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Inception: Dream A Little Dream In Me

I’m going to win this Dreidel game if it’s the last thing I ever do.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Everyone fears the sophomore curse, when you break out of the gate in any type of popular media with something so unique, so gripping and so monumentally accepted by the ravenous public that you set the bar high into the stratosphere, making it impossible for your second creative effort to even bask in the reflection of that initial glory. It frightens each and every person stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, but there is a misconception lingering making people feel safe after they are past their second credit. The cold, hard fact is each and every time you release something out to the public it is another audition to the world. If your newest effort becomes known as the best of your career, congratulations my friend, welcome back to the curse. It’s been right here waiting for you. Christopher Nolan felt the sting of the curse after his breakout indie darling, Memento, which he followed with a poorly timed remake of the chilly psychological thriller, Insomnia. Yet Nolan fought onward and grabbed hold of the frayed cape of the Batman franchise and resurfaced with a much more dark and gritty take on the legendary crusader in Batman Begins. This inevitably led to his crowning achievement in the comic book sequel, The Dark Knight, where the world witnessed the true beauty of a director and actor, in Heath Ledger, creating something that will be remembered and talked about for generations. As the accolades for The Dark Knight poured in, Nolan found himself right back in the lap of the curse, plotting his escape, scanning the horizons for a safe way out. Turns out, he found his escape not by looking outside, but by turning in.

Inception is the name given to a procedure where a person with incredibly specific skills and equipment can enter someone else’s dreams and gently plant the seed of an idea, which would then flourish and grow in that person naturally, culminating in the subject doing exactly what you wanted them to. Most believe it can’t be done, but one man, Cobb, says it is not just possible, but he’s done it before. Hired for one last job, Cobb builds a team of people to help him complete his mission and try to win his ticket home to his children.

The out and out winner here is the writing. While the directing and acting, which will be mentioned later, are both up to par, the writing of such an intricate, delicate and verbose script is an achievement worth high recognition. People are already talking Oscar race for this film, and while I might be on the fence right now in the Best Picture category (we still have quite a few months to go people), in the arena of Best Original Screenplay, this should be a shoe-in. Nolan is truly at his best when dealing with fragmented and fractured realities, achieving a tender balance between intrigue and confusion that makes the audience think, but not feel stupid if they all come up with different answers at the end. As for the ending, I’ll leave that for later, loudly hidden behind the spoiler warnings.

Moving onto the acting, Leonardo DiCaprio, who played our anti-hero Cobb, once again brims with sheer determination and builds layer upon layer into the role. The only fraction of a flaw in his performance in my eyes is it bordered on being too controlled. At times there felt perfect opportunities to let him fly off the handle or just peel back one more layer, showing his humanity, but the importance of the job and the need for sharp and complete focus kept him tightly wrapped up. Tom Hardy, playing Eames, the wise-cracking master thief of the group, steals many of the scenes not only due to his skill as an actor, but because he provides the only comic relief in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Aurthur, brings back a little bit of his steam-train determination and tunnel-vision drive that he perfected in Brick. Overall all the performances were on point, but in the minority there were two people that I felt were under used and under developed, Michael Caine and Ellen Page. Caine is a tremendous actor that felt totally wasted in a partially unexplained cameo part (he’s mentioned as the grandfather to Cobb’s children, but it is never illustrated whether he is Cobb’s father or his stepfather.) As for Page, while they try with one line of dialogue to cover over her rapid acceptance of the world of dreams and being able to control them, she still ends up feeling rushed into the story more as a person to move the plot than a full fledged character.

***SPOLIER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM***

Now let’s talk about that ending. While I really do enjoy a nice ‘leave ‘em hanging’ closer, I think people are reading way too much into it. Yes, the top was still spinning, and yes the idea was to make you wonder if Cobb is still in a dream at the end of the film, but the theory that the entire movie was all a dream inside Cobb’s mind, showing his own journey to release himself of the guilt of pushing his wife to suicide, well, that just doesn’t sit right with me. The ‘whole dream’ theory robs the movie of all its importance and power and steals all the thunder from the other characters. I prefer to believe the top would have fallen in time; it was just really well balanced.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Nolan is on a hot streak that could see him crowned as one of the greatest directors in our generation, but let’s not pressure him too much, right? Inception is clever, intriguing and everything you want in a psychological drama, even if it draws a little long at the end. Worth seeing, if only for the ensuing discussion you will have immediately after.

What did you think of the ending? Does this top ‘Dark Knight’ for you?

