Saturday Night at the Movies: Inception

[kiki_eng]

I had an awesome Saturday night. I went to see Inception and then had take out sushi afterwards. Happy place, I tell you.

I liked Inception a lot. I went to see it because I wanted to know why people were writing fic about it. It’s been incredibly disorienting seeing Arthur/Eames pop up as a pairing, because my automatic reaction was ...there’s a new knight? Named "Eames"? What? Wait....

I went in knowing that it was a science fiction film with Leonardo DiCaprio in it and that there was Arthur/Eames fiction. I really, really, wasn’t sure what to expect. The last film I saw that had that kind of instant slash reaction (I haven’t seen The Losers yet.) was Sherlock Holmes and while that was a romp I also felt pandered to as a slasher. (It’s not a good feeling.)

I was afraid going in that I was going to get bludgeoned; I wasn’t. Arthur and Eames are side characters, both are kind of awesome, and they have a fun dynamic. There is so much going on that I’d probably have missed it if I hadn’t been looking.

I liked it; I liked the film. Shit blows up and it’s clever, [The last piece of sci-fi I saw before this was Splice; I wanted to bash my head against something. (It wasn’t clever. There were also no explosions. The shiny graphics failed to make up for this.)] which isn’t standard.

I haven’t read any fic yet, but I can tell you that people are writing fic about this film because the world set out in this is incredibly interesting and there are fun little potential-filled characters*.

I liked this film. I liked it in a literary analysis sort of way, even.

*There’s also kink potential in the ‘verse/characters.

(I really need to do a rec set of films that aren’t about men and male narratives. Seriously. Inception is a science fiction epic about manpain. I mean, the way technology is used to enable those narratives in the film is fascinating, but if anyone has female-centric recs to toss at me that’d be awesome.)

Comments

[sinesofinsanity]

Will reply later about women, (must find sci-fi chicks) but for now I must say I agree with your like of Inception, and your assessment that it's filled with potential. Emphasis on that. I felt that there wasn't time between the cleverness and dream-scape to develop much more than that from anyone except possibly Dom Cobb(Leonardo DiCaprio), which actually served to establish how he doesn't let anyone close to himself, doesn't really know his own team. I also noticed a strange similarity between this Leonardo character and the one from Shutter Island, have you seen that one?

[kiki_eng]

It doesn't have to be sci-fi.

Potential is, yeah, definitely the right word, and it's a big part of what fanfic is for, so it's kind of neat that way, for all that I'd have liked to see a film that wasn't about Cobb.

I haven't seen Shutter Island, so I didn't notice that similarity. Someone else wrote that they liked Leo (I lived through Titanic. Also: "DiCaprio" is longer.) as an actor but when they watch him act it is always Leo playing the role of. I think that might be kind of what you mean? (Or at least related to it?)

It's interesting. I think acting's changed or public expectations have changed. I mean, if you go watch a Cary Grant film you are watching Cary Grant in the role of, and that was never an issue; it was always awesome, but I think now we don't want to see any trace of the actor or their public persona, we want that to be thoroughly eclipsed by their character. Being type-cast once made your career, but now there's this negative stigma about taking similar roles.

(What did you actually mean?)

[sinesofinsanity]

Actually I had just noticed a similarity between the characters, but if you haven't seen Shutter Island I won't tell you about it.

I see what you mean though about watching someone in the role of. It may relate a bit to people wanting to be immersed in a movie, and have movie world be real for an hour or two. Watching someone play the same role that they played in that movie you saw last week can take away from that. It may also be that an actor's public persona is just so much more public now. Or perhaps not, I really don't know. My last theory is just how opinions and popular culture change. We've come to expect diversity from good actors, and an actor is no longer considered "good" if they can't make us forget everything but their current performance. Either that, or it's that certain actors (such as Leo) are so distinctive it's hard as a consumer to move away from "Leo in the role of". I'm rambling.