One surprising commonality between many of the films on this list is their color palette- many of them, be they psychological thrillers, moving dramas, or gritty action films, operate in the light of a low-saturation cloudy afternoon. And while this was a good year for the serious and tense, the other films are also notable: A Cat in Paris shows a slice of French experimental animation at its best, while True Grit, Rubber, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World all spin their narratives with varying degrees of comedy. Which landmarks of cinema did the year of 2010 provide us with? Below are the best answers to that question I can provide. Without further ado:
10. Black Swan
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder
Release Date: December 17, 2010
Running Time: 108 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
Many could argue that what Damien Chazelle did with Whiplash, Darren Aronofsky did four years earlier with Black Swan. Both films concern the problems that can arise when someone diverts all of their energy to achieve a single impossible goal, even if they must sacrifice leisure, sanity, and identity to do so. But only Black Swan could take such a dark and provocative premise and apply it to the stereotypically elegant and feminine world of ballet. The prima ballerina: Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a good girl who tries to get in touch with her bad side, due to the requirement placed upon her by the director that she dance the part of both the White and the Black Swan in his latest production of "Swan Lake". Here Aronofsky takes special care to link each character in the story to a corresponding role within the ballet, hence we are provided with the dancers that drift back and forth upon Nina's life. Four key figures overshadow her: rising talent Lily ("Black Swan"), fading star Beth ("The Dying Swan"), her abusive mother ("The Queen"), and her shady director ("The Gentleman"), whose demands grow more grueling with each rehearsal, as do his subtle sexual advances towards her. Though Aronofsky denies Satoshi Kon's 1997 film Perfect Blue as being a direct influence on Black Swan, the films have indisputable parallels in both visual and thematic content- namely, a fledgling star trying to rise up in the entertainment industry who wanders into an uncanny valley between reality and hallucination due to psychological stress brought on by her work life, social relations, and general paranoia. But if Perfect Blue had the subtlety of an aged glass of wine, Black Swan is a hard shot of absinthe. It's well-crafted stylistically, but all of the material comes on so strong and so fast that any close examination reveals sloppiness beneath all of the claims of depth that a variety of critics and fans made concerning the film. Nina is disconnected as a character, changing from scene to scene- this I blame more on Aronofsky's direction than on Portman's stellar acting. Though many small moments and elements correspond with symptoms of schizophrenia, the story as a whole has more basis in speculation than it does in actual mental illness, and even if it did, it wouldn't tell us much about the subject. Where it does succeed is in creating a blend of serious drama and shocking horror. In one moment, we're captivated and motivated by the passion of our leading female- the next moment, we're mortified by a dark spiral of terrible surprises. By bringing us into the madness, Aronofsky surrounds us with a surreal perspective that bends the rules of reality, so at times we don't really know what's real and what isn't. Mila Kunis and Winona Ryder are unbelievably fitting in their supporting roles, to the point where they almost steal the show. More important than anything else, though, are those unsettling moments where we find ourselves stuck with Nina between the unstoppable force and the immovable object: it's impossible to go forward, but the stakes are too high to turn back. It's the moments like these that open a window to the true anguish and fury at the soul of the film, leaving us with a heartbeat that refuses to slow down and a stream of unsettling images that won't be easily forgotten.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley
Release Date: February 19, 2010
Running Time: 138 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5
It is difficult to talk about a film that is impressive and enjoyable in all respects except one. Shutter Island begins with an intriguing premise: detective Teddy Daniels arrives at the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island. He is presented with a locked room mystery: Rachel Solando, a patient convicted of drowning her three children, has vanished without a trace. But as Daniels searches for Rachel, he finds all fingers pointing down a different alley, towards a certain Andrew Laeddis, the murderer of Daniels' wife. As a thriller, Shutter Island spins all of these threads excellently, weaving them together towards the crushing and inevitable conclusion. The moment we realize that the story takes place in a mental asylum, it's obvious that there are going to be mind-games. Scorsese adorns his psychological thriller with all of the dark and disturbing imagery of a horror film, but balances it out with cerebral storytelling. We are shocked in many places, repulsed in others, but ultimately it is Daniels' journey out of the labyrinth that remains the focus of our attention. Yet the thriller is shaped just as much by atmosphere as it is by the twists and bends of the narrative. Within Shutter Island we're invited into a specific corner of the American consciousness- the conceptual dark side of the American 