*Well, not really.

In lieu of a video, we bring you another podcast! This time, PBF, Digger, and I react to the winners of the Golden Globes and the presumptuous nominees for the Oscars. And PBF gets very defensive about liking Mark Wahlberg. We discuss what we’ve seen, dump on what we haven’t, and generally drift off topic.

Get yo’ movie on!

Mentions: The Social Network, The Fighter, Inception, Black Swan, King’s Speech, Toy Story 3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Original publication date: July 18, 2010
If you read this site or have watched any of our episodes, you will know the level of respect and … love we have for Chris Nolan. Yes, PBF may have a sick fascination with Weekend at Bernie’s but even he does not particularly laud Robert Klane because WAB does not equal Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Memento, and now Inception on any level. Here we have a rare movie from a gifted filmmaker that is able to transcend multiple genres and their corresponding cliches and deliver one of the most intellectual films to overshadow anything else this year and probably many years’ films to come.

Even after watching the damn thing, the plot of Inception is rather dense but it boils down fairly simply even though it strips out the very nature of the film. Cobb is a theif trained in the art of extracting thoughts and ideas from a person’s head while they dream. However, he is tasked with a job that even many on his team describe as impossible: implanting an idea into one’s head that is conceived to be genuine by the subject. As a much more complex task than simple extraction, Cobb and his team go to great lengths to create multiple landscapes to coerce the subject into accepting the notion and considering it one of his own.

Like Nolan’s previous film, Dark Knight, Inception works on a great number of levels. The casting is spot on with each member of the principals bringing a grounding seriousness which normally is desperately needed in a film as ambitious as this. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays Cobb as a man who is both confident and broken, a teacher and yet still a student when it comes to affairs with Mal, his wife played by Marion Cotillard. They have a complicated relationship to say the least but the two exert a fierce chemistry as they mingle in the dreams. Everyone else including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page, and Tom Hardy play their respective roles with poise and confidence that truly sell their characters and the skills they bring. The one thing that Nolan can be faulted for here is the utter lack of development that the characters receive other than Cobb and Mal. We see the inner workings of the group and how they react to each other but Cillian Murphy as the main target for their job receives far more heavy-lifting in the way of depth than the rest of the crew.

That does not really matter much as even though the film is billed as a tale of thievery, it is mostly about Cobb and his redemption. Cobb wants nothing more than to be reunited with his remaining family after a terrible incident and planting a seed of thought inside Murphy’s head is the only way to achieve that. DiCaprio superbly manages the barrage of emotions needed to sell this point of the story in his quest. Very subtle lines of dialogue that seem superfluous at first glance become very telling of Cobb and his guilt of the consequences of previous journeys into this world.

Visually it is quite stunning, likely even more so if any of you are lucky enough to see it in IMAX. Though the majority of the movie takes place either in the real world or in a dream state designed similarly, various effects infiltrate the dream world with pretty spectacular results, a good deal of which have been shown in the previews. The grounding of the dreams in reality makes for pretty cool effects as buildings crumble, water rushes through, and Gordon-Levitt has a zero-G fight with a henchman. Each of the stages of dreams are filmed in stark contrast with one another which not only alleviates any confusion that might be had but also gives a stark contrast between a metropolis during a storm, a swank dimly-lit hotel, and a vast snowy outpost, each populated by minions of the subject’s unconscious who act as our disposable bad guys trying to stop the team.

Unless you are in a Nightmare on Elm Street film, moving through the dreamworld does not often pose many risks. This is even acknowledged early on as one of the characters is killed in the dream only to wake up unharmed in reality. However, during the task as the characters are heavily sedated to prevent the destruction of the fragile dreamscape, they face an eternity of solitude in limbo if something bad should befall them. This clever workaround elevates the story from the simple failure of a mission to a lifetime of abstract despair as the unnamed thugs lurk with large caliber weapons. This as well as many other facets of the script show the care in which it was created, not only to create a fantastic sci-fi concept, but to move beyond a simple tale of dreaming to one with a true emotional core for our main protagonist.

