TFT 137 – INCEPTION / WINTER’S BONE
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Jett Loe
TFT 137 – INCEPTION / WINTER’S BONE
TFT 137 running time: 54 minutes 06 seconds – 26.1mb mp3
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INCEPTION starts at 1 minutes 35 seconds
WINTER’S BONE starts at 39:48
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 3:48 pm. It is filed under Action, Blockbusters, Blog, Favorite Posts, Gareth Higgins, Gareth Higgins Reviews, Jett Loe, Jett Loe Reviews, Podcast, Reviews and tagged with film review podcast, movie review podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jett Loe, Paivoo Piez. Paivoo Piez said: RT @thefilmtalk: Our giant big INCEPTION podcast including the revelation of who's really dreaming the whole movie now online: http://is.gd/dBeBx [...]
[...] One of my favorite things about a good film is the communal experience / response it inspires, and that is exactly what has happened with Inception. I’ve watched it twice and both times, you could feel that the audience had bought into the world of the film, laughing/gasping/applauding as a whole at the right moments. Afterwards, you could see and overhear pockets of people in deep discussion about what they had just witnessed together. A modern example of the power and beauty of cinema, as opposed to the type of shallow experience usually coming out of Hollywood these days. By the way, this point and more is elaborated upon much more eloquently than I could ever say over at The Film Talk. [...]
FYI, slashfilm just had Armond White on their show to review Inception. It wasn't pretty, especially in their “after dark” episode. They were pretty offended when Armond had the gall to say a film critic should be learned and know the history of film. How dare he! Pretty entertaining stuff.
Cheers – will have to listen – as you know we're big fans of Mr. White 'round here :)
Well, to be fair, he was talking specifically about what the Slashfilmcast guys are. They're fans of film, and have acquired some kind of work reviewing them. Where the trouble comes in, is that Armond and well, pretty much everyone else, seem to disagree on what a film critic is and what they should be.
Armond seems to hold to the very stringent idea that someone who writes film criticism ought to be thoroughly trained, and been around long enough, to have something worth saying about movies. Whereas the current state of film criticism (seemingly our current hosts, included, and I know I have a blog that “reviews” movies) are more about people that just have something to say about movies – with varying degrees of insight and knowledge.
All that said, I thought Armond showed himself to have the right ideas – especially in the instance where he was asked what other critics he liked – I just don't agree with his application of them.
Is it too ass-kissy to say that TFT is still my favorite film criticism podcast? And I absolutely loved the totem that Jett used during the Inception show to make sure he was in reality. :)
I agree, I think the Internet and the proliferation of film discussion it has enabled is a wonderful thing. I read dozens of amateur film blogs regularly. Armond even pointed out that he thinks that is a good thing. But what I take issue with, and what I think Armond articulated quite well, is the fact that the training and an academic understanding of the art form have largely been devalued. In today's fanboy-ruled culture anything approaching an academic evaluation of a film is immediately rejected and viewed as archaic, intellectual nonsense — especially if that evaluation happens to be especially critical of a property or director beloved by the fanboy base.
You can draw parallels to this hive-mindset politically as well. Intellectuals are looked at suspiciously by certain political groups. An Ivy League education is sneered at as merely socialist indoctrination. It's insanity.
That's the thing, actually, that made me really like TFT, was the articulation and seeming, more intellectual look at film. Though, I took that as just a perspective of people that've been outside of the “American bubble” of film appreciation.
The couple of times I've heard Armond interviewed (on here and the Slashfilmcast, now) he comes off as someone whose ideals I seem to agree with quite a bit. But as stated, I just don't agree with the direction he goes in for his reviews…and is really, unfortunately, kind of the head-piece for people standing up against, intelligent criticism. (Though, I think a lot of people don't consider his reviews to be intelligent, when he's defending movies like Transformers 2 and the Crank series.)
Anyway, I know of a couple of film critics/bloggers that try to approach film from a more studied POV – one even has a column that focuses on comparing historical fiction with the realities – and I certainly find that much more interesting than–well, probably what my own blog would be if I were a casual visitor to my site. (I know I don't “have the training”, other than my own lifetime spent watching movies and more movies. As my blog title refers to though – “movies 4 me”, and that's as close as I'm coming to promoting it – I write about movies I like. I don't waste my time talking about movies I didn't care for.)
I find it kind of interesting that we haven't even actually mentioned either movie that was reviewed, so far. :)
Yeah, I really dug what Armond had to say on TFT, but he didn't come off to well last week. It's one think to dislike an acclaimed film like Inception (everyone has different tastes, and the film certainly has problems), but to champion the works of Michael Bay is kind of sad. Clearly the guy is intelligent and educated in cinema history, but I'm finding it harder and harder to take his recommendations seriously.