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Magically Likeable

One of these guys already saw wardrobe that morning, the other just showed up to set. Guess which is which.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Summertime is a wonderful season for hiding from the baking, burning heat inside a cool, dark theater and being transported to endless imaginative worlds. Sometimes these worlds can be overwhelmingly complex and force you to think deeply about everything going on, and those create a very particular kind of enjoyment, but the season of the sun seems to lean more towards movies that allow you to put your brain on cruise control, sit back, sip your Coke and try not to smile. This recent cinematic offering is definitely one of those.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice follows the story of a young man, Dave, who finds out at too young an age that he is chosen by destiny to become an all-powerful sorcerer for the side of good in a millennia-long battle for the safety of the world. His mentor, Balthazar, does his best to prepare him for the upcoming battles, while also keeping Dave’s focus off the one thing impossible to resist, love.

This popcorn presentation is brought to us from the minds at Disney who seem hell-bent on plunging the depths of the Mouse House catalog for anything and everything that could be transformed into a full-length feature film. The title of the film is taken from the famous scene in Fantasia where Mickey Mouse enchants all the mops, brooms and assorted cleaning products to do his chores for him. That moment is directly lifted up and dropped into this live-action semi-adaptation, and actually fits surprisingly well, but the rest of the story is completely fresh, at least where previous Disney stories are concerned. I can’t blame Disney for their addiction to recycling, it certainly worked well with their multi-million dollar Pirates franchise, but I don’t see this one landing as well with audiences and certainly very little in terms of continuing sequels.

Now, before I get into where the movie takes its many missteps, let me engage you on why I still gave it a fairly high ranking. Jay Baruchel is truly riding the roller-coaster of success right now and while some may complain that he is typecast and plays virtually the same person in each film, the same can be said of Steve Carell and many others. If they play the part well, let them play on. Baruchel epitomizes the adorably awkward geek who never sees himself as cool as the people around him do. The rest of the story notwithstanding, it is always enjoyable for me to watch characters like these grow and step into their confidence and full potential. It’s a classic and well-used storyline for sure, but that’s because people respond to it consistently. He holds the heart of the film tenderly in his charmingly goofy expressions and timing. On the other hand, Nicholas Cage delivers what we’ve come to expect from him, a quirky, oddity of a person, yet performed with the commitment and dedication that can almost only come from someone equally quirky and odd in real life. Cage has made a long and prolific career from taking roles almost no one saw as playable and inserting a real person where only a caricature was found before. That being said, if you weren’t a fan of him before, he doesn’t add anything here that will sweep you to the other side.

With the good stuff resting comfortably above, here are some of the downsides to this spellbound selection. Numerous plot holes are completely ignored as the movie races to keep up with a fairly energetic pace. This actually pales in comparison to the story points and moments of character development that could’ve been easily achieved if the writing was just that much tighter. In scene after scene I felt there were set-ups that were not paid off and you just feel the air slip out of scenes that had real potential. The ending makes painfully little sense when weighed against all the information given throughout the film and you once again feel things really needed to play out a different way to achieve full redemption. I’m not going to say the version playing out in my head would’ve worked better, you never really know, but it certainly made more sense to me.

The End of the Page Recommendation: If you are a real fan of either of the two main cast members, this should give you a smile somewhere along the way, but keep some change in your pocket and catch the matinee (or even wait until DVD).

What did you think? Feel any comparison’s to National Treasure? Where does it rank on you Cage scale?

Despicable Me: Universal Sneaks Out a Hit

Of course the milk is fresh. The entire cow is in this can.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Pixar has been wearing the sash of “Best in Show” for animation lovers out there since their inception, but Universal, considered by many to be the long-standing underdog in nearly every market, has proven they are on the rebound from earlier disappointments. Sometimes that’s the nice thing about being the dark horse, no one sees you riding up in everyone else’s shadows.

Despicable Me is the tale of a once super-villain named Gru (voiced by NBC Universal go-to-guy, Steve Carell), who has slid down in the ranks of evil over the past few years and is looked upon as a novelty by other villains, his evil banking investors and even his own mother. But that was before he rounded up his assets: a hearing-endangered mad scientist, an army of painfully adorable yellow creatures known as ‘minions’ and three young girls swept out of the local orphanage, all in a dastardly attempt to pull off the greatest heist in history, stealing the moon! Pitfalls and successes abound as Gru struggles against his decision to be the world’s greatest villain or to strive for something he never saw coming.

If there is one key to a successful animated film, it is making one or more of the side characters the most adorable, hilarious, or possibly both, creature or person you could possibly imagine. Aladdin had Genie, Finding Nemo had Dory, Wall-E had Eve (or basically any character in that movie), and here Universal has learned that formula well and created the minions. These yellow oddly pill-shaped creatures that speak in a language uniquely their own provide laughter pretty much every time they grace the screen. I have little doubt that the merchandising for them will be a great bonus for the company and I would be on the look-out for straight-to-DVD spin-offs or short films based solely around these mini-misfits.  Although you could only assume what they were talking about most of the time, this once again proved that real well written comedy has a language all its own.