50's, the tales and visions of underground Nazism and government conspiracy that lie beneath our shared notion of the elysian post-war era. Like a magician, Scorsese conjures this phantom and then makes it disappear in the same swish of the cape, except instead of sleight of hand, we're treated to a show of elegant camera-work, as one can always expect from the celebrated auteur. What strikes me as odd about this work is how much it resembles any of Nolan's films: particularly in its themes of loss, guilt, and identity. The extent to which Scorsese was aware of this, I'll never know. Everything that I've already mentioned about the film, I love. If there is any problem with it at all, though, I would say that it lies entirely within the ending. I understand that there are some people who greatly enjoy the conclusion, and others that don't, and to those who enjoy the ending, my response is that it's not a bad concept. It's just unoriginal, cheap, and predictable within the context of a film as good as Shutter Island. It's not completely disjointed from the rest of the work- there is most definitely foreshadowing of it that becomes more and more evident with each viewing. But the disconnect remains entirely within the mood. When the entire universe that a story takes place in is turned on its head, you can almost sense before hand that something isn't quite right with the world that you're presented with in the first place- many would argue that this applies to Shutter Island, but even if this is correct, the problem remains that the plot that the films weaves around us to begin with is much cooler-looking and fascinating than the actual reality that lies behind it. Twists in movies can be pleasant surprises or sad disappointments, and in this case, when we're woken up from the nightmare, we immediately want to fall back into it. I'm not saying that Shutter Island is necessarily a bad movie- it's more like a potentially good movie bogged down by its own self-destructive plot developments.
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfield, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin
Release Date: December 22, 2010
Running Time: 110 minutes
Rating: 4/5
While a lot of credit has to be handed to the original, it can be said with confidence that the 2010 True Grit is the rare example of the remake that improves its source material. It would have been impossible to bring about this result had it not been for the Coen brothers taking the wheel. Looking at the biggest blockbusters of the past decade, or even the past few decades, it's clear that Westerns haven't been popular for quite some time. In fact, one might even posit that the Wild West hasn't been in style since the days of the original spaghetti westerns of the 70's. But if True Grit is to be recognized as reviving the western as a genre, it should also be recognized as reinventing it. It doesn't feel much like a traditional western- the setting is sharp and meticulous in bringing back the "Wild West" as we know it through history, providing a clear, beautiful new vision of the old country as it probably looked like through the eyes of those who actually lived there. The only problem with that is that we're so comfortable with seeing the Old West through the fake set pieces and grainy film style of the 60's and 70's westerns that to us it's the artificial environment that seems more real to us. Hence, the curse: the more realistic a western looks, the easier it becomes for the audience to see the Hollywood set pieces behind the illusion of the silver screen. Therefore, if any new westerns must be made, they must be made in a way that's distinctly different, and these differences are all the more clear when watching this film back-to-back with the original. What I mean, of course, is the "Coen touch" that adds a layer of quirkiness to the ranching, roping, gunslinging environment. I would not be surprised if the mood of this film, which juggles the serious stakes of revenge with snappy lines and idiosyncratic heroes, in some way laid down a path for Tarantino to do the same thing with Django Unchained several years later. But for anyone familiar with the John Wayne True Grit of 1969, what stands out here is of course not the film's ability to lay down a new story, but rather its ability to reinterpret an old one, and this version does this on two prominent planes: imagery and acting. The camera is kept horizontal to the ground, reducing plains to one simple horizon, buildings to cold wooden rectangles, and forests to a cluster of vertical lines. Nature is shown in humble simplicity and also unrestricted beauty. Talented actors like Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Hailee Steinfield give us characters that we feel are entirely different people than the Mattie and Cogburn of the original, but we also feel they're real people, more so here than in the other. And what's more than that is that they're also far more interesting to watch. If I have any fault with this adaptation, it's with the ending. It's not a disappointment, per se: I can understand it and the emotional response that it provokes was clearly the emotional response that it intended to provoke. It could be said, even, that it's powerful in its message of the desolation that occurs through the ravages of time. All I question is the necessity of such an ending. It's good because it's different, but it doesn't make me feel like the happy ending of the original story would have been any less fitting. That being said, even if this is one of the weaker Coen films I've seen, it still delivers, and the time and money spent on watching this would most assuredly not be spent in vain.