I agree with just about all of what Gareth and Jett said about Inception. I was _dying_ to love it because I've seen too many bad movies recently hailed as the second coming.
But I wouldn't have loved it if… if I didn't love it.
I agree that in a way, it doesn't matter what the “answers” to the puzzle are (or even if there are indeed finite answers), but for what it's worth I have my own theory on it. Sure why not? it's a fun movie.
It's a bit long to post in a comment. Jett alludes to some of it, but he's quite wrong when he says there's no _song_ in Inception. There is one very important one…
Superman’s Underpants and the movie “Inception”:
http://www.stanleyrumm.com/?p=1355
Inception my very well have been the worst movie I've seen this year. And i saw The A-Team.
feel free to expand on that ;)
It was EXCRUCIATING.
Technical mastery aside, Nolan took The Sixth Sense and mashed it with the dopiness of a Pierce Bronsan-as-Bond movie. There was no mystery, no puzzle, just a convoluted mess. Which is a shame because I thought the ideas were definitely there — the lost love, letting go, remorse, and so on. Nolan should have kept it focused on that. He had a germ of a great idea but to keep fanboy asses in seats he grafted gratuitous gun play and silly mission impossible set pieces.
The film collapses under the weight of the rules Nolan sets up, which have no real logic, except to create more dilemmas for the characters to overcome. If you get killed in this hyper-sedated dream state, now you will go into a coma forever. Hey, there's a dilemma! In this dream level, your subconscious is now an arctic mountain fortress protected by soldiers on snowmobiles. Hey, another dilemma!
And as if it wasn't entirely clear how you should react, pay attention to the music. Because when it gets really loud and bombastic, that means SOMETHING DRAMATIC IS HAPPENING.
I don't know about Nolan, but my dreams are lot more imaginative, scary, arousing, confusing and magnificent. His characters have dreams straight out of Heat or Where Eagles Dare. And not a single person gets sexed up or even naked.
The whole raid on Castle Wolfenstein at the end was just beyond silly. And every time it cut back to the van falling in the water in slo-mo, I kept laughing; it reminded me of Lancelot repeatedly storming Swamp Castle in The Holy Grail.
I watched Memento last night, mostly to remind myself that Nolan knows how to tell a good story. I was surprised how thematically similar the two are, but his earlier work is just so much more engaging and intriguing. And darkly humorous.
Good God, was this film was in desperate need for humor! Something, anything, aside from a few weak quips from Tom Hardy's character. Why? Because it's how we identify and ultimately come to care about the characters. By the end of it, I was not at all emotionally vested in Cobb, his family, or anyone else. Nolan tries to throw in a bit of emotionality at the end, but it's too late. I'm already praying for the end credits.
The more the movie cut back to the falling van the more I found myself thinking “maan I'd love to be a movie director”. The last time I had that visceral feeling was watching The Thin Red line. No other link between those movies, but I just had that urge. :)
I thought the slo-mo floating van was lovely.
It seems to me, Daveed, that you're disliking the movie for what it is not rather than for what it is. I too lament the lack of humour in almost everything that doesn't have it, but I didn't miss it in this. In fact, I think the whole concept is easily spoilt (for oneself) if not viewed through a lens of ripened humour.
All the rules and exposition are bogglingly boring, I agree.. unless you believe (as I do -or choose to at least…) that _everything_ in the the whole movie is within Cobb's “dream”.
Then the dialogue becomes forgiveable and understandable and the rules become ingenious complexities within self-knotting conundrums, causing fear and anxiety and tension, etc.
The whole limbo and totem stuff (and everything else), likewise is therefore made up by the logic and psyche of the dreamer (Cobb).
A few times the music _almost_ annoyed me, but then I thought of Bernard Hermann/ Hitchcock banging-on incessantly through many movies and that somehow relaxed me. :)
It's a blast -don't fight it!
I agree that the entire film was a construct of Cobb's mind and the plot was an inception used against him to get him to overcome his demons. Everyone was Cobb's projection, except perhaps Caine and Juno. Not a huge revelation, or that compelling a story.
The anxiety, tension you speak of. Frankly, I felt none of it. And I'm not the only one. Google “Inception sucks” and you'll see many other people having the same criticisms as me. A few critics, too have pointed out the film's numerous shortcomings.
Again, I wasn't befuddled by Inception. Just bored.
