Tag Archives: fantastic

My Thoughts On Inception

19 Jul

Some people might be upset that Christopher Nolan isn’t working on Batman 3, or whatever it’ll be called, right now. After seeing Inception however, I must say that anyone with that mindset shall forgive Mr. Nolan graciously. He truly has done a wonderful thing here. I’ll break it down into a few parts: plot (no spoilers), effects, cast, and the overall verdict. So now, let us dive into the dream world and let reality take a back seat to it.

THE PLOT: There’s two main concepts of importance in Inception. The first is extraction, which is essentially when a group of people go into a person’s dream, steal an idea of theirs, and then sell it to somebody or use it for espionage related purposes. The main character, Cobb, is one of the best (if not the best) extractors in the world. He’s very good at his job.

Then there is the seemingly impossible inception, which is where an idea is “implanted” into a person’s mind. The idea is that an idea simply can’t be drilled into someone’s head, but that he must be given something along the lines of the idea and come to the conclusion of the idea himself (I said “idea” a lot there, didn’t I?). It is a lot harder than just going into a person’s dream and doing that though. One must go into the actual person’s mind, and to do this is quite tricky. You’ll have to see the movie to find out how Cobb pulls it off, if he pulls it off.

One might wonder why Cobb would have to pull off such a difficult job. Well, you see, his home is in America. He can’t get back right now though because he’s in a bit of a mix up. It is believed that he is the man who murdered his own wife. He was framed, but that time has passed now. All he wants is to go home, and to do that he must pull off an inception for a very powerful man who promises a way out for Cobb. Cobb accepts the job and begins to assemble a powerful and loyal team to help him accomplish his task. And that’s a brief statement of the plot.

It’s definitely a movie for an intelligent type. I’m not saying the “average Joe” couldn’t watch it, although I must admit I saw quite a few confused faces exiting the theater. It starts off a bit confusing, but half the fun of the movie is trying to  figure out what happened at the beginning. Before I move onto the effects I want to congratulate any writers, namely Nolan, who worked on this thing. Just from watching it I can tell how hard it was to create such an elaborate story, and how it hard it must have been to pitch it to a producer. Well done.

THE SPECIAL EFFECTS: Holy crap were the effects in this movie fantastic. Some of the stuff that you see the team do during the inception is just badass. And some of the “dreamy” environments totally blew me away. There is one scene that I won’t spoil for you, but it is probably one of the most well done hallway fight scenes ever. It’s a hallway where the gravity of the room is constantly shifting from the floor, to a wall, to the ceiling, to another wall, and back again. It’s just great.

One thing I’d like to point out is how hard it is presently to “wow” me with effects anymore (ever since Avatar came out). I must say though, these effects were top notch and Christopher Nolan definitely did some great directing. How well timed everything was is just stupendous.

THE CAST: Talk about an awesome casting director! Holy crap was this some cast. It was like the cast of an Ocean’s movie. Everyone played their roles very well. If I had to pick favorites, which is hard because everybody did a great job, I’d say DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy did the best out of the whole cast. However I must give props to Cillian Murphy, whom I did not expect to care about that much in the movie (you’ll see why when you watch it). Great job to the whole cast though. I loved everybody in this friggin’ movie. Except Mal, but she’s the villain so I’m supposed to hate her (no but Marion Cotillard did a good job).

THE OVERALL VERDICT: Though one must definitely be thinking a bit while watching this movie, Inception is an awesome ride. I must inform anybody hoping for a perfectly logical film of something very important: it’s a dream. Nothing is supposed to make sense in terms of physics and such. Dreams are illogical, and that’s what makes some moments in the movie so good.

If you haven’t seen Inception yet, you should go check it out right now. It’s well worth full price, and has an ending that’ll send chills down your spine (the good kind). I love it. And even though it’s as long as The Dark Knight, you won’t be getting that feeling of, “it should’ve ended way back there.” I was sucked in and never bored. I’m sure that most of you readers will enjoy it. I know I did.

