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Inception

Over the weekend, I finally got around to seeing Chris Nolan’s Inception and all I can say is wow. I thought the movie was as good if not better than the reviews it’s been getting. Mr. Nolan is very quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. I feel like his movies keep getting better and more thought provoking each time around. Right now, I can’t think of one bad movie he’s made, I loved Following, The Prestige, Memento, and The Dark Knight, and wasn’t sure if Nolan was going to be able to top these films, but he did.

The thing about summer blockbusters is they are generally a very mind numbing experience. I understand there is a very large market for movies like Transformers, Twilight, and Avatar, all of which are good movies in their own right, but intelligent Hollywood blockbusters are becoming extremely hard to come by. It seems like studios are becoming more and more scared of coming out with a picture that is cutting edge or “too intelligent” for the average audience. Inception and The Dark Knight are two perfect examples of how conventional wisdom in tinsel town is wrong. According to Boxofficemojo, Inception (which cost $160 million to make) has so far netted $227 million in the United States and $477 million worldwide as of August 8th. I hope that Inception can change the mentality in Hollywood and show studios that thought provoking movies with intricate plot lines can be very successful.

I’m not going to write a review of Inception, there are hundreds of other websites that can do a much better job than I can with the review, I will just say a couple of things about the film that I very much liked. With Inception, Chris Nolan (as he’s done many times before) shows us a movie from the perspective of the unreliable narrative, a technique that I feel is extremely underutilized in Hollywood. Instead of watching the protagonist make decisions, be them right or wrong, from far away, we are right there with the protagonist (in this case being Leonardo DiCaprio) as he confronts his demons and tries to discern reality from dream. I don’t want to give away anything from the plot, if you haven’t seen the film by now then you really should. This is a movie that is best watched in the theatre, the special effects are terrific. I'm reminded of how fascinated I was when I first watched The Matrix. The supporting cast also gives a stellar performance that will keep you on the edge of your seat for the duration of the film.

So thank you to Chris Nolan for giving us a movie that actually stimulates the mind rather than simply turns it to mush. In my opinion, Nolan is on his way to joining the ranks of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino in the best director category.

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