Brick

Okay, I have pretty much nothing coherent to say about this movie but OH. MY. GOD. How much love do I have for this?

It's just...it's *nuts* how great this movie was. Dark and noir-esque, 'hard boiled detective' is *exactly* right. It's like, take your classic detective story, the hard nosed man who knows more about the dark side of the city, the police that use him, maybe, when they think they can, but are more than willing to turn on him, the lost, wounded true love, the femme fatales, the villain dressed all in black, running things from the shadows. The intrigue, the mystery, who killed who, who has the drugs, who will survive, who can you trust? Take all that, and set it in a high school. It shouldn't work. Most of the time, it wouldn't, because it'd be too highschooley. But not this. Even the dialogue sounds like it belongs in a older mouths.

A friend loaned this to me after we were talking about JGL after Inception, and she said this was incredibly awesome. And I must agree. Certainly not everyone's cuppa, but it's mine, for sure.

Movie: Inception

Oh, holy crap, this movie is awesome. I mean...this movie is like sex. For the brain. I needed a cigarette and a stiff drink after this movie, and I don't smoke.

The plot is not insanely complicated, really, in the broad outlines.

Technology exists that allows people to share dreams. I'm assuming that it had some theraputic applications which it was originally invented for. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team use it for slightly illegal purposes. They go into other peoples minds and steal their secrets. Of course, they're hired to do this, it's not something they do for shits and grins.

So a man, Mr. Saito (played by Chow Yun Fat Ken Watanabe), hires this team. Not to steal ideas, but to implant one. He wants to destroy a rival company by having the son, played by Cillian Murphy, break up the empire after he inherits it from his dying father. Of course, planting an idea is infinitely more difficult that stealing one, because the persons brain can always track down the thought to it's origins, and subconsiously, if nothing else, recognize that it originated from somewhere else.

They create the world, drop Robert Fischer (the son) into it without his knowledge, and take him down through three levels of dreams, slipping into his brain in insane ways, until he thinks that it's his idea. That his father really wanted him to destroy his life's work, so that Robert can be his own man.

It's not a complicated plot (though of course there's much, much more to it, and I'm leaving lots out despite my not spoiler safe policy, because you really need to *see* this movie), but it is so insanely well written and acted it's not even funny. It's mind bending at it's finest, and you leave the movie having to almost pick an ending. Is Cobb out of the dream? Has everything worked out for the best? Is his happiness real? Or is the top still spinning?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my bunk.

ALSO: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. My dear boy, I forgive you for G.I. Joe. If I acted, I totally would be in a campy movie of crapitude if I got the chance to play a kick ass villain too. Other than that, you're doing *awesome*.