I was worried that the narrative would be dense and as hard to crack as your normal David Lynch film called Lost Highway. However, the story is relatively easy to follow throughout with a nice dash of flashbacks and recollections to further develop the Cobb and Mal relationship. This is not however a film that you can check your brain at the door as elements are introduced, observed, and then jettisoned as the complexity of the storytelling increases. Of course, this is one of the smartest high-concept summer blockbusters in years so you should not dare miss a minute for fear that a key element will be shown which will change the outlook of the film.

Is Inception a perfect film? Not at all but Nolan’s biggest strength lies in creating an engrossing tale that will make you forget about any shortcomings during the picture as you are too damn entertained to care. I worry that, just like Dark Knight, subsequent viewings will show the cracks in the foundation and oversights in the story. These things though will not stop you from enjoying the film. Really, Inception really does not need validation of its efforts by random people on the interwebs like myself. The caliber of everyone involved should seal the deal.

Movie Scum takes on the awesomeness of Inception, the brilliance of Christopher Nolan, and people who hate things because they flunked film school. Get yo’ movie on!

I was thinking and maybe hoping it was just one of those things that would come to pass over time. Unfortunately, The Hangover 2 appears to really be on the table.

Now, like most sane people, I quite enjoyed The Hangover. In fact, I thought it was one of the funniest movies I had seen in a significant length of time.

But, as PBF and I posited in an episode not too long ago, the idea of a sequel for The Hangover seems ill-conceived. I may not have an idea of how things in the Hollywood-world work but I know there have always been “scheduling conflicts” and “creative differences” that have prevented entire teams from previous films from reuniting for a sequel.

Also, I’ve seen Caddyshack II which should cast a shadow of doubt on any comedy sequel … ever.

The biggest draw of the original film was the outlandish scenario that was established after our leads have an eventful night and not have the slightest idea of what the hell happened and the subsequent piecing together of everything that went wrong. Will the sequel follow the same path, just in Thailand? If so, it can die in a fire.

As PBF would argue, on certain films there is an unnatural charm and chemistry that is established that is hard to replicate, no matter how hard a studio tries. If we imagine that Weekend at Bernie’s had any redeeming cinematic quality, its sequel which took the same exact premise took any gravitas, spat on it, fed it to chimps, and watched as excrement was thrown on Helen Hunt and Matthew Broderick. Does the Hangover really need to suffer that same fate?

I may be reaching to compare Hangover to Weekend at Bernie’s. That would be the equivalent of comparing Inception to … Battlefield Earth? Regardless, the point still stands.

Could it be a good and worthwhile movie? Possibly. But I’m not willing to take that chance.

Inception
Straight from the mind of the God, err … Chris Nolan, himself comes this summer’s rescue from the hell of endless sequels and lackluster effects. I am so excited for this movie to the point that I am even considering a 12:01 AM screening on Friday morning. The fact that there is one was baffling but I would presume theater owners know that some people are actually anticipating this as opposed to the next big tweeny-vampire-ish movie.

Based on what I’ve seen, I am pretty sure that Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Ellen Page are just a few of the impressive cast in the film as it relates to the ability to invade people’s dreams. Almost every review I’ve read has been giddily positive and while I don’t know a damn thing about Inception and I couldn’t be happier. Who am I kidding? Midnight screening here I come!

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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Here we have another film that I know little of but for very different reasons. Apparently loosely based on a short from the Disney of old, this is a story of Nicolas Cage who is in over his head fighting Alfred Molina so he recruits a young kid with an untapped potential of sorcery. Unlike other somewhat iconic Jerry Bruckheimer/Cage projects, this movie does not appeal to me as it looks like a slightly grittier version of other similar stories that might have Harry in the title (and not Harry and the Hendersons). I haven’t seen any Harry Potter movies to date, that entire sub-genre of whatever holds no appeal to me, and this looks like a watered-down version of a real summer blockbuster movie.

Maybe I’m wrong but I hope Inception beats the pants off of this in the coming days.

Movie Scum takes on the upcoming hits of the summer box office … and Marmaduke.