved video game. He disliked Matrix Reloaded because it didn't have vampires and werewolves (Tho the stated intention of the Matrix was to fool humans into believing they were living a normal life.) He disliked Inception because because the dreamworld was mundane and the objective was corporate espionage (tho the point of the dreamworlds were to lull the target into thinking he wasn't even dreaming, and in the end the point of the movie was to get Cobb to relinquish his guilt).I'm not, by the way, saying anything about the subjective worth of any of these movies right now. I'm talking about Harry's reasons for liking them. All he's looking for is escape. When he gets it, he likes a movie. When he doesn't, he feels disappointed. He doesn't think about the rules of the movie, or the plot really, only the level to which he's allowed to escape into fantasy.
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WOW!! Some of these guys should get a room! Or a ring! Anyways, here's another thing or two I learned about watchin' movies. This time back in '86. I had finished bootcamp in Orlando and was waiting for my school. I had a bad day and just wanted to get off the base. So I found myself heading to the moviehouse. I ended up seeing Cronenberg's The Fly. Between the sparse and apathetic audience and my foul mood, I just couldn't get my head into the movie. It seemed wildly erratic and over the top. Just crazy. And I HATED it! The rest of the week I kept thinking about it though. I couldn't shake the idea that I missed something. Something important. So I went back and seen it again. Revelation! I don't know what movie I was watchin' before, but this was amazing! Same theater. Same 70mm print(cool). Different audience. Different mood. Lesson: Don't see a movie when your mind is preoccupied with something else: bad mood, worries, death, taxes, etc. It will screw up your movie enjoyment. And a bad audience can only help push you further out of wack. It's like a perfect storm.
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...you know, I consider you one of the really big guns in these little talkbacks. The kind of poster who actually sometimes moves opinion by what you post. So...thank you.
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I don't think I've ever seen a Harry review to not appear in the left hand 'Harry's reviews' column.
Again a reflection of not only the disregard he has of the film but his unwillingness to even review it.
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I don't think I have ever disagreed with you more. OF course we could have made the dreams over the top, but when we set out to make this picture we wanted to at least ground the dream world in some sort of reality. It's own reality of course but still a reality, being able to sprout wings and have dinner with jesus would make for a cool dreasm but it wasn't part of our visionI hope that you will warm up to our film in the future and I still consider you a great friend...I just think you didn't "get" inception because you didn't allow yourself to get it
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dude you are way off its not even funny. watch the movie again
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...you know, I like your explanation. I don't consider it a fix for the structural problem, but you can bet the next time I watch TDK (which given how often I've watched it since it became cable convenient is likely to be sometime within the next couple of weeks) I will be doing so with your explanation in mind (not the easily discovered part, which I don't buy, but the character driven part, which I rather like).
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Red Ned, post a 'hello' in Live In Chicago?
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But it's mega weak. Leo is decent in role, but not intelligent enough to make me believe it. The characters never wrestle with the moral implications of their actions. Missed a big opportunity there. I thought it sucked hard.
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How's the screenplay coming along about the fake character you created which you're still masquerading as?
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An "Inception" sequel? Unlikely. Apart from the Batman movies, Nolan is not known for sequels.
SCOTTPILGRIMFAN, you are the saddest, lamest one-note troll I've ever seen on a forum, EVER! You are more annoying than AsimovLives and his infamous "Jar Jar Abrams" rants! -
What the fuck.
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Aug 15, 2010 11:17:25 AM CDT
Chemicals - apparently he thinks you're weightless...
by irishraidersfan
...on an airplane!
Seriously, dude, WTF? If you've ever been in a car accident, you get thrown around. Ever been on a plane? NOT the same thing.
As for Harry? Never thought I'd say this, but it is pretty obvious he didn't get the movie. I'm not saying it's not boring in parts, or that I emotionally connected with, well, any of the cast, but his point about "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." - he obviously missed the entire 'make it seem real (at least their spin on real) or they'll know' current that RAN THROUGH THE ENTIRE MOVIE. -
you said : "The catch 22 is that while human beings buy into their own dreams while they're having them, no matter how "trippy," the audience for a film (as a collective) has to buy into what's onscreen. That's primarily why it's so grounded - not Kid Idiotesquesimply to serve the story. It's been said that nothing is more boring than hearing someone else ramble on about their own dreams."
i agree watching dreamlike sequences on screen are usually lame and wrecks of a director just trying hard to dazzle the audience. Tim Burton is an example of that. Nolan's subtle way of presenting dream worlds was indeed an accomplishment -
you said : "The catch 22 is that while human beings buy into their own dreams while they're having them, no matter how "trippy," the audience for a film (as a collective) has to buy into what's onscreen. That's primarily why it's so grounded - not Kid Idiotesquesimply to serve the story. It's been said that nothing is more boring than hearing someone else ramble on about their own dreams."
i agree watching dreamlike sequences on screen are usually lame and wrecks of a director just trying hard to dazzle the audience. Tim Burton is an example of that. Nolan's subtle way of presenting dream worlds was indeed an accomplishment -
I think you're absolutely right but don't you feel a bit dirty having given that much thought to the whole thing?
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Hey,THE_CHOPPAH! GET BACK TO DA CHOPPAH!! NOOOOWOWWWW!!!!!!!! Ahh, Bloom County. All the good cartoons are gone now... Calvin & Hobbs, The Far Side... THE_CHOPPAH is trying to bring me down. BUT HE CAN'T!!! CUZ I LUV DIS TB!!!! "OH BOY!!!! THIS IS GRRRREAT!!!"
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You can't invade dreams. Di Caprios characters actions are well scouted from the get go....and there are voices of reason throughout the movie. Wrong on all points. But hey- join the "I hate Inception" movie movement. I will sit quiety and love it for a sheer slice of entertainment.
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complex, clever, interesting, intelligent, noir-ish action movie with an engaging quasi-sci-fi premise. Which it was. It was also a film which the VAST majority of critics and viewers loved. Don't blame the film for your inability to keep up with it.
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Aug 15, 2010 11:21:12 AM CDT
double posting is considered cool from where i come from
by dioxholsterreturns
double me awesome bitches
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Glad I could be of service. I know what you mean about the ending, it was an incredibly odd way to go in terms of the city's well being, what with Batman being as much a hero as Harvey Dent. I guess the difference was that Harvey had a much more intimate dialogue with Gotham, whereas Batman was always a mysterious and dark character. At the end of the day, it was damage limitation and Batman took the hit because he was willing to. I really think this deception is as far as those two characters would be willing to go.
I also agree on your assessment of Cobra Kai. Him and BringingSexyBack are two talkbackers who can always be relied upon for amusement and insight. -
Has any scene ever not lived up to the hype like this one? Yes even including the car chase in Reloaded where "THEY BUILT A HIGHWAY JUST FOR THE MOVIE!!!!" ... Actually I don't know of any other movie that had hyped scenes like that. Reloaded is like BSG ... Just taking a simple, effective concept too seriously and needlessly complicating it because Cornel West thought it was academically stimulating (Reloaded, not BSG hahaha). Booooooo
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Worldwide: $499,754,000. Budget $160m. I would say that its done a wee bit well, eh? Fuck the nay-sayers. And fuck ScottPilgrimFan. I fucking hate that trolling bastard!
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"noir-ish action movie with an engaging quasi-sci-fi premise" ... Totally agree and I think people for whatever reason think or want it to be something else. They refuse to experience the movie on its own terms. Naturally, the most beautiful horse in the world doesn't make for a very effective tiger.
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THE_CHOPPAH's favorite TV show? wait for it... wait... Chopped.
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I love it so much.
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Well acted. Well thought out. Well shot. So, it's a fucking dream. So what? People can actually do what is in SPVTW and the Expendables?
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Harry waited two weeks to post The Expendables review. What would it be worth to get your hands on that!
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The prestige is a great movie. i could even stomach David Bowie in it, and that's saying something.
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Memento. And there it is....
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Harry can't have an opinion now? The movie didn't work for him, so the fuck what? He isn't "wrong" you know. He had a different opinion, that's totally valid. Doesn't mean the movie isn't well made, it means it didn't push his buttons.
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Does anyone know what the fuck Ken Watanbe is saying? Seriously. Hire American if something's going to hinge on that character's dialogue.
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Maybe they needed a chink....why the fuck does it need to be an American?
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What's to keep up with? 1 hour of a an falling off a bridge. 10,000 skiing assassins shooting 1,000,000 bullets that hit no one (except incomprehensible Ken W). I actually wish I cared enough to go back and count how many bullets were fired in that movie. More bullets does not = me caring. If I want deep I'll put on my "2001" DVD.
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I liked it, but the ending took me back to the reactor, Quaid.
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Scott Pilgrim scored a modest estimated $4.5 million on around 3,000 screens at 2,818 locations, which was close to the opening day of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. However, it paled compared to Kick-Ass's $7.7 million launch. Cunt off, SPF. Twat!!
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I had the same problem. I know Watanabe is a great actor, but to have him speak garbled English was a problem in the film and a disservice to him.
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Before dishing up a negative review of Inception, I have a confession to make: except for Memento, I have never been a fan of Chris Nolan’s films. In general, they strike me as cold, trudging exercises in technical show-offery. As my grandmother once said to me after a seal show at Sea World: “I was amazed, but not amused.” With that out of the way, let me say that Inception really just isn’t that great of a film. It has two main weaknesses: narrative sloppiness and weak characterization. As far as I’m concerned, the latter is the more egregious of the two, but the former is less endemic to modern big-budget filmmaking, and really strikes as the heart of what people like about Inception, so I’m going to spend most of my time discussing the sloppiness (Warning: spoilers ahead.) Any film has its own internal logic. In The Matrix, humans are necessary as power sources for the AIs. In Blade Runner, androids are identified by a Turing-type test. Do either of these make sense? No. But we accept them for the duration of the film – we suspend disbelief – because that makes it fun. When a film starts contradicting and playing fast-and-loose with its internal logic, however, it is punishing you for suspending disbelief. And this is what Inception does at every turn. For example, take the “limbo” dream-state, in which you are trapped if you happen to “die” in a dream while under sedation. Apparently you get out of limbo by…dying again? How does that make sense? And how does this make limbo a threatening prospect? “Oh no, I have to kill myself TWICE!”…? Then there is the “kick” that is used to wake someone up from a deeper dream level. In the example at the beginning of the movie, a kick at the upper dream level is sufficient to pull DiCaprio (or “Dom Cobb” as he is known in the movie, which is odd because he doesn’t look Burmese at all) out of the lower dream level. But in the film’s climax sequence, it seems as if a simultaneous kick at the lower dream level is also required for the kick trick to work. Even putting aside the fact that the time-dilation between dream levels would make simultaneous kicks INCREDIBLY hard to arrange, this seems like a pointless change of the rules. And then there is the issue of “dream powers”. If I can pull a grenade launcher out of nowhere in a dream (as a guy does in one scene), why can’t I fly? Or strike my dream-enemies down with a well-placed meteor? And if Cobb and his wife can age a lifetime in dream-limbo and then restore themselves to full youth right before they lay their heads on the train tracks, why does Saito let himself get old when he’s stuck in limbo? Etc. The list goes on, but I’m already running out of righteous indignation. The fact is, these holes in the film’s logic are not negatives for the film either commercially or critically, because what people enjoy about a film like this is the chance to argue about it afterward. Inception is a hit because it allows people to spend hours debating whether or not DiCaprio is REALLY dreaming at the film’s end, or what this or that little visual cue meant about what was REALLY happening. Of course, these debates never end, because the film is so sloppy, so careless with its own rules and logic, that any detail or anomaly could potentially be a deliberate cue, or it could simply be a piece of lazy writing. Nolan can’t lose. So if people are happy with the film’s incoherence, why am I unhappy? Because I suspect that this “feature” was accidental. Sloppiness is on display throughout the entire film (as when the pronunciation of Ken Watanabe’s character changes from “SAY-toe” to “SIGH-toe”), leading me to believe that many of the little discrepancies that so delight fans and critics are just dirt on the lens. And while people might call Nolan a genius for setting up a story structure that makes an asset out of sloppiness, I have to say that this just bores the hell out of me. Come on, now…everybody hates the “And I woke up, and it was all a dream” ending, don’t they? So why do people like a movie that sets itself up from Minute One so that the ONLY possible ending is a big fat question mark as to whether or not it was all a dream? Inception’s ending is the most telegraphed punch in film history. If this qualifies as a “mindfuck,” then I guess I like sex to be spontaneous. But even if the film were as tight and clever as, say, Twelve Monkeys (or, say, as Memento), I still would have had to stifle the urge to walk out halfway through. To explain why, let me write a sentence I’ve written many times before, and will sadly write many times again: I just didn’t care what happened to the characters. I’m not sure if weak characterization is more common in recent big-budget films, or if only films that have strong human stories are able to become classics after the novelty of their special effects becomes dated. Either way, I think I’m less tolerant of weak characters than much of both the film-watching public and the film-critiquing elites. Even if a film is a good intellectual exercise (which Inception is not), it’s generally not enough to hold my interest for 2.5 hours; after all, I get plenty of intellectual exercise in my PhD program. What I need is to care about the characters. And in Inception, as in all of Chris Nolan’s films except Memento, I did not care. The movie is filled with the stock characters that have become a sort of standardized shorthand for the theater-going public – the business mogul, the technical specialist, the serious assistant. As for the protagonist, the film resorts to what is rapidly becoming my most hated filmic cliche: the “perfect wife and kids” characterization. (Let me take a second to elaborate on this particular peeve of mine. Film critics will rant and rave against “pet the dog” characterization, where a protagonist is shown to be sympathetic by doing some random act of kindness. Well, these days, action movies try to make you like the guy in front of the camera by showing those glowy slow-mo sequences with him and his looks-ten-years-younger-than-s he’s-supposed-to-be wife and his pair of smiling towheaded children. You know the movies I’m talking about. Inception is one of them.) Add to this the fact that Leo DiCaprio will never ever be a good actor, and that Marion Cotilllard did a weak job as well, and even the quality acting skills of Joseph Gordon-Levittt and Ken Watanabe couldn’t make me care whether or not all of these people were thrown into eternal dream-limbo or not. In Memento, I shared an emotional connection with the protagonist through his fear; I sympathized with the hideous, nightmare terror of daily memory loss. I understood Leonard Shelby’s rage, his desperation, his fear, and so I wanted him to win. In Inception, all I could think was that if I woke up and found I had Dom Cobb’s ideal life, I would probably go back to dream limbo where I could dream myself up a grenade launcher. Sloppiness and weak characterization were enough to sink the film from my point of view, but there were little things too. There was precisely one moment of levity in the film: the scene where Joseph Gordon-Levitt tricks Ellen Page into kissing him. That was it. You’d think humor and warmth wouldn’t be a “little thing,” but in the Age of Nolan they’re more of an unexpected bonus when they do occur. And why didn’t we get to see more of the dream-producing technology? Apparently in the script, the technology is called PASIVE (Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVEnous). Good thing someone somewhere bothered to write down that train-wreck of an acronym; I’d probably have gone with WHOOPDESHIT (Weak Hole-filled Overly Obvious Plot DEvice SHIT). All in all in all, Inception is best summed up by the unintentionally hilarious line DiCaprio tosses off to explain why his and his wife’s idea of dream-heaven was an infinite forest of rectangular office towers: “We love buildings of this type.” Chris Nolan decided he loved films of this type, and set out to make one without worrying overmuch about details like logical coherence, characterization, and humor. And the public ate it up. Um…I’m looking for a devastatingly witty ending line here…think I’ll just go with: WHOOPDESHIT.
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1,350,521 bullets, squarely aimed at Harry Knowles fat ginger arse.
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A "dream" movie with a guy just wanting to get back to his normal life and in the end reuniting with his kid and leaving the "HELL".
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Man, learn to paragraph- no-one is going to read that slash...
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Thunderbolt Ross- Well said. I like that horse/tiger bit. Preconceived notions about a film can really fuck up your movie enjoyment. Which is why the ad campaigns for movies can screw a movie over if they don't represent the movie correctly and make people think its about something its not.
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I've seen it three times and his lines tripped me up every. single. time.
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Oh, right. This has nothing to do with Scott Pilgrim or Sly Stallone.
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We were(wolved) in, at the time we saw Inception? Just so we put a frame of reference on our mindsets (refering to Puttgrass's post above).Me: I caught a near full, late nite, Friday (opening day) screening. I'd had shit for sleep the night before, had a massive hangover from staying up too late getting smashed with friends (some who I hadn't seen in years). All because, I had to wake up at 7 in the morning to attend a friend's funeral, then drive four hours back to my house.Maybe, feeling like shit and having to deal with shit, made me like Inception more so.But, I don't think so, 'cause I went and saw it again the next day and like it even more so.
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But please use paragraph breaks next time.
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Aug 15, 2010 11:54:00 AM CDT
INCEPTION just never really gave pwesents to Harry
by sierratangofoxtrotuniform
Which is why he hates it. Had Nolan come to this site to do a Q&A (even though I thought it was awesome that Sly did that) he would have received the same accolades and positive reviews as Harry's buddy with his Expendables movie.
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I agree completely with what you wrote regarding Nolans present limitations as a Director. As talented as he is, I believe his key failing as a writer /Director is his over reliance on theme and his single mindedness to enforce and reinforce that theme over and over again - regardless the illogic it produces. TDK was about Dark/Light or Dark Knight vs White Knight and come heck or high water Nolan was going to show that what the city (and audience) may have perceived on the surface was not really the truth -but it would be necessary to protect that ignorance because Gothamites are a weak minded sort who can not face the truth and thus create for themselves absolutes of black and white with no room for grey -when in reality it is Nolan who is seeing those absolutes. Batman is called the dark knight not the charcoal grey knight. I enjoyed TDK, but the constant requirement for taking a leap into the illogic, diminishes my overall enjoyment. I see TDK as an attempt to make a more mature comic book movie, but when confronted with the double whammy of conforming to Nolans thematic insistence and the inherent contradictions in a comic book hero existing in the real world, Nolan fell back on staid comic book conventions - and writing, as a way to escape having to deal with real world solutions. Inception, was enjoyable, although I did check my watch at times. However, I think it's biggest flaw was that we never connected with the characters beyond the superficial. Movies such as Inception, fill a void created by mindless entertainments - but I think it's popularity is magnified more by an absence of like minded fare as opposed to the overall greatness of its presentation.
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Broken promises, lies, and a meager, snarky, very late review.Kinda sad, really...
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To answer your questions (though I see Jackalcack has already beaten me to the punch with his similar explanation)the whole theme of heroism and what defines being a hero is very much the backbone of what TDK is all about for me anyway. If Batman & Gordon had of decided on the spot to pin Dent's crimes on The Joker or any of the criminal goons still on the streets then this would completely undermine the movie's driving message about heroism and what defines being a hero which can be simply summed up in one simple phrase 'self sacrifice'.It also resonates with the earlier scene in which Dent pretends to be Batman in order to take the rap for Batmans own crime (operating as a vigilante) for the same reason which is to stop The Joker. Any other story that didn't involve blaming a third party would take a bit of time to think up and as the cops were closing in fast, time was not what Batman & Gordon had. Thats not to say I thought TDK was spot on flawless, the explanation of who those five people were that Dent killed still lingers and will need addressing in the third film. Here's my theory on who they were , Wurtz, Maroni, Maroni's driver, bodyguard & the cop who goes to fetch Dent from his hospital room and takes a bullet from the Joker (nobody knows that The Joker was there). Also that ending creates one of the best set ups for a sequel ever, Batman being hunted by Gordon himself!
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PRESIDENT BALTAR? Again? And no paragraphs? Again? Dude, like this: But without the space between . If you type it that way, it disappears and replaced with a paragraph spacing. Like these.
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Score it with big cellos and horns going full blast in a thunderous bass register, just blast em when you want to say, "This is important! This is grand! This is epic!" Do it frequently to make your film more serious and more emotional.
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from the quickcut, shaky cam technique I first noticed in The Rock. I mean after The Road Warrior back in 1982 with it's solid action choreography... you can't make me feel a thrill by fast cutting bad choreography with fast cuts and shaking the image. Inception did this in the part with the cars and the shootout in the city. Everyone who is making a move right now. Don't do this anymore. Can you imagine how stupid the mine sequence with the demon towards the end of the first Lord of the Rings Movie would have been with fast cuts and shaky cam?
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Will jump on the bandwagon and simultaneously echo Harry's views here. Or hate on Harry. Or something.
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which gave away the ending way too soon...i though inception had too but it went a bit farther which i liked.
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Aug 15, 2010 12:08:15 PM CDT
great films stick with you long after the lights come on...
by fleshmachine
most do not.
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So many talkbackers here have expressed liking but not loving the film, only to be chastised instantly and put into the "hate" category by the die-hard fans. Relax, it's just a movie!
Inception is in my opinion the first full-length exposition film. There are precious few moments where what is going on is not described or explained by a character, which I suppose is necessary for this complex tale. Oddly enough, I didn't mind that aspect of it once I accepted that the film was going to use this technique throughout. What I did mind was a lack of connection with the main characters. Leonardo DiCaprio has not cracked a smile once in his last few films, playing essentially the same morose and tortured soul. He's competent, hits all the right beats, but I didn't feel for him. A famous actor once said that if you play out all your emotions too strongly, the audience is off the hook for feeling. That's how i felt about him. I loved Ellen Page, but she had less screen time than I would have wished for such a good performance.
It's hard when you have to keep up with multiple characters in any film, but it makes it a marathon, if, like myself, I could not relate to a protagonist. For that, I was disappointed in the film. Technically well done, and certainly a labour of love for Nolan, but the guy has to warm up and get out of his labyrinth once in awhile. Please notice I didn't say I hated it. It was worth seeing. -
OF THE WORLD!
You said almost everything I was about to say, and now can't be bothered to say, except the following:-
Inception is the Matrix... It is the world that's been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. What truth? Inception is dumb and not just sloppy - if you watched it again you'd realise you've been fooled by a pretentious filmmaker.
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I put in the paragraph breaks in the last post - why does this stupid interface not accept them?
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Like a little sidebar of stats next to your username with your top five movies, or a link to a page with ten to twenty reviews, just to give a sense of who you're talking to. It's sad that Facebook has better technology than this site. With all the Expendables money Harry's raking in, you'd think he could afford an upgrade.
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Aug 15, 2010 12:13:26 PM CDT
people should stop bringing up the box office for inception
by spider_neil
'inception was loved because it made a fortune'
TF2 made a fortune as well, and whilst I not comparing the two you can't use box office as to a worth worth.
TF2 - hit
blade runner - flop -
"Waking life" - Linklater, "Mullholland Drive" - Lynch?
Both films capture the 'feel' of dreams. Well. -
If I may presume to answer, I believe Nolan driving home the theme of the movie as you put it 'self sacrifice' is what calls into question his talents and a writer/director of the first rank. That is exactly what I was referring to in my post to Red Ned Lynch - the fact that Nolan would sacrifice good and logical storytelling for the sake of reinforcing his thematic narrative. Batman did not need to accept the blame for the murders. Neither did Dent have to be blamed if it was the goal to cover-up (and how heroic is that?) his crimes. Joker could have easily been blamed, or it could have been left unresolved. Eventually good detective work - assuming such exists in Gotham, would show that Batman could not have committed the murders. Now of course, Batman could manufacture evidence to point to himself -but that would be even sillier than taking the fall needlessly. However that would definitely show a deep psychological scarring that demands a masochistic and self destructive bent, which would make ofr one helluva Batman movie - but I doubt Nolan was going for that. As for Gordon pursuing Batman in the third movie whose theme will undoubtedly be that of redemption, how hard will Gordon really try, and even if he went all out - he still could not touch Batman -the man he relies on to solve the most difficult cases because he in incapable of doing so.
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Haha! Thanks dude.
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Gotta hand it to you, Harry. Posting your tepid review of a film some love, most like and few rabidly hate by one of the single most innovative filmmakers working today in mainstream cinema is one hell of a way to generate site traffic on what appears to be a very, very slow news day.Lest we forget, this has now become a business for you, rather than a passion, because there sure was an absence of passion in the 'review' you wrote above...thank god for the talkbackers who fill this site with geniune feeling rather than your obvious ennui...
