emmy g.

inception.

there are people in this world (ok, maybe “person”) who thinks i have things to say sometimes. especially about movies. i watch a lot of movies. and sometimes i go see them by myself. actually, i do it a lot. it’s quiet, it’s private, i don’t have to share my twizzlers. and i can pay attention instead of wondering if my hand is positioned correctly for the boy next to me to hold it if he decides to. the last movie i saw alone was last night.

i’d wanted to see inception from the first teaser trailer. the same writer as memento… must see. and what’s so funny is that memento is exactly what inception reminded me of. nolan has a lot to say about how the brain works. and with my long history of mental issues (cause that doesn’t make me sound nuts), i have a lot of interest in the brain and how it works. this movie was memento meets eternal sunshine meets the matrix. and if you know me, you know how much i love all of those movies. and i don’t hate it for not being entirely original and i’ll tell you why.

nothing is original. we all know this. but inception takes what we’ve heard and it expands it into something even more beautiful. it’s a sci fi movie, but, just as in memento, there’s something more driving it. it’s a love story exactly how a nerd like me wants a love story. 

the movie is two hours and 45 minutes long, but you don’t feel it. at all. the movie starts right away and doesn’t stop. it’s action, but it’s not mindless. and it has a complicated story, but it makes sense. it doesn’t fake it. there isn’t a made up jargon-y explanation for how this is all done… but you don’t care. i didn’t. it doesn’t matter. even with all its complexity, it’s actually a very simple story.

the visual is perfect. not showy. no crappy cgi. nothing silly. the zero gravity scenes are amazing… one of the things i hated about the matrix (even the later movies) was the hideous cgi. inception bypasses all of that. another concern i had was the actors… i think ellen page is kitschy and quirky and i don’t do well with that. i hate renee zellweger for that reason. but she was real. i’m not a huge fan of joseph gordon-levitt cause i think he’s a goofball. but he did great. i know a lot of people that hate leo… i’m not one of them. :) i don’t even have to mention marion cotillard - everyone knows she’s the shit - but if i did, i would have nothing but good to say.

i don’t want to give anything away, so if you haven’t seen it, don’t read this. the thing that struck me most deeply about the movie was this: no matter how many “years” cobb and mal spent together in their world, it wasn’t real. no matter what they built, how close they were, how perfect everything was in their world… it wasn’t the real world. and even when cobb tried to lock her away in his memory, it wasn’t right. in the end when he tells her she’s just a shadow of his real wife… man. i try to keep all these things in my brain. let them grow there. they can be perfect in my head. i’ve always done this. but nothing compares to reality. there’s pain. and there are other people. just me and you… it’s a nice idea. but it’s not how people were meant to live. and the most heartbreaking thing was that cobb convinced mal to lay down on the train tracks with him to free themselves from their world… but mal couldn’t do the same to cobb. yes, she was wrong. but think about how she must have felt. that she put her whole life in his hands. died because he told her to. and when she asked him to die with her again, he wouldn’t. i understand why she jumped.

it all sounds depressing, but i wasn’t sad when the movie ended. people laughed and clapped. it wasn’t funny. it wasn’t particularly happy. but it was real. and it didn’t leave you with some lingering doubt like the matrix. it leaves with you with your feet on the ground. it showed how powerful our minds are, but in the end, you know this movie theater is real, your shoes really are stuck to the floor.

:) loved it.