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Ewan MacGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams
Release Date: March 19, 2010
Running Time: 128 minutes
Rating: 4/5
The Ghost Writer shows that you can portray espionage without embellishing it, that you can tackle politics without discussing it, and that you can handle volatile substances without exploding them. What is a film like this but a story of a house full of secrets, just waiting to unravel; a breed of vipers waiting to strike at one another? And yet though conspiracy is the centerpiece, Roman Polanski is too smart to fall for any of the customary mistakes of conspiracy thrillers. Instead, he is effective through his use of restraint: there is never a lack of mystery, nor is there a lack of suspense, yet every piece of information is discovered at a naturalistically slow pace. All the dirt that gets turned up is elegantly swept under the carpet. This is a subdued conspiracy drama, but it is no less fascinating, and no less tense. Ewan MacGregor commands our attention as the identifiable writer thrown into the midst of the most difficult project of his career, while Pierce Brosnan commands his attention as former British prime minister Adam Lang, subject of the memoirs our hero volunteers to ghost-write. MacGregor's character remains faithfully unobtrusive to the story; he is driven forward only by his curiosity, thus making him the perfect stand-in for the audience. Lang, on the other hand, is strangely just as hilarious as he is intriguing- he seems blissfully detached in all of his interactions with other people, his attitude towards his own job is such an odd mix of reluctance and ignorance that the real mystery is why anyone takes him seriously at all. When all this is placed in context of the news anchors and protesters accusing Lang of war crimes, the situation shows a new dimension of confusing. Not to mention the secretive house staff, Lang's disdainful wife, and the suspicious death of the man who was working on the memoirs before the eponymous writer arrived. Where Polanski hits the strongest is in the atmosphere of the story itself, spun together by the distinct seaside setting and the paranoid developments of the story itself. We are shown a surreal inn where the receptionist dresses in kitschy colonial garb, a beach community flanked by wind-swept dune grass, and the emptiest parking lot you'll ever see- but nothing can compare to the silent yet deadly final shot, which grows increasingly ominous with every second of stillness. Both the visual construction and solid writing work to make The Ghost Writer a fascinating and perfect thriller of a film- not one that can hold a candle to the genre's greatest accomplishments, but certainly not one one to be forgotten, either.
