Inception ****

Christopher Nolan's new movie, Inception, asks us to imagine what would happen if we could enter someone's dreams to extract information.  Like all of his films, there is great use of editing to layer intersecting plotlines, but Inception officially stands as his most seamless and conceptually ambitious work. 

The story follows Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a master "extractor" who specializes in infiltrating the minds of the rich and powerful.  His crack team of experts includes Ariadne (Ellen Paige), an "architect"who is able to construct and manipulate elaborate cityscapes in the dream world, Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levett), Cobb's resourceful troubleshooter (both literally and figuratively), and Earnes (Tom Hardy) a master impostor who is able to conjure up the image of other people based on some carefully utilized behavioural tics.  Cobb has been exiled from the U.S. ever since his wife took her own life and framed him for her death.  The reason for this is not as mercenary as it sounds, but her suicide has left a powerful imprint upon him -- an imprint that threatens to undermine his work when he is traveling through the subconscious.  


Cobb is offered a chance to go home to America and return to his kids, if he agrees to an assignment that involves hijacking a wealthy heir's subconscious during a 10 hour public flight.  The catch is, this time instead of extracting a thought he's been asked to plant one.  Inception examines the genesis of our innermost thoughts and asks us to consider where they come from.  In the process Nolan comments on the subjective nature of perception and suggests that what we call reality could be just a state of mind.   After all, where do our ideas come from?  How do we know that our waking life is the reality and our dream life is the fiction?  These are hugely ambitious questions and somehow Nolan manages to dramatize them while providing just enough answers to satisfy and provoke.

This is Nolan's densest, most accomplished film yet.  It raises the bar on the gritty spectacle of The Dark Knight, it teases you with more mysteries than The Prestige and it achieves a breathtaking visual scope.  Inception captures the logic and tempo of the subconscious like nothing I have ever seen before.  A movie about such an epic subject is bound to occasionally sacrifice character to concept, but Nolan deftly juggles the various ingredients of his dream world and does so with more cinematic imagination than any movie since Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence.   Unlike A.I. however, Inception is seamless.  It ends on a pitch-perfect grace note that promises to linger long after the lights have come up.  Production design and cinematography are all one-of-a-kind and truly groundbreaking.  The only weak link is the dialogue, which (at times) is too heavily expository.  Still, nothing can diminish the thrill of a populist film that is able to subvert expectations and deliver as many surprises as this one.  Inception is a mind-blowing work of pop art.  It's the movie to beat this summer and for the rest of the year.  

Na'vi Ennui

Moviegoers who found themselves wrapped up this past year in the emotional powerhouse that was Twilight: New Moon, are no doubt part of the worldwide audience that has swooned for James Cameron's tiny little film called Avatar.  An audience that has helped catapult it into cinema box office history.  In fairness, this is money Cameron didn't need after his last forgotten work Titanic -- the former highest-grossing blockbuster of all time.  The most important thing is that in this difficult economy, investors as diverse as  David Beckham, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Guy Ritchie were able to recoup their investments and even claim a healthy return.  

Oh, to have attached your name to such an important and revolutionary film.  The craft on display here deserves special mention, for rarely have I seen such a meticulously choreographed synchronicity of mechanical moving parts.  The explosions, the gun-fights, the clash between man and nature.  Anyone who admired the subtlety and nuance of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel or Paul Blart: Mall Cop, is bound to get a lot out of it.  In the midst of all the hype, I was so certain I missed something the first time around, that I went back tonight on Oscar weekend to delve deeper into the story and try to uncover it's hidden layers.  

Watching Avatar the second time, I learned two valuable lessons: 

1) Money and land are the twin pillars of civilized society and they must be obtained ruthlessly, even it means plundering natural resources and displacing thousands of people. 

2) The Iraq war was necessary and humane -- particularly for all the innocent civilians who were caught in the crossfire.  Note: only discerning viewers will be able to pick up on this hidden allegorical subtext. 

