Is Inception The Greatest Film Of All Time?


Possibly. For me Magnolia still takes the cake, even though after viewing Inception twice I have the persistent feeling that maybe I'm wrong. It's been a good three months since I saw Inception for the second time and whilst I'm quietly convinced that Christopher Nolan is the best director working today, I have a niggling feeling that the majority of people who rushed to go and see Inception again and again aren't getting the entire picture. 

In the press release articles that floated around weeks or months prior to the unveiling of Inception, there were cast interviews galore and whispers as to exactly what the hell the film was about. It's increasingly becoming impossible to go into a film without knowing what is going to occur in it as the pre-release material tends to spell out everything that occurs - first, second and third acts. And even if the previews are able to hide some of the most surprising parts of films, the odds that the film is just a rehash of whatever genre it is part of are quite high. Whether it be a horror film or a comedy or an action, they all follow the same paint by numbers approach and just use a different style of paint. It's refreshing to get a film like Inception come out and be floored by what it does. 


Except when you get little hints as to exactly what the film is about. Tom Hardy called it "a heist dream film". Christopher Nolan called it "his Bond film". But Ellen Page said it best when saying what reference material Nolan gave the cast prior to embarking on this unique enterprise; "it's like being in a Haruki Murakami book."

It's no secret that I'm a huge Murakami fan. I've reached a point in my reading life where I've read the majority of Murakami books (bar a few of his hard to get books and the most recent releases), and fortunately enough a few months before Inception came out I read one of Murakami's best efforts - Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World. Whilst my favourite book of his - and possibly that I've ever read - is Kafka On The Shore, Hard Boiled Wonderland is an immensely mesmerising book.

Is it a perfect book? Far from it. The first hundred pages or so are explanation and exposition and rules and explaining the explanation. Add that to the fact that there's a lot of talk of Calcutec's and unicorn skulls and a whole lot of confusion. Also the fact that the book swaps between a coherent universe that seems not dissimilar from our own and an old style village where not a lot happens. The fact that Murakami writes in such a matter of fact and easy fashion makes the book a fascinating read, and definitely helps get through the first hundred pages. If all this explanation and rules sounds familiar, its because the first hour of Inception is essentially explanation and rules. 

All well and good, but why does this make for exciting reading/viewing? Is it because the establishment of a universe where once the rules and explanations are set up the characters are let run amok and create whatever story path they so desire? As far as I'm concerned, yes. In the case of Inception, you see a shorter version of the heist that creates the second half of the film. Then after this shorter version you are given an explanation of the rules and what can occur within the dreams or the dreamers. Then you are given the heist with the understood rules. The same goes with Hard Boiled Wonderland.

So why is it beneficial to read Hard Boiled Wonderland before watching Inception? Because of the decisions that the characters make and where their decisions lead them in the grand scheme of the story. In Hard Boiled Wonderland, the main character becomes aware that the second world in the story is in fact his dream consciousness. Then he is presented with the decision as to whether the person he may love but could very easily fall out of love with in the real world is the person he wants to live his life with and essentially die with, or whether he decides to remain in the dream state and know that the person he loves in his dream state will always love him and will always be with him - and he will essentially be able to continue living forever.

Inception poses the same idea in one of its rules - the deeper you go into the dream state of the dreamers, the longer the amount of time you stay in the dream state. One of the greatest complaints about Inception was that it lacked heart - and one of the other complaints was infuriatingly enough the lack of sexual elements given that dreams are apparently one of the main conduits for sexual imagination. The fact that people complained that Inception lacked heart or an emotional core were missing one of the main elements of Inception. The relationship that Cobb has with his wife, the beautiful and intense Marion Cotillard as Mol, is so overpowering with its longing for eternal life and creating that perfect world together. If you have found the one person you love, wouldn't you want to continue that life with them forever? 

Upon first seeing Inception, once the spinning top never topples but waivers a little bit then the film cuts to black, there was the unmistakable groan and sigh from the audience believing they've been had. For me the end of Inception is quite simply inside Cobb's dream state. Even though Michael Caine has gone on record as saying that the finale is without a doubt in reality, I would hesitate to believe this. If I was in Cobb's situation there would be no doubt as the fact that he was still dreaming. As I've mentioned before, wouldn't you want to be in the place that you and your loved one has created for yourself forever? 


You can still get a great experience with Inception, and it is still possibly one of the greatest films of all time, but know that if you want to enjoy it a little bit more - lets say, enhanced viewing - then read Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and further your enjoyment of Inception. 