Director: Tom Hooper
Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter
Release Date: September 6, 2010
Running Time: 118 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
I have seen many films like The King's Speech. Biographical anecdotes that present a story of great achievement against great difficulties. No matter how true to life these sorts of stories are, they somehow seem formulaic- possibly due to the structuring of the story. These films are popular and successful because of their ability to appeal to our desires for success- they serve as an inspiration for us to face our own challenges. This is a cheap way of drawing in an audience, sure, but that doesn't mean that films like this can't be good on their own right. Tom Hooper's The King's Speech could be taken as another one of those based-on-a-true story "feel-good" piece, but standing on its own, the film is more than that. It shows what the formula for the motivational biopic looks like when it's working at its very best, but it also delves into what the events it portrays signify in a larger context, leading us to ponder in greater depth the ideas of aristocracy and government as displayed here. The story is a simple one. An Australian speech therapist by the name of Lionel Logue helps a patient work past a serious speech impediment, allowing him to deliver a powerful public address in a time of great crisis. What separates this patient from all of the others that Logue has treated is that he happens to be the Duke of York, heir to the throne of all England. The script for The King's Speech had been in development for over a decade at the least, as the Queen Mother (played by Helena Bonham Carter in the film) requested that the production of the film be postponed until after her death. It's not surprising, then, that the script should display the most thorough level research. Lionel Logue's notebooks were discovered nine weeks before filming; immediately the script was revised to include material his writings, hence the efforts spent on crafting the accuracy never ceased, not even at the last second. What I believe makes The King's Speech more remarkable than other stories like it is the second layer that lies beyond its basic premise, that is, its analysis of class structure. Throughout the film, King George VI is struggling to overcome a speech impediment, but an equal emphasis is placed on Lionel's struggle to overcome class barriers. Why should this film focus its story on people who are clearly more socially and economically privileged than practically everyone who watches it? Because at the heart of it is an endeavor to illustrate the humanity within even the highest-ranking members of society, how their privilege even becomes a curse to them- Prince Albert seeks to maintain his image as something above and beyond human, while Logue seeks to solve the problem by restoring Albert's humanity and establishing a connection between the two of them that goes past their social differences to demonstrate their equality as human beings. And by bringing the concept of humanity to the forefront, the film facilitates our ability to identify and enjoy the characters. But if there is one attraction that stands out above anything else here, it is the acting of Colin Firth, perhaps the single greatest performance in a film that I've seen by any actor. Any description of the effort that Firth goes through to pull off the challenge of the role would be inadequate to describe exactly what he does to break his usual typecast. It must be seen to be understood. The success of The King's Speech can be attributed to all of these things, but in the end, it's the adherence to a winning structure: events are put together in a fashion that never bores or tires us, even when nothing particularly interesting is happening. And this goes beyond simply entertaining us- this film is investing us. To hear that Her Majesty enjoyed it comes as no surprise at all.
Director: Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol
Starring: Marcia Gay Harden, Steven Blum, J. B. Blanc, Angelica Huston, Lauren Weintraub
Release Date: December 15, 2010
Running Time: 65 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
I usually separate animated films into a separate category, but in this instance, I felt like the film's qualities earn it a spot here- namely, its bold and unique artistic style, its independent art-house format, and its more serious themes of grief, fear, and revenge. The human characters within A Cat in Paris really only serve to distract the story from its true protagonist: the cat, who aids a kind-hearted cat burglar Nico by night and becomes the house pet of young girl Zoe by day. The ironic catch- Zoe happens to be the daughter of high-ranking police officer Jeanne, whose husband was shot by notorious mob boss Victor Costa. It is the cat who unites the two worlds of the film, leading all of the characters into each situation, tangling all of their paths like an unraveled ball of string. The first real conflict begins when Zoe discovers the plans of Costa, whose design as a villain is almost humorous in its over-characterization- and yet somehow, he never loses his ability to inspire fear, even in his unsettling last few moments onscreen. Costa's thugs attempt to kidnap and silence the girl, who has interfered with their plans to steal a rare African statue. However, she is rescued by Nico and the cat, and thus a chase all through the city of Paris begins. Zoe appears to be no more than ten or eleven, yet she is placed within some of the most dangerous situations you could imagine, so naturally, the cartoon style serves to the effect to lessen the perceived peril. But the style works towards other purposes as well. The design of the characters and backgrounds abandons realism by rejecting traditional perspective, thus a room never seems flat or two dimensional, but it remains something a little less than three-dimensional. The characters themselves can be seen clearly moving back and forth in space, but we will at times notice their elongated features and their uncanny ability to twist, bend, and stretch in ways normal physics may not allow. The effect is common, of course, for fast-paced Saturday morning cartoons- A Cat in Paris, on the other hand, looks like a suspense-drama thrown through the lens of a Matisse painting, so the effect is something quite different. Though I would say it falls into the genre of "crime thriller" by definition, I don't mean to discourage children from seeing it. The outstanding feature here is the film's accessibility by all audiences. Children should enjoy the visuals, the excitement, and the moments of slight comedy. But parents should see something deeper in it, namely in the relationship between Zoe and her mother in wake of her father's death. Zoe has closed off by not speaking entirely, while her mother Jeanne has clammed up in an entirely different way: a bitter focus on revenge, fueled by fear and anger. So no, I don't consider this a children's film. It talks about the effects that death has on people in a way that is both more simple and more deep than most Disney films that touch on the subject. But what it really drives it home, if anything, is its understanding of how to properly cloak all of that beneath a sonata of images and moments that are as sinister and enchanting as the night sky over Paris itself.
