"Never recreate from your memory. Always imagine new places." - inception
let me start by saying what i've tweeted and raved about in facebook about this movie: never before have i been subjected to pure genius and excellence in film-making. ever.
i saw inception right after i saw salt today... i was completely blown away and was in a jovial mood right after i'd seen it. i mean, it was a momentous day for me; after being couped up at home for almost a week with nothing to do but watch tv, tweet and update my facebook status. i had just gotten bangs again and had my hair colored: red. well, mahogany with a touch of red. that in itself made me over the moon already but add watching two of the most didactically-conceived, very well-written, fantastically-directed and VERY WELL-ACTED movies in a LONG time and it's like being shot with adrenaline. side-effect: blogging because i just. can't. sleep. ha!
back to inception (salt will have a separate "review" to follow)... when i first heard/saw anything about this movie, it was from a trailer released last year that had the usual eye-catching imagery and enough narration from mr. dicaprio to make me WANT to watch the movie. the special effects had no effect whatsoever. then i saw the CAST. leo was the hook and nolan was the line; guess who was the sinker? yep. good ol' regular joe himself! my GAWD! when i saw him in the trailer, i went like, ape-shit bananas! i was literally jumping up and down my room screaming at the tv. and admit it you hypocritical wise ass - you do that too when you see two of your long-time crushes (cough - obsessions - cough) onscreen TOGETHER, making what looked like a good time in hell type of movie.
so i waited for almost a year, getting teased with trailers #2 and #3 along the way and being bombarded with pictures of the cast on location, filming. and then finally i got to watch it tonight - on IMAX nonetheless; and now words fail me. speechless would be an understatement. i'm just typing now because i have the irrevocable NEED to purge myself of thoughts, incoherent as they may be, of this frickin' movie! so now my "thoughts" on this wonderful perfection of a picture.
1. watch from the very beginning. yes, it's one of THOSE movies. you HAVE to watch it from the very beginning in order to a)exercise your mind and b) make those brain muscles work, will ya! everything, and i mean EVERYTHING has a definitive correlation to each other in this film. it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of things and your movie-going experience will be ruined if you come into the theater a few minutes late.
2. leo. was. unbelievably. intoxicatingly. fantastically. awesome. it's like awesomeness to the nth power, as barney stinson would say. infinitely awesome. yes. to carry a film this humongous would daunt anybody; but not leo. and his consistency of choosing roles and films that are unforgettable and powerful, just plain amazes me each time. he has a knack for it. name me 5 movies in the last 10 years that flopped with leo's name attached to it. what's that? none? well...
3. christopher nolan is a god. no, really, he is. where ELSE would something so fantastical, so rich and detailed and beholden capture an entire generation's attention but here and now with this brilliant filmmaker? i say filmmaker and not director mainly because i felt that he didn't direct anybody here, he merely made a film, and a beautiful one at that. i have to be honest: i hadn't seen memento nor batman begins, hence i'm a novice at the nolan school of brilliant plot-twisting. but what i've seen so far (dark knight and inception) has made me just stand up and cheer for this man of many sub-level thoughts. genius wouldn't even cover it, i think.
4. my favorite supporting actor: joseph gordon-levitt. he held his own alongside leo, and that's something i will forever be proud of him for that =) the way that he embodied his character and just was THAT CHARACTER instead of leo's sidekick was just smooth. i think it had a lot to do with the way he looked and how that came into play with him being this slightly dark, really sexy and cute assassin/trained inceptor/wingman... HOT! he just oozed sex and wit and sex and evil and sex. yah, he does that to me.
5. so on to one of my now top 4 actresses of all-time: ellen page. considering she's fourth to kate winslet and nicole kidman and angelina jolie, i'd say that pretty much sums up why i think she's deserving of such an accolade. acting toe-to-toe with leo is no easy feat. he's one of the most celebrated actors of our time, and rightfully so. but ms. page was able to hold her own against him and i thought that was just impressive, in it of itself. she never faltered and stayed strong - she was one of the boys =) i can see how electric her scenes with leo were and i had chills just watching it - got chills now! i'm not envious because she got to be in intimate scenes with leo and got to kiss JGL - i RESPECT her. it takes a lot to get that.
6. the other supporting actors: cillian murphy, ken watanabe, tom hardy (whom i'd never seen anywhere before), marion cotillard were all very exceptional. special mention to cotillard as she was the most shocking part of the movie. she portrayed it unlike how i had expected that type of character to have been interpreted: yes, she was pained, yes, she came from a place of confusion and sadness, but she worked it so that it didn't actually SEEM that way. very devious and very well-executed. michael caine's part was not something i liked, but it made sense having him in the film.
inception will make you think - that's my favorite thing about it. because it's so spectacular, because it's so mind-blowing, it's easy to fall into the cracks and just be amazed by the visual effects. but this did more than just that - it made me feel ALIVE. it awakened in me something that i had not felt for a long time in a film: desire. the desire to properly analyze, think ahead, guess what's going to happen, make the wheels turn. i could swear that the puzzle pieces were just clinking into place while i was watching and that made me feel high. i felt so smart! =)
totally understandable how you can get caught up and just blabber on and on about something, but getting caught up in the wonderful web of inception is something that i'd welcome anytime. so do yourself a favor and watch it. then watch it again. then again. and then again. sweet dreams everyone!
