intellectual properties

recent books and movies: the shallow and the deep, the dark and the light

.::. seen .::.

Invictus (IMDB/netflix) : i have to say: i was sort of disappointed.  i get that the myopic focus of the film is specifically on the 1995 Rugby World Cup and how Mandela used the rugby team to unite the nation after Apartheid, but it seemed to me that the focus was a little *too* narrow.  like: south africa was WAY f*ked up at that time, and you only kind of get to see a little bit of that, glossed over. even the Mandela character as played by Morgan Freeman is a little too smooth for me to believe. but still: great story, and if you like sports films it’s probably worth watching just for the rugby scenes.

we also recently (re)watched A Serious Man (IMDB/netflix), and i can’t recommend this film enough. it’s perhaps now my favorite Coen brothers film (although i *did* really like Romance and Cigarettes…) because i just can’t stop thinking about it. the intersection of religious mysticism with quantum physics and personal karma, in a darkly humorous context?…..oh yes. fave line: “I understand the physics. I understand the dead cat.”

Scott Pilgrim vs The World: i never have been a comic book person, so i found parts of this….yawnworthy. but even so, i liked the overall direction the film took and enjoyed it’s unabashed nerdiness. nerdy comic book action + awkward romance film. michael cera. not a lot more to say there.

The Vicious Kind (netflix/IMDB). dark, dark romantic comedy, especially recommended for the uber-cynical among us.

final movie note: all you potheads/Kevin Smith fans out there need to watch Kevin Smith: Too Fat for 40.

.::.read.::.

the YMCA has a book-trading shelf, and i saw this book “Confessions of a Shopaholic“. now, i usually don’t read anything that might be categorized as “chick lit”, but given my currently limited cash flow i’ve been thinking a lot about my own shopaholic tendencies lately, and plus i needed something light to read on the plane (i cannot read heavy material while traveling), so i picked it up. (oh, apparently this was also made into a film in 2009.  like “Eat Pray Love” (read last year), i am sure the film is TERRIBLE.  i am talking about the book.) i am sort of embarrassed to admit how much i enjoyed this book. first: i related to the shopaholic tendencies (and yes i am aware that i often post avidly NON-CONSUMERIST items here, but indeed that is highly driven by my own consumer pitfalls and struggles and those posts are as much a reminder to myself as anyone else), and second, the career aspect.  the 2nd level story here is that this woman is doing a job she’s decent at but totally unmotivated to cultivate into a career, caring only that it provides her with a paycheck to go shopping with, until …. well i’ll leave the spoiler out.  but let’s just say i could relate. a little too much. not sure if i have any interest in reading more novels by this author or not.

i finished that while in Michigan, so to make up for reading such fluff, for the trip back i raided my mother’s collection of Kurt Vonnegut novels and chose “A Man Without a Country“.  now i am also embarrassed to admit (particularly since he is my mother’s favorite author) that i’ve never read any of Vonnegut’s novels, but after reading this quasi-memoir you can bet i will.  i was laughing before i even finished the first page, and the unapologetic treatment of such controversial and sensitive topics as the bombing of Dresden (for which he was present as a WWII soldier and based Slaughterhouse-Five on) and 9/11 is priceless. most of the book was originally published as long screeds in the alt publication In These Times, and you can read most of this novel in a less curated form on their website. warning: the satire is left-leaning to the point of falling over, but in this case i do not see that as a fault.

black swan + joan rivers

speaking of transformations into black, we did go see Black Swan last weekend.  i know a lot of my friends were waiting with breathless anticipation for Tron and went opening night, but honestly i have almost zero interest in seeing Tron (although i did hear the soundtrack kicks ass (“Daft Punk’s Best Movie Yet” haha)). not to prejudge too much but it’s just not generally a genre of film i get excited about.  but Black Swan is totally my thing and i was VERY EXCITED about it. it did not disappoint. it’s not for the faint of heart.  i will try not to let any spoilers out here and just say that the combination of gorgeously bleak cinematography, dance, costuming (Rodarte!!), paranoid characters, schizophrenia and HEARTPOUNDING ANXIETY will leave you shaken.

while amazing and quite a departure from her normal self-confident-woman roles, i’m not sure that Natalie Portman’s performance deserves any more accolades than Barbara Hershey’s, who plays the part of Scary Stage Mom a little too well. THAT was some intensity.  Mila Kunis was……Mila Kunis. no big stretch on her part as far as i could tell, not that much different than most of the other characters i’ve seen her do.

the story was decent (not saying more due to spoilers), but i loved the style of the film more than anything. if you’re not into artsy-noir, maybe Black Swan isn’t for you, and in that case you should go see Tron.

