Why Inception Didn't Save the Movies

Inception is not the savior of all cinema. It's a good movie. It's an even better action movie. But what else is it? Sure, as I stated in my five star review, it's intelligent and complex and we don't get that much in movies anymore, especially summer ones, but it kind of stops there. Maybe if people wouldn't have built it up as something to be compared to the second coming of Christ before they had even seen it than it would have had a deeper impact on me. When I'm looking for action and confronted with psychology, I'm intrigued. When I'm looking for psychology and confronted with action and fractured narrative, I'm entertained. See the difference?

In fact, Inception may be, now upon thinking about it, the most self-reflexive movie I can think of that forecasts its own shortcomings. Like it's hero Cobb it breaks it's own rules and becomes the victim of it's own psychobabble. One of Cobb's musings within the film is that an idea is like a parasite that is impossible to kill. It will simply latch onto the brain and grow until it has consumed the person's entire life. It's funny then that the film itself wouldn't heed its own ponderings. The film is, narratively speaking, ultimately rendered too mechanical because it focuses on an idea that seems to consume the every aspect of its telling.

The idea is that dreams can be entered and manipulated; that they have different layers and levels and such. The film's dialogue concentrates so heavily on talking about dreams and explaining different forms of dream logic, and discussing different waking mental states and philosophies about the nature between dream and reality and how it is possible for one to corrupt and consume the other, that by the time it is over we know everything about dreams but next to nothing about the characters in the film or what they are doing. As Jim Emerson and David Edlestein have rightly criticized, the entire film is more a narrative maze than an involving meditation of the division between dream and reality as Nolan's The Prestige was.

It's ironic then that this hasn't been a problem with past Nolan films. In his two best films The Dark Knight and The Prestige Nolan also created films about ideas and such but the difference was that the ideas were represented by the characters as opposed to the characters being at the service of the idea. Thus, to understand the idea was to understand the character. So when Nolan drew in ponderings on Darwinian order in The Prestige or created the Joker as a Freudian study in the uncanny in The Dark Knight, that was a way in order to help us understand the character while also dig deeper into the overall thematic elements that Nolan was exploring. The Joker was so scary because his ideas about society and chaos and evil were ultimately human and not that unbelievable either, thus we understood the psychology oh his character on a human level and could relate to him as such. But once we understand the nature of dreams in Inception, what are we left with but a bunch of masterful action sequences and a trick ending?

Interesting enough, Jim Emerson wrote yet another of his anti-Inception posts in which he beats an already dead horse to death again as is usual for him. However, he stars the article off with an interesting quote from Stephanie Zacharek that states, "If the career of Christopher Nolan is any indication, we've entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn't nearly the same thing."

She's absolutely right, about Inception and Memento anyway. Inception is an awesome technical tour-de-force and that's what I awarded my five stars based on. As an action movie it's about as good as they come. However, as the saviour of cinema, Inception is a false prophet.

Buying into the Hype: Why It Doesn't Matter if Inception is Any Good

The point of advertising is to try convince the consumer that they want something that they don't necessarily need. Movie advertising is kind of the same way: it's to convince people that a movie is maybe better than it actually is. And truth be told, on some occasions, the movies linked to the ads are about as good as we hope they are.

But look at District 9. Last summer I was travelling through Pennsylvania where we stopped at a McDonald's for lunch (really wish they had those southern style chicken sandwiches in Canada) and, on the side of my drink cup, was an alien with an X through it and a logo that said No Alien Zone or something like that. I had no idea what District 9 was about at the time (only knew of it by name) but in that moment I translated that clever bit of advertising into expectation of a great movie. After all, a movie advertised this cleverly must be just as clever no? Well District 9 was clever, but not enough to be more than simple summer entertainment. However, by that point it didn't matter if the movie was good or not, the hype machine has spun its wheels and the ads had done their job and people, despite the film's many misgivings, was deemed to be great.

I hate basing my expectations for movies off of ads and trailers and whatever as I've made perfectly clear before. Although I expect Inception to be a great film, I will still go into it this Tuesday with a blank critical slate. I want it to be great, but I'm prepared for it not to be as well. A lot of bloggers are saying it is in fact great. Some of these people I respect and some I don't. One critic who I do respect, David Edelstein, said it wasn't. He didn't like The Dark Knight either. That's fair. Even though I thought the Dark Knight was the best film of the year two years ago, in a sense, I had more respect for Edelstein for turning in a negative review, losing the film its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, because it showed that he had at least stopped and thought through the movie. He's not a contrarian critic like say Armond White. If David Edelstein says a movie is bad he must have (his own) good reason.