Sidenote: Isn't it fantastic that a film like Inception does gangbusters at the box office and then not so long after the film comes out another (good, but not great) director comes out saying that he's had to change his script because it would look a little too much like an Inception rip-off? Usually Hollywood would jump on the dream within a dream plot train and ride it like a super-hero origin story marathon. 


Until my third, fourth and fifth viewings of Inception, it takes the cake as the second best film of all time with Vertigo, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A History Of Violence not too far below it.


Christopher Nolan for Best Director? 

What The House Of The Devil Does Wrong.


The House Of The Devil is an homage film. Specifically, an homage horror film. The horror genre is a niche genre. Sure, everybody watches horror films, but horror fans are the sort that will religiously watch almost any horror film that is released. This makes for many difficult sessions - especially since most horror films end up on the bottom shelf as distribution funds are limited unless you're a Saw film or Paranormal Activity - and the quality is often hard to gauge. Reviews do help, but at times a film sits on the fence of whether a film is great or shit. Last year the film Grace was received with as many cheers as it got hisses. This year is The House Of The Devil.


Where Grace was a low budget shlock fest - and a terrible one at that - The House Of The Devil is an old style horror film. Gore is to a minimum, loud noises and jumps are also to a minimum; what is not to a minimum is bad pizza, sleeping, dancing around and knocking vases down and numbing quiet periods of pure nothing. 


The House Of The Devil starts interestingly enough, but when you get to the fifteen minute mark and the most tension you've got is that the pizza is just terrible, you know you're already in trouble. Tom Noonan appears about twenty minutes into the film and provides the most chills for the film - Tom Noonan could read a shopping list and you'd be terrified. So it is detrimental to the film when his character leaves and we're left with the adequate Jocelin Donahue to wander around the house where she is to babysit the absent mother of Tom Noonan. 


She drinks some water. The sink makes an odd noise. She wanders around the house and rudely looks in every room - you're asked to babysit and just asked to sit and watch TV and order a pizza, just do what you're told! She orders a pizza. She dances around to 80's music. She breaks a vase - shock! - and cleans it up. Dances around some more. Watches TV. Turns off the TV. The pizza arrives. 


The pizza man tells her it will be 30 minutes for arrival, and for fillers sake the audience is forced to sit through the 30 minutes that it takes for the pizza to arrive. There are no moments of fright or tension, just waiting and waiting. Why? The film smartly opened with a fact about Satanic cults in the US in the 70's and 80's and after a brief moment of gore in a cemetary about thirty minutes in you wonder what the film actually has to do with Satanic cults at all. 


This is The House Of The Devil's major fault, there is no real tension and no element of fear because there is no plot provided. For eighty minutes of the ninety minute running time of The House Of The Devil the plot goes as follows: girl needs money for house to rent, girl finds job that will pay money for rent, girl and friend of girl go to house to babysit, friend of girl who is more interesting than girl is conveniently killed in House By The Cemetary style, girl faffs about for about forty minutes, girl eats a spiked pizza and wakes up in the Satanic cult section of the film. If Satanic cults scare you, just watch the last ten minutes of the film. 


Essentially The House Of The Devil is all slow burn tension-less build up to a finale which does not make sense whatsoever. It appears that there is a set up to a sequel, but I really am not so sure about that because I honestly have no idea what happened in the final minutes of the film. I did watch it, but it just did not make any sense. When a film like Paranormal Activity was bland but had some effective jumps, it at least felt like a throwback to films from the 80's and it wasn't even trying. The House Of The Devil puts so much effort into the look and style and film stock of the 80's that it fails to maintain an interesting story to hang interesting scares on. 


I honestly don't know how anybody who watches The House Of The Devil could find it scary or that it works as an effective horror film. I have read many positive reviews for the film and all they have done is describe a film which sounds a million times better than the one we're presented with. 


Two haunted houses out of five.

What The A Team Does Right.

The A Team is a film that really shouldn't be as good as it is. If it were a terrible film it could easily be classed as a guilty pleasure, but fortunately enough it is not. What The A Team is is immensely enjoyable and surprisingly deals with how unintelligent the source material really is. 

The basic plot of The A Team is your typical group of men on a mission to find a MacGuffin (in this case some US money printing plates). When you strip the plot of The A Team down to its basic elements, it really should not work. Moving The A Team to Afghanistan? Really? 