.::.

in other movie viewing reports, i also recently watched the documentary about Joan Rivers, “A Piece of Work“, and was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing.  lots of great recent history about the comedy world, but WOW – such an amazing woman.  at 75+ years old she’s working non-stop, taking red-eye flights, traveling until 3am and getting up at 6:30 to work, doing multiple events a day, and as agile mentally and physically and as anyone i know, let alone most 75 year-olds. watching her made me tired and i’m not even 35 yet.

say what you want about her face (the plastic surgery thing is of course mentioned but not a huge part of the film at all), i was utterly astounded by the amount of wit and energy this woman has – STILL.  i can’t even imagine what a dynamo she was 40 years ago. i’ve read that people age dramatically after they retire/stop working. she’s definitely proof that if you never slow down, you never grow old.

180 degrees + good hair

watched 2 more great docus last night (time snuggling in bed watching movies is greatly exceeding time at the gym the last 5 days):

–Good Hair, a documentary about black hair starring Chris Rock as the investigator of cultural feelings on the subject.  lots of interesting tidbits about what black women go through dealing with their hair, and how it affects everything in their lives from how they feel about themselves and eachother, to what activities they will/won’t do, to relationships to sex, including ethical questions about things like putting a dangerous chemical solvent on the heads of toddlers, spending $1000-3000 on a weave when you can’t pay the rent, and the basic question of why it’s not sexy or cool to just have the hair you’re born with. also investigates the industry behind where all that hair comes from and the market to get it. obvi you can extrapolate these ideas out to all kinds of beauty issues, but this one is very specific, and Chris Rock is hella funny.

plus: Ice-T is seriously one of the most awesome people on the planet.  i swear, every time i hear him speak i think he’s a genius. he definitely has one of the most grounded, clear perspectives on life ever, and his interview on this subject are a highlight of the film.

–180 degrees south.  i’ll spare you all my wanderlust thoughts while watching this amazing film and just tell you that if you 1. love to travel, 2. love surfing and/or rockclimbing/mountaineering, and/or 3. support nature conservancy and protection of indigenous cultures against hazardous development, you should watch this movie. really one of the most well-done and engaging – without being preachy – films on the naturalist tip i’ve seen. great cinematography, great music, great blending of adventure footage combined with philanthropic discussion.

“The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia. Along the way he gets shipwrecked off Easter Island, surfs the longest wave of his life and prepares himself for a rare ascent of Cerro Corcovado.”

Yvon Chouinard, in addition to being part of the team of the first climbers to climb the biggest rock faces in Yosemite with no fixed ropes, founded the company Patagonia, and Tompkins founded North Face.  both are approaching 70 years old in this film, and have an excellent long view of what it means to be a nature lover. super highly recommended.

i like movies about artists. even bad ones.

i have a thing for movies about artists.  i love watching docus about artists and/or art movements (absolutely must see: Herb and Dorothy).  often, particularly with modern/conceptual art, if you don’t know the intention, the background, the process of an art form, the end product -what you see- makes no sense. and the more i study and learn about art world, the more i appreciate the likes of Andy Warhol, and what he was trying to tell us about modern cult(ure) around art. the commodification of expression; why and how things become popular, regardless of any intrinsic value.

i mentioned that i recently liked the late-80′s movie “Slaves of New York“, about starving conceptual artists, and then this weekend we watched a similar film that i think did a great job of examining the relationships between artists and sellers and consumers of art in a dark comedic way: “[untitled]” (via netflix instant). i think the film is particularly funny for people are either 1. modern artists themselves, no matter what sort, and struggle to find an audience for what they are offering or 2. people who have friends who are modern artists, and maybe more often than not don’t know how to feel about the art their friends make. i’m of the latter ilk, often going to art galleries and openings and wondering how that pile of garbage with the rope around it suspended from the ceiling can possibly be conceived as art. true: sometimes, SOMETIMES, the uber-meta conceptual artist is very literally making something and presenting their art with the aim of making you ask that question (which the film pointedly addresses).  this film comedicly and directly addresses the infinite question: “is it art or not?”, and also the set of circumstances that make something commercially viable. i also loved snickering at the conceptual artist who makes terrible art calling the other conceptual artists’ terrible art “stupid.” but there was a lightness to it – a hope. that if you are serious about your art, you will find your voice and your audience. i liked it.

