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July 19, 2010 - Image 10

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Michigan Daily Summer Weekly, 2010-07-19

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Monday, July 19, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

The stuff dreams are made of

lnception' plants kicks and thrust their subjects head-
first toward the real world.
ideas of greatness But a kick is something else too,

By ANDREW LAPIN
Editor in Chief
There's a common term employed in
the world of dream thieves headed by
Leonardo DiCaprio's
Dom Cobb, and it's
an important one. It's
called a "kick," and it inception
refers to an act of pro-
pulsion that produces At Quality6
an adrenaline rush so and Rave
intense it wakes you Warner Bros.
from your dreamland.
Submerging a head underwater, driv-
ing a car off a bridge, creating a giant
explosion in a zero-gravity elevator
shaft - these are all acts that produce

something less tangible. When you
kick, you're taking a plunge.You're jolt-
ed away from what you had previously
believed your reality was. The earth
turns on its side. The walls crumble
around you. And if this happens to you
when you're watching a movie, well,
maybe that movie just kicked your ass.
"Inception" is a feature-length kick.
It's a heist movie that hops across
dreamscapes instead of across the
globe. It pulls rug after rug after rug
out from under the audience and justly
earns every pull. Here is a movie so
smart and all-knowing that its writer-
director, Christopher Nolan, was able
to plant the ideaof itsgreatness into the
mind of its audience even before anyone
saw it. Who told us to love this movie so

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much? Maybe our dreams did.
Nolan, of course, is known for
making movies that mess with his
characters, whether they're forget-
ful detectives ("Memento"), tortured
superheroes ("The Dark Knight") or
obsessive magicians ("The Prestige").
And he also knows how to mess with
his audience in a hyper-contextual-
ized, pay-attention-every-second-or-
you'll-regret-it kind of way. This is the
brand of filmmaking wizardry that's
on display in "Inception," partnered
with ingeniously contrived action
sequences that push the limits of the
mind. It's like if James Bond were sent
to Shutter Island and got trapped in Dr.
Parnassus's Imaginarium.
Figuring out how "Inception" works
is half the fun, so it does no good
to relay a plot description or offer a
detailed explanation of the worlds of
the dreams. After all, when the good
guys have to enter a target's mind, the
experienced ones know they have to
enter the dream cold; any knowledge
of the environment could become
intertwined with their own subcon-
scious and jeopardize the mission.
Similarly, any background info on
the content of the film could cloud
viewers' interpretations and prevent
maximum enjoyment. Which means
you shouldn't know what a totem is, or
why the film doesn't employ the device
to its full potential. And you shouldn't
know how the rules of the dreamland
affect what it means to "die," or why
being sent to Limbo strikes more fear
PITCHFORK
From Page 9
Moon &Antarctica next time, please!
Saturday was even better: Titus
Andronicus put on an awe-inspiring
performance, towingthe line between
the hardcore punk of Husker Dil and
the anthemic orchestrations of the
Boss in his prime with tracks from
this year's brilliant Civil War concept
album, The Monitor. Wolf Parade was
equally impressive, proving that indie
bands can rock just as hard nowadays
as ever (Beach House aside).
LCD Soundsystem's performance
turned Union Park into a packed-in
dance party with thousands of people
chanting along to the group's latest
banger "Drunk Girls" and tracks from
2008's alt-dance epic Sound of Silver.
Frontman James Murphy, emerg-
ing disheveled and unshaven in a
ratty white tee, floated somewhere
between Morrissey and David Byrne
but threw out references to legendary

g rig

0

One small step for man, one giant leap for manly dream thieves.

into the character's hearts than any-
thing else.
So what can be known about "Incep-
tion" going in? Well, for starters, the
ensemble cast is tremendous. Youthful
Ellen Page ("Juno") and Joseph Gor-
don-Levitt ("(500) Days of Summer")
more than hold their own against
the seasoned vets. Nolan gets great
leverage out of his usual company of
actors, from Ken Watanabe as a shady
businessman to Cillian Murphy as
the unwitting star of his own dream
(both previously featured in "Batman
Begins"). And Marion Cotillard ("Pub-
lic Enemies") gives the movie's best
performance in her many incarna-
tions, but the particulars of who she is
and why she keeps appearing are best
left unanswered.
electro-punkers Can and Suicide on
the rambling track "Losing My Edge."
Always ironic and hyper-aware,
Murphy even commented on the fes-
tival itself, complimenting the event
staffers for their down-to-earth
treatment of the audience (dousing
the front rows with ice and water
mid-performance, lowering the price
of water to $1 during the peak of
the 95-degree afternoons and hav-
ing plenty of restroom facilities and
recycling bins). The peak of the night
was the band's stirring performance
of Sound of Silver's late-night ode to
broken relationships and ennui "All
My Friends." With glowsticks, beach
balls and paper ribbons in the air, the
entire crowd sang, "Where are your
friends tonight?" with heart-choking
fervor.
Sound problems plagued only a
small handful of bands through the
first two days. Real Estate's lead
vocals were cut for an entire song,
and a nasty ring of feedback and
noise plagued the first half of Broken

There's also the sheer audacity of this
filmmaking endeavor tobe considered:
Nolan shot "Inception" in six different
countries, even though the majority of
the movie is set within non-location-
specific dreams. And those zero-grav-
ity action scenes ... holy moly, do they
look great (if a bit "Matrix"-inspired).
Will "Inception" contain as many
satisfying secrets in its repeatviewings
as "The Prestige?" Probably not. Will
some call it out for similarities to that
other 2010 release starring a mentally
unstable DiCaprio? Perhaps. Should
this stop anyone on the planet from
seeing the movie as soon as possible?
Absolutely not. This nonstop adrena-
line rush to the psyche willblow minds
with every passing second. The movie
is a living thing. It kicks.
Social Scene's set. But despite some
shaky starts, each band settled into
its groove once the knob-turners off-
stage got it together.
Rare gaffes aside, festival organiz-
ers know that the music at Pitchfork
reigns above all else, and they took
great lengths to ensure top-notch
sound quality and earsplittingvolume
when appropriate. (Hint: It's always
appropriate).
And while I was holding out for
a picturesque sunset to Pavement's
"Gold Soundz" with the Sears Tower*
looming in the background, the up-
and-comers that Pitchfork slated
for earlier Sunday afternoon looked
(almost) just as exciting. Though it's
tempting to let their up-and-coming
sounds linger in the background so I
can pester Drag City employees about 0
Dave Berman and Jim O'Rourke, or
pick up free buttons from Sub Pop,
or pad my vinyl collection with rare
7-inches - which, at this year's Pitch-
fork Music Festival, you can do all at
the same time.

1.

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