Inception (2010)

It's hard to really give a thorough description of what Inception is about, but here's the most basic ingredient to understanding how complex it is: Imagine the Matrix. Now imagine that there was a Matrix inside that Matrix. And possibly another one inside that one. You kind of get the head trip that Inception is about to take you on.

The movie concerns that which is most precious to movies: dreams. Movies realize our greatest dreams and greatest fantasies, and Inception is a movie to challenge all those notions. Here is the reason we go to the cinema: to see things we've never seen before, to experience thrills that we've never dreamed of. A Trip to the Moon was a modern marvel in 1902, and I'm happy to report that in a summer full of sequels, reboots, and whatever else, Christopher Nolan has delivered what could very well turn out to be his best movie.

I say could because I'm not sure of the movie's greatness yet. But it is a movie that, once over, immediately warrants a repeat viewing because you want to go back, knowing what you now know, and reconstruct the movie from there. Repeat viewings, as is true for all movies, test whether something is truly a masterpiece. For now, I will say Inception is one of the best of the year and maybe that opinion will change later on.

The movie is about a specialized group of people who steal ideas from other people's dreams. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, one of the best in this field, along with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I won't even begin trying to explain how this process, known as "extraction," exactly works, and I won't even delve too far into the concept of Inception except to say, it is the opposite of an extraction.

Marion Cotillard is also in this movie, as Leo's wife, and she has a stare that terrifies the shit out of you. There's also Ellen Page, who doesn't know how this stuff works and so serves as our entry point into the whole idea of the dream world. Her job is to construct the reality of the dream so that the subject doesn't realize there are other "dreamers" there.

Nolan, who is the sole writing credit on this one (usually his brother Jonathan collaborates, but this one was maybe to intricate for Nolan to lay out for him on paper), proves how adept he is at juggling multiple story lines. This movie is the perfect study of parallel editing over the course of an hour to build tension so high that you are about to burst at the seams with craziness just wanting it to all end.

Undoubtedly there will be several knockoffs of this film down the line, but we will weather them. People will try to be as brilliant as Nolan, but few if any will succeed. He is working on a whole new level, way ahead of the rest of his competition, and inventing the curve. Did I understand Inception? Yes. Can I explain it? Yes, but it would take far too much time to lay out, and honestly, you should just go see it. It's a movie that has to be experienced, it cannot simply be explained.

In the Loop (2009)

There is something inanely refreshing about a political satire that lets no one be the hero, instead letting every character serve as one way or another a villain. This is true of In the Loop, be it the witless Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), the aides Judy (Gine McKee) and Toby (Chris Addison), the press agent Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the secretive Linton Barwick (David Rasche), the nosy Karen Clarke (Mimi Kennedy) or the soft Lt. Gen. Miller (James Gadolfini).

The movie opens with Simon Foster, the minister of something or other, making a gaffe on BBC radio, stating that war “is unforeseeable”. This starts a tumult, and Simon makes things worse by saying, later, the sometimes you must “Climb the Mountain of Conflict.” If anything, this movie is a prime example of why one small slip can ruin an entire political career.

The movie never states it, but one assumes that it is taking place in the days leading up the Iraq War, or war with another unnamed country in the Middle East. Director and co-writer Armando Ianucci cleverly never reveals the identity of the President, Vice President, or Prime Minister, and the exact crisis in the Middle East is left unexplained.

The movie is fast, using the documentary style now associated with The Office, and slings jokes at the audience quicker then machine gun fire. The plot is thick, sometimes hard to conceive, but the movie’s trick is it is never boring. Some compare it Dr. Strangelove (1964), and I think that is a fair comparison. Strangelove was a model for the paranoia of the Cold War, and brilliantly pitted the Americans and the Russians opposite each other. Here, it is the British and Americans arguing about going to war.

Maybe the movies greatest strength, and weakness, is that there is no one character you can really root for. Gadolfini’s Gen. Miller is definitely a soft type: he looks friendly, and calmly and cheerfully insults anyone who irks him. Capaldi’s Malcolm is a horse of a different color, blurting obscenities of high caliber imagination, and furiously berating everyone in his path. In one great scene, he goes to the White House to be briefed on a war committee, only to find that the person who is briefing him is a 23-year-old. His reaction and subsequent action is priceless.

There is also the part of the dueling assistants, Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky) and Michael Rodgers (James Smith), and the scheming, loathsome Toby. Everyone is a backstabber, and I have to say if anyone in power is as clumsy or inept as the characters in this movie (as I do suspect a lot of our elected officials are), then it would explain some of the more outrageous things that have come to pass.

In the Loop also has the distinct honor of being one of the first satires of the Iraq War, and thankfully lands it right. Mishandled, it could have offended, but this way it is hilarious, insightful, and just makes you damn mad at the way things are handled in the corridors of power.

Not Rated, but contains many colorful swears

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

I rarely say this (in reviews anyways) but holy shit that was an awesome movie. Now this is the movie of the summer; not X-Men, not Transformers, Harry Potter, G.I. Joe, or Prawns...this is.

My, what a bold statement I just made there. But it's true. And this movie is an example of something that Hollywood should take special notice of. This movie is gruesome, but if you clocked the amount of violence and action in the movie, you would probably come short of five minutes tops...and that's being optimistic. The movie builds to its action sequences, which are short bursts of bloody glory, then resumes it what is almost an entirely dialogue driven movie.

The opening scene alone, which takes up about 20 minutes, held this audience in complete captivation. And that scene so effectively establishes the villain, Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) that whenever that character reappears, chills go up and down your spine.

The story of Inglorious Basterds could simply be boiled down to this: Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads an army of American Jews and Germans (Krauts who hate the third reich) on a general slaughter of any and all Nazis they come across. To say anymore would be to spoil too much of the fun.

Needless to say, this is history as Tarantino envisions it, so if you hate historically inaccurate movies, then I'd say you should leave the theater immediately and go rent Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace. If, however, you are tired of the endless WWII and Holocaust movies, then this is your movie. The Jews take matters into their own hands, and while the film has no semblances of realism in accordance with history, it is glorious to watch.

But I want to touch again on something remarkable about this film. Tarantino uses dialogue in all of his scenes, that special brand where characters don't necessarily talk about plot related matters but about what they are doing, their lives. Everything drives the plot, though you may not realize it at first, and little embellishments help flourish the scenery, for instance strudels, a card game, and milk.

The movie, however, is not without a few very, very minor faults. First, I would have liked to have known a bit more about the Basterds; they are the title but share maybe 1/4 of the screen time that other characters have. This is a small quibble, really. What bothered me a little more was Tarantino's endless references that I caught and didn't catch. The scores used near the beginning are obviously remixed versions of Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly score. The film also randomly mashes styles, giving us a looney backstory on one Basterd, with silly titles and all.

Now I challenge Tarantino with this: make a movie that is wholly original and doesn't contain references to obscure kung fu films or slightly better known westerns. You've mastered the art creating excellent entertainments around things you loved (most notably Kill Bill). Now it's time to stop paying homage. It's time to start doing things that people will pay homage to you for.

I still think this movie is great, and even want to see it again to make sure I take in everything. I recommend those that have been waiting for the movie to see this summer to go see it, and everyone else too. This is a film that does not insult its audiences intelligence.

Rated R for the scalping of Nazis, swearing, and a brief shot of Goebbel's humping his translator.