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I'm baffled that people still want artsy movies filled with self-indulgent wankery from Nolan. Then they are baffled when, instead of producing said wankery, he produces a tightly wound and thoroughly entertaining piece of Hollywood eye candy. You must repeat after me: Christopher Nolan is NOT P.T. Anderson. If you want sprawling character studies filled with dense complexity, you have P.T. Anderson. If you want entertaining, yet intelligent blockbusters, you have Christopher Nolan. We all love Memento; it was exquisite independent film-making of the highest order. But Nolan has moved to a larger canvas--don't resent him for it. The genius is still there, but in a more lavish and accessible form. Nolan understands the movie making process like no other director working today -- his technical expertise, from SFX to cross-cutting to pacing, is unrivaled (and probably why he draws comparisons to other technical masters, like Stanley Kubrick). But what Nolan gives you that other technical masters do not is the thematic oomph. Nolan is a true WRITER/DIRECTOR. He works in perfect balance with BOTH of those sensibilities. So instead of the writer giving us unfettered imagination in the dreamscapes of Inception, the director must keep things in check to ensure the journey remains somewhat accessible. Instead of the director focusing on overwhelming visual accomplishment, the writer insists every scene be in service to the narrative flow. Nolan, more than any other writer/director working today, perfectly balances these two disciplines. And he does so on a HUGE scale. Folks really need to stop criticizing the film they WANTED to see from Nolan and appreciate what the guy is actually producing. Just because people like something and it makes money, doesn't mean it isn't good. Sorry about the rant (and the ugly giant block--how do you put the frickin' spaces in?!?), but the litany of reviews complaining about the simplistic dreamscapes of Inception have finally pushed me over the edge.
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That movie played out in the first 5 minutes. The rest was just filler.
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I realised the whole movie mirrors our own dreaming. (i.e internal logic of dreams make sense when you're asleep but when you wake up that 'dream logic'is revealed to be nonsensical.)
I was too busy thinking "how can this technology fit in a suitcase? it doesn't even attach to the guys head...why didn't nolan sell the believability of the technology more?"
Then I realised a) nolan is a genius, he could've sold it more if he wanted to, so why didn't he? Then see above. That's my two cents
AWESOME. -
forgot, that's why the ending is so perfect. Our own dreams don't have endings, they can only be interpreted.
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Eames was the third layer. Not Cillian Murphy's character. And as for the lack of research in the dream? if you'd paid attention Harry, you would have realized that it wasn't in the Architect's ability to create a girlfriend or anyone else. The people in the dream are filled in by the dreamer. Seriously man, i get being underwhelmed, but atleast pay attention.
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Mostly serious question: When people say that X person didn't like Inception because he or she "didn't get it", what exactly are you thinking that person didn't understand? Like what specific thing(s) are you guessing was totally lost on the folks who weren't crazy about this particular movie? Because 95% of Inception was characters explaining shit as it was happening on the screen. That was pretty much the whole movie.
So for someone claiming Harry disliked it because he didn't understand something, what are you imagining he missed? -
was because the dreamer needed to believe this was real so that his subconscious didn't rip everyone apart once it felt it was being infiltrated. did you not pay attention at all? i understand that visually this film could have been a lot crazier with blue dragons and gravity defying sex scenes or whatever else you think is cool these days, but seriously Harry, go back and revisit this in a year or so and you'll see that you missed a whole lot of what made this film really work. i'm not in the camp of saying this is the best movie ever, i'm just saying that its a shame to compare this to all of your favorite films and then pick it apart without ever paying attention in the first place. but you dont read these after the first few so i'm sure i'm talking to no one.
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Mostly serious question: When people say that X person didn't like Inception because he or she "didn't get it", what exactly are you thinking that person didn't understand? Like what specific thing(s) are you guessing was totally lost on the folks who weren't crazy about this particular movie? Because 95% of Inception was characters explaining shit as it was happening on the screen. That was pretty much the whole movie.
So for someone claiming Harry disliked it because he didn't understand something, what are you imagining he missed? -
You've lost all credibility for all time. Never reading anything you write ever again.
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..too busy keeping up with the narrative!
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Aug 15, 2010 12:42:28 PM CDT
consider not reviewing anymore to calm TBers down
by charlesbronsonlives
seriously harry. you can't win with these people anymore. Especially giving half-thought out reviews to fan faves. you are really close to a lot of talented filmmakers and you always love their work (and don't say because you ragged on Predators that excuses you, Rodriguez didn't direct that film). Stallone and Wright both made fun movies, and yet you went batshit over them. I'm sure you'll do the same when Machete drops in a couple of weeks. How about you just leave the reviews to Capone and Quint and you run the site elsewhere. I used to love coming here to read yours and moriarity's reviews (ive been reading since 97 when i was in high school) but he lost his mind a while back and you seem to have lost to the lust for this. go make Famous Monsters great and keep up the work here, but don't feel the need to appease anyone with your "critiques" of movies anymore because all it does is remind everyone that you can't be part of it and successfully critique it. then again, what the fuck do i know? nothing.
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Credibility shot.
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Aug 15, 2010 12:47:16 PM CDT
Harry's totem is the double sided dildo from requiem for a dream
by johnny_tuco
You are a puppet to your own psyche. I mean serious, you sit out of watching Inception(too busy?!! Fuck you! You could of skipped reviewing Predators or Expendables(oh fuck don't get me started on that review!!! Btw have you removed Sly's cock from your mouth! Shit I'm soo mad I put a parenthesis within a parenthesis, how's that for Inception mofukka!!)for a whole month. I call bullshit sir!! First of all not every dream movie is goin to have bugnuts shit goin on. Just because you dream of Yoko's head on a unicorn while eating the worlds biggest jizz filled chocolate donut in the middle of a romulan/Vulcan war doesn't mean there aren't people who dream more grounded, you pompous jerk. WTF happened to you, in one year you gave a glowing review to Elm Street and now your "underwhelmed" by Nolan's masterpiece! Again WTF!! Cillian Murphy's character dreams this way in part because he is a business man and also because he's under the impression that he's in Tom Berenger's dream, so he's just projecting fear and daring danger. He's obviously scared at what he is doing. Cobb and the others know it's a sneaking mission so that's how they go about it, inception is a delicate process and if one of them started to "dream bigger,darling" , like of black shiny trench coats or fuggin zeus' lightning bolts than the mission would be compromised! WTF!!! What film were you watching?!!!!! Next time jus stay home and watch your precious Platinum Dunes' Freddy movie , and here's hoping fuggin Freddy Rorschach invades your nightmares and makes you watch Inception in limbo(that means forever, you ass!!!!!)
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Terrible. Inception was a breath of fresh air in this world of shitty, over used, over done ideas and remakes. I think people have forgotten what cinema is really all about, and Nolan hit it right on the head with Inception.
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Been wanting to watch this but been travelling and doing work etc. Been reading this site for 6+ yrs and only just started commenting but generally when Harry doesn't like it ... I do
But equally no point having the hate for Harry. This is all a matter of taste. Some people like tiger print sofas. My tastes are more similar to McWeeneys whose loss to the site was huge imho
Harry seems to like (with exceptions) superficial films. I'll watch them but I wont think about them afterwards -
Can we let everyone have their opinions? No one is going to agree 100%. that being said, I fell under Inception's spell. I agree with the above poster who says it would be interesting to see what everyone else's tastes in movies are like. Here's my blog, if you like:
believeamancanfly.wordpress.com
ringwearer, as a trained composer I can say that the point of a film score isn't always to give you a hummable theme. It's to enhance the screen images, sound effects, or dramatic tension, among other things. It's not all John Williams-type stuff. -
I see where you are coming from on the sacrificing of Logical storytelling for the sake of thematic conclusion point. However I still feel that for Batman & Gordon to come up with any other sort of explanation would seem really at odds with both their own moral codes (despite the fact that they are telling a lie about Batman)and wouldn't give the film that final cathertic kick that it gets as Batman rides off into the night even more of a hero than had he simply saved the city and reaped the respect of the people of Gotham. In the eyes of the audience (used to seein the standard hero saves the day ending) he leaves an indelible imprint of being a true hero. Had he and Gordon thought up some other story or blamed The Joker the movie would have lacked that strong conclusion and seemed contrived. With the next film the door has been opened for multiple possibilities, the fact that Gordon is chasing a man he knows to be innocent creates an interesting scenario in itself, I would love to see the hunt on Batman be carried out through an investigation into discovering his real identity, Gordon interrogating Bruce Wayne perhaps?
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I actually disagree with Harry's overall assessment, but some of you are just being unreasonable. The following are invalid reasons to dismiss his review:
1) He slept through the movie therefore he didn't understand it: you dumbasses. He makes a rather lenghty explanation of how his first viewing was under less than ideal circumstances, so we waited until he'd had a chance to see it properly before reviewing it.
2) he waited too long to review it: you dumbasses. see explanation for #1. and those of you accusing him of lying about why he waited...I think its obvious even after a second viewing that Harry admits there's a lot going on in this film that is admirable that needed to sink in a bit. he just walked away with a different opinion than you did.
3) He didn't understand the rules of dream land: Yes, he did. The rules of dream invasion state that you shouldn't create weird surreal shit so as not to draw attention to the fact that its a dream. Okay. But once trains are barreling down the avenue and you're being chased into warehouses, off highway overpasses, and down blizzard infested ski-slopes, I think its safe to say that you don't have to worry about drawing attention to yourself anymore. Hardy's character explicitly says that to defend yourself properly, you should dream bigger, then pulls a rocket launcher out of thin air. he establishes that this is possible and even helpful to the situation. So why the fuck doesn't anyone else do this at any other point? Asking that question doesn't mean we didn't get the rules. it means we noticed a plot hole that isn't addressed!
4) Harry is fat.
5) You wish Harry would die some spectacular violent death.
6) Harry is insincere: if you honestly think that, you've obviously never read any of his reviews. Harry is sincere to the point of absurdity, which is why his reviews are much of the time unreliable. Quint and Massawyrm are the go-to guys if you want to here textually based pro's and con's. Harry is who you go to if you want raw unmitigated emotional vomit.
In the end, its his opinion, and it disagrees with yours, and I'm not sure why some of you have to be so violently and obnoxiously vitriolic in responding to him. -
...on one level, a very brilliant metaphor for the filmmaking progress.It can also be viewed as an examination of existential questions concerning the self.It can also be viewed as a cracking action thriller.It can also be viewed as all of the above.Somehow, Harry, you managed to miss all of these. Go read the article posted on CHUD by Devin Faraci, titled 'Never Wake Up' (which you seemed to take literally, Harry) and read what a real film afficionado writes...
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I thought art was subjective...I thought we were allowed to express opinions...Harry didnt' think Inception was that great...so what...how does that affect your lives. I didn't think it was that great either. And the fact that many of you are praising it worries me because it futher shows how dumb you people are. You find intelligent, ideas that fairly simple to understand. Soon you will be praising how intelligent Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 is....because as a society, we have all dumbed down.
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I sat through Inception hoping that I'd enjoy it more as the movie went on: it's SURELY going to be more visually imaginative when they get to the NEXT dream level. But no. Apart from a couple of set pieces, it didn't really impress either visually, conceptually, or through the characters. Some reviewers even compared it to Kubrick, but 2001 it ain't!
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Incredibly overrated. Man, I thought that friggin' van would never hit the water. Fragmenting the stories that much was not a really smart artistic choice. Also, and it's been said before but it's true, Nolan really sucks at shooting action scenes. The whole section set at the snow fortress was painful and tedious viewing. Some interesting Borgesian ideas at play, but ultimately just a string of missed opportunities with no really fine performances from any of the cast.
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If you don’t like it or it doesn’t work for you, then that’s cool.. but for me it worked by not being too fantastical , because of an assumption I made before I ever saw it. I had seen enough promo material to not spoil this movie, but I also knew that Nolan chose to ground the dream world in reality for no other reason than what he tells Ariadne early in the movie. When you dream, you usually aren’t aware that you’re dreaming. You think it’s real, even when something seems strange. He wanted the audience to not distinguish a dream reality from actual reality in the film. That artistic choice is central to the story, and I felt he didn’t cop out by going overboard with effects for the sake of doing effects. He acted with an appropriate amount of restraint, I thought. So should he have done some more imaginative stuff? I suppose so, but it could have backfired as well.
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Following your logic (ignoring opinions) would lead to the death of these talkbacks, and a major source of income for Harry's site.Go wash out your keyboard with soap, because the big guy loves it when we rip his naivety to shreds...dollar signs probably light up his eyes.
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The one and only "realistic" dream sequence I've ever seen in a movie was in Rosemary's Baby. There's really not much to "get" about Inception. All of you claiming to "get" it more than others should go watch "Inland Empire" and then we can talk about your superior understanding of cinema.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/33248914@N00/4894206279/
A negative review is fine and good, but when it comes a month after the world at large is pushing it past $250 domestically and creating online communities...well...kinda silly. -
Don't mention it squire, just keep on doing what you're doing!
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Don't get me wrong. I love discussing movies. The inane immaturity and attacks that occur here have ony gotten worse. It's pathetic. Go ahead...flame me. I welcome it. For those of you having civilized arguments, thank you for bringing something worthwhile to this forum.
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Or how about 'Primer'?Or 'Synecdoche, New York'?I'm sitting through 'Synecdoche...' for a third time to get a full handle on that challenge. Just added 'Inland Empire' to my 'lovefilm' list, thanks for the tip.
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H'm... you should watch this again in 3 years. I expect a much different review.
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Even when you have weird and surreal dreams you don't know your dreaming until you wake up. So what could alert the subconscious could've been something that doesn't fit in naturally with the rest of the strange, fantasy world. Like something modern or based in reality. I'm not saying all the dreams had to be surreal fantasies but some of them could've been. You just had to change the rules as to how the subconscious is alerted.
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wrong about Inception being a masterpiece.
You live by the sword Harold, you die by it. -
2001 has the *entire human race* develop, from ape-like hominid to some unfathomable, super-evolved being. Can't get much more 'character development' than that. And, unlike INCEPTION, it was internally consistent.
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Nolan sucks at action scenes... from the battles in Inception to the ones in Dark Knight... they are not in league with great action scenes of the past 30 years. But Nolan does some great character moments, and the Joker is great, and in Inception towards the end I did buy the lead characters story to get back to his ideal life with the kids. Nolan should let someone else ghost direct his action scenes, then his movies would be great classics... and cut back a bit on the operatic music... it's just as cheesy and flaccid as some of the slow motion sweeping moments that Peter Jackson uses. Satire time! Make a mundane sequence of events but score them Nolan movie style.
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It is missing something- a coherent plot and interesting characters. Had neither and I have grown to hate Decrapio as he seems to play the same guy in every movie, some actors can do that, he can not. Zzzzzzzz
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For finally getting the balls to brave the pitchforks here, and say what needed to be said about Inception. It is a well put together film, with great performances and some nice imaginative sequences early on. But I did feel the last third of the film to be lacking. And was definitely underwhelmed by the climax.
And I saw this film a few days before most folks here due to working in a cinema and getting the print in early. So this certainly isn't a revised opinion, due to anything being said now.
Which is a shame because I think Batman Begins is a near perfect superhero origin film. (Yes even better than Suoerman The Movie)and I do love the Prestige and Memento. I felt the Dark Knight though, much as I LOVED those gorgeous Imax sequences, (when seen in true Imax)suffered from similar problems and didn't have as good a climax as everything that had preceded it.(Perfect origin for Harvey Dent's descent into tragedy, but sadly not enough for Two face after that..)
I'd agree with some of the posters though with a 7/10 mark for Inception. It is good, and compared to everything else that came out this summer, does almost seem like a masterpiece by comparism. But yeah, I think Nolan could have done better with it. Still nothing to be ashamed of though. It was a nice attempt to do something different with a summer blockbuster, so points for trying.
I just hope Nolan does better with his end to the third Batman film, as obviously that will be the climax to his trilogy there. And thus will have so much more riding on it, as to how we look back on these films further down the road.. -
I agree with pretty much all your points.
The one area I'd question is Harry's sincerity. He is very sincere when he wants to be with the constant admissions of how a film made him feel like a kid or made him ball his eyes out etc etc
There is, however, a very noticable trend now on this website to push certain films to the point of insanity (KickAss and Scott Pilgrim being the two most recent examples) that Harry and the site have investment in. Did anyone really expect Harry's review of The Expendables to be anything other than gushing? Or, indeed, the last two pieces of shit that Peter Jackson released?
Harry knows these people now, that coupled together with set visits, advance screenings, exclusive interviews and let's not forget 'pwesents' he's receiving makes him an unreliable, and therefore insincere, reviewer. Don't think I'm having a go at him, I'm not. I get it. He gets all this cool shit and then has to simply write a good review so his devoted followers (of which there are still many I might add) rush out and watch the film. I'm not saying I'd do that in his position but many would. All's I'm saying is that I don't buy it, for me Harry's opinion can no longer be trusted.
I've been hearing people saying this for about 2 years now but it's only in the last 6 months or so that I've really started to see it for myself. I don't know why Harry has behaved the way he has in regards to Inception but it is unusual and out of character. Especially if you reflect how gushing he was of the dark knight and Chris Nolan in the aftermath of that movie. He was regualrly posting speculative articles about Batman 3. Now, what? He doesn't give a shit about the director's new movie to even bother posting a proper review.
I've been coming here a long time and it's out of character. There's something else going on here and I don't believe a word of the excuses Harry is making. -
'Superman The Movie.' Damn this site really needs an edit function!
(Though Suoerman does get my imagination going into strange places as regards a weird parody of The Man of Steel!) ;) -
Yes, I compare it to MATRIX because both started out with with an intriguing premise (people discovering they are living in a fabricated reality in MATRIX) but the execution was wretched in both cases. The Matrix computer was keeping people alive so as to use their bio energies? Ridiculous. It would take more energy to KEEP them alive than the computer would get out of their bodies. As for using kung fu against computer constructs? How 'cool' would it have looked if Neo had gone Bugs Bunny on Agent Smith instead? "Hey, meet Mr. 16-ton anvil" or used 'portable holes' or other cartoon devices. Would have driven the computer nuts. And been more fun to watch.
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... for obese star-fuckers who can't walk because they spent most of their lives over-eating while watching movies hours on end - was that too harsh
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If he genuinely didn't like the movie, fine. But it's hard to ignore all the other circumstances at play. The accusations of favoritism towards films that kick a little back to him seem to gain more and more traction. It would be disappointing if it were true, because there's plenty of shills for bad films in the world. If Harry's too connected to certain members of the industry to just review a film as a film, maybe he should just quit doing it. Aside from that, his reviews are growing increasingly eccentric and excuse-laden as time goes on. Doesn't make all the Harry hate justified, but seems like a lot of people are scratching their heads over his opinions.
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If he genuinely didn't like the movie, fine. But it's hard to ignore all the other circumstances at play. The accusations of favoritism towards films that kick a little back to him seem to gain more and more traction. It would be disappointing if it were true, because there's plenty of shills for bad films in the world. If Harry's too connected to certain members of the industry to just review a film as a film, maybe he should just quit doing it. Aside from that, his reviews are growing increasingly eccentric and excuse-laden as time goes on. Doesn't make all the Harry hate justified, but seems like a lot of people are scratching their heads over his opinions.
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Yes, you are right. It actually makes me laugh when I read people insulting Harry for his weight or intellect. From what I can see, he's the one who mingles with the stars, watches movie premieres, gets to go to all the big movie festivals and call the big movie directors, his friends...whilst the rest of us bleat like sheep on talkback forums whilst living the horrendous rat race we're stuck in. I think Harry was spot on with this review. The fact that people are seeing this movie twice and creating online communities further prove my point: people have just become a hell of a lot dumber over recent years. I despair.
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INCEPTION= Boring,convuluded and a group of very dull dreamers.
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Theres a huge difference between saying "I havent reviewed Inception yet bc it's deep and requires multiple viewings" and saying "I haven't reviewed Inception yet bc I fell asleep in the first screening."
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Easily. Inception was good, but not great. Harry's got it right.
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You said "I thought art was subjective..."
Then said "...the fact that many of you are praising it worries me because it futher shows how dumb you people are."
Hilarious monumental hypocrisy. Just hilarious. Thank you. -
... the next thing you know these sheep will be praising the shit out of another overrated dumb movie for people with low i.q.'s - like "expendables"
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That's it. That's the bottom line. I don't understand why arguments about particular films have to go past that statement. Discussions, sure. But fights? I enjoy discussing INCEPTION. I loved it. I also loved SCOTT PILGRIM. Both amazing movies, in my opinion. Also, I love MULHOLLAND DRIVE. I have a good friend who hated it and finds it ridiculous. That's OK. I didn't call her a name or insult her. It's her opinion. Therefore, how can it be wrong? I love PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. One of my favorite films. I know someone that said it was one of the stupidest movies he ever saw. Again, no fight afterwards. We just disagreed.
Also, for the record, no film has ever gotten dreams absolutely right. Not INCEPTION, not WAKING LIFE, not DREAMSCAPE, not MULHOLLAND DR., not ETERNAL SUNSHINE. None. Every film, just like every director, put their own stamp on what dreams are like. I appreciate them all. -
Crystal Skull to make you cry tears of joy.
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Which is it then?
Art is subjective or people that liked Inception are dumb?
Can't have it both ways old son... -
...we dont want you to sprain your brain.
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Aug 15, 2010 1:48:27 PM CDT
Why is everyone defending Harry for saying this film is over-rat
by alan_poon
yet when Ebert didn't like Kickass Harry went on the offensive?
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The fact that people liked Inception is fine...that's not dumb...the fact that people have set up online communities to discuss it and insult Harry for not liking it, is dumb. Hope that clarifies, me ol' chestnut.
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I never said I hated it, you insufferable cunt. I said I had problems with it, just like anyone with half a fucking brain should. You can go back to making making your lame ass "Karate Kid" post titles now. Thank you.
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A brief exerpt from a short - but essential - Chris Nolan interview with Jonathan Nolan in the just released Inception shooting script book:
CN: I would imagine dreaming doesn't attract a lot of scientific interest because of its subjectivity. It's so anecdotal.
JN: The subject has been yoked into slightly bizarre and obsolete theories about psychology that have tainted it a bit. But none of those theories are really technical, although the mechanics of dreaming are incredible.
CN: Yeah, and I think it's possible to anlyze those mechanics. It's when science and philosophy cross over, when this science of the human mind meets the philosophical edge, that I think people drift into abstraction. So what the film tries to do is keep it in the realm of science fiction - to keep it in the realm of the mechanical and the relatable so it doesn't become abstract and incomprehensible. There are rules to the way the characters use dreaming, which defines reality, which defines the dreams they enter. The characters take great pride in knowing these rules and that they apply absolutely.
JN: You get this geat set of rules because the premise is that the dreamer can't know they're dreaming. You have to keep it bound. It's that much more exciting because it feels close to reality.
CN: I was definitely looking for a reason to impose rules in the story during the writing process. When I saw the firest Matrix film, I thought it was really terrific, but I wasn't sure I quite understood the limits on the powers of the characters who had become self-aware. Inception, on the other hand, is about a more everyday experience with dreaming. It's about a more relatable human experience. It doesn't question an actual reality. It's just saying, "Okay, we all dream every night. What if you could share your dream with someone else?". And it becomes an alternate reality simply because the dream becomes a form of communication - just like using a telephone or going online. I wanted it, then, to have a rule set, a set of reasons that you could graph for why it's not chaos and anarchy - for why it has to be order, and why you need architects and an architectural brain to create the world of the dream for the subject to enter.
JN: Everyone can be a Superman in their own dreams. But your protagonists approach the dream with expertise and subtlety - the subtlety of the way they manipulate the dream.
CN: Yes - exactly. It's about the subtley and that is where the heist movie idea came from. I'd been dealing with the world of corporate espionage and so forth, but as soon as you want to present the subtle are of conning somebody, of fooling somebody, then you enter the world of the heist movie. And that is when I consider this script to have begun, when I figured out what I was going to use a heist movie structure to wrangle these ideas in, which was about ten years ago. -
When I say praising, I should have clarified praising on the intellectual point of the movie. Someone here wrote two essays on it. It is a movie. And nothing more. As intellectually satisfying as the A-Team. Art is subjective. Intellect is not. You either have it, or you don't.
