Why I enjoyed Inception

One reason was going to see it on the hottest day of the hottest summer so far. Because theaters are air-conditioned. But the weather is a banal reason for doing just about anything in human history, including this. The real reason is more about film, and the film, than what its doing outside. The spoiler alert is implied.

If there would be one word, it would be structure. Not so much narrative, because in my mind that implies the words that are spoken by the characters, which left something to be desired. No, the structure of the film is what makes it, in what I'll call my informed opinion, good. Comprehension is a wonderful thing.

I don't want to get into the specifics of Inception. Or maybe I do? Dreams within dreams. Actually four levels of dreams, if you count the shores of the subconscious they fall to when dying in dreams they can't wake up from. Also reality makes five. And each time the characters go into another dream, from their previous dream that they were dreaming, somehow their minds operate exponentially faster. This allows for a comprehensive assault on a snow fortress in the time it takes a van to drive off a bridge into a river.

In many filmmakers hands this would be convoluted. And it is, probably. But Christopher Nolan is nothing if not a precise and technical director. I can imagine him assigning a whole team of nerds to figure out how long each scene should be on each level of dreaming, when there is cutting back and forth between the aforementioned falling van and snow fort scenes, and also Joseph Gordon Levitt getting in gun battles/problem solving in a weightless environment. It feels accurate!

But I've already said to much, or possibly too little. Its a good movie, even if the gist of the final scene is apparent withing the first five minutes. This is coming from someone who'd take confusing over mindless any day when it comes to 2-hour 200-million dollar blockbusters. Not to hate on Transformers* of course. Many people lack comprehension skills, thus summer media besides Mad Men tends to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Anyway, Inception is a good movie, the best to come out in this blighted film season. It inspired me to make some post using the structure that fits it so well. It might of worked, but we'll never know because in the end I just had a glass of whiskey to loosen my typing fingers and did this instead.

*hate on Transformers 2 is welcome**

**fucking jive-talking robots