On Sunday night Avatar is certain to win a well-deserved Oscar for Best Visual Effects and probably also the trophy for Best Picture.  The movie has aptly been compared to D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation -- a film that introduced moviegoers to a new kind of cinematic spectacle, but the comparison ends there.  Birth of a Nation now rates as one of the most searing, politically incorrect, films of the early 20th Century while Avatar in contrast is a model of liberal values. James Cameron's empathetic portrayal of the Na'vi tribe is bolstered by a deep relationship to his computer generated characters who in turn have a deep relationship with their genetically matched human counterparts in the film.  

Instead of falling back on that pedestrian and (let's face it) predictable phrase: "I love you," the characters in Avatar look into each other's eyes and exclaim with the utmost sincerity "I see you."  A more succinct and incisive look at love has not been captured on film since Hayden Christensen joined hands with Natalie Portman in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and proclaimed:  "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth." This is the kind of writer that James Cameron has matured into.  He even created his own language for the film -- which rarely sounds like gibberish and only occasionally sounds made up.  The man is a visionary.  

Cameron dreamt up this entire world and he alone deserves the credit for those glorious blue people and their pet dinosaurs, not to mention Sam Worthington's "now he's Aussie, now he's American" accent.  This is attention to detail at it's finest and great movies are all about the details.   At this point you may be picking up on a slight undercurrent of sarcasm, so please, let me assure you with absolute sincerity from the bottom of my heart:  Avatar is not one of the best movies of 2009 or any other year.  It's an over-hyped, over-blown, over-indulgent b-movie that takes itself too seriously to be enjoyed for what it is.  But please, I implore you to buy a ticket if you haven't already.  David Beckham and Andrew Lloyd Weber need your support.


Besides, the world needs more movies like this.  In time, perhaps we can even learn to replace those cloying moments of intimacy that we must all suffer through in our daily lives with the razzle-dazzle of larger-than life, stereoscopic, indulgence.

Scrooge Returns

With A Christmas Carol, director Robert Zemeckis shakes off the stilted wonderment of his recent pictures, casts off his cold reverence for technology and brings us a holiday film that is also a giddy tribute to good old-fashioned storytelling.  There is scarcely a moment onscreen when we aren't aware that we are being manipulated, but the storytelling is so confident, disarming and ultimately satisfying that we gladly give ourselves to it.  Jim Carrey's Scrooge effectively bridges the gap between old and new audiences (if there are any audiences who are new to the story), but the real star is Zemeckis.  His agile camera twists and turns with a dizzying energy, counterbalanced nicely by a series of engrossing silences.  From the very first image of  Scrooge removing the pennies from the eyes of Jacob Marley's cadaverous face, it is clear that Zemeckis has found new inspiration in Dickens' over-produced perennial favorite.   Having said that, if memory serves, I'm quite certain Dickens never had a chase sequence, nor did he ever intend for his story to inspire a chase sequence in his original text, but this is a 3-D movie and as such can be forgiven for occasionally pandering to the mainstream.  Dickens was after all a showman in his day and prone to his own giddy indulgences.  Who could blame him?  He was paid by the word.

Tact, Diplomacy & Sex

No doubt Lubitsch would not have approved of the title I've chosen for my review of his greatest masterpiece, but one needs to grab attention somehow. Usually, when I tell people in this day and age that Trouble In Paradise (1932) is arguably the most sophisticated, mannered, comedy ever produced, I draw glassy stares. The truth is: it is that and more. The screenplay, written by Samson Raphaelson, is the gold standard for grace and style in comedy. Every line rolls crisply off the tongue, and yet virtually every statement uttered is a lie or misdirection, calculated to put the rosiest veneer on the most reprehensible con artistry.

The story concerns two crooks -- a man (Herbert Marshall) and a woman (Miriam Hopkins), who meet on the Italian Riviera picking each other's pockets, share a night of lust and fall in love. Seeing as it is the 1930's, all does not end happily ever after. Less than one year after the anniversary of their first date, they find themselves desperate for money and so they target a wealthy perfume heiress as their mark. What transpires is a classic french scandal, but we never once feel scandalized. Director Ernst Lubistch was an icon in his day, renowned for his "Lubitsch Touch" which was light as air and slyly suggestive. Under his guiding hand, the actors deliver their lines with near impossible poise and elegance.