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The Expendables sucked Harry and your reviews are less credible than hooker sucking a tailpipe.
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Maybe if Nolan had done a guest column and given you some set access, he would've gotten a better review?
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It was obviously the "first" Matrix film, and it's the subtle "art" of conning sombody, of fooling sombody. My apologies.
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A tad unnecessary, no? Why are you being so abusive?
Don't you think it's a fair assumption that you hated a film which you describe as follows...
"The story structure is weak, the character motivations are slim to nonexistent and the dreams themselves are bland and uninspired"
Cobra Kai was only enquiring why you would suffer this FOUR times if you harbour such strong negative feelings (but clearly not hatred) towards it?
Out of interest, why did you? -
The StarWolf, I hear you on 2001! But 'humanity' isn't really the lead, Dave is. At any rate both Leo and Cillian's characters do have powerfully moving epiphanies as part of their character development that make most of the silly little 'life lesson learned' that form the climax in the majority of Hollywood's cookie cutter products seem trite.
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INCEPTION was underwhelming. Sorry guys, but it's true. Those of you creaming all over yourselves and hailing Nolan as a genius have apparently had the idea that INCEPTION is a great film implanted into your brain while you were asleep, thus rendering the thought your own (or so you believe). I liken those who are so ga-ga over INCEPTION to a tribe of primitives who go apeshit when they see what a Bic lighter can do.
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A lot of you who loved Inception think that if someone understood the film that they MUST love it as much as you. Nolan is held on a pedastal for some of you that he can't do any wrong.
Dream based movies are hard for me to relate to, unless if they cross over into the real world in a satisfying way (the original Nightmare On Elm Street).
It's all about personal appeal and opinion. Just because you feel a certain way about a film doesn't mean Harry MUST feel the same as you.
There are things Harry could be critcized for that are understandable - Harry's gushing review of The Expendables where he went overboard as a fan of the movie. There are certain points where you have to be critical of films you love to maintain the professional status as a film reviewer. For example, I loved The Expendables too, but the CGI in the film was subpar, the story weak at times but I was able to enjoy it for star power and action of all types (car chases, hand-to-hand combat, knife fighting, gun fights,explosions) with a decent story. I'm a huge Sylvester Stallone fan but he hasn't wowed me in awhile story-wise. Maybe it's easier to maintain a level head without personal contact with the star.
As with most dream movies, I find myself coming back to the same problem. In the end, what does it really matter? It's a fucking dream! Now the real-world content, that's what sways me more than anything. In Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven's) the dreams were scary but the most interesting parts for me were the real-life consequences of the nightmares and the backstory. With Inception the special effects are great but what is the appeal from a character standpoint? In other words, why should Harry, or anyone else, care just because you do? -
But when you constantly gush over films made by your friends and then slam films that a large majority of film-goers enjoy, you are lamb-basting your credibility and that is what is happening here. Harry slobbers all over shit movies made by his friends and can't find hardly anything good to say about one of the best films of the year. SURE. What, does he have a positive film review quota that he maxed-out with The Expendables.
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"As intellectually satisfying as the A-Team. Art is subjective. Intellect is not. You either have it, or you don't."
Intellect can be subjective too. You think you have it, I don't. -
StarWolf, I also think MATRIX did a big disservice to 'the battery people'.
Those innocent fuckers were hooked up like duracell and they were the guys working as security guards or cops within the Matrix - and they were the guys getting riddled with bullets by Neo and the boys (meaning in reality they'd be dead and flushed down the crapper).
And come the end of the trilogy did the battery people get freed? NO - THEY GOT FUCKED.
Guess Zion needed something to power their raves. -
Aug 15, 2010 2:09:57 PM CDT
Maybe some "vampires and werewolves" would have spiced it up?
by doctorwho?
But seriously...I concur with Harry when he points out this is one corporate entity against another "...fuck everyone involved"
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Was that, like Harry said, there were too many rules in the dream world. It was also too grounded in reality.
When I dream, I create whole new worlds. I remember this one that I had I was riding a train that was on the edge of a canyon on the ocean. All of a sudden a whale that was as big as a skyscraper jumped out of the water like a dolphin. This thing was HUGE!!! Another one I had was I was looking for a job so I went around what I think was a future Los Angeles in my flying car, kind of like Blade Runner but cleaner and newer. I didn't like the job I got because the elevators that I took ran sideways and took me everywhere but where I needed to be and it was a tall-ass building so I quit and flew my car to a strip club.
Sometimes I'll be battling aliens on a space ship or wind up being in the Star Wars universe with a lightsaber, other times I'll be a guy who gets trapped in a condemned building with zombies trying to find a way out. A lot of times I dream about the same places that I've created in past dreams like the future LA and so on.
Inception just didn't have that kind of magic going for it. Though honestly, the kind of stuff that I come up with in my sleep would probably cost a few billion dollars to wind up on the big screen. But still, it was devoid of anything really original and was quite a slow paced film. Not Nolan's best like The Prestige. The actors were all great but the material was so-so. -
but this was actually a fairly balanced review. He told us what he liked about the film, and what he didnt. Sure it wasnt an in-depth critique but i get where he is coming from, even if i dont agree with it, which is a rather stark contrast to most of his reviews as of late. I think he definitely had notions about this film going into it that tempered the disappointment he feels, which is a shame, because as a critic you ought to be able to review a film based on its own merits and established universe rather than in contrast with what you wanted to see from it. But still, as i said, this review is better than anything you have written lately. Stay the course Harry.
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millions of people also love "American Idol", "Lost", "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", and not having to do math problems above a 5th Grade level. So there.
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I'm doing this for my idealized kids" is a cheap cinematic device to engender sympathy for the lead. Hey asshole maybe if you had a conscience about dream invasion you wouldn't have gotten yer wife killed.
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ALL the projections in the ski chase are trying to kill them, so what would it matter if you introduced fantastical shit into the dream? Oh, they'd REALLY want to kill you then, is that it? It's insane how people will fall all over themselves trying to apologize and explain away the plot holes in some shitty mainstream Hollywood garbage like Inception. Go see some real movies with real intelligence, and stop wanking off to mainstream Hollywood crap like Inception and Scott Pilgrim and Expendables.
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I think that Harry just isn't capable of writing a critical analysis of a complicated film. He oozed hyperbole for the terrible Scott Pilgrim (which just bombed) but when a movie requires you to use your brain Harry falls short. Don't forget, Harry never went to college so it makes sense that his favorite movies are the ones geared towards teenagers.
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we gonna find you, we gonna find you
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Watch that movie people. It almost as if Inception ripped it off in theme.
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All of you who think that your opinion is the only one and can only bash anyone who believes differently are furthering the negative image that society has of 'fanboys.' Thanks a million. You're not changing anyone's opinion; rather, you're giving us great reason to not care what you have to say next. For god's sake, can you discuss without bashing or belittling? I'm speaking to both sides of the argument.
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All of you who think that your opinion is the only one and can only bash anyone who believes differently are furthering the negative image that society has of 'fanboys.' Thanks a million. You're not changing anyone's opinion; rather, you're giving us great reason to not care what you have to say next. For god's sake, can you discuss without bashing or belittling? I'm speaking to both sides of the argument.
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Aug 15, 2010 2:21:49 PM CDT
The film is a dream, the audience is the dreamer, Nolan is Cobb.
by tpbeta
That's what all those layered movie references are about. Now go watch it again and feel embarrassed.
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The dream farm and idea that everything from then on was in Cobb's mind really made me think of Once Upon A Time In America.
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that the dream world was treated more like a machine rather than an all-out surrealist landscape. It was actually, in my opinion, a fresh portrayal of the dream landscape. Now, whether I agree with this review or not, I too find it suspicious that Harry claims to have been too busy to post it earlier, yet he's already given us reviews for The Expendables and The Middle Men.
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You people talking about "you guessed the twist," etc. are philistines. Did you also guess Jake Sully would survive in Avatar? Did you guess that Cobb would ultimately succeed in Inception? Come on retards, it's all about the process, the circumstances and execution that brought us to the 'twist.'
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More people saw Inception this weekend (after it's been out a month) than Scott Pilgrim (its opening weekend).
That is all. -
A reviewer for the San Diego Reader is probably notorious for some of his reviews. A black mark means antipathy, one star means see it if you must, two means to be seen and I forget the phrases for three and four. He gave a black mark to Inception and two stars to Scott Pilgrim. I think he gave two to Empire Strikes Back. I liked both Inception and Scott Pilgrim, though. I just wish S.P. were doing better at the box office. Maybe after this weekend? Two people I know saw Expendables yesterday instead of S.P. because the people were with wanted to see Expendables more.
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Aug 15, 2010 2:42:23 PM CDT
The movie starts the same as it does in Once Upon A Time
by dailysportspages
In OUATIA the movie starts with a loud ringing over and over until the main character picks up a phone and starts making the call that is producing that ringing.
That surreality is the closing of a loop.
Its also the basis for the movies plot... that phone call is what changes everything in the protagonists world/mind and is the moment where he had to make a choice.
In Inception we hear that loud horn sound over and over in the begining. And what we failed to realize is that it was also the closing of a loop.
What happened is that the horn sound was not the sound of some boat like most of us thought at first... but it was actually the music that is played later on in key moments of the movie. In the "kick" sequences.
Except that the music has been slowed down to such an extent that its hard to recognize, the sounds come out really low because of how slowed down the music is.
And the reason its slowed down is because the person hearing it is deep in a dream, a dream within a dream within a dream. And the movie tells us that the lower we go, the slower time passes.
So the fact that we have that slowed down version of the Edith Piaf kick song means that WE the viewers are the ones being "incepted".
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and SI was not about providing a twist to the audience,that was never the intention of the movie.it was about to show you a journey through madness and how guilt affects a man to the point of madness or "suicide".it anything else,SI had a shocking ending not an ending with a twist.
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the difference is that while Harry was certainly passionate in refuting Ebert's review, he did it while making valid points and coherent arguements.
He didn't say, "Roger Ebert is a fat fuck who deserved all of his health problems because he's too much of a dickhole to realize that Kick-Ass is the most awesome movie ever made and if you can't see that then I hope you get rectal cancer and die."
There is a huge difference between heated disagreement and obnoxious hate filled vitriol, which is why I defend Harry even though I seem to have enjoyed 'Inception' more than he did. -
No, it's not. Yet another plot hole. Unless it's all a dream, then Nolan is allowed to have huge plot holes. Which is it, apologists?
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More people watch American Idol and Dancing with the Stars than watch Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire or [insert your favorite show here]. Draw whatever conclusion from that you want. That is all.
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I can't, for the life of me, understand why anyone, *especially* at AICN, which caters to action / sci-fi kinda stuff, would not, at the very least, like this movie. I TOTALLY loved it, but it's also the kinda thing I love -- atmospheric, dreamy, noir-ish, actiony, clever, and, I think, intelligent. "Deep" is relative, but watching this movie definitely made me think about the nature of how we construct our own narrative everyday as human beings, and that if you're stuck in a bad narrative, and by "bad" I mean, unpleasant or depressing in some way, then they only way out is to construct a new narrative. This movie is about Cobb trying to construct a new narrative for himself and, I like to think, in the end, succeeding. Is that "deep"? I dunno. Did it affect me? Yeah. And aside from that, was the rest of it fun and exciting? Yeah, I thought so. I actually coulda done with less bullets, but I still enjoyed all the action. And, omg, the opening scene is SO GOOD! It just looks totally gorgeous and it has all these neat twists and layers? I don't know if that's "deep" or "intellectual" (whatever *either* of those totally arbitrary terms mean), but it definitely worked for me and engaged me and held my interest. I haven't seen it again, but I really want to. This time, in IMAX.All that said, I've heard valid criticisms too. But, I think that this conversation going back and forth, whether or not you personally cared for it, makes it an exceptional movie and a movie of note. Nolan is becoming a kind of pop-Kubrick figure. OH! AND BEFORE ANYONE JUMPS DOWN MY THROAT, I AM NOT, IN ANY WAY, SAYING THAT NOLAN IS ANYWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AS THE GOD KING KUBRICK WHO IS, AND LIKELY EVER SHALL BE, MY FAVORITE DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME! I only meant it in the sense that his films were also polarizing. 2001 was PANNED by many critics. Today it's hailed as the masterpiece of cinema that it is.
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"inception hasn't a tenth of the imagination and fury of cool that SCOTT PILGRIM has."
"I think I've decided that unless SCOTT PILGRIM beats EAT PRAY LOVE this weekend, I won't review INCEPTION"
"because INCEPTION disappointed me and didn't get my passion going at any real levels."
"Ok - so if I get my INCEPTION review up, you'll go see SCOTT PILGRIM?"
"My bleh INCEPTION review that'll piss some off is up"
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Your biggest argument against the movie is actually *explained* in the movie itself. If the architect in the dream breaks reality too much, it causes the dreamer to become more and more aware that he's in a dream, which makes their job that much harder. Apparently you weren't paying close attention the second time either. I'm very disappointed in you, Harry. Inception was a fantastic movie. Perfect? No, but very, very good. Not worthy of that review you just gave it.
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Aug 15, 2010 3:17:50 PM CDT
what the hell these people are doing dreaming up regular firearm
by flatwebb
Dude, fucking wake up and watch the film properly will you? It was clearly stated by several characters that you cannot draw attention to yourself whilst in the other person's dream otherwise you are recognised as an outside force. It would be rather stupid of them to try to infiltrate Cilian Murphy's dream(s) yet not adhere to this...
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I've liked all his movies in one way or another, but he is shy of the greatness label that has been bestowed upon him. This bit sums it up the best (SPOILERS): "It comes down to this: Nolan may be not a great storyteller, but he is a great constructer of moments. When Batman first appears in Batman Begins or when Leonard decides to fake evidence that Teddy is his wife's killer in Memento the "Holy Crap" feeling is genuine. I believe this is what attracts people to Nolan. He plots his films in such a way as to give maximum exposure to the handful of "awesome" moments throughout, allowing them to feel earned in a way they probably aren't. In an age when Michael Bay can deliver an instinctual or visceral thrill, Nolan offers something just a little bit more: the sense that it's not all chaos, that the story at least appears to be planned. Thus, when a big moment occurs, you feel the rush of being taken for a ride. It's not quite the same thing as being told a well-crafted story: almost all of Nolan's films fall apart or become scrambled at the end. But it's better than being on a roller coaster with absolutely no sense of direction. In today's blockbuster environment, that may be enough to turn you into an auteur." http://tinyurl.com/2vx8x6b
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Aug 15, 2010 3:19:01 PM CDT
Harry - your entire criticism is rendered moot by the explanatio
by dasheight
They can't elaborate or create insane visions in a person's dream, or the "projections" get suspicious and start attacking the outsiders, "like white blood cells against infections".
This isn't about a "fantasy world of dreams" - this is about people entering into people's dreams and trying to not LET THEM IN on the fact that it's a dream. Understand?
Therefore, the dreams can't be "Parnassian", to coin a phrase. They HAVE to be grounded in reality. So to criticize the film on those grounds is a bit silly. I'll grant you the film had no real emotional pay-off and was a bit icy - and that the ski section was, while exciting, a bit "done" (although that could also be explained in a longer comment) - but your main criticism, given the plot, is probably based on the 30 or 40 minutes you missed when you fell asleep. -
A lot of you haters are telling people to go and see 'genuinely intelligent' films and films with 'real intelligence,' without giving any examples. What, exactly, are you referring to?
It seems a lot of people quite enjoyed the film, but because it's received a positive critical reception they now FUCKING HATE IT! And The Dark Knight! Which I'm sure they really enjoyed a few years ago. What a bunch of knobs. -
Hey hey man, gotta have a difference of opinion with you on Inception: The Movie - but that's cool. Small potatoes!
It's your comparing the soundtrack to emotionless honking? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!!!
This comes from one who had never bought a movie soundtrack in their entire life(ME - BTW!). I am rarely ever moved in that regard by movie music. It's usually something so derivative and just letting you know that a scene is transitioning.
A Talkbacker way back ago mentioned that Hans Zimmer's score was almost like another movie unto itself, and I wholeheartedly second that.
Emotionless? Different strokes for different folks I guess, but you must be like a deaf Vulcan or something.
SWEET PON FARR YO!!! -
Idiots pissed at smarter people for loving it? No, thanks.
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That's what's hard to believe about the movie. You dream stuff, but you don't have any control over it.
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... is directly determined by the mood he's in at the time. Like that time he was all ecstatic after seeing Emmerich's Godzilla. If he had been invited to the premiere and Nolan held his hand while watching Inception, we'd be reading something resembling his Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review right now. I just thank God he wasn't "sleepy" the first time he saw There Will Be Blood.
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from a guy who thought The Expendables was a fucking masterpiece. I almost walked out of that piece of shit twice. Harry, you've jumped the shark with your rabid fanboy gayness for Stallone.
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Which of the following statements are either true or false?1) Harry shouldn't review movies anymore just because he's fat and didn't like Inception.2) Anyone who liked Inception is either brilliant or dumb as a rock.3) Anyone who disliked Inception is either brilliant or dumb as a rock.4) Both Peter Jackson and Christopher Nolan's careers are over due to their making these films: Inception, King Kong, and The Lovely Bones.
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Harry Knowles = complete nutter.
I wanted Expendables to be the awesomefest it promised it would be. But it wasn't. I could forgive the weak plot if the action was great, but it was a mediocre action film.
Inception was fantastic. It lived up to the hype.
AND SHUTTER ISLAND??? REALLY??? Some dude said something at the beginning of the talkback that resonated with me ... how that's the quote that makes Harry's opinion completely irrelevant. Agreed. -
I think the journey to the "twist" in Shutter Island was pretty dull. It really was like your standard twist thriller from the late 90's early 2000's. Of course you have the obligatory Scorsese "meditation" on violence thrown in for no good reason in the form of the speech the head guard gives to Leo's character while giving him a ride. Pointless. If it wasn't for the people attached no one would even be talking about what boils down to your run of the mill "twist" movie.
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Aug 15, 2010 3:54:37 PM CDT
Why didn't Michael Caine just bring Cobb's kids to Paris????
by subtech_zero
I loved Inception, but that one thing has really been nagging at me.
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Aug 15, 2010 3:54:46 PM CDT
Why didn't Michael Caine just bring Cobb's kids to Paris????
by subtech_zero
I loved Inception, but that one thing has really been nagging at me.
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Not to be too crass, I'm surprised Harry was able to take Stallone's dick out of his mouth long enough to pontificate on this film.
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Harry's officially on my cuckoo reviewer disregard list.This is only 2nd worse to a reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes who said that Piranha 3D was better than Avatar...and his other 100% rating was Furry Vengeance. God bless the simpletons.
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If incredible means tedious, and simple. I figured out the "twist" ten minutes into the film. Over two hours just so I could get confirmation that R.L. Stine makes better thrillers than Scorsese.
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He was testing "Teddy" because he knew (or thought he knew) who he really was. IE, "You killed your wife, you're a killer, just like me." He was trying to taunt "Teddy" into showing himself to be the killer. Would have been a tantalizing clue if I hadn't already guessed it an hour beforehand.Plus, also an obligatory Scorsese meditation on violence. But it was actually there to prime you for the "twist," so that "Teddy" would face up to the crime, or refuse to face up to the crime and pretend to still be crazy so he could be lobotomized and really finally forget it.
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I've been coming to this site forever, but this is just too much. I lost a lot of respect when Harry wrote on why Ebert was "wrong" for not liking Kick-Ass. I loved Kick-Ass, but Ebert's pretty good at criticizing movies and Harry's post was just poor form. What's the point to reviewing Inception now, a full month after its release? It feels like he's just trying to go against the critical tide to stand out.
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Hahaha suck it Harry you fat fuck. Scott Pilgrim made $10.5m. Inception made more in its FIFTH weekend ($11.2m) than Pilgrim made in its first.And you can bet Expendables will sink without a trace next week as well. Inception will still be in the Top 10 when both Expendables and Pilgrim drop out of it. Bwahahaha suck it Harry you miserble fat fuck!
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Cillian Murphy's character didn't inhabit it with his friends and family and anything he wanted because he didn't KNOW he was bringing his projections in. He thought they were breaking into Tom Berenger's dream fortress, but Cobb and co. tricked him and he was really breaking into his own mind.
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LV_426- Yes, it is collapsing! When a movie as open to interpretation as Inception is mixed with the Fan-Boy Geek Id's need to right about everything and then is dropped into the Talkback Blender and cranked up to Frappe, this is the kind of chaos you get. So, yes. This Talkback is collapsing in on itself. Just like a dream level in the movie. And it's glorious to behold! Isn't it? I kinda felt this might happen. I think maybe Harry thought so as well. But, we, the masses demanded it! So what was he to do? Me? I'm gonna read some more! "OH BOY!!!! THIS IS GRRRREAT!!!"
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If judging from this talkback, and let's face it, many others, the majority of today's audiences and critics don't seem to have the proper mental foundation for watching movies. I'm not talking about understanding a movie's plot or appreciating what a movie, whether good or bad, can offer. No. What I'm talking about is how movies have become a personal and cultural lightning rod for people's political agendas, fears, and biases towards the human race and greater society.If you make an intelligent movie, you get crucified (Inception, The Matrix). If you make a simple but entertaining movie for the masses (Iron Man, Transformers, T2, Avatar), guess what, you still get crucified. If you make a personal film with tons of passion, well, that job bagging groceries or flipping burgers is probably waiting for you. Not only the filmmaker, but the fans of the film now get attacked and called out. This is like in high school, when you admit to liking a certain band or musician, and there is always someone or some group that doesn't like that band. These cool kids automatically go into defense mode and won't even think about getting to know you. We live in a world were individuals are pre-judged and passed sentence upon by what music they listen to, what movies they watch, and the brand and cost of their clothes.Honestly, I love movies, but in the end they are just movies. If we can't separate them from reality anymore, then we're more fucked than Cobb or Cypher or those poor souls stuck in The Matrix, only destined to be flushed down the crapper when they become dead batteries.These days we are force fed so much media: 24 hour news, movies, video games, Twitter/Facebook, TV shows, reality shows, etc. You can't escape and get some privacy anymore because you have your damn cell phone on and are reachable at all times. Shame on anyone who ignores a cell call or a text message.Movies have become soulless enterprises much of the time. The surprises are ruined in the trailers. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a blog or a film-related forum membership has an agenda to push in regards to any particular film coming out. It's like we are at war, firing Twitter bursts of 140-or-less word bullet-tracers at each other."See this film, it's gonna pwn all others.""This film is shit, download it instead.""Anyone who likes/dislikes this film is a fucking slack-jawed faggot!"And on and on it goes.Seriously. I have come to the conclusion that film has peaked and has been run into the ground by too much technology. It's not about the stories anymore. It's all box office pissing contests and tactical political maneuvering by everyone from the largest multi-media mega corporations, to the lone audience member out there in this sea of white noise.I'm begging to think that cinema might be the church of the 20th and 21st centuries. Except there is no one god. Cinema, both onscreen and off-screen, has become a powerful and sometimes damaging polytheistic religion for the masses.Either that, or evolution is playing a cruel trick on all of us.
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This is my first time visiting this site, and I had to create an account just to thank Octaveaeon for singlehandedly restoring my faith in humanity.
Also, to anyone suggesting that it's unrealistic that Cobb didn't fly the children out to live with him overseas, here's a factoid: The small children of wanted fugitives accused of murder are not generally permitted by the police to freely leave the country to visit the fugitive, unless as part of a sting operation to arrest him. It turns out that every single murder, even if the victim is only a Frenchwoman, has its own investigative team that actually tries to catch the person wanted for the crime, often by watching their families. -
All the apologists are quite vociferous in their defense of the dreams being boring and mundane, using the film's flimsy explanation as cover. So tell me apologists, why does DiCaprio's character say to Juno that in the dream world, you can build things that could never exist in reality? Wouldn't building such a thing call attention to yourself? Why would DiCaprio tell her you could do something if you really couldn't? When would you build such a thing? Why would you build something that could never exist in reality. And seriously, for folding a whole city in half, the projections don't seem to mind THAT much.