Beyond the hilarious ovals of sunshine, Despicable Me stands up tall with a really tight script that is well paced and well balanced. Supremely funny moments are shared with more heartwarming beats and consistent plot and story. The main character of Gru was almost assuredly tailored for Steve Carell after he signed onto the project because in certain moments you could feel his TV alter-ego Michael Scott from The Office poking through. Normally that might be a tad unsettling and distracting, but the humor worked and Carell delivered, reminding us why he is one of the most sought after comedians on the market right now. The rest of the voice cast, including more big names familiar to the NBC Universal line-up like Russell Brand, Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Mindy Kaling and Jack McBrayer also lent their incredible timing and humorous natures to help make this movie the surprise hit of the year.

I also should mention I did pay the extra few bucks to see this in 3D since I had a feeling that was intended from the beginning and not retrofit into it after the fact, and I was correct. This is the only film I have seen since Avatar that actually had a real use for and benefited from the new 3D fad. I know we are due for more and more 3D films in the coming years, but hopefully they will learn that the decision to add another dimension to the film only works when you make it up front for creative reasons and not after the movie is finished for purely financial ones.

The End of the Page Recommendation: It’s a 10 out of 10 people. See it!

Already seen it? What did you think? How does it rank in your list of favorite animated films?

Tell-All: A Twisted Hollywood Love Story

Each font you see here can be yours! Sold separately, of course, per letter.

Rating: 7 out of 10

There are a few authors in the world that cause me to make a goal of reading everything they put to paper, or whatever medium they choose. Stephen King, Mark Danielewski and Dave Eggers are some of the top of my list, but included with them is a man who seemingly strives to be known as one of the most twisted and demented minds in the contemporary literary canon, Chuck Palahniuk. His written success was already on the path to fame and infamy, but the spotlight firmly became implanted on his typewriter after the release of the film version of one of his most famous stories, Fight Club. People began diving head first into his sordid tales of depravity, violence and regression of human tendencies to their most primal and animalistic. Palahniuk has mastered a way of detailing believably the worst choices people make every day and their sometimes grotesque ramifications. So, with a slightly nervous and queasy stomach, I took his newest tome off the shelf at my local bookstore and came home to test my nerves on Tell-All.

Tell-All is the story of a classic beauty from the golden age of Hollywood named Katherine Kenton and her relationships with her fans, her lovers and most importantly with her personal assistant, Hazie Coogan. Katherine and Hazie have been together since nearly the beginning of Katherine’s lunar career and Hazie has been the glue that held it all together, the captain that steered the glittering jewel in the tumultuous seas of Hollywood and the artist who used Katherine to not only create a star, but a mold a living legend. Now, a new young buck has slithered into Katherine’s life and Hazie must once again pick up the invisible shield and defend her creation from anyone or anything that would seek to tear her down off her pedestal.

The first thing I should warn returning Palahniuk readers of is this: this is not Fight Club, nor is this Haunted (which personally I don’t think will ever be topped for sheer shock and awe value), this new fable is more along the lines of Rant and Invisible Monsters (another highly underrated book). The violence is quiet here, a slow boil, and things aren’t always what they seem. Yet the twist of the story does reveal itself a tad too early for my tastes. In some cases, like many Hitchcock films, the twist was known to the audience from the beginning and the fun was watching the players stumble around it unknowingly, but here it happens to act more as a weight dragging down the tempo of the story.

What doesn’t falter is Palahniuk’s deviant ability to reach inside the characters and bring out their most wicked and base needs. Even though many, if not all, of the inhabitants of Tell-All and his other stories are deeply flawed people, he peels them down layer by layer with an almost meditative quality rendering each and every one recognizably human in the end. Hazie reflects that person in us all, the one who always stood by while their friend or family member soaked up the spotlight, in some cases, even the sun itself. Being forever relegated to the sidelines can darken a person, gray out their normally bright demeanor and inevitably tip their moral compass due south. Yet the choice is always there, as it is with Hazie, whether to protect the prize by keeping it away from all personal harm or protecting the image of the prize by destroying it before it is tarnished by time and heartfelt folly.

Palahniuk also continues to perfect his personal style of over-detailing brand names and creating a nearly encyclopedic rhythm to his prose with his incredibly verbose and seemingly heavily-sponsored descriptions. No one just wears earrings in this book, they wear Cartier chandelier earrings. He improves on this literary fingerprint in Tell-All by adding an excessive amount on name dropping, rolling out star after star of the silver screen (mainly from the time when the screens were still made of actual silver). For people who don’t know classic Hollywood legends, it can feel a touch redundant and meaningless, but there is a reason behind the madness and you can always rely on the fact that his research of whatever topic has brought him the very tidbit of information you just glossed over.