This is a movie where the Great Depression is often discreetly referred to as " times like these," where crooks gain sympathy just by being smarter and classier than their law-abiding counterparts and a strange brand of mutual respect is cultivated between the burglar and the burgled. The movie is a marvel of restraint and subtext, that remains enchanting and provocative some 77 years later. It reminds us of the riches that tact can afford and the astonishing way in which sly repartee can make up for the most vindictive, behavior.

Trouble In Paradise is the ultimate comedy of manners. It makes art out of indirectness, finds humor in cruelty and knowingly reminds us that sex is most provocative when it is imaginatively suggested.

Basterds of a New Color

Attention all cinephiles: have no fear. The 2009 movie year has officially begun. If you're like me and you've been trying to "make do" or pretend to be satisfied with the summer's current offerings, Quentin Tarantino's audacious Inglourious Bastards will rescue you from your movie blues. The premise is essentially a fantasist's vision of the second world war.

A group of Jewish Yankee soldiers, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), land in German-occupied France and proceed to take the lives and scalps of as many Nazi soldiers as they can. Before long, word spreads throughout the Reich, earning the men mythic names such as "the Bear Jew" and "Aldo the Apache." This is only the beginning of Tarantino's labyrinthine story which also involves a German actress spying for the allies, a Jewish film projectionist who was orphaned by the SS, her ebony lover and a particular effete Joseph Goebbels. Rounding out the cast are an almost unrecognizable Mike Meyers and Rod Taylor as British General Ed Fenech and Winston Churchill respectively -- just two of Tarantino's many in-jokes. Special mention is also owed to Christoph Waltz, in an Oscar-worthy turn as they oily, machiavellian Col. Hans Landa.

"Basterds" will no doubt have many detractors. It is easily the most reckless and irreverent war film I have ever seen. Some will find it crude, disrespectful and without redeeming virtue, but these are the very same traits that make it provocative, relevant and very fresh. Tarantino fans will not be surprised by the violence in the film, but they may be taken with how unglamorous it is. Although previous Tarantino films have aimed to titilate us with their criminality, I believe the writer/director is after a different game here. Inglourious Bastards is an anti-war film. Thankfully good old QT is just too sly to admit it.

The biggest challenge audiences will face is defining the moral objective behind the film. Unlike the countless scores of tributes we have seen to soldiers of the great wars and their sacrifice and struggle, the filmmakers dare to examine the issue from all sides. Both the allies and the Nazis are portrayed as complicated creatures, sometimes gallant, sometimes cruel. Tarantino understands that war is merely a collision of egos, ids and super-egos. It's often morbidly funny and without redemption for any side. That's what the ending is intended to signify (for those who leave the theatre scratching their chins in puzzlement). The picture is a mockery of war and the films that celebrate our battle-frought heritage and yet it also pays homage to our favorite war films. This is no small task and if it sounds contradictory it is.

Tarantino has created a war film for people who have become desensitized to the structure and meaning of conventional war films. He goes for broke and gleefully sidesteps the pratfalls of the genre. He doesn't try to inspire us with sweeping vistas and noble ideals. He doesn't try to make pacifists out of us with harrowing battles and cruel violence. Instead, he boldly lampoons everyone and everything onscreen, while simultaneously holding us in his grip.

There are so many flourishes and textures in a Tarantino picture that it may be easy to overlook his brilliance in creating (yet again) two strong, memorable, female roles in a genre that rarely honors our mothers and daughters. The female leads, Shoshana Drefyus (Melanie Lawrence) and Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) are nothing short of extraordinary. Bastards also features several trademark QT scenes, including a standoff at a tavern that ratchets up the tension as only he can. Some scenes run so long that they begin to overstay their welcome, until just as our eyes begin to glaze over the story takes a turns and surprises us.

