"You're waiting for a train; a train that will take you far away..."

Inception begins with Leonardo Di Caprio washing up on a beach. He wakes to see two fair-haired children playing in the sand. He is found by some armed men speaking Japanese. These men take him to a wizened old man who asks him if he's there to kill him. The guards display the only thing's Di Caprio was carrying: a gun and a toy top. The old man recognizes the top and starts to spin it... It is not until the very end that a first-time viewer will understand what this really means, an early example of all the complexities Inception holds.

There are so many things this movie gets right, I can only see it becoming one of the Great Movies, one that collectively sticks with us, becoming a part of our cultural make-up and that we always return to. It's a cerebral action movie that's brainy but not pretentious. One aspect of it that many seem to overlook is that it's premise is essentially a reverse heist-picture, where the group has to break in and leave something of great value. It's also a perfect example of using visuals to help enhance the story, not to over-compensate for a shoddy script. The characters are not completely fleshed out, but the actors are so compelling that their subtle character traits and flaws speak volumes. Di Caprio, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, and Cillian Murphy are as excellent as one can expect from them, but Joseph Gordan-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Marion Cotillard are the ones whose performances you remember.

It's a complex storyline, and it's ambiguous (oh, that brilliant final scene!), but not in a purposefully frustrating way a la David Lynch. I'm really excited about all of the theories that are emerging around this film. Many of them are going to be crack-pot ideas, but I've already heard some pretty cool ones: it's all a dream, all of it, from the very beginning, and Mal was right all along; or that it's all a metaphor for film making, Christopher Nolan's 8 1/2.

That said, the film can be left as it is on the surface, and really whether it's an excellent summer blockbuster or an art film, it succeeds as both. Unless something else trumps this, I'm going to call it the quintessential movie of 2010.

Hey, kids! LOL Cats!

First of all, I'm really enjoying the Prince of Power mini-series, having become a real big Amadeus Cho fan recently.

A highlight of issue #3 that dropped last Wednesday answers the question we all come across at time: How do you pacify the raging, lion-headed Egyptian Goddess of Destruction, Sekhmet?



Ah, the soothing, healing power of LOL Cats...

Toy Story and the Wonder of Pathetic Fallacies

It's kind of sad yet kind of appropriate that as I get older the only films that I really anticipate the release of are animated. While we are getting too much Disney and Shrek derivative crap, we are also seeing a lot of highly innovative films being made that are taking chances with the medium. Youtube is giving a lot of exposure (although often in violation of copyright) to animated shorts, a form once restricted to film festivals. Miyazaki and Brad Bird are respected as auteurs. Now, Toy Story 3 is one of the best movies I've seen in years.

Pixar is truly bizarre--no studio should hit all the right notes all the time. When their "worst" films are the charming and enjoyable Cars and A Bug's Life, it's almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop--what if their next film is a disappointment? 

The very first Toy Story came out when I was only 10, and it struck with me as one of these works that molded my developing imagination and tastes. (Don't worry, I would eventually discover that Randy Newman sang the same song over and over.)

Contrary to what most kid franchises would do, the children's ages have not remained static, and Andy is moving out and leaving for college. What is he to do with his secretly-alive toys? Keep them close at hand? Put away his childish things and enter adulthood unburdened? Give them away and cherish the memories? Hmm... maybe this is why I hoard things.

One thing that I had trouble with initially while revisiting the world of Toy Story was trying to figure what the toys' relationship with Andy was supposed to be analogous to in real life. Was it meant to represent childhood friends who grow apart? Parents who most say goodbye to child? Children who must leave home? The faithful to their deity? Then I had to stop myself, realizing that I had to stop over-thinking it in this one instance. In the verisimilitude of this universe, the toys' love for their owner represents just that. It made sense to me as a child, and there's no reason why it shouldn't now.

Pixar is pretty brilliant at keeping the story on a level accessible to children without being saccharine or crass, while also being enjoyable for  adults without any audience pandering pop culture references. Also, in many ways they subscribe to the same school of thought as Maurice Sendak in that they aren't going to gloss over the tough parts of life, giving kids enough credit that they can handle it. That said, Toy Story 3 has plenty of kindertrauma nightmare fuel. There's the red-eyed, screaming cymbal monkey straight out of Stephen King, a baby doll reminiscent of Boo Radley, and Mr. Potato Head using a floppy tortilla as a body. Then there's the increasingly hellish trip to the dump. I am normally critical at how Pixar lines up a series of separate obstacles during their finale, each more dangerous than the last (Finding Nemo is the worst culprit of this). However, the dump scene was brilliantly orchestrated. It was chair-squirmingly intense, and when they reach the Mount Doom incinerator is beyond heart-wrenching. The way such love, compassion, fear, bravery, and acceptance is perfectly conveyed with these characters is beautiful, proving that sometimes the great performances don't have to come from a living thing. The whole sequence is already cemented as one of my favorite cinematic moments.

Yeah, I have faith that if they decide to make more sequels, Pixar won't run the series into the ground. While I would get excited, this was a fantastic way to close the series. Like Andy, I've aged since the previous films, but the stories will stick with me.