I'm not trying to justify the movie by “explaining its complexities”. I know it surfs a thin line between ridiculous and trying to be profound. That's not the good bit (for me at least). I just really enjoyed it as an action movie that ties itself in knots. To be honest I'm enjoying it more now than 2 weeks ago when I saw it.
Would I rather see Inception again or something like Transformers 2 for the first time? Do I really have to answer that?
I guess I'm just putting forward the case that there are much worse movies out there. I don't see why everything has to be hailed as “the best” by half the people and “the worst” by everyone else.
I thought Inception was great fun. If you don't try to second-guess or interpret the aims of the director/writer there's a fun movie there waiting.
The main shortcomings I've read about so far have criticised its lack of dream logic believability and the neverending exposition.
I think it would have been a better movie if less was explained all the way through, but at least other things were happening as the “explaining” was going on. A director's cut might appear one day that removes the 'almost narration'.
As for the non-dreamy dream-logic and rules… well, I've had many in-movie dreams in the past, but also personally I'm well bored of traditional movie dream-logic. This was was Christopher Nolan ramming a train through the echoey halls of dreamdom -even if they are unlike dreams, they are more believable for it, which is more confusing in this case than a more traditional dream-movie-presentation, where the audience would be more aware of what is happening and _know_ that we don't understand it, but might appreciate its use of the traditional filmic dream techniques, and so “in on the joke” from the start.
Well, anyway, I'm not justifying it for one reason or another, but I believe most of the criticism stems from dissing it for what those viewers believe it is failing to do, rather than going with the flow of it. And by that I'm not trying to dismiss your complaints. I bet I would dislike it tpp if I viewed it in the way you did Daveed, but I'm just suggesting that next time (!) you watch it (in a few years perhaps) you might be willing to cut it some slack, settle back and let it wash over you. Good fun to be had if you can allow it.
Well, anyway, I'm not justifying it for one reason or another, but I believe most of the criticism stems from dissing it for what those viewers believe it is failing to do, rather than going with the flow of it.
Isn't that the point of criticism? For me, it failed to entertain or engage. What do you mean by “going with the flow of it”?
And I don't know what a few more years will impart on my opinion of the film. I'm a 40 year-old married man. LOL
For what it's worth, Andrew O'Hehir at Salon had the most cogent, and spot-on review of the film. I read it after I saw the movie and immediately thought, “Ah, I'm not the only one who reacted this way.” His Ice Station Zebra crack was perfect. Better than my Brosnan-as-Bond one.
I'm a 40 year old married man myself and I didn't mean to imply it was beyond your grasp or anything like that. Quite the opposite. I mean that I believe your criticism (and that of Andrew O'Hehir's, who is saying much the same thing I'm 'criticising' you about -I'm not criticising you really -promise!) is towards a movie that is enjoyable on a level you are dismissing.
I referred to it previously, but I call it the “Superman's Underpants”… it's easy to diss Superman (if he wasn't such an icon perhaps) if all you can see is his red underpants over a blue jumpsuit. Everything else in the movie (Superman The Movie, 1978 I mean) becomes intolerable.
Maybe while sitting in front of it first time, red underpants is just too stoopid. But some time later, when the notion has become an incidental thought, the red underwear can be enjoyed and/or ignored for what it is: incidental.
I agree the movie's dreams are too rigid to be “dreams”. I agree there is too much exposition. But I don't agree that any of that matters.
Now I grant you it's possible I will come round to your way of looking at it before you change your mind… time will tell. I'll gladly post it here if I do change my mind. :)
Enjoyable on which level, though? Not as an actioner. Or a love story. Or a psychological thriller.
I think that's the fundamental flaw of the entire film. It tries to act on too many levels and in the end, doesn't find its footing anywhere. Like I said before, Nolan had some good ideas there. The execution didn't illuminate them in any significant way, and the denouement was pap.
Works for me as an action thriller. Best one I've seen all year (that I can think of right now). But I don't think it needs to be stuck in any box to be enjoyed …just not jimmied into any in which it doesn't fit.
[...] TFT 137 – INCEPTION / WINTER’S BONE [...]
Well said! Although I liked the film, everything you say here is true.
>>And every time it cut back to the van falling in the water in slo-mo, I kept laughing; it reminded me of Lancelot repeatedly storming Swamp Castle in The Holy Grail.
Nice!
[...] purposefully left open dual interpretations of his film Inception (listen to the Film Talk review here). Leave Her To Heaven was made 65 years earlier, and its mysterious are just as illusive. Did the [...]
[...] purposefully left open dual interpretations of his film Inception (listen to the Film Talk review here). Leave Her To Heaven was made 65 years earlier, and its mysteries are just as illusive. Did the [...]