In certain circles, I'm sure these heavily padded scenes will be dismissed as indulgent and unfocussed, but this is missing the point. Regardless of whether the film jives with your personal taste, Inglourious Bastards assures Tarantino's status as a master filmmaker in complete control of his story at all times. He plays with structure, style and rhythm to keep us gloriously off guard (no pun intended) and he packs his film with layers of meaning, ambiguity and bravura filmmaking -- not to mention in-jokes. This is Tarantino's most triumphant entertainment since Pulp Fiction. It's a movie for anyone who loves the movies. It is also a delirious, imaginative, masterpiece--provided that you're willing to accept that war is one big, fat, joke.

**Note: The B&W film clip denoting the flammable properties of nitrate film is from Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), from a screenplay by Charles Bennett, Ian Hay & Helen Simpson, and E.V.H. Emmett, based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.**

The Drama of Harry Potter

Steve Kloves' screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the most streamlined film in the series yet. So streamlined, that much of the spectacle has been exorcised to make room for the complicated interrelationships of the central characters. Director David Yates demonstrates a fine grasp of nuance and tension but eventually the film begins to wear thin, culminating in a limp climax that is too little too late. Still, it's fun to witness the shifting politics of Hogwarts on the big screen. Equally fun are the scenes in which Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ron's sister Ginny get their "snog" on, wizard-style, but the real pleasure of reading the book was the central relationship between Harry and Dumbledore and to this end, unfortunately, the newest film does not deliver. In the book, Dumbledore assumes the role of a father to Harry, but we don't know why and the mystery behind his actions fills the story with a sense urgency. In the movie, they don't have enough screen time together to generate the same tension. As a result, the would-be harrowing climax (which I will not disclose) feels rushed and does not leave us with any of the lingering impact of the book. In the end the latest Potter is efficient, subtle and well-detailed, but more memorable for its smaller moments than its big ones.

The Sound of Gunfire: Michael Mann's Public Enemies

Michael Mann is fascinated with the mythic nature of society and the power struggles between men. His Public Enemies bristles with the excitement of these myths, which he celebrates through style, texture and explosions, and yet the film does little to reveal meaning behind our myths. Mann is a brilliant craftsman and stylist. Students of film will appreciate his dizzying camera and terse editing. There is life to almost every frame, especially when the cops and robbers are shooting it out, using big, loud, guns, but there is also a gaping hole at the center of the movie where there could have been so much more.

John Dillinger was a man of the people, a national folk hero during the Great Depression, known as much for his gregarious personality and charisma as his criminal efficiency. Unfortunately the three writers credited with the project (including Mann) couldn't figure out a way to work this out. Johnny Depp's Dillinger is cool, remote and sociopathic. We see nothing of the community support he worked so hard to earn. We never get a sense of the exhiliration behind his bank heists and as a result he is mainly joyless to watch.

This Dillinger takes pleasure in nothing except for his 'moll' Billie (Marion Cotillard), who is either drawn to his charisma or threatened by his ruthlessness. Either way, she's along for the ride. Their romance is the only beacon of humanity in the film but it has no weight or credibility. Most of the time Dillinger just floats through scenes like a badass automaton.

Fighting for the other side is Agent Purvis (Christian Bale), a stoic and meticulous lawman who leads the manhunt for Dillinger. Their cat and mouse interplay never really catches fire. Mann is too preoccupied with the manly bravado and macho posturing of his leads, to dig beneath the surface as he did so brilliantly in Heat. There isn't a single scene that shows us Purvis in his private life outside of the job, and if there had been his epigraph might have had impact.

What ultimately makes the film work is the crackling soundtrack and the ending. There's something profoundly unsettling about the way the manhunt for Dillinger comes to a close. Public Enemies may be the first gangster film in which the villain is gunned down and somehow the police come off as the guilty ones. If only the writers had worked a little harder to bring us to this point. Like so many recent and inscrutable movie protagonists (think Benjamin Button or Harvey Milk), this Dillinger drifts through history without actually impacting it.  As a consequence, you may leave Public Enemies remembering the sound of the gunfire more than anything else, but what dazzling gunfire it is.