Can any apologist tell me why they couldn't fold the mountains over in the ski chase sequence? Whose attention would they attract, aside from the dudes already chasing and trying to kill them? And no one has yet to address the fact that the dreams were being dreamt on an airplane. Why wouldn't the natural turbulence and shifting of the plane effect the first dream level?
Can you imagine a concept like this in the hands of a real filmmaker like Cronenberg? Nolan has good ideas, he just has no idea what to do with them. An example of a great, thought provoking film that deals with dream logic is last year's AntiChrist. You know, an actual intelligent film, not a mediocre mainstream Hollywood movie posing as one. -
"Also, to anyone suggesting that it's unrealistic that Cobb didn't fly the children out to live with him overseas, here's a factoid: The small children of wanted fugitives accused of murder are not generally permitted by the police to freely leave the country to visit the fugitive, unless as part of a sting operation to arrest him. It turns out that every single murder, even if the victim is only a Frenchwoman, has its own investigative team that actually tries to catch the person wanted for the crime, often by watching their families."That's a very good reason, and based on real police procedure.Another idea I had was that maybe after their mother Mal having killed herself, it would add another layer of trauma to the little tykes if they were forced to leave the home they knew. A sense of home and security is very important for children. To yank that out from under them would be cruel. Now, of course, they lost their mother and their father is away now too, so it's not a perfect solution. Of course that is life sometimes. Every set of choices are not purely black and white.Also, even if Cobb was able to get them flown overseas, he still wouldn't be able to start a new life with them due to his wanted status and the nature of his extraction work. I got the impression that he was obviously sending money to support his kids through Caine's guardian character.
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I enjoyed your rant! And I agree. Cheers, Sir. *raises glass*
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" All we get is the damaged reflection, of a guy who steals ideas... and here is planting an idea that isn't to end a war, to save anyone, but he's just a fucking corporate tool. Someone that is being sent in to destroy a company that has a rival company that wants to be more powerful." ..... He's wrong because that is the red herring in the film. What Harry described isn't the actual true plot. The true plot is Dr. Niles (masquerading in Cobb's mind as Saito), Ariadne and Yusuf are planting an "inception"in Cobb's mind to bring him out of limbo and restore him to sanity.
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" All we get is the damaged reflection, of a guy who steals ideas... and here is planting an idea that isn't to end a war, to save anyone, but he's just a fucking corporate tool. Someone that is being sent in to destroy a company that has a rival company that wants to be more powerful." ..... He's wrong because that is the red herring in the film. What Harry described isn't the actual true plot. The true plot is Dr. Niles (masquerading in Cobb's mind as Saito), Ariadne and Yusuf are planting an "inception"in Cobb's mind to bring him out of limbo and restore him to sanity.
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... fall asleep watching INCEPTION?
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... fall asleep watching INCEPTION?
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LV_426 just messed up my head. I'm thinking about cutting my cableline and tossing my computer out the front door. Maybe I'll go live in a tree on top of a mountain? Or maybe I'll join a commune or try to go on a vision quest? NAAAAAAAHHH!! "OH BOY!!!! THIS IS GRRRREAT!!!"
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is the primary template for Inception all sound a bit silly. The Matrix borrowed or was inspired by many other sci-fi and cinematic elements like Hong Kong martial arts films, PK Dick, Neuromancer, The Terminator (future war), anime, Ghost in the Shell, and The Cave allegory.So to call out Inception on being similar or possibly inspired by Dreamscape, The Matrix, or Dark City is, I think, a bit petty.
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I watched it when I was half awake too. What did you think of the ending?
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I'm not sure if I saw this earlier, maybe I did, or maybe I dreamed it, but something that I thought about after the film was, how justifiable were their actions. We have NO IDEA if Saito, who is bankrolling this thing, is a good guy or a bad guy. Maybe he's neither? It's just business. Corporate Super Noir! That kinda moral ambiguity is what fuels noir films (and spaghetti westerns). So, in the end, like, yeah, you root for Cobb because of course you want him to reunite with this kids! But is what any of them are doing moral, or justifiable in any way? Or is just a matter of "business." This is what business is. Nothing personal. (Btw, I LOVE moral ambiguity stuff like this.)
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I'm just calling it like I see it, and maybe stirring the pot a bit to see what surfaces.
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in recent years than ever before. How do you explain Pixar's success, or movies starring George Cloony?
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"I'm thinking about cutting my cableline and tossing my computer out the front door.Maybe I'll go live in a tree on top of a mountain? Or maybe I'll join a commune or try to go on a vision quest?"Did you just get done watching Avatar or something?
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Aug 15, 2010 4:49:26 PM CDT
ALL Pixar Movies, Regardless Of Quality, Automatically Get 4 Sta
by laserpants
It's kindof absurd really. I loved Wall*E, but UP! fucking sucked. HOW THE HELL that was nominated for anything but Most Obviously Cloying POS of the Year, I have no idea.
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Did I miss a memo? Was there a list published of movies we aren't allowed to like? I experienced a wholly different movie than Harry did, but that does not in any way invalidate his views or his argumentation. Which for that matter, was flawless and as such for me an argument in favor of the film. All of Harry's points ring true, but frankly I don't care. Not because I'm dismissive, but because to me the movie functions perfectly well regardless of my awareness of these flaws.
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Aug 15, 2010 4:51:24 PM CDT
INCEPTION and Scott Cera Vs The Box Office = Monkey Garbage
by mjs_cold_dead_pale_corpse
Fuck all of you AICN nerds, I hope your insides are eatn out by a Honey Badger....starting at your anuses.
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That's it. It was still cool, but that's it.
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Inception & The Matrix...there's a big difference between the two. One is monkey garbage and the other is a sci-fi classic. When I came out of the theater after watching The Matrix I wanted to punch through concrete. When I came out of Indigestion I wanted to puke my balls up through my fucking neck.
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Was wall E really that good? Cars? Rat movie? No. They sucked. All of them.
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Aug 15, 2010 4:58:10 PM CDT
and stop playing the role of the old wise jedi/movie critic.....
by mjs_cold_dead_pale_corpse
movies are the same as they have ever been. Your rant is thinner than your dick
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You have a good point about the way people seem to latch on to movies these days. They start picking sides like the movie came down from the heavens and picked them out as the "Chosen Ones". It can get pretty silly. Case in point: this talkback. Alas. Everyones a critic shout from their altar, "Love Scott Pilgrim!! Or die!!" Dude, they're just movies. Right?
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You have to admit, whether you like Inception or not, that it has gotten a lot of flak for supposedly being a Matrix rip-off. The irony is that The Matrix got the same type of flak for being a Terminator rip-off when it was shiny and new about ten years ago.Personally, I love both films.
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It did it without a leather fetish though.
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I can't find my wire cutters! Shit! The dog ate my totem!
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"and stop playing the role of the old wise jedi/movie critic.....movies are the same as they have ever been. Your rant is thinner than your dick"Well, I'll admit my rant was a bit rambling in some ways. Hell, this is a talkback, and I'm not gonna spend all day composing a freaking thesis. It is not worth the time.And what the hell does penis circumference have to do with any of this?
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and how i connect with them are very important to meand the characters i like have emotions i have for my money, give me universal soldier 2 over inception any day of the motherfucking week. my emotions are king.
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Your missing the whole point, everything you complained about is what makes AICN talkbacks fun. It's all about geeking, loving movies, hating movies, and ripping on each other. You speech has been resued/overused just as many times as your average Hollywood plot. I don't need to get deep and emotional about a movie, I just spread the hate lol!!!!
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People have started talking about their dicks! Its all downhill now! Everybody get your pads and wear a cup!
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where, let me see
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"Your missing the whole point," I think you mean: "You're missing the whole point," Sorry, please continue...
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can I watch porn and troll/talkback at the same time without the grammer police?
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Stop teasing and tell me what you really want. And no, you can't have my dick. Get your own.
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Aug 15, 2010 5:18:46 PM CDT
And Thusly, A Once Promising TB Collapses Into Adolescent Virgin
by laserpants
Yelling at each other about random genitalia and scatalogical obsessions. Sigh. It was almost nice while it lasted. GOOD NIGHT!
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Or, it could be middle aged virgin rage which has a wholenother layer of sad lameness to it. GOOD NIGHT TWICE!
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Wait a minute! Kelsey has his own police force? When did this happen? God, I'm so out of the loop.
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I can see your point but after seeing it the second time it felt like the inception was being done on Cobb and not the son. The Miachel Caine character says to Cobb "come back to reality" and then he introduces him to Ariadne, who keeps making Cobb face his fears and Ariadne in Greek mythology helped Thesius escape the labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur. There is a lot of other subtle clues and secrets that you notice, give it another shot!
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Someone just said,"scatalogical". I must go now. Things to do and such...
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Wow! How disappointing. There were all sorts of risks. Like getting lost in one of teh deeper dreams and not waking up, becomming convinced that you are in a dream perpetually, all sorts. You could geek out on all the levels that Mr. Nolan touched on like the top (totem) that he used to help him realize what was real. Don't get me started on Hans Zimmer and the number he did on it. Sorry to disagree but I think you need to go see Robin Hood to get back on target (didn't see that one though).
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When I get an erection I can shatter bullet-proof glass with my ejaculate, I know I'm still in the dream world.Maybe we've got a trilogy here:Inception, then a prequel called Extraction, then the third film called Erection. And don't assume the third film is about what you think it is. It would focus on an architect in the dream world... as in "erecting" a building.
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So, we are up to 950 replies. 106 replies agreed with Harry's review. 296 replies hated Harry's review and no longer take him seriously. 548 or so replies were unrelated to the review or just people arguing.
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That movie. The one we're all talking about. It's actually quite good. A cracking-good yarn, if I do say so myself! And I do. My opinion. Try not to kill me over it. Flame on!
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Done professionaly. Good work, sir.
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I will hunt you down and fish-slap you into insanity due to you not giving Inception the respect it deserves by your lack of providing a 3,000 word mega review.
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Damn Cleese-footed bastards!
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Aug 15, 2010 5:35:35 PM CDT
LOVE IT OR NOT, INCEPTION DESERVED A BETTER REVIEW EFFORT
by bringingsexyback
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What a goofy movie.
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I'm so very sorry.
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You can redeem yourself when the sequel Erection comes out.
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But then again, did we have a right to expect any more? Judge Knowles by his actions, not his promises. It's still a fun site, tho that's largely down to talkbacks, Quint's occasional good ideas (AMAD, the current picture run), Vern's appearances (has he gone for good?), and Herc's generally solid coverage. What it isn't, though, is a reliable film news or reviews site. Mind you, it's a big internet out there, and there's plenty of places that cover films well. They just don't have you lot, the bitterest, most opinionated, funny talkbastards on t'internet.
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It'll probably be in 3-D. And I don't like people pointing things at me...
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It's ironic that a lot of people who didn't enjoy it are thinking TOO MUCH.
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It'll probably be in 3-D.And I don't like people pointing things at me..."I guess it will make lots of money while thoroughly fucking our eyeballs.
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You bring up a good point about the religious zeal exhibited by many moviegoers these days. What's worrisome about this lack of perspective - taking other opinions personally and attacking opposing views - is that this is how propaganda preys on people. A person who attaches strong personal feelings to a film lacks the ability to detach enough and sympathize with differences of opinion. It demonstrates an easily malleable mind. One can be a fanboy without being a fascist.
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You bring up a good point about the religious zeal exhibited by many moviegoers these days. What's worrisome about this lack of perspective - taking other opinions personally and attacking opposing views - is that this is how propaganda preys on people. A person who attaches strong personal feelings to a film lacks the ability to detach enough and sympathize with differences of opinion. It demonstrates an easily malleable mind. One can be a fanboy without being a fascist.
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Shit - it posted twice.
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Shit - it posted twice.
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(watch my inception spoof (http://tinyurl.com/2a7v3q3).... although harry doesn't like it because I didn't send any action figures or promotional 70s art posters... oh well
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Lighten up people! This talkback needs an enema!
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Inception 2: Erectric Boogaloo
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Don't make fun of Asians. They might not like it. And then they'll run you over with their car.
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...completely terrible at writing reviews. I'm glad for his success but it definitely wasn't because he can review films.
Inception is a 21 century masterwork of the highest level. Simple. Shutter Island isn't a good movie at all. It's way way way to long and the twist is painfully obvious. The only good parts are the WWII stuff. Harry's taste sucks. I never paid much attention to the talkbacks when people said that Harry favored other movies because of his friendships but it's sort of true. His glowing review of Scott Pilgrim and The Expendables are perfect examples of this. He was on the set with Stallone and is friends with the man. C'mon now. He doesn't even realize his doing it. -
...YOUR REVIEW IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
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Let's face it. Movies are made for target audiences. The numbing and the dumbing of America is running on all four cylinders and some movies goers cannot handle thought provoking cinema.
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...a few hours ago because I felt I needed to watch the film again in the light of all the 'shit' and all the 'gold' spouted on this thread.It's amazing how many misconceptions are carried through some of the interpretations here, but then this also proves how hard it may well have been for someone with Harry's childish and gurgling approach to films to review such a layered plot.
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...how come whilst I was gone the subject got on to the girth of people's dicks?
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"...how come whilst I was gone the subject got on to the girth of people's dicks?"Is this your first talkback or something? Cause that's how the TB's seem to go.
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as anything more than the ramblings of a studio-bought puppet the day he gave Van Helsing an absolutely glowing review.
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...I've been party to for ages.
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YOUT REVIEW IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
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CONTRACEPTIONhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyK5V4lM-Kk&feature=related
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Harry's opinions are very respected.
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...The Inception sequence is some of the best editing I've ever seen. It's amazing.
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On the 10,0000+ "Christian Bale Rant" talkback there was no dick except Dickblood!This just seemed like a good TB, such a shame to waste it. Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit.
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Inception: 4th place @$11.4 mil. Scott Pilgrim: 5th place @$10.5 mil. Total gross take for Inception, thus far: $248.5 mil.
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Abso-fucking-lutely.
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from this particular TB. Smells like someone crapped themself.
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Agreed!
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"I fell asweep!"
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...nuff said.
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This money reportedly may also already include distribution and promotion for both domestic and international. The bottom line is that it is highly unlikely that the movie will recoup its expenses -- international distribution probably won't help it (it doesn't look like it will have much appeal outside of the U.S.) and it would have to sell a super shitload of DVDs/Blu-rays, perhaps as much as a movie like Avatar or The Dark Knight did, or any of Pixar's movies reliably do.The fact is, Scott Pilgrim is one of the biggest bombs of 2010.
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Not bad enough to do see it in the theatres, dvd is fine, thanks, but seriously... yeesh.... I thought it would do better than that.
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"On the 10,0000+ "Christian Bale Rant" talkback there was no dick except Dickblood!"Where the hell is Danny_Glover's_Dickblood these days?"This just seemed like a good TB, such a shame to waste it. Maybe I'm getting too old for this shit."Well, this one is still on track I'd say. It will be interesting to see if the theory of Harry putting the Inception review in the regular news section to bury it faster is true. I guess we'll see by how fast it gets bumped by the amount of incoming "cool news" topics posted tomorrow.
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Industry analysts are predicting it will edge toward $300 mil in B.O. gross, domestically, as we head into September. It could tap out at $320 to $330 mil domestically into the Fall, before it leaves first-run.But some analysts speculate that WB is about to do a re-launch, re-promotion of Inception for the Fall in order to keep it on the minds of Academy voters. Because there is growing talk that the film will likely score a bunch of nominations -- including Best Supporting Actor (for either or both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy), Best Original Screenplay, and various technical awards tied to editing, sound, music and production design.Sorry, Harry, but you cannot deny the fact: Inception is one of this year's biggest B.O. hits and one of the most critically acclaimed of 2010.
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Aug 15, 2010 6:41:14 PM CDT
Yeah, it was weird that the dream population was so generic.
by gibsonusa returns
Wouldn't it be filled with old friends (at various chronologies), famous people, and naked chicks?
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It had a good premise, but just wandered off track....
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I'm not gonna be one of those guys that says you obviously didn't get it, but i will say you have definitely missed the point.
Frankly the films that you like over the films you don't is alarming. -
Because he couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of "giving away his toys". Why did anyone think he'd like a thinking movie?
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your nitpicking the shit out of a good movie.
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Both great movies! Yes, it's possible that they're both fun and deserving of your money
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And a perfect note to end wasting time on this site ever again. Free at last...Free at last...
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Hairyman: The Legend of Harry KnowlesHere’s a few excerpts from the script:[narration] There was a time, a time before broadband. When Harry Knowles reigned supreme. When people believed everything they read on AICN. This was an age when only Harry would give the scoops. And on the internet, one man was more man then the rest. His name was Harry Knowles. He was like a god (tubby & smiley, like Buddha) typing amongst mere mortals. He had a voice that could make a Hollywood sit up and notice the power of the everyman and scoops so fine they made Woodward & Bernstein look like hacks. In other words, Harry Knowles was the balls. Now he just falls asleep in great movies and shills for his mates.Harry Knowles: I love Scott. Scotty, Scotty, Scotty Pilgrim. Here I go down, down on Edgar Wright...Talkbackers: My God, what is that smell?Harry Knowles: That's the smell of Sylvester Stallone’s man musk, my fans.Talkbackers: God no, it smells like, like the usual shit you spout over films you’re shilling... filled with...infantile meanderings and whimsy. Oh, excuse me!Harry Knowles: You know, my reviews for quite a few films over the last few years smell like that to some people.Talkbackers: What's it like, Harry?Harry Knowles: The intimate times with Sylvester and Edgar? Outta sight, my man.Talkbackers: No, the other thing – writing a decent review.Harry Knowles: I’m not sure. It’s been a while.Harry Knowles: I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.Talkbackers: Really.Harry Knowles: People know me.Talkbackers: Well, we’re very happy for you.Harry Knowles: I'm very important. I have many friends in the industry like my oft’wrong buddy Roger Ebert. And Sylvester Stallone. Have I mentioned that already? And my basement smells of hypocrisy.
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Lately it seems to be more and more bullshit. Not to mention AICN is regularly scooped by pretty much every other site I visit. I'm hoping either the site gets better or Harry attempts to push another bin of comics.
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declares The Expendables a masterpiece and gives Inception a resounding "meh"... I would expect nothing less coming from the man who loved The the SW prequels - (ahem). All I ask is for a little consistency, but dude you are all over the place... that is why I can not trust your opinion or put any stock in what you write. Roger Ebert you are not.
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When you think about all the movies that have been released this year, so far, how many can you immediately think of right off that would get the nomination?I'm not saying that I myself think Inception is the greatest thing since cherry pie and coffee, but 2010 has been a lousy year in quality cinema. But I would argue that in 2010 we've had an excess of juvenile movies. (The A-Team, Predators, and The Expendables would also be examples of this.) I theorize one big reason why Inception is doing so well is because it's a movie geared for adults to appreciate, and treats adults intelligently. I think the general moviegoing audience has gotten fed up with Hollywood (and sites like, to be blunt) constantly pandering to the tastes of teenage boys (or people with the mentality of this demographic).
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Wasn't DGDB working on aintitbale news.com? It's been a while...
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...all of them. All of those statements are either true or false. Are you suggesting one or more may exist in an indeterminate state? Because if you are you may be on the verge of making the greatest talkback post ever.
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"I think the general moviegoing audience has gotten fed up with Hollywood (and sites like, to be blunt) constantly pandering to the tastes of teenage boys (or people with the mentality of this demographic)."it certainly seems so given the utter failure of Scott Pilgrim.
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And I think rightfully so. Throw out your bullshit, "oh, drr, it's psuedo-intellectual, whatver that means!" crap. It was an interesting, clever, noir-ish action movie with some cool ideas. It's def my fave of the year. But, yeah, it's not iron clad. Theres tons of valid criticisms. But it def hit my brainbone and me a believer. I loved it.
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fuckin lacko edit function
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By the time I finished wading through all the talkbacks, I completely forgot what Harry said about the film. Not much of a review. I feel that at this point he's too overwhelmed to be reviewing films, and opens himself up for attack. This is especially true of a film like Inception, which is daunting to review in the first place. Leave it to the other guys on this site whose job it is to actually review films.
Heck, I wouldn't have the guts to even have a site like this where I'd be opening myself up to the collective high-pitched hive-whine of the 21st century Nerd Nation. -
I'm drunk now, I'm not afraid to admit it.
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Aug 15, 2010 7:16:50 PM CDT
"the collective high-pitched hive-whine of the 21st century Nerd
by laserpants
I like that. But you're apart of that for posting here. PARADOX!!! Nah, but that is totally it, though, totally, and we're all to blame, ESPECIALLY ManBaby Knowles. He's, like, the ALL FATHER of this entire subgenre of the human race.
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Ladies had Eat, Pray, Shit.Male audience members were pretty much pidgeon-holed into seeing Expendables or seeing the former with their significant others.
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Take some fucking pride in it. You need to do better.
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I think the general moviegoing audience has gotten fed up with Hollywood (and sites like, to be blunt) constantly pandering to the tastes of teenage boys (or people with the mentality of this demographic)." Perfectly stated, man! A clear message has been sent to Hollywood with the enormous success of Inception. Harry has a right to his opinions, but I'm getting SicK of his ass-licking reviews for just plain lousy movies.
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He forfeited that when 'taking a piss' and 'taking a nap' in the movies he's supposed to be reviewing
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and ST2 will do when they get released.If the audience suddenly decided that they want better,more intelligent movies,then the above sequels should show a significant decrease to their profits.
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I also see the success of Inception as a kind of rebellion on the part of movie goers. I liked the film but it didn't blow me away. But then, weeks after I saw it, I still frequently recall good things about it. And like you said, JJ, I simplly cannot name any movies released up to this point in 2010 that deserve a Best Picture nomination. I'm not sure if Inception necessarily deserves to be nomination, but there is just no competition now.I'd even go so far and say I think Nolan will be nominated Best Director, also in part due to the fact that this has been a bad year in good cinema. But I also think it will be the Academy voters' way of "thanking" him for TDK and to wish him luck for his next installment of Batman.
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But for someone with a FILM site, he's racked up a serious track record of gushing over terrible, juvenile, fx filled films while dismissing or ignoring just about everything of value that hits theaters. This talkback isn't about him not liking Inception, it's about him once again shunning a film that tries hard to entertain in a smart way, vs. being a dumb, loud, empty headed star vehicle featuring a famous character from his childhood.It just makes me realize I have to find a film site run by someone with grown-up taste in film, vs. Harry who's become way too jaded by childhood nostalgia.
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It's explicitly stated ( and shown ) in the movie that you can't play with the dream world too much otherwise the subconscious of the actual dreamer will start to attack you and try to stop you. Their entire point was to get into and through all of it without being noticed. *they* didn't choose the ski sequence, the guy's self defense training did.
Remember the maze that the chick had designed intended the "level" to be a hospital, not a mountain ski resort military
complex. -
Could we come up with a better acronym than "TF' for the Transformers movie so as not to lump that piece of shit franchise with the light-hearted fun of Valve's popular game?
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after reading your review im really disappointed. you need another viewing to fully understand whats going on. the dreams aren't cillian's...they are the dreams of the chemist guy, joseph gordon levitt, and eames (in that order). all cillian is bringing to each dream and level are his own projections. each level is grounded in reality bc they dont want cillian to suspect that he is dreaming. by saying that nightmare on elm street 3 is better than this, you are losing any credibility you have. shutter island is a great film, but saying its vastly superior is plain lunacy and begs the question, "what the fuck are you smoking?"
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I don't think you mean that Harry is "jaded by" childhood nostalgia, but "still infatuated with". Otherwise, good point.I find it terribly alarming that Harry would admit (or maybe he's being sarcastic?) that he napped through parts of Inception, as if saying that justifies how bored he was by it. I feel like this review was written by a 9-year-old, who wrote it as his first assignment back at school ("What I did this summer").
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I guess Armageddon and Paranormal Activity are more the speed of some of you. Sad.