I haven't read the Inception review in question yet because I don't read any in full before I have my own on paper, but here's the point: Edelstein was hung out to dry by both peers and viewers alike for his review of the Dark Knight. He's caught flack again for his Inception review (despite it now only sitting at 83% on RT), but why? Just because everyone says Inception is a great movie, Edelstein is a lousy critic for looking inside himself and not finding reasons to like it? The problem is, as I maybe alluded to before, Inception (along with Tarantino and Scorsese films and many others) are advertised as great films, and people buy into that. I'm not trying to pass judgement on Inception for I have yet to see it or anyone who wrote a good positive review of it, but once people build anticipation, once the hype starts rolling, people stop thinking about the reasons why movies are great and instead just accept that, well, it looks great, everyone says Christopher Nolan is a great director, it must be great.

Too often we as movie fans let this laziness sink over us because it's easier than dealing with a movie and all it's parts. We fail to form true opinions and argue them fully and, to another extent, we fail to understand film itself. What if, and you never know, Edelstein is the only right opinion across the board? I'm sure the people who rushed to the battle lines never took that into consideration first?

I'll explain with an example. I took a first year film class which had both Memento and Antionioni's Blow-Up on the syllabus. People left the Blow-Up screening in anger. No one knew what to do with it and thus passed it off as garbage. I didn't like it either, but I wasn't satisfied with my dislike of it; that was too easy, and once I began to deal with it, deconstruct it and build it back up in my mind, it revealed itself as a great film and I understood why it was such. Everyone, of course, loved Memento but, you know what, it's not a great film. It's a good one where a young director is experimenting and finding his voice, but it's not a lot more. Once you break it down you're left with nothing really but a hip, stylish, post-modern film noir that people like because it is "different."

Nolan has, of course, with Batman Begins, proved that he was a great director, solidified it with The Prestige and made sure the title was sticking for good with The Dark Knight. I expect he will continue on in that tradition with Inception but, you never know. The first step is being courageous enough to admit that.

I guess what I'm saying is, what happened to the days before trailers, when people went to films because they wanted to know if they were good or not and they broke film down in order to talk intelligently about it? Did that die with Pulp Fiction when people started liking it just to let everyone know how hip they are? I'd love to read a good review that called Goodfellas one of the worst movies ever made and justified such a bold stance because it would mean, if nothing else, that at least someone took the time to think about a film intelligently and share what they found. That's more admirable, I think, than another person saying that Goodfellas or anything else is good because, ya know, Scorsese is God, it's different, it's hip, it's got good dialogue, etc. You can get those conversations anywhere on the street, shouldn't we, as critical voices, be using our medium for something of more substance, or is that too much of an inconvenience?

What do you think?

Realism

Let's have a debate. A couple months ago I wrote a piece on the Don't You Forget About Me, a documentary in which a bunch of young Canadian filmmakers travel to Chicago in hopes of getting an interview with John Hughes not long before his death. The piece ultimately ended up a reflection on what constitutes realism in film. Check it out here. Essentially, to repeat myself, film realism is not the same as reality because, since the camera is a recorder of literal events, realism in film comes down to what can be considered believable. In that sense The Dark Knight, despite taking place in a fictitious city with superheros and villains, is a more realistic film than say, a satire like Kick-Ass, which takes place in the real world. The Dark Knight creates a world that is both fully believable as itself and that takes itself seriously as a real place. We don't quite know any place on Earth like Gotham City or anyone quite like Batman or The Joker, but they mimic qualities that we associate with real people, they mirror our beliefs and what they stand for makes sense in a logical human world.

That's film realism. To repeat once again, John Hughes' movies aren't so much realistic in that they present a portrait of what being a teenager is really like but that they create an idealized portrait of how teenagers would like to see themselves and they deal with emotions that aren't outside of human grasp even if they are simplified flights of fancy when juxtaposed against the messy, complicated realism of everyday life. As I've said before to the age old question of whether life imitates art or art imitates life: it's a two-way street, we'd like to think we talk like they do in the movies and the movies would like to think they talk like we do in real life.

Even a film that appears to be dealing in realism like Gus Van Sant's Elephant with it's unprofessional teen actors, it's basis on real events, it's reliance on anti-climax, etc, is not so much a realistic portrait because of it's deliberate artistry. Elephant is a film that translates the banal into poetic-tragedy. It understand what it is like to exist in a moment when something is occurring that you can't quite grasp, but I suspect it is more a reflection of the inherent meaning of Columbine than a realistic portrayal of what it felt like to be there, in that moment, as these events were occurring.