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer
Release Date: October 1, 2010
Running Time: 120 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Sometimes a trailer can be just as memorable, if not more memorable, than the film itself. This would be the case with The Social Network: its trailer begins with snapshots which never appear in the film, paired with music that is never heard in the film. In a syncopated montage, we see various Facebook posts (enlarged to the extent at which the very pixels on the screen are visible): the photos show birth, marriage, community, love- and while individually they intend to convey one message, collectively, they manage to convey a rather different message altogether. Social media enables us to pick and choose which parts of our lives to put on display for all of our friends to see; online we can pretend to live the life that we wish that we had, and this is both a blessing and a curse. The Social Network attempts to capture the origin of the Facebook social phenomenon; but it isn't a biographical picture as much as it is an Aesop's fable of our times. It takes the reality of the humdrum life of a computer programmer, and transforms it into a party lifestyle of sex, drugs, and alcohol. It assumes that you can't be the world's youngest billionaire and not be a douchebag, so this is the hero that it presents. Misogyny, selfishness, ice-cold intellect- these are the traits that you will find in most of the principal characters- so basically, your standard Harvard student. And somehow, audiences are able to unearth a sort of fascination with the witty and sarcastic Zuckerberg as shown here- The Social Network is fun because of its brutality. It's the intensity of the situations and the resilience of the characters that make us wish that we were just as bold and fearless in our own decision-making (though hopefully less callous). The first thing that drew me to the film was its director, David Fincher, who usually directs nail-biting thrillers: so why make a movie about Facebook? Comparing and contrasting with his other work, I found similarities where I expected to find differences. For example, Fincher's trademark sardonic sense of humor is ever-present within the film, underscoring the most memorable of scenes. Perhaps dark humor is more present here than in any of his other films; it may just be less noticeable because it's decidedly more cynical. Or maybe I'm the only one who found the scarf-burning scene funny. I suppose in some ways, The Social Network is not entirely unlike a thriller. There's paranoia, betrayal, unbelievable pressure, and high stakes, but this time it doesn't have anything to do with a psychotic serial killer or a mysterious kidnapping. Instead, the conflict directly originates from the competitive world of modern business. One might expect the film to place a focus on the actual planning and creation of the website, concept-wise. And there's some of that. One might also expect some discussion of technology, and the influence of technology on life as we know it today. And though you might see a scene or two of "hacking", followed by rooms of people sitting "wired in" to the computers, we see very little actual computer science, and very little Facebook. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now wasn't about the "evils of war" as much as it was about the evils of humanity itself. So neither is The Social Network about the "evils of technology". To say so would be a grand mistake. Rather, the film can be better seen as a cautionary tale about how money turns people into animals. It wants us to feel just as dizzy and disoriented as the two young men who had a simple idea and suddenly found themselves riding a rollercoaster up to the top of the business world. More dizzying than that are the dozens of people who are looking to snatch up as much of the fortune they can get their hands on. Like the social network itself, success is both a blessing and a curse, and The Social Network finds irony in its title as it chronicles the life of someone who achieves fame and fortune at the cost of losing all of his most valuable social connections.