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Ok, I stopped reading right there. Shutter Island was a joke (save for the last 30 seconds). Say what you want about Inception, but it is superior on a thematic, narrative, and technical level to Shutter Island.
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as well since we are discussing Inception and how it was accepted by the audience:
so what does the commercial success of a supposedly intelligent,complicated and profound movie like Inception mean?
that the general,average,audience are not as stupid as the general consensus claims to be or that the movie is not as smart and profound as the general consensus claims to be?
I am asking this because before the movie's premiere a lot of fans and reviewers were afraid that the movie will have a moderate success at the best,because it will be too difficult for the average moviegoer to understand it and appreciate its real quality which would lead in a bad word of mouth thus harming the movie's commercial performance.
But since that was proved not to be the case,i am asking what is the deal? clever audience or a superficial movie? or both? or none?
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I should have said "compelled by childhood nostalgia".
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...he seems like a guy who genuinely enjoys movies and the movie-going experience, so I give him a pass when he goes ape-nuts over some vapid action movie or genre throwback... but I just can't defend him here. In fact, this is one of the most insultingly idiotic things I've ever read on this site. I was going to go more in-depth with my criticisms towards Harry's review here, but honestly, it'd be a waste of fucking time. anyone who posts a 45-paragraph glowing review of "Expendables" but calls Inception "lame," just isn't worth the effort. you took a 40 minute nap during Inception and waited over a month to post a review, yet you go crazy over Expendables and post a review 25 minutes after the credits roll? seriously? my god, man
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Junk food for the mind as well as the stomach. Which is fair enough. If posters wanted to leave AICN due to Harry's increasing lack of credibility, CHUD is about the next best thing. Devin can be a cunt too, but at least he actually THOUGHT about Inception and wrote 2 lucid pieces on the film. Pity the talkback registration is fucked (on purpose), otherwise there is plenty of gristle for the mill on that site.
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Heh. Okay that last post was pretty damned funny.
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the green text on black screen gives me a headache. Plus Devin seems like a massive douche. At least Harry is innocently annoying. Any other sites?
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Thanks for the insightful reaction to what I wrote, MH, but I'd like to clarify one point. I don't think that Harry didn't "get" the film; he is demonstratively knowledgeable enough to understand the mechanics of the narrative. What I was focusing on was that it did not connect with him in a visceral sense predicated on base emotional stimuli.I apologize for the snarky tone of what I wrote, but I will stand by my conclusion that INCEPTION does not offer the kind of awe, wonder or simplistic emotion that Harry seems to favor in his more ecstatic reviews. Clearly he appreciates the craft, just not the final results.I, too, agree with you that there are some elements to the film that are somewhat lacking, but as you put it, "a small little chink in an other wise impressive film." The notion that Harry took those elements and unfortunately blew them disproportionately large in his lukewarm review indicates a deeper subtext to his lacking rationale. I labeled it "emotional immaturity", perhaps too condescendingly as you say. Nevertheless, there remains a streak of base-comfort and a craving for sensory stimulation pervading Harry's raves that belies an almost childlike emotive thread in his writings. There's nothing wrong with that; but Harry's bias should be far more upfront if his views are to take seriously.He's the ideal person to review a Godzilla flick, but probably not very suited to insightful criticism of a Terrence Malick film - even though I'm sure he'd praise the technique of a Malick feature and appreciate it for that much alone.Are Nolan & Fincher on par cinematically with the likes of Kubrick, Lean, Kieslowski, Kurosawa, Roeg, Buñuel, Antonioni or Renoir? Probably not; at least not yet. All I'm saying is that Harry's taste would probably lean more towards Capra, Spielberg, Jackson, Bava, Cukor, Ford, Sirk and on an ambitious day Jodorowsky - if you get my drift...So, it's not that he didn't "get" Inception, I don't think he desired what it had to offer emotionally for him.
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Aug 15, 2010 8:27:40 PM CDT
explaining why the dreams must be dull does not excuse them
by countryboy
It's like if there were a movie about alien invaders, and we were told, "These are superhuman creatures with unimaginable powers and devastating weapons and space ships... but in order to pass for human they look just like us, always, and their weapons look like regular guns, and their ships look like airplanes." It would explain why we never got to see any cool aliens or spectacular space ships, but it would also be a cheat. Afer a whole movie of watching regular guys pilot airplanes and shoot guns, no one would say "What a brilliant sci-fi vision! Stunning!" But they're all doing that for Nolan's bland dreams.
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Are seriously overrating Inception. You sound like real fanboys. Read some Borges or even a David Mitchell book--they accomplish what Nolan was trying to do far more effectively and effortlessly. It was an okay movie with okay performances and some really nifty FX. That's all. It's not a groundbreaking film by any means. None of the actors in it even broke a sweat. Ellen Paige was there for the purposes of exposition only, apparently, and none of the relationships worked or were that well established. Nolan fell in love with the concept and beat us over the head with it. The dead wife could have been used so much more ominously and effectively than she was--it was a great idea turned into a series of cheesy soap opera sides. I felt like I was watching "Days of Our Lives" at times when Leo that actress were having their little exchanges. And while the Russian Nesting Doll structure of the dream levels is a potentially interesting dynamic, the very traditional, linear filmmaking technique Nolan adopted to tell his story did not suit it well at all--it because accidental farce, those constant flash cuts to the van slowing falling. It just go damned silly!
Decent movie. Overrated. Many missteps. Some interesting ideas and very well executed set-up/first act (with the exception of the framing sequence), but ultimately collapsed under its own audacious weight, basically becoming a version of "Waking Life" with lots more machine gun fire. Interesting for stoners and early twenty-somethings who don't know any better. -
1) People who have stated "I stopped reading at 'vastly superior Shutter Island'".
2) People who say they're done with this site. Okay, you're done, now leave.
3) People who keep saying Harry doesn't get it because he didn't catch the rules of dreamland. At the hotel, Cillian learns that he is dreaming and in every subsequent level they are being attacked from all directions by goons! There is no longer any need to conceal the fact that anyone is dreaming!! So why not breaking out some surreal dreamscape defenses? We didn't misunderstand the dream world rules! We identified a plot hole!!
on a brighter note, the conversations has gotten far more civil of late. -
It's amazing what the guy can accomplish when he's lucid, not giving us a five paragraph biographic introduction about that time he touched another kid's pee-pee during camp, and isn't butt-buddy chum-chum's with the filmmakers.
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You're a genius! Do you have actually have a Master's Degree in psychology? Or do you work a Best Buy (or both). Just curious.
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AICN, stuck on 1997.
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Sorry, why is Harry bothering to post a review of a film that's already been overly reviewed on this site? And a month late at that? AND then just to say say "You know what, I didn't really like it"
Whoop De Doo. Move on Harry. -
But it's not going to.
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And that's OK. He's dead wrong. It's quite possibly the best movie I'll see this year. But that's OK. Sometimes you just want fillet steak to be a bacon butty.
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I loved the movie as much as anything I've ever seen for the first time. I had fun thinking about the movie after watching it and discussing it with people. I absolutely liked the movie but it didn't enter my top 10 list. I'm glad Harry didn't nut hug this movie because it was the cool thing to do (or at the very least slurp it up in hopes of getting cool points from those involved - because there's been plenty of that lately).
Everything Harry said is valid and thats cool. -
yeah its great he didn't nut hug this film..But he DID hug the Expendables???
I mean, yay Stallone writes on here sometimes but there's no need to blow the guy when his film is below average and then slag a far superior film a month after it's release. -
3) His subconscious is still playing by the rules even though he isn't. Otherwise Cobb could just call off Mal in the first instance.
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HAHAHAHAHAHA Wow
Plothole LMAO so funny...I love this site. -
http://www.starwars.com/video/view/001074.html
Now that's Starwars in it's finest form. This completely eviscerates each and every one of the prequels, and INCEPTION. -
Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes Plot holes :D
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Aug 15, 2010 9:09:31 PM CDT
It's not his opinion, but dismissiveness, lack of profesionalism
by jim jam bongs
Harry's napping through a huge chunk of the movie reeks of un-professionalism. I anticipate defenders will argue that this site is basically a blog, but it's been around for over 15 years and has had considerable influence in the film-geek community. If he didn't like the movie to the point where he didn't care to write about it (or stay awake throughout it), then I would say it would have been best for him, and his site, to simply not put up anything.This lack of tact, along with the blatant promotion of Scott Pilgrim on this site without full disclosure of Universal's involvement in this, is not only bothersome, but could violate recent FCC rules (whether you agree with them or not). To be honest, I wonder if Harry owes Mr. Nolan, and WB, an apology for this. I am not kidding.
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Listen here turkeynecks, I've been beating up basketball games for years! And I'm 63 years cool. How's about it?! Refs? Players? Fans? They all taste the chains!
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He fell asleep durning this movie is so mind blowing. What an asshole!
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Maxwells hammer is here to say who can stay and who can go!
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Someone said earlier... this review smacks of a child's take on an adult movie. I can see it. As much as I like Harry, he is a little too caught up in the whizz-bang world of "popcorn movies." See: Expendables. I think a good 'geek' critic can balance the two worlds... they can like Expendables, but also appreciate the intricacies of Inception. Harry does try... he enjoyed Shutter Island, which was a little more psychological than, say, Transformers 2... but he's still siding heavily with the 'junk food' of cinema.
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ah yes, Mr. Fisk, excellent point. Except Avatar wasn't about if Sully would survive, it was about how he would survive and save the Na'avi.Shutter Island was ABOUT the "mystery on the island" and "who/where is the missing patient" This is literally what the trailer communicated. So the movie is based on a twist, and its on obvious one. I am not a philistine, and I am also not a dumbass or a strawman believer. It would be akin to the trailer for Sixth Sense heavily alluding that Bruce Willis was a ghost.
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And I don't even get paid. Such is my love for the site.
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ah yes, Mr. Fisk, excellent point. Except Avatar wasn't about if Sully would survive, it was about how he would survive and save the Na'avi.Shutter Island was ABOUT the "mystery on the island" and "who/where is the missing patient" This is literally what the trailer communicated. So the movie is based on a twist, and its on obvious one. I am not a philistine, and I am also not a dumbass or a strawman believer. It would be akin to the trailer for Sixth Sense heavily alluding that Bruce Willis was a ghost. Every movie is a journey, but sometimes the journey is meaningful because of a twist. If I already know the twist, it takes half the fun out of the movie, and when you re-view it, you just remember that you never fell for the twist that blows your mind. Which is why I can rewatch the Usual Suspects, but I won't even watch Shutter Island once.
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i dont get it - "inception" is great - a real geek's movie - i was surprised it even got made considering what it was about and how it was executed - how can the head geek get a hard on and ejaculate (literally according to him) over "expendables" and fall asleep during "inception"? - then see it well rested and be bored by it
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You ask "why can they build things that don't exist in reality, but never do?" Because DiCaprio was explaining how the dreamworld works. It explain that to build something you had to imagine it, imagine anything; but you don't have to imagine every part of it, just the parts you need defined. The world flipping over should have made a bigger impact, but again, Cobb is an experienced dreamer and knew he was dreaming. Yes that is kind of a cop out.
Anyways, they did build things that couldn't exist in reality; in Cobbs limbo they built a whole city on the sea and houses in skyscrapers, and you can see it being destroyed in the background when he and Mal make sandcastles. Ariadne also built paradoxes to contain the dreamers in the landscapes. The reason they don't build anything too crazy when incepting is because the Fischer can't be aware that he's not in charge of the dream. The dream must flow not fight. You may say Cobbs limbo was pretty boring, but you know, it was unvisited and ill repaired, forgotten. It may also be easier to live in a world more familiar to you rather than a future land or something. And Cobb was an architecht so a big city in the style he liked made sense. But now I am speculating. -
would have been awesome if you posted this before the film came out. kinda pointless to do a bad review of a movie weeks after its release.
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Harry, you didn't care because they were all just corporate thieves? Dude, seriously, "dream a little bigger." The film isn't about that; it's about what makes us happy and whether it is real, not real, or whether the reality of the happiness matters at all. The "corporate thieving" part is just a tool to get Leo's character into compromising mental situations to reveal what's underneath. It's really about his character and what his character struggles with; the death of this wife and the separation from his children as a result. Yes, we can debate whether the whole thing was real, a dream, whether Leo's character was in fact the one who inception was performed on...on and on. But just chalking it up to a lesser James Bond film? Man, get a grip. It's not a straight up action film.
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The ending was simply a wink wink JOKE. In the dream the top never wavered, and at the end it clearly was. The idea the whole movie was a dream doesn't figure at ALL. Stop these stupid fucking rants about how the whole movie was a dream. If you believe that, you were too stupid to watch the movie in the first place, go back to "Nightmare on Elm Street 3." Fucking morons!
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is that inception is intricate.
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Aug 15, 2010 10:14:26 PM CDT
Hardboiled Wonderland - Dicaprio has defintely been channeling
by banjohik7
As he gets older, puts on a little more weight, and his face casually bloats, he looks like Jack. Sometimes he looks to like Jack in Demon mode at the of the wiches of eastwick.
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Aug 15, 2010 10:27:34 PM CDT
NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT THE END OF (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
by bringingsexyback
could very well have been Tom dreaming. Now I know what you're thinking. Hear me out.
Go back to the Expectation/Reality sequence. That experience traumatized Tom. We next see him lying in bed for days, literally, shutting off the alarm clock each morning. Until Day 442, when he quits his job under a seeming epiphany, and goes on a new path.
But suppose he never left his bed. Suppose Day 442 symbolized the death of reality and the beginning of a dream life. 4 is the number symbolizing death in Asian culture. 2 is what Tom and Summer were - a pair. Two deaths in one pair. Are you following me?
Now suppose the end sequence was Tom's own mind trying to work through the pain of losing Summer. Because think about it. Isn't the park bench sequence, with the exquisite score, completely dream-like? Trust me it is. Not to mention the shot of the elevator leading to the scene with Autumn. Like an ascension to another dream level, or ascension symbolizing rebirth or a new epiphany. Here is where Marc Webb challenges us to interpret for ourselves. Brilliant.
I swear this film is a new experience with each viewing. Total masterpiece. Dreamlike execution because in dreams time does not exist. I like Inception but (500) Days totally blows it away. -
I am with you 100% Between Harry's need to inject every review with a reference to masturbation and ejaculation (I truly doubt that Harry has ever actually had an orgasm), and his inability to deliver a coherent review I think AICN's best before date might have come and gone.
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I am with you 100% Between Harry's need to inject every review with a reference to masturbation and ejaculation (I truly doubt that Harry has ever actually had an orgasm), and his inability to deliver a coherent review I think AICN's best before date might have come and gone.
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you would think that they could have added a goddamn edit function...
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This talkback has to have the most "I'm sick of this, time to find a new site," comments I've ever seen.
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Let's see ... couldn't make the dream to strange or the dreamer would twig something was up. But having a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream ... that's not going to clue the subject that something's up?! I've heard of dumber premises, but not a whole lot.
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The two leads' character development ... if you want to make a silk purse, it helps if you don't start off with a sow's ear. Leo's character deliberately puts the others at risk by not informing them that the usual escape hatch won't be available this time. I'm surprised the businessman who hired him doesn't have him for putting him in danger that way. As for the architectural student, she admits Leo's character is nuts, he put her in danger, and what they'll be doing is illegal ... but what the heck, she'll hang along anyways. Kinda hard to be attached to such sociopaths.
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The Battle of the Mounds. Now that's a great fucking movie.
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Pixar's productions have left me hot and cold. They certainly aren't consistent. Loved RATATOUILLE, didn't care for WALL-e, UP! had its moments. In fact I certainly liked it better than INCEPTION. For my money UP! was better just for the idea of when the house starts floating over the city and thinking to myself "OK, what is Homeland Security going to make of THAT?!"
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And they'll all be back to bitch at his next review. Strange.
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Time for Harry to retire I think.
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So Harry's review was negative. So what? Oh wait...he liked the pieces of shit that were The Phantom Menace and Armageddon, so then yeah I'll probably love Inception.
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One wonder if Sly had directed inception if Harry would of jizzed all over it..
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or characters to enjoy a film? seems a bit needy. not aiming this at any particular poster, as it appears many here share this affliction
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or characters to enjoy a film? seems a bit needy. not aiming this at any particular poster, as it appears many here share this affliction
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Harry has very odd taste. This movie is far better than anything this summer.
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...I see where Harry is coming from. This might be one of the most lucid and cohesive reviews he's ever written.
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Didn't care for the ruthlessly tiered dream-within-a-dream structure, which locked an intriguing premise into a narrative straitjacket...you want to see a couple of glorious examples of the insanity of "dream logic" we've all experienced, go to the master, David Lynch, and see MULHOLLAND DRIVE or LOST HIGHWAY (and if you've got the nerve, INLAND EMPIRE).
What's more, it didn't help that two of the dream levels were such hackneyed tropes (a car chase and a James Bond shoot-out riff? Really? THAT'S what Chris Nolan dreams about?). Beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, but squandered opportunities throughout. -
Or something.
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Like I said - the movie isn't perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than Harry's letting on. Sure, the premise is a bit odd, but what fun would the movie be if it stuck TOO close to reality? Letting it go too wild, on the flip side, would have created more havok, and Nolan apparently wanted to keep some of the craziness in check. I still think the movie succeeded as a whole.
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But I'm not surprised that Harry didn't like Inception. It's clear from his Scott Pilgrim review, which snidely and subtly compares it to Inception. Harry has drunk the kool-aid for 1.) Stallone: 2.) Anything hipstery, goofy, romantic, cornball, corndog, Spielbergy, tear-in-the-eye, ET-phone-home hug the grandkids, bag the grandmoms, squeeze the girlfriend's hand, sappy Hollywood flick. Good for him! At least we know what his tastes are, and you know what he'll like and what he won't. The other reviewers on this site are better, but I enjoy Harry for being a big blubbery romantic about movies too. Just don't agree with him much!
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*puts down a plate of cookies*
When you are little kids, such as yourselves, it's very important to you that other people share your opinion. Because you have no self-esteem yet because you're all still little shits who haven't mastered fractions. Once you grow up and have seen more than ten movies and you actually find a voice of your own, you'll realize that you don't agree with everyone. And you'll learn that it's okay. Even if you dislike movies that most people like, one day a girl will let you touch her boobies which will begin to give you confidence, even if you have to break your piggy bank to pay for it. One day you may even be able to say out loud that you thought something no one else did and you won't pee your pants first. By then most of you will probably be in grad school, but that day will come. So don't worry. For now you can watch the grownups agree to disagree, while you continue to register aliases and try to a find way to stop daydreaming about your mom. Or dad ;)
When I read Harry's review I was a little sad that he didn't enjoy it. But not because he didn't agree with me. It's because I love movies and I know he does too. One of the great things about the internet is when people get together on message boards like this and go over movies as you would with real life friends in a coffee shop or at dinner afterwards but with a much larger group of people, maybe over days or even weeks. It's a lot of fun. So this time Harry didn't like it and wouldn't be part of this party. That's okay. It doesn't say anything about him or his credibility. We'll just see him at the next party, or maybe we'll be the ones to skip that one.
When you really enjoy movies and have watched thousands of them, eventually you hit a few that are supposed to be classics that you hate, and some that are supposed to be the biggest turkeys of all time that you love. I've got those. I think CASABLANCA sucks. I tried 3 separate times to get it. It bores me to tears. And I love STAYING ALIVE. I must have watched that movie almost 100 times by now. I can quote it and sing all the songs. Yeah, I know. That makes me an idiot to loads of people AND I DON'T CARE. So I really doubt that Harry cares what you think either. But when I watch people ripping into someone as a person, over their taste in movies, I can't understand it. I know it's not that important to you and you think you're just having fun. But you're just ruining what could be an intelligent discussion about this film because you want to tear Harry to shreds. It's a waste of time. -
check it in the dictionary to see what it means.
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talkback is AsimovLives and his unending lust for Nolan.where the hell has this guy disappeared to?
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No need for Inception to be a dumb american action movie, exploring dreams needs no gunplay. American films overall use weapons as a crutch, pandering to dumb fast food munchers. Inception, like the Matrix had ok concepts, but ruined what could have been great by leaning on the action genre.
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Guessing on the reviews I have read:
1. Scott Pilgrim
2. Expendables
3. Serbian Film
Unlucky to miss out Iron Man 2 and Nightmare on Elm Street.
Beaks :
1. Serbian Film
2. Serbian Film
3. Serbian Film
Capone:
1. Inception
2. Toy Story 3
3. Shutter Island -
I don't see how anyone can say this movie was flat or emotionless. Any person who had their heart broken or regrets something about their past can feel this movie viscerally. I personally had a very emotional and cathartic experience with this flick. While I don't think everyone would have the same reaction that I had, I can't comprehend why someone would say they thought this movie was emotionless. It boggles my mind. And you don't care about the corporate espionage aspect of the film? Jesus. Talk about not getting it. I'm usually not one to pull the, "You just don't understand" card, but this entire review just reeked of it.
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Finally, an honest review. Pile on top of that the "different perceptions" was a cliche'd and trite thing obviously designed to foster exactly that type of conversation. Trying to read "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" or "Neuromancer" has completely inoculated me to anything so obviously packaged. Still enjoyed it, but honestly...
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Just kidding; what you said was was all pretty valid, and I mostly agree... Now can I get one of those cookies???
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Been reading AICN for years and had to sign up and post my agreement with Harry's review.
I found the first half of Inception pretty boring. No emotional connection with the story and characters because it's all completely a dream. The ending was predictable. In some ways this movie felt like a wild reimagining of the Matrix so even the action didn't necessarily wow me as much as it did others. I left this movie in shock as I couldn't figure out why this movie is being soooo well received. It was good, but not amazing. Everybody kept saying it was some big cerebral movie that made you think. I just kept wondering what the heck everybody had to think about...
Thank you Harry for posting this as I'm glad to see i'm not the only crazy one on the planet. -
Harry.
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You've emboldened me to finally come out of the closet and admit a deep, dark secret....
I really don't like Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Every single time I try to watch it, I fall asleep. I think it's dull and plodding and delivered at a pace that simply dares the audience to be bored.
There! I said it. No doubt it means I'm an ADD-afflicted philistine. So be it. I'm out! -
A large part of the problem for me is that the premise is the least unbelievable part of the film. The idea that people can decipher others' dreams is getting less improbable by the day. It's just about everything else which falls down. For example, the idea that dream time is different from real time has been disproven in formal studies. So the whole film fails right there. Again, the premise isn't the problem. it's the execution which, as with THE MATRIX was awful. At least DiCaprio's acting is far better than Keanu 'no one ever confused him with an actor' Reeves.
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I fucking loved Inception.
Nolan and Wright are the only directors batting 1.000 -
You have a lot of company. 2001 certainly isn't a film for everyone. It's my favourite film, ever, though I recognize it won't suit everyone's taste. But when actual astronauts praised it highly for its accuracy, the film must have done something right. Add the grand scope of the story, the imaginative plot, the wonderful visuals and (even now) eye-popping effects (remember the stewardess walking up the wall then across the ceiling? This was before CGI and wire work) and it's a delight. Not much action and not a whole lot of scintillating dialogue, though.
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Yeah.... On a purely technical level, I can see how it was a real feat. Also, on a purely intellectual level, I realise it has some big ideas going on. But it just leaves me cold on an emotional level. I've always wondered if there was something wrong with me for not liking 2001. I don't think I'm that guy who needs 'splosions to be entertained - but I do most like those films that hit me at a gut level.
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Period.
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Really brilliant, but I'm a science fiction guy at my core, especially space-themed stuff and could see how it would bore somebody else to tears. *bookmark*
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Editing fell apart in the middle for me, I got lost with what was going on and was not invested enough to try to understand. For me it became moving images that weren't really interesting because the action was repetitive and generic looking. Nonetheless I loved the concept and liked the acting. Overall it wasn't spectacular but I did like the film despite some problems I saw as serious flaws.
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Editing fell apart in the middle for me, I got lost with what was going on and was not invested enough to try to understand. For me it became moving images that weren't really interesting because the action was repetitive and generic looking. Nonetheless I loved the concept and liked the acting. Overall it wasn't spectacular but I did like the film despite some problems I saw as serious flaws.