But surprisingly it does work. Where The A Team begins is its first right move - the obligatory origin story. Whilst film going audiences are constantly given a barrage of new origin stories to deal with, The A Team updates itself for modern audiences with a snappy and enjoyable opening fifteen minutes. Whilst it's not uncommon for a pre-credits sequence to introduce or remind viewers where the characters have been, the pre-credits sequence of The A Team needs to be implemented more often for audiences (especially for the Spider-Man update that is sadly still going ahead). 

The first fifteen minutes introduce The A Team and instead of having the line producer or sound designer credits shown during scenes where there is dialogue or close up shots, these credits are delegated to the shots in between scenes where there are establishing shots or wide shots. Now this doesn't sound like much, but in execution it creates a less intrusive and more comfortable introduction to the film. It makes you feel as if there wasn't even a pre-credits sequence at all - and even the directors name Joe Carnahan is left to the sidelines for an aerial shot. The when The A Team are all together the title is slammed onto the screen and the film starts true and proper. 

Anybody coming into this film without knowing that this was an adaptation of an 80's TV series would still feel as if they knew the characters and could enjoy the film without prior knowledge of the characters - something which TV show to film adaptations sadly lack a little bit too much of lately. 

The next thing that The A Team does so correctly is knows how to have fun. The preview for the film showed you the most insane moment - a parachuting tank - and told you on the tin that this film was not to be taken seriously. The casting of Sharlto Copley is pure genius - an almost unknown actor, Copley is the fun that the film requires and the film lives and breathes on his comedic timing. Sadly he does go AWOL come the films over the top finale, but the fact that the rest of the cast are so obviously having fun that they carry the loss of Copley for the final twenty minutes. 

Big budget films require an obligatory love story and the casting of Jessica Biel is at first off putting, but relegating her to short one minute scenes makes her bearable and surprisingly enjoyable. We could have done without the flashbacks to earlier scenes from the film - it's only 100 minutes long, we have been paying attention and don't need reminding of whats going on - but fortunately they're over soon enough.

Amongst the insane action sequences - mostly with added CGI which for once does not look fake or out of place - there is great chemistry between the cast - Liam Neeson in a role which he relishes playing and no doubt given the timing of filming The A Team he needed a role like this; Bradley Cooper is the most enjoyable version of "Bradley Cooper" yet; Quinton Jackson is great as B.A. Baracus.  

Finally, the humour is perfect. The A Team is gloriously funny. A well timed - and extremely well executed - joke on the pathetic quality of 3D is the highlight. The action is understandable - you can see who is shooting or punching who and it is obvious as to what is happening. Once the ending comes around and the obligatory sequel set up - I really do hope there is a sequel - you can't help smiling at the surprise cameo and feel a hell of a lot better for having seen The A Team. In a year where there has not been enough big films to warrant actually leaving the house and spending $17 on a movie ticket, The A Team comes along as a breath of fresh air with a heavy dose of masculinity. 

Four Crazy South African Pilots Out Of Five.

It's not often I do this, but I was wrong. Wrong about what you say?

Well, my top ten albums for last year is what I was wrong about. I know, it's nearly the end of March already and I'm reorganising my top ten albums of 2009 - that's twenty oh nine by the way. See, where I went wrong was by actually placing Lisa Mitchell and Them Crooked Vultures in the top ten. Good albums - but ever since putting them on my list I've not even thought about rotating them once. I've actually skipped them when they come up on shuffle - which I kind of wish when my Ipod shuffled that it would make the sound of a card shuffler when it shuffles, that'd take me back to my childhood. 

So instead of Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures and Lisa Mitchell - Wonder, the list should look a little like this... 

10. Howling Bell's - Radio Wars
9. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
8. The Decemberists - Hazards Of Love - There's something I've learnt recently, and that is that free shit is a lot better than having paid for it. I had been afraid of buying this album for a long time. Surely a band cannot release another great album? After the absolute brilliance that is Her Majesty, Picaresque and The Crane Wife, I just could not handle buying Hazards Of Love. Firstly, it's a concept album. Secondly, Colin Meloy does not sing on every song (one song has kids singing, there's simply no way kids can compare to Colin). Thirdly, four great albums in a row? After being slightly burnt by A New Tide (all is forgiven Gomez) I was scared of being burnt again by The Decemberists. Whilst Hazards Of Love is not as exciting and deep as their three prior albums, it's still a great listen. The main problem is that it's one continuous song rather than a dip in/dip out single song effort. This makes casual listening hard, but you get past it once you hit some fantastic numbers like The Rake's Song and The Hazards Of Love 1. Good, but not great.
7. Yeah Yeah Yeah's - It's Blitz
6. The Swell Season - Strict Joy - An album which I didn't think would/could happen, and here it is. It's a fantastic beautiful album. There's really not much else that can be said. It's as if a sequel to Once happened and was actually better than the music in the film. A must listen.
5. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
4. Eels - Hombre Lobo
3. Sarah Blasko - As Day Follows Night
2. Paul Dempsey - Everything Is True
1. Gomez - A New Tide

I'm still thinking about my top 20 films for 2009, but at the moment the top 5 is a little like this... 