.::.

on this topic, last weekend we watched the now-infamous film “I’m Still Here“, starring Joaquin Phoenix, aka “JP”. i had seen the press about it when it came out, and had vague notions about what it was/wasn’t before watching, but specifically have not yet looked up the real story even yet as i write this.  the premise, for those unfamiliar:  despite critical acclaim for “Walk the Line“, JP, fed up with hollywood, quits acting forever to become a hiphop artist in LA. he gains tons of weight, grows a beard, walks around unkempt and unwashed, mumbles terrible hip hop, and tries to sell his album to P.Diddy and everyone else, using his fame to try to hock his new art. he infamously goes on Letterman and acts like a total fuck and pisses Letterman off, etc., and gets angry at tabloids and other people who suggest it’s all a PR stunt.

for the first 30 minutes of the movie i sort of went back and forth between being irritated by the film  and amused by the commentary. JP’s rants about “what it means to be an artist” and “how fucked up hollywood is” were spot on, whether or not his endeavor was real.  and the more i watched it, the more i thought that ESPECIALLY if what he was doing wasn’t real, the MORE spot on the whole thing was.  the movie is filmed in real time – meaning that as JP is making this film, the hollywood press is all over him about it, which gives him even more fodder for talking about how fucked up hollywood is and why he doesn’t want to be an actor anymore, and also how terrible the tabloids are about making stuff up and selling it to the public (recent great photo example of tabloid confusion: magazine covers re: michael douglas). what will they print? what kind of crap will people believe?  Will People Believe Joaquin Phoenix Quit Acting To Be A Rapper?  so as it went on, i started to really appreciate the whole thing as a very committed piece of performance art, sort of Andy Kaufman-esque.

[SPOILER ALERT] Continue reading »

the book of eli (spoiler alert)

last night we watched The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic film.  the setting: nuclear (?) war causes hole in atmosphere, sun scorches earth, most people die, the scattered burnt-out civilization that remains looks a lot like hanging out with the DPW at burning man, only more desperate and violent.  all books were burned, and water is so scarce it becomes the controlling force for everything people do.  it’s sort of a cross between an old cowboy movie and mad max.  what makes it exceptional is 1. it’s beautifully shot in black/white/monochrome, and the mood is minimalist and desolate and 2. the cast: denzel washington, gary oldman, tom waits, jennifer beals, and mila kunis.

the premise, however, is tricky, and where i got a little put off (spoiler alert):

Continue reading »

2 movies, 2 books

the other night we watched Inglourious Basterds. the netflix DVD had been sitting by the TV since April. despite a huge love for both Tarantino and Pitt, whenever i was looking for movie to watch, i couldn’t bring myself to watch it. finally, we did. and during the first scene, the first 20 minutes, i almost turned it off. it wasn’t the violence, although i did put my hands over my face during every violent scene in the film, it’s that i have never been able to watch films about the holocaust. i have never seen Schindler’s List. every fiber of my being revolts against this fact about our history – that such widespread, unbelievable sociopathy occurred – and i get physically ill. and that first scene: the farmhouse. the farmer. the nazi. the children. i really almost couldn’t take it, especially faced with the thought of another 90 minutes of witnessing such wrenching, diabolical evil incarnate. while not based on actual people/events, it is based in something that happened in reality, and that just wrenches me inside. and then later in the film, during the glamorous movie premier, the wives of the Nazis, dressed in their furs and diamonds and sequined gowns: how did they live with themselves??

at first i was a bit put off by the Pitt character, the introduction of a humor element into this scenario. Tarantino has the balls to introduce dark comedy into the holocaust?? but then i was thankful for the comedic relief provided. it’s what enabled me to watch the rest of the film (that and i fell totally in love with Mélanie Laurent). (interesting sidenote: Laurent’s father is the voice of the French Ned Flanders!)

