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 $ 100 OFF Mention This AD And Receive $100 Off. Now is the LSAT perfect time to prep with one of the nation's leaders in test preparation -Small Classes GMAT ExpertInstructors -Free Extra Help + MCAT Thei - Pm Review *5E 30 4U 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.