Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Friday, July 16, 2010

A Midsummer Night’s Movie

“Row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.”


If you want a mind fuck then you should watch Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It’s that kind of movie that made me think, as I was walking home with Makati CBD’s lights still blazing late at night, “Man, real life seems so boring.” The last time I felt that way after watching a movie was with The Matrix in 1999.

In 2000 Christopher Nolan wowed audiences with Memento, a story about a man suffering short-term memory loss (he’s the dead-serious precursor of Finding Nemo’s Dory). Its storytelling chutzpa has form and content intertwining in a loopy triumph. It’s there that Nolan first explores how the medium’s language is integral to the message. 1999’s The Matrix introduced bullet-time; at that time, it was just a neat way to show off the ballet of violence. In Inception Nolan uses slow-mo too, but this time it (as well as the other elements of film language) serves the story as well.

Indeed, Nolan plays around with film language—editing, slow-mo, cinematographic tricks, etc—and shows us how much movies and dreams share similarities. He seems to be fascinated with how much movies can mimic a dreamlike state, or that dreams are much like movies of the mind. The jump-cuts, the skewed images and the malleability of time can be dreamlike and cinematic.

Inception looks like a summer blockbuster movie, with set action pieces, car chases, gunfight, huge explosions, picturesque locations (at times it looks like a Bond movie, moving from country to country) and awe-inspiring visual effects. Yet it is also movie that demands the moviegoer to think. It has the trappings of a heist movie, yet at its core is the theme of loss, forgiveness, moving on and the finiteness of love.

Indeed, Inception is that rare summer movie. It is very much a dream of a summer movie.

* * * * *

I watched Inception in a regular movie house. Now I want my second viewing to be an IMAX experience. If at the big screen it’s already a mind-fuck, seeing it on IMAX may turn out to be a cinematic orgy.

Oooh! And I now have a new crush: Tom Hardy.


16 comments:

imsonotconio said...

i want to watch this

Vince (Discreet Manila) said...

IKR!

joelmcvie said...

@VINCE: I suppose your comment is more for Tom Hardy than for the movie, right? LOL

~Carrie~ said...

Panonoorin ko itey. Thanks sa review, Joel. Naintriga ako sa movie.

icarusboytoy said...

ooh... mind fuck? i like any kind of fucking! lol! i'm sure i'll like this one hehe

red the mod said...

It's brilliant. Like a mind-fuck. Except its more of a gang-bang mind-fuck. So, for the lack of action, this pretty much immensely makes up for it.

I want to wake up and reside in Nolan's mind even for just a day.

I wanna watch it again too. And discover details I may have overlooked before. To question the conclusions I deduced when I first saw it last week. And of course, to experience its exhilarating absurdity once more. Preferably with better company, the one I watched it with didn't care much for it. Confusing daw.

But I love confusing.

E said...

its like dropping E and then snorting fat lines of ketamine....Love it

~Carrie~ said...

I love it!

Gusto ko pa rin si 500 Days of Summer guy. LOL

icarusboytoy said...

finally watched it last night! loves it! <3 <3 <3! hehe

couldn't wipe my smile off my face after the movie!

Fickle Cattle said...

You don't know me but I always read your blog. I find your point of view on sex refreshing. Anyway, re: Tom Hardy, he admitted to sexual experimentation with boys when he was younger. How hot is that?

Here's the link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1298384/Inception-hunk-Tom-Hardy-admits-Ive-sexual-relations-men.html

See, you can have sex with guys when you were young and still be straight AND not have to be ashamed about it.

http://ficklecattle.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

well, if you like Tom Hardy then you better hurry and grab a copy of RocknRolla where he plays a gay character ;)
now if that doesn't get you hard, this will ensure that there is a chance, even just a slim one, of fantasy becuming reality.

http://www.towleroad.com/2010/07/inception-star-tom-hardy-of-course-ive-had-sex-with-men.html

Greets from a fellow CW in Frankfurt

Unknown said...

Ahh yeah, before taking the long and arduous road of writing,copy and pasting, editing, filling out the blanks on the blog form while getting an organic high for coming off as facetious but knowing. I have to remind myself to read the comments beforehand.

next step, putting down that joint.

joelmcvie said...

@HEMPDRIX: Hahaha, it's okay, I like it when more than one person refers to the same thing, that means it's something worth checking out indeed.

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a "CW"? =)

Unknown said...

copywriter, but i guess youre definitely a Creative Director now, right? sorry, I'm not updated .clear up the confusion, please :)

joelmcvie said...

@HEMPDRIX: Oh, hehehe. Actually I left the CD position to work at the marketing dept. of a network. So I'm now back on supplier's side, hahaha. ("Back" because from 2000 to 2006 I worked in ABS-CBN.)

joelmcvie said...

@HEMPDRIX: But really, I'm still a CW at heart. =)