In reality, realism isn't much desired in films. As much as we critics pine for it and accuse filmmakers for not giving it to us, what we really want is believability, even in the face of insurmountable perposterousness. A movie, anyway, doesn't need to be believable to be successful, but it needs to at least believe in itself, which, when you think about it, is kind of the same thing.

So what do you think, is there a successful (or any) film out there that is an honest representation of day-to-day reality? Let's throw some titles around and debate this. I believe I know one film that successfully depicts realism (which is what inspired this) but I'll wait to weigh in in the comments after seeing what people come up with.

Toronto Underground Cinema- An Interview With Charlie Lawton

Alex Woodside, Charlie Lawton, and Nigel Agnew love movies of all kinds. You can tell. Their favourites range from The Dark Knight to The Godfather to Casablanca and back again to The Big Lewbowski. That's why maybe they're just the right guys to have opened their own theater in downtown Toronto. Toronto Underground Cinema, at Queen and Spadina, is the brainchild of three cinema geeks, buffs, aficionados, whatever you want to call them. Lawton, Woodside and Agnew all came together to open their one screen, 700 seat cinema at 186 Spadina Ave. in an abandoned basement screening space. The Underground got it's kick start on Friday May 14 with a free double feature of Clue and Big Trouble in Little China and opened its doors again two days later for a Jim Henson tribute with Muppets Take Manhattan and Labyrinth.

Not strangers to the Toronto film scene, Lawton tells me he is both writer and director and will have his work featured in an upcoming horror anthology film called The Last, which can be expected some time next year. And as for Agnew and Woodside, well they are former employees of the Bloor Cinema where they also put their creative juices to work, creating a trilogy of short films entitled The Popcorn Trilogy (Agnew starred and Woodside produced).

And yet, at their heart, these are just three guys who seem to be in love with the cinema and all it's shapes and forms. Where else, after all, will you find a place in Toronto that will show you both The Runaways (Coming Saturday May 29) and The Muppets on the same screen? Or how about Clue and A Prophet (May 28 and 30)? You get the picture. In that sense, despite the local competition of both first and second-run theaters, you get the feeling that these three are doing this for the very best of reasons, one that any movie lover could appreciate: to create an outlet to share the films they love with as many people as possible. "This is our dream, we all love movies, we love cinema, and we’re doing this for love, and we hope that people will come out and support that. And we hope that we provide a space for people to come and enjoy a movie experience they can’t get anywhere else," says Lawton.


From Left: Lawton, Agnew and Woodside


I had the privilege of conducting an e mail based interview with Lawton just after the opening weekend of Toronto Underground Cinema. Check out what he had to say:

Me: How did the idea for The Underground originate?

Lawton: Alex [Woodside] found out about the space in the fall of 09, and due to being too busy with some other projects, passed up on doing anything with it.Then in January he told me about it and I basically hit him on the back of the head and told him he was an idiot for passing that up. Then I got in touch with Nigel and the two of us contacted the owner and purposed that we could provide the infrastructure for the business and run it for him. For a month or so Nigel and I worked on a business plan, and in that time Alex’s previous projects came to an end so he was free and we asked him to help us out. Then the three of us set to work on getting the theatre up and running.

M: Was the idea created after finding a location or was this something that you guys had in mind and it just so happened that you came across this location?

L: Alex and Nigel had worked at the Bloor [Cinema] previously, and I was a frequent patron of the theatre, as well the three of us worked on Jurassic Park the Shadow Cast (ed. this is where people act out scenes from the movie while it is playing) together in the summer of 09. We became good friends, and we all loved movies. While they worked at the Bloor,we’d always talk about different events and things we’d love to play, and then after they left the Bloor we’d have long talks about what we’d do if we ran a movie theatre. So the idea was always there in abstract, but it wasn’t until Alex told me about the space and the three of us started working on the idea did it really come together into something tangible.

M: There's a lot of local competition with both first and second-run theatres nearby. How does The Underground plan of differentiate itself and offer people something that they can't get elsewhere?

L: The Underground is going to be an event space. We’ll be showing the typical second run fair, as well as showing events of our own and throwing in some classic films. But what we hope will make it different is the feeling you get when watching a film here. There will be a buzz in the air, the audience will be positively charged. I don’t mean they will be loud and boisterous, even an audience that is sitting quiet, but is there to see a film they love has a great vibe to it. That’s what we’re hoping that’ll make us different, it’ll be filled with people who not only want to see the movie, but love cinema. It’s certainly run by those types.