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First saw 2001 when I was seven years old expecting a horror film about a talking psychotic robot and was seriously disappointed. Since then I've seen it at different times in my life and each time I find new aspects that are interesting but overall the film still strikes me as dull. Nonetheless it is on my netflix queue and I look forward to seeing it next week.
Blade Runner was another film I saw at a very young age expecting serious action and less talking. I was seriously disappointed and over the years I've seen it at different times still struggling to "get it". Saw it two years ago and was finally able to appreciate the film, really loved it.
I don't see this happening with Inception though as after watching the film I had no desire to see it again like I did with Blade Runner and 2001 :P -
Aug 16, 2010 3:03:48 AM CDT
There were more revies of SITC2 on here than Inception
by harry_knowles_fell_asleep_during_incepti
Pretty much says it all..oh and Harry didnt fall asleep during sex in the city 2
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And the dialogue... geeeeezus. You know I think i know why some of you guys love it so much, because itreminds me of fuck headed coffee shop intelectuals that i think thats what the most of you arethis film was emo, goth, i hadfelt up my cousin so now I can tell people i had sex, fucking woefulthe dialogue ' whats the most resistant parasite? an idea' WTF????? "give us another five minutes" "ANOTHER 5 minutes? that was only 5 minutes??????" this movie sucks. that leo wanna be side kick, with his fake tough voice and the useless useless story structure. I fucking hated this film!! HATED it!! You know, they could have used the plane they were in, the one owned by the asian dude - they could have used that plane to create the feeling of falling when they did the falling sequence. they didnt'. that might just have been the one saving grace for me. This film was terrible. it was so so so terrible.
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no nolan for batman
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writing skills are fucked, but i make no appology for my feelings. Inception robbed my of 10 bucks and 6 hours. it went for six hours right?
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*face palm*
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I just gotta say, if any of my local reviewer/critics mentioned that they fell asleep during the movie hey were getting paid to see, they would be be 1)completely unreliable and disregarded as being unprofessional 2)fired. Of course Harry doesn't have to worry about the second one, but as a journalist (and I'm using that term very fucking loosely, Harry should seriously reconsider what and how he writes. I don't even care that he didn't like Inception, that's his buisiness not mine. Personally I loved it. Really though, why the hell would I accept your opinion, as a critic, at face value if you can't even do your fucking job?! Jesus, you watch movies for a living and you can't do that right?
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So why the surprise ...?? This place is on its knees being raped by far superior sites on a daily basis, he probably did this to gain attention. Fat fuck is history, lets help him on his way.
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that I know how to use punctuation. That post was a mess.
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that very same thought had crossed my mind. He probably just wanted to start some shit to generate a little traffic to his site.
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no wedding ring
no Mal
Top wobbles as if about to fall. The movie ends abruptly like how dreams end abruptly. The movie is not a dream, just structured like a one.
"Inception costume designer Jeffrey Kurland who claims that, even though they may not seem different, the kids clothes are in fact not the same.
He insists, “the children’s clothing is different in the final scene… look again…”
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Harry loves entirely different kind of movies, the kind of that have been made by Albert Pyun and the like.
And that's okay, not everyone needs to be ecstatic about bigger movies. Liking those b-movies is just as good, if it makes you happy. -
That's the substance of dreams right there, folks.
Pure imagination. And crap. Imagination and crap. -
Twilight Eclipse = Amazing film.
Inception = a bit boring... thanks harry. really thanks for nothing. -
Technical brilliance, poor imagination.
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Aug 16, 2010 7:13:36 AM CDT
Harry doesn't like story, he likes 'spolsions and cool scenes
by redbull_werewolf
I've noticed this latley, Harry doesn't seem to care about story, he gives these action films high ratings but hates a film with a good story. Now expendables had some awesome parts in it, I missed some parts because I had to pee, but what i did see was cool. But just because I giggled when jet li kicked a guys neck in half doesn't mean Expendables was a better film then inceptioon
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at the end of the year is ENTER THE VOID. Nothing else!
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he'll use words like "geektastic" and "bugnuts insane" and say he had one hell of a time and that "well, he loves, loves, loves this movie"Harry is a sellout The studios buy him off and if he holds a personal grudge then he lets that interfere with a review. Harry is in Jon Favreau's pocket and the favs hates chris nolan...funny how Harry would hate a chirs nolan film, but gush over a mediocre iron man film
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Very few of us, if any, would fall asleep at a movie we PAID to see, much less are being paid to review
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You're right. And, like Expendables, Piranha may well be a damn fun time at the show. But let's not pretend it's great cinema
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All of his movies have an emotional element to them and he does it better than most filmmakers. What Nolan does is not beat you over the head with it. There is no sappy music, no soft focus wistfulness. It is abrupt and then it focusses on the aftermath. When Rachel dies in The Dark Knight it is sudden and without maudlin build up. The emotion comes in when you see Bruce staring despondent out the window, wearing the Batman costume with no mask. Or Harvey's rage as he takes those complicit in her death one by one.
Is it a coincidence that every movie Nolan has made centers on a death and how that death affects the life of every other character? Memento, Insomnia, Prestige, Dark Knight, Inception. A single death is the primary driving force for every single one of these movies. Nolan is a precise filmmaker, his set ups can be clinical, but the emotion is there. It's just not being pre-packaged like major movies tend to do and relies on the performances to sell the subtext.
I can see why some people see this as cold, but I find it refreshing. -
So Harry didn't love Inception....so fucking what? Why is he required to love it? I understand he has odd taste and sometimes you wonder how he could love a certain film and not love another, but honestly, who fucking cares what he thought about Inception...not everyone is in love with Nolan, not everyone worships the ground he walks on. Just because someone is not thrilled with Inception doesn't mean shit.
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To come in here and rip Harry a new one......don't let us down!
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as if it is some measure of the film's quality.While you're at it stop talking about the "lack of imagination" in the dreams.
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Sigh. Personally I loved the movie. It had me geeking out every ten seconds, especially during Joseph Gordon Levitt's zero-g fight. For all those people trying to make statements about what is better? Me? I think it's all just subjective, so what's the point. I love the discipline of it all, the way the movie moves up and down the stack of worlds, the interconnectedness. It may not be the greatest dream movie ever, but it's certainly got a great many original ideas about how to navigate the dream world, and do more than dress up exposition in a ball gown, as one guy once said.
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Aug 16, 2010 8:13:10 AM CDT
Every one of you haters will be apologizing in a few years..
by quantize
Particularly Harry.
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...Twilight, Phantom Menace and Independence Day..to name just a few stillborn turds of modern cinema were GREAT.
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INT. – A boardroom somewhere in LA. Two dozen movie executives are gathered around a long table. Most are wearing tuxedos with white gloves. Some wear top hats, some wear monocles. All are smoking cigarettes with black extenders. One executive has a cane on his lap concealing a sword. Another has an umbrella that shoots knock-out gas from its tip.
A man enters wearing oversized sunglasses. He has a gold ring on each finger and carries a snifter of Courvoisier. He is chomping sloppily on a large cigar.
NOLAN: Well boys, we finished shooting and are editing right now. The movie should be ready by mid-summer. Yup, COBB’S DREAM MACHINE AND THE BOYS THAT COULD FLY, could be the biggest hit of the decade.
EXECUTIVE #1: That’s great Chris, it’s just that we have a couple notes on the film that we were hoping you could address.
NOLAN: Go on.
EXECUTIVE #5: Well, you know how all the weapons in the dream world shoot dead fish that explode into clouds of bees; we were hoping you could changes those weapons into conventional guns.
NOLAN: I’m listening.
EXECUTIVE #2: And you know how the third level of the dream takes place on the rings of Saturn while “the gang” rides in on dolphins to fight the Astro-werewolfpires?
NOLAN: Yeah.
EXECUTIVE #2: We want you to change that setting into the snow level from the videogame Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64.
NOLAN: Hmmm.
EXECUTIVE #23: Also, we want you to change the title to INCEPTION.
NOLAN pauses and scratches his chin
NOLAN: And why should I make any of these changes? They might cost me my artistic vision.
EXECUTIVE #1 slams a large white sack with a money sign on its side onto the table with a clang. A smile slowly crosses CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S face.
NOLAN: Well, if I have to choose between the dreams of executives and the dreams of artists, I’ll choose the dreams of the executives. Every time.
NOLAN takes a long puff on his cigar and his laughter slowly builds.
NOLAN: HA, HA, HA, HA ,HA!
ALL EXECUTIVES: QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!
The room slowly fills with smoke and laughter and more references to Adam West’s old Batman TV show.
END SCENE
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"couldn't care less", not "could".
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Aug 16, 2010 8:49:28 AM CDT
THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW. NEVER COMING TO THIS SITE AGAIN.
by bringingsexyback
Oh who am I kidding. Like another site is gonna put up with me. LOL
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Aug 16, 2010 8:52:07 AM CDT
Inception vs. Nolan's previous works...
by that_girl_from_the_lowes_commercials_gar
Anyone who says Inception is NOT his best is fucking crazy.
Everyone knows Insomnia is completely mediocre. And for some bizarre reason, Prestige is elevated here as something... "good"? (Bah... barely ahead of Insomnia). The Dark Knight was EXTREMELY overrated (Not at ALL, the be-all-end-all comic book flick that some nerds make it out to be. Heath was fucking PHENOMENAL however... put it right behind "Begins"). Batman Begins was pretty fantastic (Near perfect Reboot). Next would be Memento, which is fucking CLASS (Always kept you on your toes...). And on the very top would be Inception. I give Inception the nod over Memento out of sheer SCOPE... with its multiple levels and themes. Visually stunning as well. Memento was a rather "simple" movie. So there you have it. The OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS OF CHRIS NOLAN'S FILMS ;-)
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ChristianTerroristMilita performed a BRILLIANT psychoanalysis of Harry, explaining why Harry is the way he is... in the Scott Pilgrim Talkback (reviewed by Harry). Everyone should check it out if they haven't read it. Awesome stuff.
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Stupid people don't like Inception. So go fuck yourself you fat cunt.
By the way, SCOTTPILGRIMFAN- you like Scott Pilgrim and you are trying to convince someone that the Dark Knight was shit, beginning to end? You are a different kind of pathetic, no? -
Aug 16, 2010 9:06:07 AM CDT
SO I SAW EAT PRAY LOVE THIS WEEKEND - CUZ I WAS FORCED TO
by bringingsexyback
Spoilers!
Firstly, it has far more intellectual and emotional depth than the stupid commercials and trailers would have us believe. Julia Roberts was not simply playing herself in pretty, exotic surroundings shoveling horsefeed into her mouth. Thank God for that.
That said, the depth is still only ankle-deep. It's basically a story about an immature, irresponsible careless woman who didn't really mean what she promised at the marriage altar. It's Runaway Bride Part Deux except she ran after the fact and left poor Dr. Manhattan dangling. I felt for him because for all intents and purposes, he was a nice guy. A nice guy!
What we basically have is Julia spending a year in Italy, India and then Bali for the sole purpose of forgiving herself for being a cunt to her ex-husband. That's IT. That's the spiritual journey! Oh and forgiving herself just in time to hook up with Javier Bardem. I'm sure the timing was just coincidence. LOL!!!!!
This is why I love Summer Finn. Although in actuality she acted much the same way (and perhaps a little crueler) this bitch did, she came to Tom in the park and gave him closure. Because a guy who's hurting needs closure just like the bitches do. And she's cute as a button and does laugh like a man like Julia Roberts. -
Can now officially join the ranks of AICN'S MOST IDIOTIC TALKBACKERS! Congrats man! You belong to an exclusive club with such great mental giants as: RPLocke, SCOTTPILGRIMFAN, TRANNYFORMERS APOLOGIST, yourSTEPDADDY, Quantize, MacReady452, Tall_Boy66, JackalofBane, FilmGuy125, and AsimovLives! Did i miss anyone?
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THE CHOPPAH. Fuck. He's like the President of the club lol
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THE CHOPPAH. Fuck. He's like the President of the club lol
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Aug 16, 2010 9:14:01 AM CDT
AND THAT SCENE WHERE JULIA WAS SUCKING SPAGHETTI CLOSE UP
by bringingsexyback
I wish I had gone to pee.
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He didn't like the A-Team, but somehow he loves the Expendables. Kick Ass was way overrated but he gushed over it for months. Inception is the best movie of the summer (by a long shot) and Harry doesn't like it. Harry has been on the money for over a decade so I'll give him a mulligan for 2010.
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That_Girl_Forehead_person, yes you missed someone off the list. YOURSELF!
(okay it's not my best work but i'm writing in small words so forehead face might understand) -
My INCEPTION totem would be a crusty photo of Nigella Lawson.
Only I would know the roschash pattern of dried spunk upon it. -
I figured out Shutter Island too early I guess because the ending did not do too much for me. Inception was amazing. And the entire point was to keep having the main guy believe it was still his own dream so they had to keep it more reality based or...I guess Harry missed this one.
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BSB, sorry you had to sit through that. Sounds like Bardem shoulda pulled out the 'air gun' on Julia.
That woulda knocked the perma-grin off her face. -
To be fair, my lovely wife does indulge my taste in movies a lot more than I do hers, so all in all we had a good time and she got to share it with her mom. But yeah I didn't get the attraction Bardem's character had for Roberts. Hell I didn't get the attraction James Franco had for her either. This was total wish-fulfillment. I doubt the real story was anything close.
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You may not like Inception Harry, but some of the movies you put above it are a bit ridiculous. Just admit you dislike Nolan. Oh well, no one takes you seriously anyway.
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is completely fucking pointless. I can't find my other post so I'm posting again. Way to fucking cop out harry and wait until the damage is done before releasing this review. Reviews are typically better when delivered oh I don't know before the movie is released? Way to not want to piss off nolan and crew and jeapordize future exclusives lol. I haven't seen the movie yet myself, and don't intend to, but I still had to comment on how lame it is that you waited this long to post about the movie.
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Sorry man, not following you... Are you actually defending any of those people on my list? Are you somehow defending BendersShinyAss? Do you also dislike Inception? If so, kindly FUCK RIGHT OFF :-)
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Besides where else are you gonna find folks like us? Talk about an extended dysfunctional family.
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The dreams were controlled by the design of the architect, Harry. Without that structure, their job, and thus the plot, would be impossible.
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Because it seems rather passive aggressive for a known film critic to wait until after the film is practically ending its theatrical run to voice his dislike of it.
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Or perhaps you're just some random DOUCHE that i called out in another talkback... Fuck, who knows anymore lol
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= Wheelchair Porn.
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I ain't going no where dude. Yes, we are famiglia here. A very crazy famiglia to be sure.
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If he did, he would at least have thought about it a little bit. His "review" shows a complete lack of interest in the meaning of the film from his first viewing. Of course, Harry is now quite rich and cares not what we think, but I hope he realizes that he's a sellout.
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...seriously...after all this time why bother. You really are a glutton for punishment aren't you.
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Aug 16, 2010 11:15:53 AM CDT
He is most definitely a GLUTTON.
by that_girl_from_the_lowes_commercials_gar
You got that right...
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...then all props to you...
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Aug 16, 2010 11:20:43 AM CDT
The Curious Case of Benjamin GLUTTON
by that_girl_from_the_lowes_commercials_gar
Lol Fuckin' Greg Giraldo killed it again on the roast of Hasslehoff tonight... And Whitney Cummings brought it too with the "drink a vat of magic johnson's blood" line lol Aahhhhh good times...
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He's a reliable CONTRAindicator to my tastes in film! If Harry dislikes something, I'm sure to like it. Basically "Inception" is not a movie for folks with ADD. You need to pay attention. I suspect he fell asleep the first time he saw the film because it overtaxed his mental capacities. And really -- Gilliam's "Imaginarium" fails on almost every level except visual, but Harry commends it. You go, Harry -- I'll continue to rely on the exact opposite of what you say!
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It looked great and I thought it was one of DiCaprio's best performances, but you'd have to be retarded to not know in the first 15 minutes that DiCaprio's character is insane and everything that's happening is make believe. Given that, Shutter Island was painful to watch, because, for the next two hours, I was watching a whole bunch of shit that didn't matter because it wasn't real. I kept hoping the whole time for the movie to have a more compicated twist than he's crazy, and it didn't. I mean, seriously, if you're going to have a story about a guy investigating a missing person case at an asylum, then have things happen that don't make any sense, what ELSE are you supposed to think?
As for Inception, what Harry feels is what Harry feels. I didn't feel the way he did. For one, he talks about the dreams and expanded the limitations. The thing is, for what these guys do, it's very clearly delineated that the architect must establish structure and a real-world feel in order to trick the person who's dreams they are in. So, whether you like it or not, there IS a structured reasoning for why they're doing what they do.
My only problem was that Dom Cobb was the only character who was fully fleshed out. But I still thought it was an excellent film. -
When he does review them, they're filled with excuses, bad grammar, incoherent ramblings, and a general disdain towards any techniques of criticism.
In the case of 'Inception', Harry didn't receive any kind of kickback from the studio because they wisely knew the film itself would make money and wouldn't need to bribe the fatass redhead to get geeks' money. This angered Harry and hence why we get this terrible review of a movie that probably flew over Harry's huge head in the first place. I also suspect that Harry saw this as an opportunity to be different from the rest of the critic pack. Hell, no one takes his opinion seriously anyway because he has demonstrated he can be bought and bribed just as easily as any cheap hooker in the worst parts of town. -
Looka heah. Forget the twist. Just purge it from your mind. Because from the commercials and trailers alone you knew DiCaprio ain't right in the head. Cuz he was hugging a phantom Michelle Williams. Now with that out of the way, it was about the real mystery. What drove him mad? Was the rest of the cast for real or imagined? Why? The movie was about our discovery of answers along with Leo's character. That being the case, I think it was a great movie. Not Scorcese's best of course, but solid.
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Aug 16, 2010 11:50:01 AM CDT
IF I WERE HARRY I WOULD NEVER WRITE ANOTHER INCEPTION REVIEW
by bringingsexyback
ever again. Jeez you fellas are harsh!
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But then she liked Eat Pray Love and thought Valentine's Day was a cute movie. So take that for what it's worth.
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YOUR REVIEW IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
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I really appreciate Harry's opinion. We all do, don't lie to yourselves. That's why we were waiting with baited breath for his review. The thing is Harry got it wrong. This was the dangerous territory where some critics fall expressing how they would make a movie instead of sticking to the one crafted in front of them on screen Harry admits the exquisite craftsmanship from Nolan but proceeds to "dream bigger" In fact it is the "constrained" boundries that Nolan works within that makes the movie soooooo tense! Movie critiques are largely glorified personal opinions but there is a talent in making them more than just "I would have done it like this" It is for this reason I say Harry got it wrong, but hay it didn't work for him and for that I can only feel sorry for him not experiencing what so many of us did for those two plus hours. Harry I still love ya and all you do for geekdom!
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That's what divorce is for......I keeeeed I keeed.
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She already thought going away for a year was a good idea. Until she saw the shitholes Julia Roberts lived in. LOL
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Sleep through inception? No problem. Sleep through Expendables? YOU'RE NOT A REAL MAN.
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Maybe its all down to opinion, and how you feel. It isn't the greatest review, sure, but people come here to read reviews from people's hearts, not from the analysis of who might like it from a designated category. Enough of the hate, its only a movie!! Harry, if the missus finishes watching Death Note in time tonight, I'm putting the Prestige on again.
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gives you money to try to affect the outcome of box office data by instilling fake movie news information into a jaded and cynical internet. Unfortunately, you need to be a team of ninja bastards to pull his kind of heist off, not a sleepy latecomer with bladder control issues and a penchant for shiny toys and human growth hormone-enhanced-cock flavoured snacks. Hope that helps.
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..That this talkback would be vicious. But this has exceeded even my expectations. Seeing all the contesting viewpoints on the film being so vehemently espoused here has been a fascinating read. Kudos all. (Heck, it's maybe even been more entertaining than the film itself!)
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I agree with you Harry. Theres very little emotional investment for any viewer watching this. Hey i didnt get this movie before some of my friends explained most of the stuff to me. i loved the dark knight when i first saw it even though i missed a few sub plots because of nolans fast screenplay. But over repeated viewings i understood the plots but i always enjoyed the same things that were cool when i first saw it. But inception overloads the smartness factor like dark knight on crack and Nolan has created the movie that i always feared from him a mind fuck movie which is just that and not much else. But still he is my favourite director because im sure he can deliver a movie that can blow our collective minds and not just the minds of the whiz kids.
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Inception is the way in which it presents dreams. The thing about Inception though is that it isn't so much about dreams as it is about the mind and how it can be manipulated. Sure as a dream movie it doesn't present the crazy visions of say a David Lynch movie or a Nightmare on Elm Street flick, but that's also not the point. But hey, everyone has their own opinions. I remember when everyone was on here getting all hot and bothered by Pan's Labyrinth, and when I saw it, I thought it was a poorly done Bertolucci anti-facist film mixed with a fantasy film that had some cool make-up effects and seemed to garner lots of attention because it was subtitled.
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"Leo is acting his ass off here, but I don't know if I like his character. He's a pretty loathsome fella to me." - you don't like his character because he's loathsome?
is this a serious review or should we expect another one when you've had more sleep?
"Someone that is being sent into destroy a company that has a rival company that wants to be more powerful. Fuck everyone involved. Seriously, I could care less about all of this." - how about.... how refreshing that it's NOT your typical 'save the world formula'
""You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."" - again, how refreshing Nolan relied a tad less on CGI/over the top zaniness.
was pleased i did not see dreamed up laser guns and spaceships. -
ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Forehead, yes by all means add me to your shit list. Not for what i've done but for what im going to do to you.
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Amateur!
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Aug 16, 2010 1:46:41 PM CDT
GODZILLA IS A BONAFIDE SNOOZEFEST - PUTS ME TO SLEEP
by bringingsexyback
every time. Between the constant dreary rain and the hapless story that goes nowhere, to the seen-it-before lil dinos and lack of Godzilla action, I'm surprised Harry stayed awake from that one. Or didn't need to pee from all the rain noise.
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Why was Leo's character considered such a monster? He killed his psycho wife immediately after she drowned his three kids, and even then did it partly out of compassion for her. Why would that have got him such a sentence and reputation? I know that he became violent afterwards, but the original crime didn't seem to justify the punishment.
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DAS BOAT. 4 hours of dripping water. Colostomy bag or bust.
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I'm pretty sure I would've killed her ass too.
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to the asylum. Otherwise, he'd have served jail time. His inability to deal with the reality of what's happened makes him continually regress into his fantasy world. As he becomes violent, the institution decides to a) lobotomise him but b) as a last-ditch attempt to save him from that, try the role-play that makes up the bulk of the movie. SHUTTER ISLAND and INCEPTION are going to make a fascinating double-bill when they hit DVD/Blu...
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You know what I mean, when they're both on DVD/Blu...
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lol.
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His final line about whether it is better to live a monster, or die a good man, suggests that he has recovered from his breakdown but still considers himself to be a monster. I can understand why he might not want to "live" with the constant pain of knowing what happened to his kids, but I don't understand why he or anyone else would hold him responsible for the deaths.
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Harry, Inception involves shared dreaming and as Cobb said, it limits what the particpants can do.
Forexample, when Arry Adeney(sp) took control of Cobbs dream in the training sequence, she made changes that caused his subconsious to attack her. So, yes, Nolan has created a dream world that is more grounded due such limitations, but it is what makes it stick out from the crowd. It not meant to be a surrealistic affair.
Think of inception as mind surgery. You want everything to be as simple as possible or accidents will occur. -
The entire point of the movie was lost to you like a fart in the wind. It's because of you inbred degenerate imbeciles that the state of the film industry is what it is today. People need every concept and idea spoon fed to them.
Inception is far from a mind blowing experience, but at least it presents thought provoking concepts in some new and interesting ways. A far cry from the mind-numbing bullshit we are bombarded with year-round.
Dont worry you morons, Hollywood's always ready to give you what you want: the Smurfs, Battleship and the Monopoly movies. Rejoice!
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*Runs finger up and down over his lips*
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and octopus people?
