Je Ne Regrette My Ticket Purchase

Count me among the many members of the Inception fan club.  Not a rabid member, mind you, but one who quietly loves, one who does not feel that deep, passionate "MY GOD THIS FILM IS THE PERFECT BEST EVARR", but instead feels the sweet, subtle assurance that this is one for the ages, one that will remain close to my heart for a long time.

Beware. It's a difficult movie to discuss without spoiling some aspects.

Tread carefully. You've been warned.

I'm sure it's easy to dismiss Inception. It's got an intricate structure that distracts from what is actually a pretty simple story: that is, the redemption of Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). Never mind all that "inception" business that Ken Watanabe starts us on. That's really just the subplot, the MacGuffin to distract us from the first Nolan film that actually has a woman at its center. While it's fun to debate over that last scene, while watching the dream-within a dream-within a dream sequences is breathtaking, while that fight sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (all done with practicals, no CGI) kicks all the ass and stands as a shining moment of cinema...while all that is very well and good, this is a movie about a man dealing with grief. Everything else is just a means of getting him there, a setup for the journey he is going to have to take, a journey of guilt, love, redemption.

Now, really, Dom Cobb of Inception and Teddy Daniels of Shutter Island are interchangeable. "Boo-hoo, I don't know what's real and I'm obsessed with my dead wife." The difference is in the approach, and Leo does some very subtle things to differentiate his approach to Cobb from his approach to Teddy. The most important aspect, of course, is that despite his protests to the contrary, Cobb fears that he may be losing his grip. He sees his dead wife Mal while in other people's dreams, and even sedates himself at nights so that he can be with her. Well, not really her, but a memory of her. Leo plays Cobb with tragedy and desperation, and without a weird accent to distract from the performance. He is ably met by Marion Cotillard as Mal. She manages to be a full-fledged character and a mere projection of a man's idea at the same time. It's the toughest character to play, and wouldn't you know it, Cotillard nails it better than anyone could possibly imagine. She's probably the best actress of her generation.

Ellen Page is the real stand-out for me. As the Architect, she creates the dream world our team must navigate -- but her role is so much more than that. As the film progresses, she becomes both Cobb's confessor and his conscience. Is it just that I love Ellen Page that I found her portrayal of Ariadne strangely magnetic? Maybe, but it's not my fault she plays even the most underwritten of characters so wonderfully. The girl really only exists so that Cobb can deliver exposition on both the dreamworld and his own backstory, but Page does a lot with her. We get a quiet, studious girl who becomes enthralled with a world she can control, but only so much.

And in a business suit and bun? Hell yeah.

Next in line, performance-wise, is Tom Hardy as The Forger, Eames. Laid-back and humorous, Hardy allows simple line-readings and body language to inform us about his character. His feelings about Arthur, his intrigue for the job at hand, his love of risk, Hardy gives us all of that just with his gait in his first scene. Between this and Bronson, I'd say the man's a born star.

In his look at the performances in Inception (Page ranks #1), RC of Strange Culture posits the theory that praise for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance (which he ranks #2) could possibly be based more on the fact that he is the central figure in the hotel fight sequence, featuring "scenes that are shot so wonderfully and stylized. How could Gordon-Levitt not also seem great...?" I'm going to go ahead and say that it's that, mixed with the general love people have for him anyway, that has led to all the praise being heaped on him. Now, truly, his character is the most serious of the ensemble, but he's also the only performer that never lets me in. Everyone else in the cast allows us to see the different dimensions of their characters. but JGL -- who, don't get me wrong, I usually adore -- kind of plateaus. He's serviceable, but except for a single moment with Ellen Page mid-film, he's one mood throughout. And that mood has a stick up its ass. What could he have done differently? I can't really say. All I know is that JGL disappointed me for once. Though that man certainly knows how to wear a suit.

Hans Zimmer's score is great. Its simple, building the tension and complementing the action without distracting from it. My roommate must read Rope of Silicon, for he pointed out, and Nolan admitted as much on Chud, that the score is a super slowed-down version of Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien", a song that plays an important part to the film. Little things like that amaze me, and it just made my appreciation for the score grow. I'm a fan of simple, minimalist music with repeated themes -- Philip Glass is my favorite composer -- so the pulsing strings of Zimmer's score really send me. And while Nolan may have used the Piaf song because it is oh so haunting, you know the meaning of the words had an influence on its inclusion. With Cobb consumed with guilt and wishing to rebuild his life, is it any wonder that the song that brings him back to reality has this lyric:

No! Absolutely nothing...
No! I regret nothing
Neither the good that I've done nor the bad
All this is much the same to me!