M: Once you are up and running on a regular basis, how will you juggle providing both newer things that will draw in crowds on a regular basis while also retaining your status as a unique underground cinema that shows films like Clue or the Muppets movies?

L: It’s all about finding a balance. We’re planning on experimenting with lots of different programming, to see what works for us as a theatre, and what works for the fans and for the community surrounding us. We definitely won’t lose the more cult and “genre” films, because that’s what we love and it’s what drew us to starting a theatre. If we wanted to just show only mainstream fair we’d have submitted our resumes to a Cineplex.

M: Are there plans to incorporate more mainstream fare and if so how will it be decided what should be shown and what should be left for the Cineplexes of the world?

L: Again, it’s all about finding the right balance for this space. We’re not so in love with the genre films that we shun mainstream films. My favourite film is Dark Knight and you can’t get much more mainstream than that. The week before our theatre opened the three managers went to go see the midnight opening of Iron Man 2. We love mainstream films just as much as the stuff on the fringes. I look at it like this: we love movies; it doesn’t matter if it’s a small indie release or if it’s a multibillion dollar blockbuster.

M: What is your opinion on the current state of independent cinema and, more specifically, the filmmaking climate in Toronto?

L: I think it’s both a really hard time for indie film makers, as well as a golden age. It’s a golden age because the technology is available for someone to go out and make a movie easily, and if you have the skill to use it correctly, you can make a film look amazing with some basic tools. But that’s also why it’s so hard; the market is literally flooded, so it’s hard to get your voice heard. But I love the filmmaking climate of Toronto. I’m a film maker myself and I love the film community here. It’s through them and the good friends I’ve made that I got to direct my first film, a segment of a horror anthology film called The Last, due out next year. Before moving to Toronto, I lived in Pontypool, out in the middle of nowhere, and it’s nearly impossible to get anything made without the help, support and aid of a good group of friends and fellow film makers. And I love Toronto for that: it’s filled with film makers; all who have great ideas and want to help each other out.

On a bigger scale I love seeing the stuff David Cronenberg, Bruce MacDonald, Atom Egoyan, Don Mckeller, and Sarah Polley are doing, as well as many others. I’m a big fan of Canadian cinema.

M: Why do you think there is a demand for such a cinema right now?

L: I think it’s a void that the city needs filling, there’s a few small cinema events that go on monthly, but I feel that there’s a want for more. It’s easier by the day to watch a movie at home. Everyone can pick up a DVD or Blu-Ray, or video on demand on the computer, and that just doesn’t have the same feel as seeing a film in a cinema. And I think people are realising that: it’s not just the movie, it’s the whole experience you get at a cinema: the small of the popcorn, the electricity in the air from the crowd, and sitting in a hushed room, getting lost in a film. For two hours you are sucked into a film and all your problems are forgotten. It’s a little bit of magic.

M: Given the economy and the rarity of big studios trying to take chances of riskier projects, is it now harder than ever for a theatre of this nature not only to open, but to survive?

L: It’s definitely not easier, but I think over all the only thing we have to worry about is the audience. If they keep showing up, we’ll have no problem surviving.

M: Did the opening weekend meet/surpass expectations?

L: The opening blew us away. Not only by the crowd we had out, but by the love and the outpouring of support from the fans. The building felt alive. We also were so touched by our friends who helped us out by volunteering. It was a night none of us will ever forget, I know it still feels surreal to me.

M: Can you tell us or hint at some of what The Underground has in store for the future?

L: Along with lots of great films, both second run and older fair, we have some events coming up that should be lots of fun. We also have some very special guests lined up, none that I can reveal yet, but we should be making announcements soon. One I can tell you about is we’re thinking of doing a seven deadly sins festival, showing films that play into each sin. We’re also looking into a Batman festival down the line, something that’s near and dear to my own heart.

For more information on The Toronto Underground Cinema check out their Facebook page. Also continue to watch for announcements about upcoming showings and coverage on events within this space. Also check out The Underground's website here.

Stealing a Fun Idea

I've been mostly M.I.A. for the past couple of weeks and by the look of things, will be for the next two weeks as well until my exams are over, with maybe a one-minute review popping up here and there just to stay in the game during that time. Therefore, for one, if I haven't commented on your blog posts or contributed in some way, I apologize. It's not that I'm not reading, I'm just not taking the time to think up meaningful ways to respond. With that I wanted to write a post that could get people talking so that I can simply watch what is being said and chime in from time to time in the comments section. So, here it is:


Do you read The Movie Snob? Well if not you probably should start. The other day he wrote a post about how the next Batman movie should be cast. Check it out here.