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnik, Roxane Mesquida, Wings Hauser
Release Date: November 10, 2010
Running Time: 82 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
Within Rubber, director Quentin Dupieux is able to take an age-old story that will probably sound familiar to everybody- that is, the story of a tire who uses its psychic powers to blow up people's heads- and tell it in such a way that it seems like it's being told to us for the first time. At the very beginning of the film, we're shown a police car driving down a dusty desert road. The driver steps out and walks around to the back of the car. He opens the trunk, and a second officer emerges, and begins talking to the camera. "All great films, without exception," he says, "contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason. Ladies and gentlemen, the film you are about to see today is an homage to the 'no reason'- that most powerful element of style." At this point, the camera rotates to show us the audience: a group of people standing in the middle of the desert, waiting for "the film" to begin. I have no problem accepting that the serial killer in this film happens to be a car tire. What is far more absurd than that is the fact that everything that the tire does, every murder it commits- is seen by a group of people standing in the middle of the desert, holding binoculars and causally watching everything unfold. And while the story does unfold, we keep cutting back to the reactions of this "audience", as they are revealed slowly to be more integral to the plot of the film than you might think. Rubber is, first and foremost, a dark comedy. Emphasis on "comedy"; special emphasis on "dark". For example, the way in which the victims die is gruesome, and yet on the other hand, it's so abrupt and undramatic that we can't help but succumb to the effects of these deaths' comic timing. Not to mention the bursts of comedy that frame the murders- small ridiculous moments scattered that are throughout the film. My personal favorite of these occurs halfway through the first act, when we depart from the film's main action to observe a young boy stop by the side of the road to put roadkill on the pizza that he's bringing home to his father. The film will undoubtedly warm with laughter the hearts of all those with an admitted sadistic streak: it is exceptionally cruel, but exceptionally fun. But while Rubber certainly delivers on a level of dark comedy, it also delivers on several other levels as well. It is a satirical film, commenting not only on conventional horror tropes, but on the nature of storytelling and entertainment in general. This is a world where fictional characters are slaves to the audience; bound to the stories they inhabit until they work their way through to a satisfying ending. There are two levels of storytelling and presentation here: there are the entertainers within the film, embodied by the police officer and his accountant, and then there are the entertainers presenting the film to us. We can not look at the negligence of the storytellers within the film and assume that Quentin Dupieux is telling this story with the same level of carelessness. For a film that claims to have no meaning or point, Rubber is, in fact, a smart- and possibly even profound- demonstration of absurdism as an art form, steeped in the tradition of great thinkers such as Samuel Beckett or Jean-Paul Sartre, yet placed into the most irresistibly entertaining package. It may not appear to take itself seriously, but this is no indication that we shouldn't.
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson
Release Date: August 13, 2010
Running Time: 112 minutes
Rating: 5/5
It's with great regret that I say that decent comedy films are rare in this era. In the age of pandering rom-coms and cookie-cutter action flicks, it's hard to even identify what a truly good comedy looks like anymore- that is, until a film like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World comes along. Scott Pilgrim works for a grand variety of reasons; a perfect recipe, if you will. First, we are presented with an everyday situation: Local bassist Scott Pilgrim's relationship with his teenage girlfriend is interrupted when the new girl Ramona Flowers skates into town. Romance and awkwardness ensue, but eventually they wind up on a date. Enter conflict, stage right: a fashion-challenged Indian with excessive eyeshadow and magical fire-throwing powers, challenging Scott to a fight to the death. Turns out in order to win the girl he loves, he will have to battle her seven evil exes. And in this fashion, the mundane is transformed into the extraordinary, leading us to a series of physical battles that just happen to coincide with the battle of the bands that Pilgrim's band "Sex Bob-Omb" is participating in. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World seems to draw equal influence from comic books, band movies, high-school romance flicks, and video games, so it doesn't really fit neatly into any of those sub-genres. It's not a teen film, as most of its characters are just unemployed Canadian adults, but it is a film distinctly for teens- perhaps even the teen film to define an entire generation. The action-adventure mythological format is still there- to earn the hand of the princess, you must do battle with her suitors- except this time, when the enemies are defeated, they burst into a pile of coins, video game-style. Edgar Wright's stylistic touch as director brings the focus to visual hyperbole, showing us the sound waves that come out of the band's speakers, accentuating kisses with small sparkling hearts, and even bringing us in to the characters' thoughts at several moments. The most hilarious scenes, the hilarious lines- they're too numerous to list here, and even if I could pick one, it would be impossible to describe without the expression that frames every joke. But the humor wouldn't really work if it were not for the accessibility of the characters themselves. When a character has flaws that noticeable to the audience but none of the other characters, it's obnoxious. Yet in Scott Pilgrim, the mistakes people make have a way of affecting every corner of their life, showing us that they're real people. When we don't care about the folks on the screen, that's when we're laughing at them. In Scott Pilgrim, reality is bent in so many interesting ways, but the problems remain thematically relevant to us, so instead, we're laughing with Scott, and that's always a much better experience. The screenplay for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World had the difficult challenge of adapting six graphic novels into one film, and despite how rushed it is, it hardly ever feels too rushed. The pace allows us to take everything in at a mile a minute, but we can still take everything in, and that gives us the benefit of never having a dull moment. Full to the brim with energy, passion, laughs, and music, it's hard to find a film more dedicated in its mission to provide solid and fulfilling entertainment.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard
Release Date: July 16, 2010
Running Time: 148 minutes
Rating: 5/5
I find it curious how Inception managed to popularize a general interest in the world of dreams, how it "made dreams look cool" when, in fact, anyone can see that it's perhaps the least accurate representation of the actual nature of dreams in any movie I've ever seen, ever, or, at least any movie that deals with the subject of dreams as a main plot point. So even though it bears some sci-fi elements, it shouldn't really be received as a science fiction film. Instead, it should be received as the film that it was intended to be; that is, something of a modern film noir- a cinematic style Nolan has already identified as a large influence on his work. Inception displays Nolan's penchant for detective movie homage at its finest. We see a world filled with hotels, briefcases, stylish business suits, and close-range firearms. But the similarities with your standard crime film end when the scenery starts bending. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) operates in a very special type of espionage- rather than breaking into a safe, he specializes in breaking into the mind itself. He and his team members do this through a combination of elaborate training, powerful sedatives, and high caliber futuristic technology. After a failed mission, Cobb is contacted by his former target with a new mission: rather than stealing an idea in someone's head, they must plant one. We begin with a simple premise that's relatively easy to accept, and then watch until it gets taken to its most absurd extents. Again, I'll point out that while actual dreams operate on a logic entirely different from that of our own world, there is, in most places, little to separate the dream sequences of Inception from scenes that might as well be taking place in real life. Most of this is due to the fact that the special effects aren't squandered on us all at once, and instead the best and most beautiful images are shown right up towards the film's climax. And sure, it cuts corners in some areas, but it's all for the purpose of getting the story through- so why is it so great? In short: because the story was worth it. Some may claim that the film is confusing, when in reality, the plan is straightforward, and by the end of the film, the only thing that's left up for interpretation is whether the top falls or not. All of the loose ends can be easily tied up with a little examination or possibly a second viewing. Of course I wanted to see this film a second time the moment I finished it, but that had nothing to do with the film being complicated- rather, it was the emotional impact of the story. Inception is a film about standing in that gap between the past and the future and deciding which way to turn; specifically, it's about moving forward in the face of loss. Cobb's loss of his wife is paralleled with Fischer's loss of his father, and the parallel becomes further evident as they simultaneously reckon with their grief. The possibilities for the visuals that this film could have delivered were endless; and yet the environments that were chosen are strangely fitting, despite how limited they seem compared to something as trippy as Paprika. The environments that are conjured up by Cobb and Fischer are twisted versions of their own realities, beset with heavy rain and crashing waves, all subtle reflections of their emotional states. For Nolan, a dream can something more than the product of a subconscious mind, it is instead a voluntary escape from reality- not unlike the medium of film itself. And hardly is an escape from reality so welcome and refreshing as it is when you're watching Inception.
-Julian Rhodes
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