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I'll be the first to admit that I don't always like or agree with your reviews, but man, did you ever take a big ol' mallet to the nail that is "Inception". I frankly couldn't put my finger on exactly why I wasn't cuckoo for "Inception"-Puffs, other than, as my friend who saw it with me and I both said, "I just wanted...MORE." I was hoping for more creativity, more fantasy, more "Matrix", but for all the talk about the dream world and the cool Architect sequences, there just wasn't enough of any of those things. And the movie itself is too rote to strongly stand on its own without them. I still think it's a good movie, but Nolan's genius just didn't shine through enough this time. Your review is spot-on, Harry; well said.
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Cos, you have thoroughly embarassed yourself and lost a lot of cred.
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Inception was so fucked up and unbelievable.
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YOUR REVIEW IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
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Sorry, I just love saying that!
Try it! -
Morning wood.
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Harry's inception review isn't.
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That was a lotta pee!
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"Don't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling"
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zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzz
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I feel it's overrated too. All the cool dream sequences were in the previews. Nothing else remotely kept my interest.
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They should have had a sequence where pizzas fly around everywhere.
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...he can review movies in his sleep.
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It's called DECEPTION
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asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl; asdf jkl;
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that Nolan set up this fantastic premise of entering and manipulating dreams, demonstrated just how frakkin amazing and wild that could be with the architect training sequence, and then stopped it cold with the "you can't do this, because the dreamer can't realize he is dreaming"This forced a dullness into the dreams after that--and this was only even necessary because Nolan was hell-bent on having the spinning top gimmick at the end.If the top thing were dropped, the requirement for dreams to be otherwise indistinguishable from reality would be gone, too. It was a stupid requirement, anyway, otherwise: everyone in audience KNOWS that their own dreams can get pretty damned odd without realizing it is a dream. Many people didn't like the spinning top gimmick at the end simply because it was a cheap gimmick. I didn't like it because of the limits it imposed on the entire film/story.
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he could have found a way to hint at the possibility of dream in the last moment of the film without the top, without the constraint that dreams must be indistinguishable from reality...
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Shitty.
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Waiting with "baited" breath? What was our breath baited with, while we waited with bated breath for Harry's review?
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going to have to watch it again! I've not read the source novel - is it worth it, anyone?
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I'll never get spoiler babies.
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We disagree. But also, I think you're missing one of the plot elements with your desire that this flick was another Dreamscape: The dream is supposed to fool the mark into thinking it's real. Not have giant fucking monsters jerking off on a spaceship laden with werewolves while riding T-Rexes with cowboy hats and rainbows. Though, the second spectacle? Fucking sweet. That's not what the flick was about. I liked it a LOT, it didn't suck. But other than that, fuck, man, you liked Episode One, and we rarely agree on flicks, but I still like you, since you're still a fan, man. Peace.
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YOUR REVIEW IS THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
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That's a good point that you make about the children of fugitives, though I was thinking more about Cobb's parents-in-law bringing them to live in France instead of Cobb, who indeed wouldn't have a chance. If Miles and the other woman on the phone, whom I assume is Mile's wife (she has a French accent), have custody of the children, then I take it that they could take them out of the U.S. to live elsewhere. And since Miles already works in Paris, that would give them a good excuse in case U.S. authorities decided to protest out of suspicion.
Still, to me the biggest clue as to the illusive nature of Cobb's relation with his children is the way he and Mal supposedly spent a lifetime together in their dreams, without their kids. No parent who loves his or her children would do such a thing. I'm surprised more people haven't noticed.
On another note. I just thought about the Orphic Trilogy by Jean Cocteau? Funny I should have forgotten about it. Interesting use of time and mirrors, not to mention the story of a lover who has to descend to limbo/Hades to retrieve his wife... but fails.
Well magdalen, hope you don't lose faith again. -
"I didn't even want to write about INCEPTION. By the time I finally saw the whole thing, it was so late to comment. Oh well."
"no, this has to do with being bored by the pedestrian nature of Nolan's dreams. I just dream differently than the film."
Christ man, what the fuck did Nolan do to piss you off so much?!! -
That review is positively anaemic.You didn't even try. I thought you loved movies...
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Whilst he's being very quiet here, he has made quite a lot of comments on Twitter regarding Inception, see for yourselves...
http://twitter.com/headgeek666 -
but i loved the shit out this movie. and as far as cold or unemotional, maybe you're just not able to grasps different forms of emotions because i was moved and felt chills durin that last scene with Mol...and I HATE 9HATE HATEHATE) Leo, but i gave him his props for that role (but no props to
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but i loved the shit out this movie. and as far as cold or unemotional, maybe you're just not able to grasps different forms of emotions because i was moved and felt chills durin that last scene with Mol...and I HATE 9HATE HATEHATE) Leo, but i gave him his props for that role (but no props to
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but i loved the shit out this movie. and as far as cold or unemotional, maybe you're just not able to grasps different forms of emotions because i was moved and felt chills durin that last scene with Mol...and I HATE 9HATE HATEHATE) Leo, but i gave him his props for that role (but no props to
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but i loved the shit out this movie. and as far as cold or unemotional, maybe you're just not able to grasps different forms of emotions because i was moved and felt chills durin that last scene with Mol...and I HATE 9HATE HATEHATE) Leo, but i gave him his props for that role (but no props to
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The review sounds like you expected something when none of us knew what to expect when we first saw it because, for me anyway, there was no hype yet. You however were late for the hype train and it was just too late for you. You specified how "it was all a dream anyway" and thats a very debatable point of the film that you were already made privy to prior to you seeing it. Sucks to get spoiled and your review of INception is proof of that.
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Harry does, thats not the point - everyone ragged on about the late Predators review, then when Harry kind of gave it an ok review, they savaged him for allegedly covering up a worse review he might've done, but for his good friend Rodriguez. I think Harry is fed-up of all the bullshit, and I can't blame him. There's a rot on the talkbacks, and it festers, pulling everything down into it.
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I know he does.It's a tired man's review. I think he should have left well alone, let the talkbackers yodel loud & long in futility.Oh, I agree, there's a rot alright. But I guess the Tb's are what we all make 'em...
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I just read this review, and it has left me disappointed in Harry. The parts of the movie that he found most imaginative--the Escherian, endless staircase, the city curving back on itself, etc.--probably took the least amount of imagination to write. The fact that the protagonists weren't pursued by red-eyed dream wolves across some Byronesque landscape supported the more subtle, unsettling aspects of the dream-within-a-dream story. It is certainly possible to disagree with me about this, but to dismiss the decisions that Nolan made on this movie as indicating a lack of imagination is profoundly unimaginative and pedestrian. I've come to expect much more than that from Harry.
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It is impossible to deem this abomination a "good review"
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1) The film deserved more praise
2) The review was too late
3) The review was badly written -
Harry, the point of going into the dream was not to make it trippy and batshit crazy. If that happens, if they start “dreaming a little bigger” and creating RPGs, laser guns or tanks, the projections loose their shit AND Fischer realizes that he's dreaming, which can NOT happen. Have you ever had a dream that, despite it being a dream, gave you closure of some kind? Good example: I was in sixth grade and the family cat we'd had for ten years died. I didn't handle this well seeing as how I loved that cat. Two months later, we got a new one, something that didn't go over too well with me. About three months after getting the new cat, I had yet to warm up to her. I had a dream one night where, shocker, nothing too batshit insane happened. I was just playing with my old cat. However, it struck me right as I got to the end of my dream that said cat was dead. As soon as I realized this, my old cat sort of faded into an image of the new cat. Then I woke up. Somehow, in my 11 year old head, this gave me an extreme sense of closure, a sense of “alright...I can move on and start loving this cat the same way I loved the old one”. Again, if this seems extremely melodramatic, I'd like to reinstate that I was 11. The most important aspect of that dream was that I didn't realize I was dreaming until the very end. Despite waking up and knowing it was a dream, an idea came from it. Had the team in Inception gone in and immediately started “dreaming bigger”, Fisher would have realized he was dreaming and the mission would be lost. The Matrix argument works well. What was cooler, Neo learning the rules of the “dream world” and using them to his advantage, or Neo flying like Superman and beating the shit out of a million Smiths? If your answer is the latter, go find yourself a Transformers 3 talkback, because you don't belong in this one.
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Well said. hate to cheapen it with more of the same but when my cat died, I was not at home... I was in another country infact. Always felt guilty about that. Then I had a dream where I just held and stroked her. Thats all it was. But boy, did it make a difference. Maybe that wouldn't have been enough for Harry... the cat would have needed to be straddling a mini-gun whilst spraying lead over a thousand Agent Smiths which brawled in zero gravity, and then the sun explodes in bullet time.
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It's so easy to do trippy. Did we really need to see random shit to believe it was a dream world?
No because that wasn't what the film was about. It was about EXPERTS in tricking people into believing they were awake when in fact they were dreaming. It, every dream level save "limbo", was a CONTROLLED setting. What's so hard to accept about that? It's like complaining that 2001 didn't have any spacecraft dog fights. -
I shall never listen to what a blob of turd has to say every again.
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That's what I dreamt last night...
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Aug 16, 2010 6:27:59 PM CDT
Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ...finally!
by harryknowlesnonexistentinceptionreview
And of course, he didn't get it... "no werewolves" in it, one assumes. Hell, Harry, did you fall asleep AGAIN??? The dreamscapes are CONSTRUCTED for the target in order for them to believe they're NOT in a dream. Of course the mission with Cillian Murphy went awry and the team then had to improvise, but were still dealing with preconstructed dreamscapes so as to maintain at least a semblance of control. But then, "no werewolves", okay, we get your point. So anyway, how'd Scott Pilgrim do last week? (smirk)
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I just reread the 'review' and.... wellll "There is more pure imagination at play when Ellen Page is first playing in the dream construct with Leo - than at any other point in the film. " Harry, you are confusing 'imagination' with CG. If you ever man the fuck up and make an appearance in this talkback, please answer me this.... did you think Transformers 2 was an 'imaginative' film?
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Aug 16, 2010 6:39:21 PM CDT
Harry's "Okay" for that P.O.S. Predators...
by harryknowlesnonexistentinceptionreview
...Well, the man does live in Austin, the same town that Rodriguez lives in. He was probably afraid if he gave it a deserved bad review, he'd have to deal with a coked-up Rodriguez on his lawn waving a machete some random morning at 3am while his only slim hope of escape, his trusty Rascal Scooter, lay charging and useless in the garage whilst Yoko tossed on a robe and slippers and hotfooted it out the the back door, over the chainlink fence, through the neighbor's yard, and out of sight.
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Didn't read the review is it a porno? If not it should have been. Scott Pilgrim rocked though maybe some of you should check it out.
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I like the movie enough to see it twice, but something always held me back from saying it was a great movie...Harry nailed it on the head for the most part
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It underwhelmed the fuck out of him and put him to sleep. Nobody agrees with that.
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Aug 16, 2010 7:01:11 PM CDT
Being a fanboy doen not a reviewer (or intelligent person) make
by unfunnydude
And you once again prove it.
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There's nothing peppered from the targets interest. Other than a couple of business contacts. Does this guy not have a girlfriend, a best friend... anything?
Harry they used Tom Berenger's character for exactly this purpose. He wasn't just a "business contact" -
Aug 16, 2010 7:07:52 PM CDT
I've had wild-ass dreams, too...
by harryknowlesnonexistentinceptionreview
...one time I was being chased on the Eiffel Tower by lion-headed aliens firing lasers (they must have learned to shoot at Imperial Stormtrooper school, though, they were terrible shots). But the more subtly surreal dreams are the ones that tend to stick more in my memory and affect me more. One dream I remember as clear as day was walking down a dilapidated alleyway as a homeless person pulled circuit boards out of a dumpster and piled them into a rusted out shopping cart. I then looked up over the roofs of the surrounding buildings to see a hellish futuristic cityscape... like the worst parts of NYC 100 years from now. Then I woke up. The alien dream is vague in my memory, but what I call "The Neuromancer Dream" is still crystal in my memory 10 years from when I had it.
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and cool shit like that, but I can't remember them individually. But the subtle dreams are the ones which affect the most. Like once when I just dreamt about lying next to my girlfriend and being too scared to roll her over to see her face because I knew it was going to be some fucked-up 'dead birds' type demon face. fucking awful. Never actually saw it... just the dread.
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I say that because Inception was not
dreamlike. The ultimate disgrace to me is when you are not able to let your imagination fly unfettered. So what are dreams for if not that?
Scott Pilgrim was fun and I liked it, but it should have had an unknown in the lead. The onedimensionality of Cera is grating, as is his Ichabod nose and Ichabod voice.
I am amused by the bandwagon effect with undeserving films and Inception is on that list. Many readers here are guilty of this, and you know who you are.
Remember, it was just an other movie. -
Quickfire question: The Matrix or The Matrix Revolutions
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me and a female friend were sleeping...she was on her period so i couldnt get get any so i just went to sleep...in my dream, i dreamt i was in the exact same spot, she in the her exact same spot...then she started giving mehead...then i woke up (she woke up to i guess from my "jump") and asked whats wrong...i said something coy and then, she started giving me head...GREATEST FUCXKIN DREAM/PREMONITION/VISION EVER!
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COOL STORY BRO
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she didnt swallow so it wasnt that cool...very decent though lol
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This needs to be a new standard of comparison.
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http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Cool_story_bro
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damn you sarcasm and your ever deceitful tricks...i knew the bro part was misleading...
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SPOOILERS
You've got to remember The top is not his totem, it was his wife's. The end of the movie we see that he finally realizes this... that his *Children* are his totem. They are different.. he can see them. ( remember how he remarks that he can never see their faces when he sees them previously) He is so confident in this realization that he doesn't even bother watching the top.
As a father myself, I completely understand the sentiment.... you think you know what is important until you have kids. And when you see them you know things are right. That was enough for me to get sand in my eye right about then. -
Harry likes:
a) Movies that reflect his values...of which he has none beyond anything the liberal media popularizes - AVATAR!
b) Does not like to discuss things that matter beyond the liberal agenda...i.e. its boring to him.
c) Only passionately sells movies made by friends, or friends of the friends.
Some observations is all.
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http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ineption
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Didn't have enough dogfights/space fights. Kubrick is a tool
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There so much idiocy going on in this thread I can't even begin to touch upon it all. First we have; "Inceptions not overrated, the people overrated it!" How the fuck do you think a movie becomes overrated?? When everyone says it sucks? Jesus. And frankly, there is no "Inception backlash". The bottom line is the movie was GOOD, but nowhere near GREAT. Obviously IMDB is full of useless retards, but any movie that's been out for four weeks that is fooling people into thinking it's the 3rd greatest film of all time is quite frankly, OVERRATED! Now that the hype is dying and the Nolan fans have overkilled this movie like none other, people are seeing the movie for what it really is.
And we get that they weren't supposed to mess with the dreams - but that doesn't change the fact that the dreams were fucking LAME! If it was a realistic possibility to enter the subconscious minds of certain people, it would be a lot more fucking exciting then anything Nolan presented. Nolan commited the cardinal movie sin of TELL everything SHOW nothing. He basically made "Inception for Dummies" because he thought you folks would be too stupid to understand the movie if he didn't beat you over the head with non-stop exposition. All one has to do is listen to the fucking dialog and pay attention to understand it. Compare that to films like Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive, Synechdoche, NY, movies that actually require outside of the box thinking to come to conclusions about the films. It's not surprising though the general public thinks Inception is smart. Each movie Hollywood turns out is more stupid then the last, so finally when a movie comes along when you have to pay attention, it's deemed "intelligent cinema". Is that how far we've dropped? At the end of the day Inception is a James Bond movie with a sci-fi twist, and a lot of complex shit made up around the sci-fi angle. Not very groundbreaking, at all. It also features very cold and empty characters. People say it's OK because Nolan used archetypes, but any other filmmaker gets derided for such a thing. Such hypocrites.
I know I'm being harsh, but Inception really was a GOOD movie. I just despise this attitude that if we all don't fucking love the movie we're either not-intelligent enough, don't like good cinema, or are just "hating" for the sake of it. I'm just pointing out that while, yes, Inception was one of the better movies this summer (not like thats really an accomplishment), it falls far from greatness, and like most films, has plenty of flaws that deserved to be discussed along with the aspects that were well done. -
This is a guy who loves almost every movie he sees. He lives for cinema and finding new great movies. Furthermore, look at the past reviews he done for Nolans work - he obviously loves the guy. He also had no problem admitting this movie was crafted well and that it certain things right. However, it just didn't connect for him, like it didn't connect for a lot of people. People saying Harry likes only popular shit are seriously brain-dead, cause in the DVD column Harry reviews and raves about more obscure shit then just about anyone. Harry has NOTHING to gain from writing a negative Inception review. If he really was the studio "shill" everyone claims him to be, he would have praised the fuck out of this movie. I mean, the director of the Batman franchise? You really think Harry wants to deride him? To me this proves Harry isn't afraid to write what he feels despite all of these rabid fans at his neck, and for that I respect him. But this hate really has nothing to do with Harry but it's merely rabid Inception fans trying to come up with any excuse to justify why someone didn't love their precious movie, and why they're not fellating Nolan over his good at-best film, like they are.
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was that the Team had to Control The Dreams, keep them DULL, UNRECOGNIZABLE AS DREAMS. Duh. Yes, we get that Nolan set some rules out that required it, so dull dreams "fit" the story. But is was a stupid, Nolan-imposed restriction, not at all necessary.Imagine if the Team did not construct and control the dreams, but had to enter, understand, navigate, and attempt to influence the dreams created by the dreamer.... Imagine what could have happened....Too bad Nolan couldn't imagine that.....I liked the movie, wanted to love it. I respect what Nolan attempted to do, and feel slightly disappointed that he did not quite achieve it.
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Inception opened weeks ago. Move on people.
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coming back to this site. All everyone ever does is shit all over everything. First everyone says Inception is a masterpiece. Now everyone is saying it's overrated. Soon you'll be saying the same thing about Scott Pilgrim. Most of you are nasty little monsters who should be chemically castrated for the sake of the human race.
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If the dream invaders had to figure out how to blend in and survive someone's dream which was like a hostile alien planet, it would've made for more interesting challenges than car chases and gun fights.
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a) it's his fucking job. That means you stay awake, you do it, you file your copy on time. b) it doesn't matter what his opinion is; what does matter that it's honest and it's timely. The way he's buried the "review" (three weeks late, covered in a changing set of excuses, sent out the same weekend as another movie he's been championing that's directed by someone who he purports to be personal friends with - that demonstrates nothing but contempt for his readers. It also calls into doubt the honesty of his reaction to the movie. People's opinions change over time for all kinds of reasons, but it's simply dishonest to wait three weeks then post something contentious. Do it weekend one, or not at all; have the courage of your convictions. d) busy? Fuck off. I work for a living. Long hours, hard work, raise a family and still find time to watch movies and argue the toss with you guys. He watches films and Blu-Rays, when it suits. Yeah there might be long hours and some travel to film festivals involved but this is the geek dream he's living. If he can't hack it and stay awake or put some extra hours in when it's necessary (like when there's a new movie by a major geek-friendly director) then, again, he should fuck off. Deep down he may still be that same great kid he used to be. But it's not who he is underneath, it's what he does that defines him. He's burned, and that's it.
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FYI: Your argument=wrong.
There is nothing more popular than to love the "obscure shit" and loathe the populist...i.e. Inception.
Obscure=Populist in the liberal media.
Also, how else can I explain his insane frothing about movies like the Expendables? Doesn't look like fandom. Looks like biased reviews because of friendships.
Oh well though. This is the world I live in. Human nature. -
Aug 17, 2010 2:15:49 AM CDT
Scott Pilgrim vs the World amazed me with its awesomeness
by lucasdefender
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The themes the movie dealt with was the nature of dreams vs. reality...and if you can tell the difference sometimes...and if it even matters. If there were hostile alien planets and weird dreams, then it would be obvious to the dreamers when they were in reality. If you want to see someone walking through strange dream landscapes, rent "What Dreams May Come." And tell me how it was cause I fell asleep during that.
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Thinking about it. I don't want to needlessly insult Harry. Not my desire. I just think he is one heck of a biased dude...we all can be...it just feels like he has entered a new level of embracing the biased tendencies within. Not good when critiquing film. Not good to do ever.
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It is not important whether soceity views him as a monster or not. He blames himself for not listening to his wife's compliants of "needles in her head" and by not getting her help he believes he is as responsible for his childdrens deaths as she is. And he has to live with the fact he also killed the woman he loved. He can't hence the breakdown and even when cured he doesn't WANT to face up to reality. Hence the initial relapse. In the end when the choice of lobotomy vs living with the reality is in front of him he voluntarily chooses the lobotomy.
Is a really tragic ending as there was no helping him. -
I could not agree with you more, palimpsest.To be so supercilious about such an important filmmaker in popular culture just stinks to high heaven. Now, fuck knows if there is an agenda going on here (like so many people seem to be suggesting: Favreau/Stallone/Wright shilling) but it was the level of complacency - it bordered on contempt FOR BOTH HIS READERS AND NOLAN, which from a self-styled 'movie geek' is pretty hypocritical (he accuses Nolan of selling out? Hello? Harry is so far up Stallone's arse he can see ABKing's heels!).Surely this site works because it is a space that allows people to share passion, be it positive or negative. But what Harry did was place something delivered as an afterthought, wherein he admitted that he fell asleep the first time, and then based his review entirely around a shallow viewing of a film that is many things, but certainly not shallow. There's no passion in that review, just solipsistic longing - "I wanted to see...", "I wanted to watch..."This review is the purest example of where Harry has gone wrong because it says more about him than it does about the film (his Toy Story 3 review is the clearest example of this).Now some of you might dismiss this by saying, "Oh, that's just Harry." Well, fine. But he is getting worse and every one of us who has been coming to this site for a while knows it.And I have no problem with him needing to see the film twice (I did too) but to waft his judgments around when they are rooted in such meagre soil is contemptuous of us, for sure. He's (worryingly) just biting the hand that feeds him...
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Bingo .... you nailed it.
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"and here is planting an idea that isn't to end a war, to save anyone, but he's just a fucking corporate tool. Someone that is being sent in to destroy a company that has a rival company that wants to be more powerful."Leo doesn't give a shit about the scheme, its a means to an end: if he does as they ask he gets his children back. If you hadn't fallen asleep you may have noticed.
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I saw Avatar with a couple of friends and my gf at Imax upon release. Dropped an E beforehand, too. It was awesome.Six months later, without the big screen and narcotics I struggled making it all the way through.The best part is this has nothing to do with Inception. That movie was genuinely great.
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MadFuckingMax, ironically you are the sanest one here.
How ridiculous to dismiss a film because of it's 'MacGuffin'. Would INCEPTION have been any better or worse if the Macguffin was breaking up a terrorist cell or breaking up a corporate giant? No...
...because that aint what the film's about. Sigh. Some of us 'got' this movie some of us (Harry included) didn't.
For those who didn't, it's a bit harsh to blame a film which worked wonderfully for the majority of viewers. -
"without the big screen and narcotics I struggled making it all the way through"
"..although I did gnash my jaw and jiggle my leg in pavlovian response." -
You can forget about that BATMAN #3 set visit, fatboy.
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What is big, fat and red and who failed to write a proper review for a movie he just didn't get?
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You know, I've heard some really fucking stupid arguments in this thread in favor of Inception. First there's, "The snow sequence was purposely shot poorly!". OK, no other director would EVER get defended to such a ridiculous degree to say that the CLIMAX action scene of the film was poorly shot and edited to coincide with a character. That is fucking bullshit to the highest degree. And everybody defending the "normalcy" of the dreams; I hate to burst your bubble, but this was solely so Nolan could add some ambiguity to his movie with a trick ending. Had he not felt the need to tack on the most cliched twist ending in "dream-movie" history, this wouldn't have been an issue. And I'm not saying he should have went all out like Gilliam did - that also would have been a stupid move. But we all know how strange and surreal dreams can be, with events constantly happening with often seem to have zero relation. Frankly, dreams CAN be very strange, and overly realistic dreams would seem far more out of place then - which contradicts Nolans rules.
