Inception is like...

Inception isn’t impossible. It has been done effectively by filmmakers and novelists for ages and now it has been done by Nolan. Modus Operandi is quite simple. Be an architect, construct an elaborate dream world with certain rules. Be a dreamer, let your subconscious project your imagination and tell a story. Be the forger and create believable characters by stealing from the collective or individual psyche. Be the point man and see that your task is carried out and you don’t get interrupted during your work. Now steal the show in the mind of the audience. The visuals and words are just your tools.
 

Nolan does exactly that. He seeded a fascinating idea into the minds of the millions of people and wowed them with extraordinary storytelling, breathtaking visuals and spine chilling thrills while feeding rich material into their grey matter. Now they are all raving about it; calling it the best movie in a decade, his best work and putting it (collectively) in the top 5 movies of all time.
 

Inception is a spectacular film which had me captivated for all its 148 minutes. It had all that can be expected from a summer blockbuster and because of all the points I made above made a compelling and brilliant film but it isn’t so brilliant that it deserves all the unparalleled praise. Inception is actually like several other films we have seen in the past in the emotions it evokes and ideas it plants. But then it is not.

Could you double-check the envelope please?

The 82nd Annual Academy awards are around the corner and we will witness yet another page in cinema history take a glamorous turn. Take the best of world cinema over the year gone by, have a gallery of movie veterans judge them and give the world something to cherish for another year. This is the Oscars story that has lived on for decades and has stood as the single most awaited awards ceremony in the calendar. The desire to claim the golden statuette drives a lot of artists in the film fraternity and while some are blessed with it after one tremendous performance, many have come a long way to win the coveted prize and the name that first comes to mind when one thinks of the latter is the director Martin Scorsese.

"Could you double-check the envelope please?", this was the rhetoric that Scorsese gave the world as he picked his first Oscar for The Departed in 2006. Having been nominated 5 times before, the 67 year old director from NYC is a classic example of making cinema for cinema's sake and nothing more. One look at the director's record of movies and its global reception and we are swiftly reminded of audiences and critics who have showered more praise and honor on him than the belated Oscar. So I guess the question I am asking myself is, if I look back at Scorsese's career and his cinematic achievements, should Oscar glory really mean much to him or any other artist of the film fraternity?

Now a 23 year old, my fascination with Marty's movies began with his 1976 classic Taxi Driver. Straight after the success of Mean streets, Taxi Driver established Scorsese as a prolific film maker who brought European influences to Hollywood and renewed the film noir. Contemporary cinema during the 70's saw the likes of Brian De Palma, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese who enjoyed a sense of freedom in film making. That freedom was translated into great story telling for Scorsese. Teaming up with Paul Schrader as the movie's writer and Robert De Niro (who would become Scorsese's life long friend and screen muse), Taxi Driver was beaten at the Oscars in that year by the insufferable underdog classic Rocky. An interesting observation that was made on the difference in film making of the then directors from the West coast like Spielberg and Lucas and in Scorsese's East coast movies was the assertiveness and confidence that Scorsese possessed in giving his audiences what he felt like giving while Lucas and Spielberg were more careful yet experimental in trying to understand what the audience wanted and then giving it to them. This difference sometimes stands out for me as to why the Oscars ignored his earlier classics.

The 10 most anticipated movies of 2010.

2009 has been a pathetic year in terms of quality and variety of movies. Most of the big budget ones were crappy and the best were some independent or very low budget movies like In the Loop, Moon and 500 Days of Summer. These are surprise packages and tough to predict. So like always I look at the Multi hundred million dollar, Super Star Studded, Auteur helmed movies to show us the path. Here are my top 10 most anticipated movies of 2010.

10. The Rum Diary: Johnny Depp is back serving Hunter S Thomson in another of his works after the dizzily brilliant fare: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Well we will take anything with Johnny Boy. Just hoping it won’t make the Public Enemies.

9. Jonah Hex: A wild Wild West where bounty hunters and Voodo practitioners are involved. Based upon a comic book with a terribly scarred anti hero it throws me back to the good ol’ days. Dont tell me Megan Fox in hot Victorian lingerie wont delight you! 

8. Arrested Development: Everyone loved the TV show. Much to the delight of the fans it’s back in the form a movie. Sex and the City worked, The X files didn’t. But I am pretty sure with its fantastic humour Arrested Development wont disappoint the fans.

7. Shutter Island: This Martin Scorcese-Leonardo Di Caprio period thriller was supposed to release in 2009 but got pushed back. We cant wait to see what Marty has to follow up to his Oscar winning Departed. Something better I hope.

6. Robinhood: Another quintessential pair, ie of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe is back. They try to repair the joke that was the last Robinhood movie was 20 years ago. Right up in Gladiator’s alley Scott must have put heart and soul into this after the performance of his last 2 movies.

5. Kickass: This might end up being the surprise package of the year. Matthew Vaughn, who also directed Layer Cake and Star Dust makes a movie in which a teenager just decides to be a superhero though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so.