By Jason Apuzzo. • No surprises here: due to the initial hype, Inception finished first at the weekend box office – but I suspect the drop-off on this one will be significant over the next few weeks. Opinions on the film continue to be sharply divided, of course. The New Yorker’s David Denby is the latest influential critic to pan the film, calling it “an engineering feat, and, finally, a folly.”
Momentarily setting aside my own highly sarcastic, upside down review of the film, I can tell you that I otherwise found Inception to be a perfect example of the soulless, technocratic filmmaking that we’ve all become accustomed to from Hollywood – although Christopher Nolan is very clever at disguising his film as being something else (i.e., upscale art house fare). Besides also being a deeply nihilistic and (as is so often the case with Nolan’s films) creepily misogynistic film, the film offers a dull, rationalist’s take on the fundamentally irrational dream state – and thereby misses the point of what dreams are actually like. The film is pedantic when it should be uncanny, too swift to get to the next explosion rather than actually explore a character. Basically the film’s a bore, put together with a slide-rule instead of inspiration. And I suspect audiences will grow cold on it over time.
I’d like to thank our wonderful readers for putting up with my upside down review, so to speak, and for keeping the debate on this film civil – something that (unfortunately) doesn’t always happen when Nolan’s films are being discussed. LFM’s readers are the finest out there.
• Will 50% of Hollywood’s box office take be coming from 3D films within the next 3 years? One major theater chain thinks so, and is putting its money behind that technology. And probably they’re right. The pressure to release in 3D is immense right now, and is already changing how movies are being conceptualized, even at the script stage.
• And speaking of which, Tim Burton is apparently developing the board game “Monsterpocalypse” into a summer 3D tentpole project. And if it were still legal to trade movie futures, that would be the one to put your money on …
• Did you know Breck Eisner is developing a Flash Gordon project? What a shame. He hasn’t done enough penance yet for Sahara to get such an important franchise. What happened to Stephen Sommers?
• It looks like the new Maggie Thatcher movie might be a hit job. The family is apparently “appalled” at the project. Here’s the money quote from the UK’s Guardian:
“… the screenplay of The Iron Lady depicts Baroness Thatcher as an elderly dementia-sufferer looking back on her career with sadness. She is shown talking to herself and unaware that her husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, has died.
“Sir Mark and Carol are appalled at what they have learnt about the film,” says a friend of the family. “They think it sounds like some Left-wing fantasy. They feel strongly about it, but will not speak publicly for fear of giving it more publicity.”
What a shame … but completely predictable, since Streep is involved. Thatcher deserves so much better than this shabby treatment.
• … and speaking of dementia, the UK’s Guardian also does a long interview today with Oliver Stone, who is now apparently working on a new project called Oliver Stone’s Secret History of America. Stone is becoming something like the left-wing answer to Howard Hughes back in the day – except that before going insane, and producing some very bad films, Hughes actually had some serious accomplishments to his name.
• Avatar is apparently very big in the Amazon. Do they have 3D down there?
• Here’s Peter Jackson showing a childhood film of his that was inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s work … with Ray Harryhausen in the audience watching along. Great stuff. Ray is such an inspiration to everybody.
• Did you hear? Aaron Sorkin will be making a film about John Edwards, and casting has already begun. Given what a dud Edwards’ campaign was, does this pic have an audience?
• MUBI has some nice things to say today about Disco & Atomic War and 1428, two recent films from the LA Film Festival that we loved here at LFM (see our reviews here and here). Thanks to them for that.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … there’s a new billboard out today featuring Tron: Legacy‘s Olivia Wilde as ‘Quorra.’ We’re looking forward to this film come December.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …
Posted on July 19th, 2010 at 4:36pm.
Can the left just leave our icons alone? I’m completely disgusted that they’re going after Margaret Thatcher in some hit job film. It’s unconscionably cruel to do this to someone who is still alive but is too elderly and ailing to actively defend herself. This is so completely shameful I don’t even know what to say.
I agree. It’s so despicable and low-class to me that Streep is participating in this.
Sounds like you’re saying Nolan is sort of the opposite of Terrence Malick.
My dream job: co-hosting a Malick week with Robert Osborne!
Can the left just leave our icons alone?
No. Totalitarians are like sharks, if they stop moving forward they drown in their own failed policies.
BTW, James Cameron should immediately fire whichever publicist suggested the Amazon trip. He looks six
kinds of a fool in every one of those pictures.
I thought your upside down “Inception” review was funny. I’m going to email the link to Rex Reed.
As for Breck Eisner, why is that dude getting another chance to direct? He totally blew “Sahara” even though that thing was handed to him on a platter.