.::.

i also recently watched Slaves of New York (1989), starring a supercute Bernadette Peters wearing 80s outfits exactly like what i wore in the 7th grade and are totally now back in fashion! (are we over the reprise of the floral print yet? seriously.)  it stuck with me and has been on my mind because 1. the script (based on a short story by “brat pack author” Tama Janowitz and written by the author for Andy Warhol but then he died) is actually pretty awesome and 2. although 21 years ago and very dated visually/aurally, the scene portrayed is one i encounter frequently/move around in/empathize with:  artists’ loft spaces where the doors fall off if you pull too hard, parties where everyone is trying really hard to be a persona and/or convince you to love their art/music/thing and the socializing is exhausting, how or when or why to like or support your friends’ conceptual art, etc. but it was the truly congruous things like the fact that Peters’ character makes these AMAZING SCULPTURAL HATS (just like my friend Caley Johnson!), and her Allen-esque character saying something to the effect of “i don’t like going to parties because socializing and anxiety feel the same for me.” ahem.

.::.

speaking of “brat pack authors” who write about scenesters, i am slowly reading “Glamorama” by Bret Easton Ellis, which is the literary equivalant of watching trash TV for me. i am definitely a bit over the “i am so rich and so hot and so oblivious” thing with all his characters, but i love his writing style so much i can’t stop reading his books. i think it’s the unbelievably obsessive use of details that gets me. if you’re super into Ellis and his subject matter check out “Sting Like A Bee: A Critical Exploration Of All Things Bret Easton Ellis“.

.::.

i recently read and loved and recommend The Anxiety of Everyday Objects by Aurelie Sheehan, about an “Artist in the Office” type who works a day job at a staunchy firm but is secretly working on a film. that exists only in her head. much like many of my unmanifested art projects.

i loved the cadence of this novel, the mundane but telling details combined with an inner monologue that presents a feeling of surreality caused by the intersection of constant daydreaming and a “real world” of satirical situations, making you wonder – which one is bizarro, and which one worth living?

bitch, please

i just read this piece on SFgate on a new book about “the dark legacy of female friendships”:

Whether it’s the mean girls on the playground or at the office, females leave lasting scars that make it difficult for adult women to form strong female friendships, according to the new book “Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships.”

“There’s something uniquely monstrous about the female herd,” said author Kelly Valen, who surveyed more than 3,000 women for the book. “Many women told me men can hurt their body, but it’s women who scour their souls.”

i think writing an inflammatory pop-psych book like this only propagates the whole “women are bitches” sentiment, even if her intent was to “expose” this “dark side” and try to get women to “knock it off”.  IMO, writing a book like this only makes the problem worse by cementing the stereotype with “research” and makes everything so much harder, including having women elected for important public office positions (Hillary Clinton) or heads of companies because the general public continues to find women untrustable.

i <3 my female friends and have rarely had these kinds of problems.

i know some people commented on the article that this is “genetic”/”hardwired” survivalist behavior and female infighting can be observed in chimps blah blah blah, but i think the problem here with HUMANS is more about the kind of people you choose to befriend and the values they hold, not what gender they are.

the social network

we went to see The Social Network yesterday and i was impressed with the film. impressed mostly because i routinely get bored and my mind wanders during films – particularly with ones that have plots full of holes (e.g. Avatar) or long extended chase/explosion scenes (e.g. Inception). the story loses me and i start thinking about the things i don’t like about the film instead of actually watching the film. with The Social Network i was pretty much engaged 100%, although the beginning did catch my mind wandering briefly with half fondness for college days / half stomach turning memories of frat/sorority culture.

true, i was primed to love this film because i’ve been living my life very openly online for almost 10 years now (feb 2001!), and while for many people Facebook was their first experience with social networking, for me and many other longtime bloggers/internet personalities it was just a progression forward in a way that most people mostly like. i have my issues with the Facebook, as anyone with a brain should, but you have to admit it’s genius, and so seeing the history played out with a well-written and well-acted script that debated intellectual property, not to mention a pretty kick-ass Trent Reznor soundtrack, i was riveted. (and yes, I KNOW IT IS NOT THE TRUE/WHOLE STORY.)