5. Samson And Delilah
4. Up
3. Inglourious Basterds
2. Bright Star
1. Dean Spanley

Marc Webb And Sony's 'Cast A Director By Word Association'


Marc Webb has just made a few million dollars and also created uncomfortable situations for himself and Sam Raimi when they randomly appear at parties together. The great new idea that Hollywood has come up with is the reboot. The origin of the reboot started sometime at the beginning of the 2000's. Possibly something to do with Dracula 2000 restarting the Dracula-lore and missing the boat by about nine years. 

Sam Raimi no doubt had issues with the direction that Sony wanted the Spider-Man franchise to go - and fortunately he was a great fan of the Spider-Man mythology so gave the characters a great amount of respect. Sony sadly is the company with the money and the rights and the ability to say yay or nay and sadly for the fans of Spider-Man that leaves them in a dilly of a pickle. They get another origin story and Peter Parker is stuck in high school for the next three to six films. 

The Spidey fans are a tingling with the whinge, but what about the Marc Webb fans? 

Does Marc Webb even have fans? I mean, out of his oeuvre who really looks back at Fergie's 'London Bridge' clip and recalls its amazing visual flair, or the routinely annoying Regina Spektor's 'Fidelity' clip full of ahh's and oohhh's, or maybe you just have to put on Ashlee Simpson's 'Invisible' one more time. 

Maybe not fans of his music, but when somebody creates a debut film as interesting, beautiful, enjoyable and just down right loving as (500) Days Of Summer, well, you sit up and pay attention to what their next film will be. Granted, the second film blues are much the same as second album blues. The praise can be deafening, and the criticism for the second film can be blinding. Having a look over Marc Webb's music clips there doesn't seem to be any major visual style like your Michel Gondry, Anton Corbjin or Spike Jonze. Yet Sony have seen something and that something is quite obvious when you look at how much money they've put aside for the film.

$80 million. 

That's nothing. $80 million would almost just cover the actors and director fees for Spider-Man 4. Spider-Man 3 was made for almost half a billion dollars. Given the film brought back just over that it's no surprise that Sony probably wanted Raimi to reign it in. Where Webb's film (500) Days Of Summer is considered an indie hit (more on that in another whine), it excelled in creating one hell of a duo with Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, an extremely believable couple going through an interesting relationship.

Translate that and you've got Peter Parker and Mary Jane going through an interesting relationship, and that's what Sony is banking on. They see the Twilight saga being successful and want to monopolise on that success. Who needs special effects when you have two teens dealing with super powers and trying to be in love? Isn't that all that people want in movies nowadays? Throw in a vampire villain and Sony's got themselves a potential hit. 

Even if the fans of the films or the comics don't end up slamming their $20 down to see it opening weekend, there'll be enough people who will go and see it opening weekend to break a record or two and make Sony enough money to call it a great big filthy hit.

Marc Webb is in a unique and great situation - he may be able to prove that he can make blockbuster films and earn a great reputation for himself, but the thing is that Marc Webb is hardly going to be a director on this film at all. He is this decades equivalent of David Fincher on Alien 3. Making another installment in a cash cow and performing as a tranquiliquists dummy. It all boils down to how well Webb can take orders from above. 

Maybe Webb is an intelligent man who only made (500) Days Of Summer to get where he wants to get - a high paying director making relatively successful films. How else do you explain his consistent music clips with My Chemical Romance, Fergie, Regina Spektor and Evanescence? 

I can't say I'm disappointed as this has happened before - David Slade made an interesting (for some) film in Hard Candy and then went and turned in the bland and boring 30 Days Of Night and now he's moving onto Twilight 3. 

I can say that I'm confused by this reboot phenomenon. Especially rebooting Spider-Man. Having been an impressively successful film series - one of the best of the past decade - there is no reason to reboot. Yet, here we go again. I'm not a major fan of Spider-Man, but there are a lot of thirty-something men out there who are holding on to their Spider-Man blankets and underwear in hope that this is all just an early April Fool's.