When people are convinced Inception is the best movie ever, it sets up pretty lofty expectations, that frankly, Inception does not meet. Upon viewing the film it makes you question either 1) if said viewer has hit puberty, or 2.) if said viewer has seen more than 50 movies. There are superior dream films, that is not a question in my mind. Is NOES 3 one of them? Hell. No. But you know what? If that's how Harry feels, then that's how he feels. I've never known Harry to hate something because it's popular though, and even though some of his review might miss the mark, I do believe it's sincere. If you don't like it, then go fawn over the many positive reviews. And on that note - I'd like to remind folks that Inception got around a 74 on Metacritic, which is "generally favorable reviews". I don't abide by critics as the end-all-be-all of a movies worth, but this time, I think that hits the mark.
Apart from the so-so action, sometimes silly rules Nolan made up and took so-seriously (which in the end held no weight), and the bland characters (which I can forgive if I connect with at least one), Inceptions finds itself overrated in my eyes because people make it out to be some highly intellectual, thinking mans movie. In reality, the key to understanding Inception is just listening to the fucking dialogue. Are we as a society so lazy that even simply the idea of paying attention to a movie is the basis for intelligence? If so, it's pretty sad. -
Aug 17, 2010 6:17:53 AM CDT
Nolan should change the films title from "Inception" to "Decepti
by mandrakeroot
He's succeeded wildly in deceiving fanboys that Inception is some sort of cinematic masterpiece, and I think that is in fact his biggest accomplishment. I mean, people in this thread argued that Kubricks 2001 features no character development but for some reason people don't knock it. Well isn't that just the stupidest fucking thing ever. 2001 also wasn't filled to the brim in exposition. It's true cinema that made your audience think by SHOWING the audience, not TELLING. It didn't need in-depth characters because it was a masterpiece of visual cinema. Inception was not.
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that is
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that is
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Your argument might be valid if he only liked obscure shit. He clearly doesn't though, as he reviews popular movies all of the time and loves them. He's a man who loves film of all genre and budget without bias. He just didn't like Inception. Deal with it.
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He does have a bias towards certain films, namely those directed by/starring his celebrity friends (Sly, Wright, etc). But at the same time he's praised many other movies that had no connection to him, and derided others that did. There is nothing for him to gain by negatively reviewing Inception. Within your view of him it would be far more logical for him to praise this movie, as that notion supports his accused "art over artist" philosophy more. Maybe he's not friends with Chris Nolan, but I'm sure he'd love to be if he could.
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Audiences have a share in a movie being 'overrate', but don't forget the advertising blitzes, too. Anyone else remember when SPACE: $19.99 came out and it wads touted as the "new STAR TREK"? Or when WIZARDS hit the screens to the tune of "It's the new FANTASIA"? Both those claims turned out to be laughably off the mark.
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are guilty of doing the very thing they are accusing Harry of; Giving the film higher marks to do name association. It makes you wonder, if McG made a film like this, would it be as highly praised? Or what if Chris Nolan had his name on a McG caliber film, would it be derided nearly as much? The answer is a blatantly obvious NO. Mind, you I'm not comparing the two as Nolan is endlessly superior to McG. I just think coming off one of the hottest-geek properties ever - TDK - has Nolan placed unreasonably high on a pedestal, which will only serve to hurt him in the end.
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are guilty of doing the very thing they are accusing Harry of; Giving the film higher marks to do name association. It makes you wonder, if McG made a film like this, would it be as highly praised? Or what if Chris Nolan had his name on a McG caliber film, would it be derided nearly as much? The answer is a blatantly obvious NO. Mind, you I'm not comparing the two as Nolan is endlessly superior to McG. I just think coming off one of the hottest-geek properties ever - TDK - has Nolan placed unreasonably high on a pedestal, which will only serve to hurt him in the end.
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Aug 17, 2010 7:02:20 AM CDT
"..although I did gnash my jaw and jiggle my leg in pavlovian re
by madfuckingmax
This deserved a subject line all to itself.Raised proper belly laugh, there.
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Aug 17, 2010 7:11:16 AM CDT
"In reality, the key to understanding Inception is just listenin
by madfuckingmax
Great points made, if totally disheartening.I'd just like to add to this that, of the people I've spoken to who haven't seen it, most spout something along the lines of "I hear its hard work".Since when is paying attention to a narrative that is explained (point-for-point) hard work? I'm more or less drumming the same idea MandrakeRoot was getting at, but its pretty indicative of the poor state of our society when, what is essentially just a blockbuster, is deemed difficult.
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INCEPTION was the best film of the year, hands down. I cannot understand why the fuck so many people thought it was the greatest fucking movie in the history of movies while so many others just HATED THE SHIT out of it. The opinions are so varied that it's as strange as this movie. But sorry, Harry - I was in the former group. I thought it was one of the greatest sci-fi films in history - well acted, well conceived, well written, with one of the greatest movie scores in history. There are millions who feel the same way, almost to the point of worship, but how there are so many people that HATE this movie with a passion is mind-blowing.
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Only the tacked on ending and the side story with Mal deal with whether living in a dream world really matters. The rest of the movie is a series of exposition, extended chases and gun fights. It would make more sense that if you died in a surreal dream you end up in a realistic limbo, not being able do discern your dream state from reality. This way you could fully explore the advantages/disadvantages of dreaming and contrast it with the advantages/disadvantages of reality. Something you claim the movie did but it failed to do for the majority of the movie. Realistic dreaming only touches the surface of a dreams potential. How can you truly make a case for staying in or exiting a dream world without fully exploring a dreams full potential? Countless car chases and gun fights do nothing to further any argument. A sign that the movie failed to make a case for dreaming versus reality is that few people debate whether Cobb is better off dreaming, they mostly argue IF he's dreaming or not. But if anything your argument makes me want to watch the Mal backstory again. It's the only scene to give the ending any weight. The rest is just a dog chasing it's tail.
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and when you where discovered/killed in the higher, fantasy-based dream levels you were thrown into a realistic limbo it would be a clever analogy for the Garden of Eden. Actually nevermind, Avatar already did it even though Inception had a better premise to explore that idea.
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expendables review. harry must have some suppressed emotions.
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You didn't have to bring Harry's mother into this. I don't think anyone from this talkback is qualified to make an assessment of Harry's psyche based on his reviews alone. Loving Inception is hardly the indication of a balanced mind. IF anything the rabid densiveness seen around here is a sign of deep insecurity.
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and i can say that based on harry's expendables review.. he has alot of suppressed gay emotions. check this out: "Check into Viagra, because if you can't hold an erection for 45 minutes straight via non-stop action woah... take the blue pill and you can pretend to be the man for which this film was built." so the man this film was built for gets an erection watching sweaty muscle heads wrestled around and get dirty? maybe that's why he gave inception a bad review. not enough male on male action.
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"Not sure why I went Vegan on this film - I just think that had I actually had RED MEAT or anything crazy manly... like a rack of ribs to eat - or a Turkey Leg... my god. You might as well masturbate too. I was trying to hold back, but I love this movie." this one just speaks for itself.
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"I've a friend that would make Jet look like Dolph if he stood next to Jet - and he acts EXACTLY like Jet in this film - except he really is pathetically height challenged, but he has a great attitude about it, though he usually has to use a step-ladder to feel great."
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Aug 17, 2010 10:13:42 AM CDT
anyone who didnt like inception needs to kill himself
by dioxholsterreturns
with an axe
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posting a negative review weeks after the movie's release is a huge fucking cop out harry and completely pointless. way to protect future exclusives, interviews, and set visits.
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BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IVE GONE MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.
scott pilgrim kinda sucked by the way. -
ever. harry liked scott pilgrim over inception? sheesh
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I'm still reeling from the foolishness of this review. Lack of imagination? I can't IMAGINE how you could miss the depth of imagination in putting this movie together. Multiple dreams and storylines within dreams occurring simultaneously? The ingenuity of the team's specific plan of inception - making Fisher think the idea to break up the empire was his own idea by using his colleague, the improvisations the team did when things went wrong, the touch of the pinwheel in the locked safe, my god this movie stemmed from a brilliant imagination. But yeah, it wasn't exploding Dali paintings and crap like that. But there was a great deal of visual imagination in there too. I guess Harry would rather watch muscle bound men shoot their big guns off in Expendables than a zero-gravity hotel hallway fight (definitely the coolest fight I've seen on screen since...I don't know when.)
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You know it'll happen.
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a whole new meaning
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"I guess Harry would rather watch muscle bound men shoot their big guns off in Expendables than a zero-gravity hotel hallway fight (definitely the coolest fight I've seen on screen since...I don't know when.)"
proves my point! -
and not a Ghost Writer or at the very least it was aggressively edited by someone else. It's much to coherent to be Harry.
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Aug 17, 2010 2:36:52 PM CDT
Why AICN reviews are different....LOL
by harrywhereisyourinceptionreview
Written by Harry Knowles comes the Ain't It Cool Movie Reviews! What makes these so different is my philosophy that film review doesn't begin and end with the opening and ending titles. There is more to it. What we do and who we are affects the review. Instead of hiding that, I share it. You should know who your reviewer is, what he was anticipating and what happened to him/her on that particular day. As well as a film review that DOES NOT SPOIL the film for you, the reader. Enjoy revival films, current films and future films are reviewed here from time to time.......
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i fell asleep on this movie too i was drunk tho but still i got bored
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I almost never agree with you, Harry, but this time I feel like you are channeling my own thoughts and refining them into far more lucid arguments. I had all the same issues with Inception. I did not, however, fall asleep.
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...cause that's all they got. But honestly, I /liked/ the film.
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Matrix. because the first is always the sweetest. you don't know what you are doing, and sometimes you stumble across a nugget. With follow-ups, you have heard you are good and it goes to your head and affects what you do.
Sorry I was offline. -
but Harry has a consistent pattern of geeking out over mediocre action flicks, and now he criticizes one of the most detailed films of year. If someone doesn't appreciate Inception, I don't hold that against them. But Harry's pattern has become infuriatingly childish.
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Harry hasn't written a review for this site since 2006. Would you like me to prove my claim? Give me four weeks and I will write something to back up my claim.
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Inception is a thinking man's "Expendables". I enjoyed both movies, but Inception is, hands down, the best action movie I've seen in a long time.
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Seriosly, the movie was obviously something you didn't understand.If you couldn't grasp that everyting that seemed to go against wat was already set in the movie was crucial to the plot and completing the fischer job, it's sad that the hard work was wasted on your feeble attempts of understanding an actual masterpeice. I could really undterstand not liking the movie, but not liking it for useless reasons is just annoying. And preffering movies that wouldn't know the word PLOT if it bought a ticket, is just...wow. how do you get people to actually care about your reveiws?
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I've never seen a more butt-hurt crowd then the Inception die-hards. Inception was NOT a brilliant film. It was fucking videogame where you spent most of the time listening to characters talk in a cut-scene. No film that features a pathetic snow shootout of the lowest caliber is brilliant. What's sad is Nolan clearly dumbed down this film to appeal to a wide audience and the abundance of exposition is clearly meant to hold the audiences hands. I find it so amusing that people think they're "intelligent" or that others "didn't get it", when the movie your watching clearly didn't hold much weight towards your intelligence either. Okay you liked the ideas, I get it. You loved some of the scenes (Saito, Zero-G fight, etc). I reckon most folks here had to use all their brain power, so perhaps they feel accomplished in understanding Inception?
My 13 year old nephew understood Inception without a problem. His father (my uncle) and the five other adults he went with said "it was too heavy on gunplay and too light on plot to keep us thorougly engaged". Yeah, sounds like a real brain-buster. I don't mind people liking Inception for what it was - a fun ride, likely the best blockbuster of the summer (not saying much)...and a well acted, well shot, sometimes engaging flick. To claim it was cinematic brilliance or that it stands neck to neck with any of the sci-fi classics is insulting to good cinema.
So let me guess, I'm a hater right? Or could it just be that not every single fucking person on the planet was completely enamored by Inception? I'm not saying it's a BAD movie, I never would say that. I just think most of the reactions are amusingly off the mark. And you know everyone here who claims were "haters" dislikes a movie (probably several) that was well-received, but that's OK, right?
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...I swear people are the biggest fucking hypocrites here. Every time Harry writes a review it's always "fuck you Harry, I'm done with this site." Really? And besides the obvious fact that they ALL COME BACK, you'd really swear off a site because some fat movie geek disliked a film? If so, then your officially a fucking idiot of the highest caliber who deserves to fuck off and not return. These are the same people who claim box-office is not a solid measure of a movies worth, then use it to support the movies they love that did well. So fucking lame. I've never stuck up for Harry before, but after seeing the embarrasing reactions of most TBers, I'm glad he wrote this review. He may be wrong in his review but at least he's not overrating the shit out of what's merely a solid/entertaining blockbuster like the majority here is.
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Richard Donner and Bryan Singer strived for 'realism' but never forgot that their respective superhero projects are derived from pure pulp fantasy, which is why Superman, X-Men (2) and Superman Returns are all BIG on spectacle, they just tone down the absurdity inherent in all comic book characters (the camp aspect) whilst elevating their iconic and ‘larger than life’ aspects . Nolan's problem is that is makes his movies too grounded, too believable which makes his movies kinda predictable - good, but with a depressingly familiar tone. I want Nolan to surprise us with Batman 3 and give us something we never saw coming: huge, ambitious spectacle that doesn't give a shit about the laws of reality; the very essence of great fantasy cinema in other words.
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Aug 18, 2010 2:42:04 AM CDT
Basically, Harry is right and I'm glad someones said it
by harryblackpotter
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Aug 18, 2010 2:42:04 AM CDT
Basically, Harry is right and I'm glad someones said it
by harryblackpotter
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Yup.If Nolan's 3rd Batman film was to suddenly drop the rules of his own universe it would be pretty jarring.Saying that, Begins had a distinctly more fantastical tone than TDK.
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You are right about the tone of Begins. There were elements of pure fantasy (demon Batman, the scary drug-induced hallucinations, and the narrows was a comic book ghetto), whereas TDK was like a Michael Mann movie on steriods. But don't get me wrong, I still love TDK, it's just Nolan's asthetic of hightened reality I'd like to see shaken up.
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It was deliberate. The film is all about cinema's reletionship to dreams. Why do you think the actress who played Edith Piaf was there in every scene telling you to wake up and playing 'Je ne regret rein' as a wake up cue. Why do you think Leo de Caprio wa playing the same character as Shutter Island. Criticising a film you just don't understand is basically a declaration of your own stupidity.
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Read this Harry
http://tinyurl.com/2bj88lt
and then get back to us -
I don't want to see it
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They are projections of Harry's subconscious. They are trying to defend his mind against inception. You see, the "evil" Talkbackers are trying to convince Harry that he's wrong and that he didn't get the movie. So, they're trying to pull an inception on him.
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I think Harry's missing the point of the film. Pointing out that the story and action takes place in a dream may not work in our reality but it works in the characters' and in Nolan's framework. Nolan ultimately comprised a lot of elements in this film and I'm not upset by that fact. Inception is a heist movie, a character piece, action film and a work of science fiction, Nolan had to control some aspects of the film. There are things at stake for the characters and like everyone has pointed out the actors in the film play their parts well. Nolan is certainly a visionary director but he rightly felt the need to lay down some spoken and unspoken rules for the film to work. Inception is not perfect because there are plenty of things that don't add up but I think it adds to the film. The film is not about limitless imagination and Nolan realizes that no film could do justice to that amazingly human concept.
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I only asked because it seems to me that the Wachowski's 'let their imagination fly unfettered' in The Matrix Revolutions, for all the good it did them... whereas the first Matrix was restrained, tight and damn good, in a similar way to Inception.
It seems to me that a lot of parallels can be drawn between The first Matrix and Inception.... and likewise a lot of similarities between Revolutions and what Harry WANTED Inception to be like. -
Superman Returns big on spectacle?
Donner's Superman toned down absurdity and the camp aspect?? What's it like in that alternate world you're living in? -
Superman - for 1978 EVERYTHING in that movie was BIG ON SPECTACLE. Superman Returns - Remember the space shuttle / plan scene BIG SPECTACLE. The rest of the movie was quieter but still very much a continuation of Donner's comic book aesthetic. As for toned down camp, I think Donner did a good job to make a man with his Y-Fronts on the outside of his tights seem believable and cool and iconic. But that's just me in my alt reality again.
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that way I can see the film more than once and avoid forgetting things, as you clearly have...
Donners Superman was big, especially for 78 - I never said it wasn't.
A movie with ONE action sequence can not be said to be big on spectacle. The space shuttle thing in Superman Returns was cool... but the film died after it was over.
Donner's Superman is a great film. But flying around the world and turning back time could certainly be classed as somewhat absurd. (Not bad, mind you... but certainly absurd.) And the whole Otis/Lex thing is extremely camp. Infact, I don't ever remember the fleischer cartoons camping up the man of steel half as much as the Donner film! -
Aug 19, 2010 1:58:31 PM CDT
The lead character's name is Cobb. Doesn't that tell you Incept
by xxplosive
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I'm Calling It!
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- Harry Knowles.
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and this is by no means a dig it's just that i've been reading Harry's reviews for a long time and have come to a few conclusions
first, Harry isn't very bright. he tries to hide this fact by name-checking a lot of obscure films that he probably has never personally seen but has "heard" of enough to slip in a reference to try to get more cred.
secondly, even with all of that, Harry has shit taste in film. i mean seriously shit taste in film. INCEPTION wasn't perfect. what film is? but was all Nolan and you have to appreciate the balls of a director who sticks to his convictions and delivers an intelligent action movie that is not aimed at the sensibilities of a 15 year old virgin.
THAT is the real reason why Harry didn't "take" to it.
peace -
You said it and you said it very well indeed.
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That Harry should answer all of the criticisms made about his approach to reviewing 'Inception' in a thread about his excitable review of the 'good because it does what it says on the tin' movie 'Piranha 3-D'. Why not just answer the questions here, Harry, for the people that put them to you? Seems churlish.
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Brilliantly directed without a doubt, superbly acted...but lacking in imagination and ultimately pretty dull.
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and i dreamt through it. nuff said. you can disagree i can also say fuck you - wait - i am saying fuck you. hopefully i can stay awake when i watch it in hd at home
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Aug 21, 2010 9:42:45 AM CDT
Nolan should let Harry visit his sets and be BFFs with him
by die_hard_without_the_shirt
So he can get a good review from him.
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for real.
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The whole point is to construct a dream that fools someone into thinking it is real. Holy shit Harry.
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Even though I strongly disagree with it. I thought the movie was incredible. I am going to see it for the third time for the hell of it.
The way harry feels about this movie is the way I feel about PILGRAM. I thought the action was great in it, but I did not give a sh!t about the characters. It is a shame because I love Edgar Wright. -
I didn't dislike it, it ticked a lot of boxes, but at no point was I gripped, intrigued or unable to look away. The film mostly looked empty. It was just guys in suits in empty rooms, standing around, posing, trying to look cool. Reminded me of a fashion photography set.
The film peaked with the Architect training dreams, and then dipped into fairly standard stuff. The stuff with his wife just reminded me a lot of Solaris. Cutting back to that car falling into the water was like watching everything blow up over and over in "vantage point" (crap film).
I'll say 7/10 tops. -
... is it's self-restrain that, were it made by a more shallow filmmaker, he would go nuts and crazy about people dreaming up bigger and bigger guns to the point it wouldalll be terribly ludricous, dream or no dream. Seems like Harry as he gets older he gets a more childish view of movies and likes the movies to be more childish. I admire INCEPTION's restrain, and i love Nolan's restrain to not go stupid crazy just because it's a dream. Thank goodness he didn't put any flying elephants shit that many others wanted, because that's their cliched unimaginative view of what a dream is like in a movie. I'm Happy that there's a filmmaker around like Nolan who is treating audiences as adults even if he's making a SF movie about people going into dreams or a comic book movie about a guy dressed as a bat figthing crime. Thank goodness that INCEPTION is not the childish thing that Harry would had prefered.
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The movie failed to give him trippy dreams with floating elephants and dwarfs in top hats so he got bored and disliked it. Who cares about the actual story and the concept it presents, GIVE US SOME FLOATING ELEPHANTS!!111!
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Reviews over Harry's I thought the day would never come.
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Harry's review pretty much summed how I felt about that boring film. He did fail to mention the extreme levels of exposition. I have really enjoyed every other Nolan film (esp The Prestige) but this was crap. What's worse it that everyone I know is going on about it like it's the second coming.
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I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!!! It's funny that everyone was taunting you on not giving a proper review on Inception and in the end you gave the most accurate review of this overrated film. Thanks.
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It's not the second coming, it's a proper very good movie, which, considering the cinematic landscape of recent times, it's pratically the same thing. It's puzzling you fail to understand why INCEPTION is remarkable, considering you claim you liked all other Nolan movies, specially THE PRESTIGE. INCEPTION is remarkable for the same reasons THE PRESTIGE is, for instance. Did you woke up on the wrong side of the bed the day you saw INCEPTION or something, friend?
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You know who think that INCEPTION is overrated? The kids who think that it's KEWL and RAD and STICKING UP TO THE MAN by dismissing a really intelligent and smart movie exceptionally well made. It's a pathetic display of misguised and pointless pseudo-rebeliousness. It's usually followed by praising up a dumbed down and stupid but over-hype piece of fluff nonsense bullshit like, say, LOST.
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...no-one is interested in your cheap knock-off site! Ban this fucker Harry, unless you're getting a slice of that too...
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Basically agreed with you, but with a few other additions:
http://light-within-light.blogspot.com/2010/07/reids-long-awaited-or-drawn-out-review.html?showComment=1283133037898#comment-c8361622735389199141 -
boring flick
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and give them the user ID and the link to any pages he shills his stuff
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And damn this board for not letting you preview a post before you post it.
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Shutter Island fucking sucked... advertising itself as if it had some major twist. Then basically giving the twist away on a silver platter at the begining having every movie goer sitting there thinking PLEASE, TELL ME hes not just crazy and the boat ride was made up in his mind!!!! Tell me!!! But yep, thats what it was. You, the audience have been taken for a fool.Inception. Dreams within a dream? Makes no sense. I'm sorry. Nice topic for a movie but judging by people's reaction I had just assumed that Nolan had pulled it off. He found a cool way to tell a story about this interesting subject. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. What a fucking retarded movie.Harry, how are you saying it has a solid story? It certainly does NOT have a solid story. The story is the whole problem.Anyone comparing these movies to Avatar... AVATAR HAS A GREAT STORY! Elements formulaic and inspired by other movies but its a GOOD STORY. The heroes journey is infused into near 80% of every movie you ever watch and you don't complain about that. Avatar just is a far superior movies to both of those films. Only reason i'm saying so is because i've seen people talk a fair bit about both of those movies in the thread. So there.
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你他妈的. 中国政府不喜欢你使用互联网反正回到祖国，和谐的生活享受你的无知.
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Anyone who thinks this movie sucks is a retard who wasn't smart enough to follow the film. No, I don't think it's the second coming or even as good as The Dark Knight, but it was still a brilliantly done film, and simply just refreshing in the sense that it was an original film that wasn't any fucking adaptation or remake or sequel. Sorry, Harry, but only people with childish movie tastes wouldn't like this film, and from the last number of reviews you've written, your movie taste just keeps getting more and more childish.
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There was such a missing sense of wonder and imagination in the film, which I unfortunately attribute to Nolan and the other writers. They know how to craft a beautiful looking film, but are slaves to the characters rather then the story and its wider setting, which is the same thing that doomed the Matrix sequels and movies like Superman Returns.
The reason great science fiction and fantasy movies work so well, like Spiderman 2, Harry Potter, LOTR, Empire Strikes Back, and Iron Man to name a few, is because they blend great story and characterization with phenomenal action scenes and visual effects that really show the audience just how much fun this world on the screen really is.
With Inception, it all just felt like (tedious?) work. Its one thing to have the story be about pulling a heist like in Ocean's 11, where everything was brisk and snappy, but Steven Soderburgh made sure that everyone was having some real fun. -
He prompted the epistemological question are we awake or dreaming? There are times when are dreams can mirror our reality so close that they may lapse. In the movie Inception it got the audience asking if they are really awake or asleep. If our dreams are so close to our reality then how can we know we are really awake. He placed that doubt in the audience.
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