this movie also swelled huge love for my hacker friends who may have struggled with being sidelined underdogs for many years and are now getting the respect they deserve both socially and financially.

quibbles about inaccuracies/miscontructions and rants about accused misogyny/sexism aside (i agree with Sorkin: life in general is sexist by nature, co-ed collegiate experience in particular. depicting reality doesn’t make a filmmaker sexist), i disagree with those who think it makes Zuckerberg look bad. or, i guess, worse than he actually is. in fact, i admire anything Machiavellian that might have been going on there, considering the players and the game, and thought the ending reconciled his character. (see also: interesting New Yorker piece/interview with Zuckerberg)

however, back to the accused sexism, i’ll admit i’m getting a little tired of the scenario where the male lead who has all the influence and power through the whole film makes his pivotal plot decisions because he’s affected by love for a woman/family. recently: inception, surrogates, social network.  this seems to be the only place in films where women have actual impact on changing the course of the world: being the love interest and/or mother of the children.  *yawn*.

side note: was more than a little surprised when watching the credits that the Winklevoss twins were not actually a pair of twins, but one well-cast Armie Hammer, real life trust-fund heir to the Armand Hammer fortune (making the “i’m 6’5″, 220 and there’s two of me” joke in the movie even funnier). read how.

holly godarkly

a over the weekend i read a collection of short stories/novellas by Truman Capote: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “House of Flowers”, and a “Christmas Memory“.  i’d never read any of Capote’s work before and have only seen the film “Capote” about “In Cold Blood” with Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the super creepy Capote (highly recommended).

based on that film, and the character portrayed in it, i had a hunch that Breakfast at Tiffany’s the novella was probably just a leeeeetle bit darker than the famous film, which has a very light comedic air to it. i of course love Audrey Hepburn as much as anyone, but what i have always really loved about the film is the dialogue. witty, urbane, slightly immoral for it’s time. so i was SO PLEASED to find that the writing in the novella is so.much.darker and even more inappropriate.  in fact, there is almost nothing to like about Holly Golightly.  she’s a total narcissist bordering on sociopath who cares nothing for anyone or anything.  she blatantly uses people and suggests they if they are stupid enough to let her that’s their problem. so my Holly Godarkly costume from last Halloween appears to have been right on the mark:  Capote imagined this girl as a personality more out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel than a lovable socialite. sure, there is her heartbreaking past, rendered in the writing *almost* tenderly enough for you to understand where she’s coming from.  abandonment often leads to being an abandoner. but still: Holly’s dialogue is at times nothing short of cruel and her character often malevolent.  so it’s not the character i loved, on no.  it was the writing: clean, sleek, sharp, emotive.  to quote:

“Truman Capote is the most perfect writer of my generation. He writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm.”
—Norman Mailer

the other two stories were also wonderful to read.  House of Flowers has a storyline so familiar i was sure i’d seen it also, but written so beautifully i didn’t mind.  and A Christmas Memory: oh, preciousness. true Depression-era Americana.

“My friend has never been to a picture show, nor does she intend to: “I’d rather hear you tell the story, Buddy. That way I can imagine it more. Besides, a person my age shouldn’t squander their eyes. When the Lord comes, let me see him clear.” In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believe in ghosts) so tingling they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of oldtime Indian cure, including a magical wart remover.”

it’s going to take a while to find anything new i’ve enjoyed reading as much as these.  unless, perhaps, it’s more Capote.

memories and dreams (Waltz with Bashir and Inception)

“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams.”

— Jeremy Irons

(note: this was written before having read any one else’s email/posts about Inception, so as to not blur/influence my initial thoughts, so this is probably missing many things other people have already discussed. this doesn’t really have any big spoilers but you might avoid reading the Inception part if you haven’t seen the film yet and are going to.)

memories, dreams and reality – how distinguishable are they? i have fairly vivid dreams almost every night, and also a lot of memories i’m not sure are real, so this topic is of high interest to me personally. the function of dreams has been studied at every angle from spiritual to physiological, and the psychological process of creating memories has been well studied and recorded. memories and dreams have been the subject of art and films for as long as can be traced, as these realms are difficult to understand, and seem to contain keys to human consciousness. recently i read that recent experiments with sleep deprivation and “dream withdrawal” showed that if a person is deprived of dreams they begin to show psychotic tendencies while awake, and therefore maybe the function of dreams is to allow for a time of quiet insanity and that maybe it is not sleep that is necessary for well-being, but dreams (sorry, cannot find citation).