The End of the Page Recommendation: While this is not close to my favorite of his career, Tell-All certainly fills a stomach momentarily void of sordid stories. Yet, as always with writers like him, I found myself thinking on the last page, “What could he possibly come up with next to shock me?” I have no doubt he will find a way to answer that question, post haste.

Did you read ‘Tell-All’ yet? What did you think? Better or Worse for Palahniuk?

Stay Classy, Cleveland.

I make so much money now, I bought myself this invisible throne. Dope, right?

Cheers and tears dominated sports bars all over the country last night as the self-proclaimed ‘king’ of basketball made known his long awaited decision of where he would be playing next year. If the NBA was a calm and still pond, LeBron James and his free agent move this summer is the softball-sized rock thrown gloriously into the middle. In fact, maybe it wasn’t thrown, it was shot out of a cannon with fireworks and a five-piece trumpet band.

The fanfare and attention given to this one player and his choice of new uniform is unlike anything we have seen in modern sports history, possibly of all time. Some will argue it was too much, while some might argue it is well deserved, but for me, I honestly don’t care if he needed to take out an hour on ESPN live to announce his decision. What I liked was all the money that came in for advertising during that hour went straight to the Boys & Girls Club where he held the intimate press conference. Love him or hate him, that was a stand up move.

Speaking of those who hate him, none seem to be more vocal about it right now than the depressed and dejected owner of the Cavaliers team, Dan Gilbert. I get it, really I do, your superstar franchise player just walked away from his hometown and home team, where he built his NBA career over the last seven years. He walked away to a team in South Beach, Miami where he will join with two of the other modern day basketball legends and form a dominant trio that many seem to think will automatically destroy the Eastern Conference, if not the NBA as a whole (I’m sure Kobe and Pau have a few things to say about that). James leaving knocks the Cavaliers down quite a few pegs in the predictions and will drain the already economically depressed area of much-needed tourism and marketing dollars, but all I can really say there is, “Cleveland, you had your chance.” Dan Gilbert doesn’t really see it that way.

The despondent owner unleashed a verbal tirade in an open letter to Cleveland and their fans, which detailed a literary temper tantrum the likes of which John McEnroe would be proud. I won’t write out the whole letter here, but for those who have not witnessed its furious glory, you can find it here. Yet, here are a couple of my favorite choice moments:

- “I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE” [all caps was actually his choice, not added by me]

- Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there. Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.

I predict Mr. Gilbert will be eating these words in short time, but the first chosen quote will take at least a whole year to come back to haunt him. David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, went on a tyrannical bend a few years back trying to clean up the sport and wipe out the violence and aggression from the players, but he clearly didn’t think to check into the attitudes and expletives of the owners. Mr. Gilbert should have taken the high road, thanked James for giving so much to his team and to his town. He should also have understood that after seven years and not one single championship ring, James had every right as a player to seek that illustrious fortune somewhere else.

Will Miami follow on the heels of the Celtics methodology, building a powerhouse trio and hoping some of the young blood pulled in at base salary can fill in the gaps? It certainly worked for Boston. Or could James have stayed in Cleveland and let the team continue to try and build around him until the perfect fit came to fruition? That certainly worked for the Los Angeles Lakers when Kobe was threatening to bail. No one really knows until we see the logos emblazoned on the jerseys next year as the confetti rains down from the rafters. Yet, whichever way it works out, the only thing truly lost here is the dignity of Mr. Gilbert and the Cavaliers organization.

What did you think of the letter? Was Gilbert justified in his reaction? Was James justified in his hype?

Take Part: Leaders of ‘The Cove’ movement and more…

Documentaries are at their best when you feel absolutely compelled to jump out of your seat and help before the ending credits roll. Few of them can make such claims, but recently I was enthralled by The Cove and the images I saw made my eyes water and my stomach turn.

This post is not meant to be a review of the movie, but let me be as straight as I can when I say everyone should see this. There is no excuse at all for the massacre of dolphins still taking place in those waters. Even if you mock those who rally under the title ‘animal lover’, you would have a hard time defending those being exposed in this film.

Yet, as I mentioned before, the goal is not to just bring this terrible tragedy to light, but to also motivate you to help in whatever way you can. Take Part is a group that is not only managing the information about the current status in the cove and where all the help is going, but also a number of other charities and causes are listed there.

If you have any time, money or even free space in your brain, please take a look at their website and see if you can find a way to lend them a hand. I know there is an overwhelming number of issues and causes in this world, but if everyone just picked one and actually donated just a little time, money or effort, the results would not only change the world in the present, but it would help make sure places like ‘the cove’ never appear again.