Top Ten Albums Of 2009

10. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures - There's simply not that many albums nowadays that are mainstream successes and also have the ability to reach out and slap you in the face, demanding you listen to it. Infinitely likeable and addictive, this is the way supergroups should be made.


9. Wonder - Lisa Mitchell - Back when Australian Idol was interesting and - dare I say -  enjoyable (whilst I don't hold out for a Chanel Cole revival, I do look back on those days wearing funky rose tinted glasses) a little 16 year old twirp in the shape of Lisa Mitchell appeared. The judges praised her and said that success was on the horizon. Then she was voted off before her chance (or Chanel's for that matter) to monopolise on the Idol success. A few years later and she burst onto the scene with a damn likeable album - even the worst track on the album (a speech pathologists dream) Coin Laundry is catchy and enjoyable.

8. Radio Wars - Howling Bells - Waikiki were never big on my radar, what with the somewhat comical name, but with the refresh button pushed and Howling Bells' second album in, they've peeked my curiosity. Radio Wars is one of those albums which you forget you have on your iPod and when you hit shuffle and the amazingly brilliant Into The Chaos or Treasure Hunt surprises you, you just have to listen to the album again.


7. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear - It's very easy for a band to become successful off one track yet when you buy the album it's all very same/same - here's looking at you Mumford And Sons - yet Grizzly Bear explode onto the scene with a great alternative album. Whilst Grizzly Bear no doubt have been around for a while, it's their track Two Weeks which people will remember them for, and when they buy the album they'll simply just have to dive in and get the rest. 


6. It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - I've never gotten the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I've bought their albums. I've listened. I've appreciated. I've just simply never enjoyed their music as much as others have. Then It's Blitz! came out and bam! Zero and Head's Will Roll are perfect examples of great pop music. Karen O knows how to create great music, and here is an album which moves your ass whilst you are unaware of it. And that I'm quite happy to have happen.


5. Hombre Lobo - Eels - Hombre Lobo is a sequel to an album released almost a decade ago. Whilst I'm no fan of Souljacker, Hombre Lobo is much like Howling Bells Radio Wars album. Fresh Blood is just one hell of a great song - one which you just want to wind your window down whilst driving at full speed and howl along to. This is one of those albums that you just feel great listening to.


4. A New Tide - Gomez - At first listen to A New Tide I was convinced that Gomez had jumped the shark. I was convinced that Ian Ball had somehow managed to tear (the best band in the world) the band apart. I don't know how I came to that conclusion, but I just damn well did. And so I put the album away and listened to The Drones a little bit more. And a few months after A New Tide came out and the critical ribbing that A New Tide got (not just from critics but from the fans as well) had subsided. And oh was I sorry. The album is just pure bliss. It very well may be their best album of the decade.


3. It's Not Me, It's You - Lily Allen - My wife is confused about men. Specifically, men's admiration and love for Lily Allen. She's hardly a good looking girl. She can't speak proper english. She's obnoxious. But damn, her album is just fucking great. It's all infectious pop, and fortunately she avoids the pap. From the much male vocalist covered It's Not Fair to the anti-whatever "anthem" Fuck You, It's Not Me, It's You is just one hell of a great album. Enjoyable from start to finish.


2. As Day Follows Night - Sarah Blasko - I never thought that I'd use the term "beautiful" to describe music, but here goes. As Day Follows Night is the most beautiful album you will hear this decade. Sarah Blasko previously co-wrote her past two albums, but this time she went it solo and I really wish she had done this earlier. As Day Follows Night sees Blasko maturing and improving on everything right that she had done previously. If it weren't for my love and admiration of the man behind my album of the year, Blasko would have walked away with it.


1. Everything Is True - Paul Dempsey - When lead singers go solo sometimes things work out well and sometimes things go all Ian Ball-ish. Paul Dempsey gave the term solo album a new meaning with the release of Everything Is True. Playing most of the notes you hear on the album, Dempsey proves he's not just a great singer and guitarist, but very adept at other instruments too. Naysayers came out mentioning that Dempsey's solo album sounded a little too much like Something For Kate. That was inevitable, but what Dempsey created with Everything Is True is best realised in the track Fast Friends. Dempsey creates lyrics which people who listen to his music casually think that they understand and can relate, but with a song like Fast Friends he almost alienates those people. And that's part of the charm and brilliance of Paul Dempsey - writing songs for the emotionally fraught but tailoring them for everyone. Sure, Take Me To Your Leader is a retread of This Is The Life For Me from Desert Lights, but that's only a small mark on what is an emotionally exhilarating album.