I. 2 weekends ago we watched Waltz with Bashir (available on Netflix) – a mostly-true film about participants in the 1982 Lebanon War and the horrible civilian massacre that occurred (warning: i was unprepared for the actual real footage of this event shown at the end of the film). the mission of the main character is to determine which of his memories of such a chaotic and traumatic period as a solider are true. the film is done in absolutely gorgeous animation, which supports the dreamlike quality.

i found this film not only educational (i myself had no idea what happened in that war, as i was an American and only 6, but i remember Beirut being a city name i heard on the news quite often during that time), but brilliant in that it captures not only the confusion that soldiers feel in chaotic wartime (forgetting all training/orders and acting only in self-defense, mass hysteria, trauma), but also the crux of the question of what memories are and how they are created. all but one of the characters in the film is a real person, and each of them, through the series of interviews, questions who/what/where/why/how. if 2 people are in the same place at the same time, but each remembers it differently, how does anyone ever know what really happened? i highly recommend Waltz with Bashir not only for its beauty and history, but for the bravery to question traumatic political events that collectively have a million different memories contributing to the public understanding.

II. watching Inception last weekend [SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING HERE], i have to say i was unimpressed by its lack of creativity and i got bored. my brain just kept returning to every other film on the relative subjects of the intersection of dreams, memories and consciousness manipulation i’ve ever seen (Waking Life, Scanner Darkly, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Dream a Little Dream, and the director Nolan’s previous film, Memento), and most of all, the classic Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. the idea of the film was simple but the execution was overly complicated, and somewhere around the “third level” snow scene i was completely bored and wondering why we were being taken through all that ridiculousness. for other people that was probably a very entertaining part of the film, but i’m not someone entertained by shootouts and explosions and special effects, so it all seemed incredibly superfluous and that last 1/3 of the film just dragged on forever for me. that, and the whole embedded love story, there to give personal weight to the intentions of the main character and provide another plotline (and possibly a whole subplot of her participation not brought to light in the film), seemed entirely unnecessary to what otherwise would have been a fairly straightforward idea: we plant an idea in a dream, and make the dream complex enough for the dreamer to believe it was their own, and s/he wakes up and changes life course. however, the big question on that premise, for me, was this: has a dream ever made you actually change YOUR life?

the final question laid in front of the viewer in the final second of the film was just so OBVIOUS – was it ALL a dream? if so, whose dream was it? – that i am not even interested in addressing it, because i think 1. the point is that you will never know, and 2. the script doesn’t seem mature enough to actually have a tight resolution to that even if you watched the movie 100 more times looking for “clues” (here’s a link though if you want to).

the psychological aspects of the film are of more interest to me than the film itself, and while i understand they are all intertwined, the substory of the wife going mad after spending 50 years in a dream and not believing “reality” (i guess i should put that in quotes) was much more intriguing to me than the main plot, looping back to the idea of what it means to remember, and what our consciousness decides our story has been, and how.

i am more intrigued by the ranting homeless people i see screaming at bus stops or cases of extreme savants and schizophrenia: science-fiction unnecessary, there are humans on this planet at this very moment who are living in an entirely different world than we are. those of us who consider ourselves “sane” are only such because our brains have set up layers of filters for the infinite amount of sensory data it receives. what if those filters were to disappear? many suggest that perhaps this is what manifests in our dreams.

i know i am going very wide with this, but i have very little use for fiction unless i can relate it to and question real life (i guess that makes me a “plausibilist”). i am not big on fantasy, and i have little suspension of disbelief when it comes to films. so i spent most of the time watching Inception thinking about all of these other things, and caring less about the plot and the characters. is that what the film was supposed to do? if so it did its job, but i could have done without the blockbuster bits (i much prefer Linklater’s style).

(btw if you haven’t seen Ellen Page in Hard Candy, i highly recommend that deeply twisted film.)

.::.

now that i’ve written that, here’s some good bits of what other people have written about Inception:

Continue reading »