Movie Review: Inception

I've decided to start blogging again. I think I stopped because the future occupied so much of my time that I had no time to record the past, and whilst it's probably not such a good thing to keep dwelling in the past, I realize that without a reference point to the past, I find it hard to keep track of how far I've come. Not to be overtly philosophical but I think it's good to document reasons for actions / inactions (think there's no such word), that way I keep track of the growth in my reasoning, value system, ideals and principals. Alright, let's move on to what this blog's going to be about!

I've changed the blog design for two reasons:

1.Durned blogger.com updated their templates to xml so my old Calvin and Hobbes template doesn't work anymore @#$!%*&. If I knew I wouldn't have ran the update.

2.The old C&H template was a tad too small anyway plus I wanted a new design to reflect my current hobbies (i.e. boardgaming)

So what will I be blogging about? I've thought about it and I think it'll be mostly about movies, food, boardgames, outings and special events. As such there won't be a set periodic update, more of an "as and when" kind of thing. I know it’s been a super long time since I last blogged but I won't be doing a recap of the "dark ages" period, suffice to say that a whole load of stuff has happened and that henceforth in the blogging arena, this is my new life.

Cool, so with all that out of the way, today's blog is about a movie I watched last night.

I know Inception came out a l-o-n-g time ago but I was having Tiger Bank on my work schedule at the time so work commitments got in the way of me watching this EPIC movie. I know I watched something else that month but can't remember what it was for the life of me. (Toy Story 3, Killers, Karate Kid?) Anyways watching it last night confirmed how I felt about the movie when I was watching the trailers on YouTube. I think the EPIC-ness comes from two things really:

(1) The graphics were absolutely mind-blowing (talk about bending space AND time)

(2) The way the director takes an idea (stealing information through dream hijacking) and presents it with simple truths of life (i.e. why does it feel you dream days in a single night? why does a dream not make sense only when you wake up from it? dreams within dreams?) and turns it into a good story had me impressed.

Of course some liberties were taken such as there being only 3 dream levels before you hit limbo (huh?) and we have the "storm troopers who can't hit the broad side of a bantha" scenario where there are all these cool machine guns, rifles, grenade launchers and the only guy who gets shot is the Asian tourist (meh?).

Will I watch it again? If it were still in the cinema I would say yes, if only to simply ogle the graphics on the big screen. Or if my wife wants to watch it while I attempt to explain what's going on to her then absolutely yes :) I think she gave up at the 30 minute mark previously hehe. The Accountant teaching the Engineer about concepts of spatial distortion and time compression *woot*.

I did have a fear about the ending. I was afraid that it would end up like this movie...

It wouldn't make the movie any worse but the whole "it’s just a dream" conclusion is quite overdone in my opinion. I know there's been a huge online debate as to what the ending actually means, and I'm taking the side that says it’s actually a happy ending, only because I think it’s screwed up to be so happy in a dream and then... wake up.

I guess that's it for this time. Tune in next time for more… of whatever life throws my way :)