I'm not super interested in turning this into a review because everyone and their mother has described the plot, characters, blah blah. I want to talk about why "Inception" is so exciting to me.
On a technical level, it's mind-blowing. Every shot is lovingly framed and well structured. The effects are beautiful. The acting and writing are spot-on. The score is strong and effective. Even more so than these things, the business side is surprisingly intriguing to me. I normally couldn't care less about how much money a film makes, but this is the first film I think I've ever rooted for to break the bank.
This is a summer blockbuster that is not a sequel, remake, reboot, or rehash. It's got a big name director and lead actor behind it, plus a hell of a marketing team. But because it's not a franchise film or based off a successful pop novel, I heard a lot of people predicting that the film would go nowhere. Why? Because "Inception" deals with ideas that shake the foundation of reality, and most casual movie-goers are not capable of enjoying a piece of entertainment that forces them to use their brain. That's what John Q. Idiot up in the marketing division would like you to think anyway.
In actuality, the public is flocking to "Inception" in droves, and so far it's made just below the $200 million mark in only 3 weeks. I hope against hope that this is the continuation of a great trend started by last years "District 9". Intelligent blockbusters. "District 9" was a great moneymaker for its small budget, and it was one of the more well-made non-franchise moneymakers I've seen in recent years. "Inception" ups the ante by putting a lot of money into something risky and hoping for the best. And damn did it pay off.
This a message to big-name studios and directors: Give us more, please! No one really cares about 80s t.v. shows being adapted, or movies based on toys, or needless sequels, or lame rehashings of the same trite shit over and over. People are excited about this film. People are talking about it everywhere, whether they understood what it was trying to say or not. I want to see more films that are lovingly created and crafted that just happen to have a big budget, and I think most would agree, Please, and thank you.
Currently:
Reading: Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
Reading: Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
Listening To: The Black Keys
Watching: Inception (duh)
Do you have any links to "the marketing people upstairs" actually claiming that "John Q. Idiot" wouldn't want to see the movie?
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make sense to me. If the marketing department actually thought that, then they wouldn't have gotten the backing and the money to release the movie, considering the marketing departments are all run by the studios (I think). Be careful with your assumptions :-P
I read a good interpretation: that the entire movie was a dream, and the audience never sees the real world. The "Inception" is actually the unseen real world trying to convince Leo's character that he needs to get over his wife, and all the characters in the movie are just projections.
That didn't occur to me while I was in the movie.
I'm not sure if I didn't make it clear or not, but I think the studio had a lot of faith in the film, which is why they put so much money into it. What I heard was a lot of predictions from various critics and media people saying "Oh it's not an established property, so it won't do that well." As for John Q. Idiot, he's the person who keeps churning out Hollywood drek because that's all he thinks the American public wants to see. Does that make more sense? I hope so. What I want is for more studios to put money and faith into great projects like they did with Inception.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's possible that the whole film could have been a dream except for one thing: the totem. Inside the dream world, the top keeps spinning, but in reality gravity always takes over and it eventually topples over. Each time Cobb spins the top, it falls, so I think the layer we're told is reality really is the real world.