No! Absolutely nothing...
No! I regret nothing...
It is paid, swept away, forgotten
I don't care about the past!

It's a nice thought, one that he undoubtedly wishes he could share with Edith. But the man is absolutely consumed with nothing but regrets, with an inability to forget, with caring far too much about the past. That's some good stuff.

Now, it's not a perfect movie, per se. Besides JGL's cipher of a performance, there's also weird moments that may be plot holes, may be false memories, may be dreams. I guess that's the irritating thing about Inception, is that a mistake my not be a mistake, depending on what your theory is. Me, I'm gonna go ahead and say MAJOR SPOILER ALERT that Mal being on the other balcony is stupid. How did she get there? Why is she there? Wouldn't it make more sense if she's on the balcony of her hotel room? Or is that, like, the dream, man? Well, if it is, it's a stupid dream. Because that moment almost kills the movie for me. END OF THAT MAJOR SPOILER WHOO BACK TO NORMAL NOW

But it doesn't kill the movie for me. Because the movie's great. In the end, it doesn't even matter that most of the other characters aren't fully developed, because this isn't about them. This is about love and its consequences, and the effect those consequences have. It's simple, but that's always a story I can get behind.

Whip It

Guys: I really liked Whip It.

I know, I know. After months of talking about it, how could I not love it? That's unfair, of course: with a bar like the one I'd set, it was either fall in love or be let down. Fortunately, it was the former, and though it's not perfect, I still think it's beautiful.

Okay, there are a few problems. The amount of music (non-score) gets distracting, and while a lot of it is really cool...it's distracting. The romantic subplot between Bliss and a bassist (played by actual musician Landon Pigg) is not set up particularly well. Come to think of it, he's kind of awkward to watch, too. Sometimes the editing was jarring, losing some big moments, awkwardly cutting for close-ups, etc. Drew Barrymore is certainly no Sarah Polley.

But as a director of actors, she must kick some ass, because the performances are surprisingly good. When I say surprising, I mean I know that these are actors and characters that could be broadly comic. Instead, the comedy is more amusing than funny, with the dramatic sequences actually hitting that emotional core within all of us. My roommate was tearing up, my DP's girlfriend was tearing up, and the tears were just outright flowing for me. So, yeah, as far as that kind of thing goes, Barrymore's great. She just needs more practice behind the camera.

She's certainly working with a solid script. Shauna Cross adapts her own novel Derby Girl, and having read that, I gotta give mad props. Yeah, they're the same story with the same characters, but Cross approaches them differently, changing her story to suit the medium. It works better here than it does on the page (and it works great on the page).

Also of help: the solid cast. Once again, Ellen Page is a high-schooler marching to the beat of her own drum, but don't you dare mistake this for another Juno. Bliss Cavendar is more reserved, more self-conscious, less dependent on quips. Surely Maxim is wrong: how can Megan Fox be "the new sexy" when Ellen Page exists? Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern play her parents. Harden's pageant-obsessed mother is never a stock character, and she really breaks your heart in a number of scenes. Stern -- Daniel Stern, mind you, from Home Alone and Bushwacked -- also manages to avoid caricature, though there are so many missteps he could have made. And yet, he has probably the most touching scene in the film. Good on Stern, or good on Barrymore?

Barrymore herself plays a stoner derby girl, one of a colorful ensemble of sexy skaters that include Zoe Bell, Eve, Ari Graynor, Juliette Lewis (!) and Kristen Wiig. Wiig gets to play the other mother of the story -- she does well. Lewis is a villainous bitch, absolutely terrifying and yet impossibly awesome. I'm not a HUGE fan, but I admit, I was kind of pleased to see her back. Andrew Wilson is pretty funny as their coach, so far putting him at #2 on the Wilson Brothers Rankings (Owen is still #1).

It's a fun movie, one that definitely should be seen by women. Earlier, I recommended my mother see it with my sisters, because as far as mother-daughter relationships go, this film has one of the more realistically-portrayed ones. Not just the chemistry of the actors, though that is certainly the driving force of the film. The level of approval and disapproval as regards a situation is finally illustrated truthfully instead of idealistically.

I'd see it again, definitely. And again, Marcia Gay Harden. She's great in this. Definitely see it this week -- it needs our help.

Reason to Believe in God

Whip It! Trailer

This is the directorial debut of the great Drew Barrymore, starring Academy Award/Hollmann Award Nominee Ellen Page and Oscar Winner Marcia Gay Harden. Do you smell that? That's the scent of a WINNER.