One of my suggestions would be to have Ethan Hawke play the Riddler, if that is truly to be the next villain. The reason for this is that, I think anyway, the best actor for the job will be the least expected.

When Jack Nicholson was cast as the Joker way back in the late 80s it made sense but the end result was simply Nicholson doing his usual thing but with face paint. When there were talks of who could potentially play the Joker in The Dark Knight Robin Williams is one of the people who made sense to me. He'd worked for Nolan before and he can play characters that are both dark and zany. But, like Nicholson, he was too much of an easy choice. I know big stars sometimes like to take on the role of villains so that they can dress up and act devious and go over the top but generally, when movie stars are cast in such roles, they tend to simply rely on their presence and phone it in.

Therefore, when Heath Ledger was announced as the actual Joker I scoffed only to realize, like everyone else, Ledger did the unimaginable: he went for broke and completely disappeared from the scene, creating a fully realized character. I thus realized that villains need to be played by actors not stars. I think Hawke is such an actor. It's been seen over the duration of his entire career that he is intelligent, versatile, and can play both dark and brooding while also zany and off-the-way. I threw around other names in the comment section at Movie Snob's post so check those out there.


So what do you think? Who should play the Riddler? Penguin? Catwoman? Poinson Ivy? Mr. Freeze? Who could work that Heath Ledger magic and create meaningful characters within these roles as opposed to the movie stars who played them in the past? Let's throw some ideas around.

While we are at it: who do you want to see as the new Spider-Man and who do you want to see as the villain and played by who? I'm curious to see how everyone weighs in.

The Rating Scale

So the other day when I wrote a one minute review of Next Day Air Andrew over at Encore commented that the movie sounded passable but he was surprised by the high rating which I allotted (3.5 out of 5). This inspired me to throw out some context.

There is one fundamental rule that I believe when it comes to scoring films: it is pointless. I do it because it comes with the territory but really, what does a rating out of four or five prove? It doesn't assess the worth of the film itself because it is based on the preference of the writer and reflects their experience of the film and not the film's overall worth, in which case you should scrap the rating and just read the review seeing as that's what it is there for in the first place.

It also doesn't assess the worth of a film in relation to other films because every rating is the rating solely of that film and not all films. It is possible to use other like films to justify a certain rating but when I give a five star rating to Up in the Air that by no means it is the equal to The Godfather which would also get five stars. Up in the Air is a five star film in the world of corporate human comedies and The Godfather is a five star gangster movie. In no way do either of those five stars cross over in relation to one another and I don't even begin to know how they would begin to compare in the overall world of film. However if The Dark Knight is a five star movie then the other four Batman movies before Batman Begins are around 2-2.5s.

Now, as for why I use five stars. It's because I like that extra star for indifference. Four stars doesn't really give you much wiggle room. However, in terms of thumbs up or thumbs down, five stars offers the 3-3.5 range which is basically the same (overall indifference) but 3 reflects the thumb tipping slightly in the down direction while the 3.5 reflects the thumb tipping slightly in the up direction.

But again, we're beating a dead horse because, as proof right in the first paragraph, the meaning of these ratings exist solely in the mind of the review (Andrew perceives 3.5 to be of greater worth than me and that's his right). To me good film criticism has, is and will always be about someone who writes about film sharing their experiences with those who like to read about film. As I've said elsewhere on this site, I read a review not to know if the movie is good or not (I can decide that on my own) but to see what reviewer X had to say about it. When I read Andrew's blog I care much more about who his personal favourite actors and actresses of the decade are and why he thinks so rather than what films he thinks I should be seeing because, knowing me, I'll probably see them regardless.

With that said, in most cases, to reference Jean Renior once again, the reviewer is often more important than the film he or she is reviewing, which simply acts as a springboard or starting point from which that person can begin to share their personal thoughts, fears, anxieties, philosophies, emotional responses, etc. Film criticism, like all art, is fundamentally composed of two parts: the emotional and the intellectual. It's on one (or both) these two levels that all great film (and art in general) moves us on. If a film doesn't stimulate a viewer's mind or move them to some emotional response then it has failed and this can only be expressed in the body of the review, not in the arbitrary number I put in brackets after the film's title.