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My Thoughts On Heavy Rain

21 Jun

Heavy Rain is a drama. It’s a video game, but a drama nonetheless. It tells a mysterious story with fantastic twists and turns and boldly challenges the way games are made. The music, the action, the timing, and everything else, is excellent. It truly is a remarkable game.

I would actually like to start by talking about the graphics. The visuals in this game absolutely blew my mind right away. I watched some behind the scenes stuff and saw that a lot of motion capture was used (no surprise there) to make the game as rich with life as possible. The environments are top-notch too. The amount of beauty you’ll find in this game (especially at the beginning) is amazing.

And then there’s the “controversial” thing: the controls. Now, a lot of people think this game is just going to be one big “quick-time event” (for those of you who don’t know, that’s when the game just plays like a movie and you hit buttons as they appear on the screen). They’re half right. There are lots of quick-time events in Heavy Rain, but they’re all very well done and provide much tension during the game. There is actually quite a bit of walking around and investigating areas, much like you would in an adventure game. Sometimes this can be quite fun, especially when you realize that the things you find can affect how the story plays out.

And then there is of course that very thing, the story. Now, let me just say right now that this story is one of the most well written stories in a game today. And the fact that it’s adaptable makes it even better. Now what I mean by adaptable is this: the story adapts to the choices you make. So, let’s say a character of yours dies, there’s no “game over” screen. The game just adapts to that death and the story will play out very differently from that point forth. Let me put it this way: my second time playing (and beating) Heavy Rain was way different from my first time. Choice is definitely a big factor in the game. There are tons of possible endings to the game.

Heavy Rain tells the tale of four heroes: Ethan, a father who lost one of his sons in a traumatic accident, Madison, a reporter with chronic insomnia, Scott, an ex-cop now turned private investigator, and Norman, an FBI agent in possession of an A.I. system never before seen by man. He also has a bit of a drug addiction, a key part of the game’s story. They all, essentially, get mixed up in the case of the Origami Killer, a criminal who kidnaps and drowns small boys in rainwater. One day, Ethan’s remaining son, Shaun, is kidnapped, supposedly by the Origami Killer, and he is tested to see how much he’s willing to do to save someone he loves.

The emotions one can feel while playing Heavy Rain are deep. It’s better than many movies I’ve seen in the past couple of years. The game really knows how to make you care about the people in the story. I loved every minute of it, and I can promise you this: you will too.

And a piece of advice to any who might consider playing this: hide in the fridge. Don’t worry, you’ll get it when you play.

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My Thoughts On Trumbo (2007 Film)

17 Oct

Okay guys. I literally just finished watching my favorite movie of all time. This is a documentary about a man named Dalton Trumbo. It is so eye opening, hilarious, inventive, and has the best excerpts in any movie I have ever seen, ever. I’ll break it down for you. We’ll start with the excerpts.

Okay, so all of the excerpts in this are read by very famous celebrities. Two of them are a couple of my favorite actors of all time: Liam Neeson and Paul Giamatti. However I have to give credit to all of the actors who read the excerpts because they did an amazing job. They were all extremely charismatic and brought Trumbo’s words to life so well that I felt like he was in the room saying them to me. It was incredible absolutely incredible. I won’t spoil anything, but my favorite one’s were the last one, the first Paul Giamatti one, and the one on masturbation (it’s a friggin’ scream).

Anyhow, the excerpts were so well done and I am so proud of everybody involved with the making of them.

Now you may think after what I’ve said that the excerpts overshadow the documentary part of the movie, but no. The great thing about Trumbo, is that the importance of both parts of the movie is balanced perfectly. You’re always excited to get to the excerpts, and you’re always excited for more documents. And some of the stories are amazing. They’re all told in great detail and you feel very satisfied after each one has been told. Some are very sad, but some made you laugh out loud. Some are very heartwarming and some are very mysterious, making you feel like a detective on the biggest case of your career. It’s an awesome thrill ride that anybody can enjoy.

I recommend Trumbo to writers and people in the movie industry, as well as people considering getting into politics. This movie is practically flawless and there is a reason I call it my favorite movie of all time. Buy this movie, now! It may be a little late to be talking about this, since it was made in ’07, but hey, if you think that way consider it “an oldie but a goodie.”

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