J. EDGAR

Written by Dustin Lance Black

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Starring Leonard Dicaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts and Judi Dench

Annie Hoover: Edgar, I would rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son.

Considering Clint Eastwood has lived to witness most of what he chooses to depict in his J. Edgar Hoover biography, simply titled J. EDGAR, it is an awful shame that so much of it feels lifeless and false. Eastwood’s Hoover accomplishes great things, like taking fingerprint technology nationwide and forensic science to new heights, but he does so with very little fanfare, subsequently inspiring even less interest in his audience. Fortunately, incredible performances by Leonardo Dicaprio and Armie Hammer, as the notorious FBI director and his rumoured romantic partner of many years, Clyde Tolson, elevate the picture high enough to overshadow the drab, washed out stiffness of Eastwood’s former America. Dustin Lance Black’s script is smart not to focus solely on Hoover’s sexuality, but unfortunately, the film only truly comes alive when it does.

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INCEPTION

Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine

Eames: If we’re going to perform inception, then we’re going to need imagination.

I knew there was a good reason I fought so hard every night to hold on to my conscious mind and not let my unconscious mind take over.  I’ve got to make sure no pesky extractors get in there to steal my highly sought after secret thoughts.  More importantly, I’ve got to make sure that nobody gets in there and plants an idea that I would go on to believe is entirely my own upon waking up.  This latter assault is called INCEPTION and the extremely dangerous process involved in making it happen is the premise for Christopher Nolan’s film of the same name.  Nolan’s skill as a director gives him the tools to delve deep into the viewer’s mind but after waking up from the dreamlike state INCEPTION creates so delicately, it doesn’t feel like he left anything in there to hold on to.

In order for Nolan to sell INCEPTION, he has a lot of ideas to implant in the audience from the very beginning.  Leonardo Dicaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play professional dreamers, men who, when connected to a fancy box that puts you right to sleep at the push of a button (where can I get this box?!), enter other people’s subconscious minds.  It’s way more complicated than that and INCEPTION does its best to ensure the audience understands its complex ideas.  To begin with, Nolan starts the action with Dicaprio and Gordon-Levitt in the middle of a mission.  This way we get to see first hand what their alternate reality is and it conveniently allows for explanation between characters indirectly aimed to help the audience situate itself.  Comparisons to THE MATRIX are not shocking to me.  Like that film, INCEPTION is a visual marvel that requires a lot of contextualization to get lost in.  And again, like that film, explanatory scenes that stop the action cold are necessary to keep everyone following.  THE MATRIX does one thing differently though – it makes it all about us at the same time so once we do get lost, we have just as much to lose.

Once everyone is on the same page, which takes almost half the film to accomplish, the real mission begins.  Inception, the concept of that is, is thought to be purely theoretical but Dicaprio is determined to make it a reality.  Dicaprio’s team, also including Ellen Page, Ken Wantanabe and the deliciously smarmy Tom Hardy, has been contracted to go deep into the mind of Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), the heir to an internationally successful corporation.  Once they get deep enough, they must implant an idea that will trigger Fischer to want to dissolve the company when he wakes up.  As the leader of the team, and the dreamer who has been doing this the longest, Dicaprio’s personal issues, primarily the ones involving his secretive past with his wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), keep creeping into the collectively shared dreams.  Here, dreams and memories get easily confused and threaten to bring everything toppling down.  The corporate espionage angle though keeps the audience at a safe distance when we should all be able to draw upon the shared experience of getting lost in dreams.

Visually, there is no question that INCEPTION will have you dreaming of the fantastical sets and effects long after you’ve seen it.  As Nolan takes us deeper into dreams within dreams, he has total control over all the layers he has designed so deliberately one on top of the other.  He wows us with everything going on around us and grips us by making the success of the mission dependent upon a multitude of factors that must align perfectly within a very small window of time.  Considering how much work is involved in getting this deep and keeping all these layers balanced though, it seems odd that Nolan doesn’t appear to have any grander a purpose to achieving this feat other than proving he could.  In order for inception to work, to ensure the idea really sticks, the subject has to believe that the idea came from himself, like true inspiration.  Nolan burrows into the extreme depths of his subjects but leaves little to nothing insightful behind in the viewer to inspire us when we all wake up.

It's still a good time, mind you ...

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SHUTTER ISLAND

Written by Laeta Kalogridis
Directed by Martin Scorcese
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Ben Kingsley


Warden: If I were to sink my teeth into your eye right now, would you be able to stop me before going blind?

From the moment this ominous ferry emerges from the thick fog to bring Federal Marshalls, Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule (Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) to Shutter Island in the opening shots of legendary director, Martin Scorcese’s SHUTTER ISLAND, you know you’re about to watch a masterful movie made by a mindful man. It is instantly and unavoidably intriguing and it isn’t long after the boat docks that you realize you have as little chance of getting off this island as everyone else there, at least not with your wits about you.


Teddy and Chuck are on assignment to investigate a missing prisoner, I mean, patient, on Shutter Island. The mistake and the correction are made a number of times in the film as it is simply never really clear whether Shutter Island is a correctional facility or a mental facility. Whether there even should be a distinction for these particular prisoner-patients is up for debate just like the intentions of every character we meet on this island. Scorcese makes it so every man on the island is out for himself; even Teddy and Chuck just met as new partners on the ferry over. Subsequently, paranoia and mistrust run rampant in everyone’s mind and each day becomes a balancing act with each person’s personal sanity walking a very tight rope.


SHUTTER ISLAND takes place in 1954, when applied psychology was at a distinct crossroads between older, more barbaric means of treatment and more modern prescription methods to dealing with madness. One of the head doctors on Shutter Island, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) claims to not subscribe to either school of thought in favour of a more sympathetic approach that relies on the belief that it is actually possible to get through to the mind of a mad man. Despite this, he will not allow Teddy and Chuck to enter the heavily-guarded Ward C, where only the most dangerous, uh, patients are housed. This lack of full disclosure makes it hard to imagine that everything happening on this island is happening according to protocol. Perhaps it is but then what is the established island protocol anyway?


It becomes clear to Teddy that his time on Shutter Island is not meant to be limited to just this investigation. A case is being built against him to show him as just as crazy as every other patient there, effectively silencing any evidence he uncovers in his investigation. But while it may be clear to Teddy, it becomes pretty clear to the audience that nothing on Shutter Island is as it seems. What is the truth and who is actually telling it? Better yet, will we even believe it when we hear it? The answers do come and they are as unsettling as every other moment in this tight two and a half hour production.


As it is put forth a few times in SHUTTER ISLAND, to accuse someone of being insane is truly all you need to do to make it a fact. All protest made by the accused will be seen as logical dismissal of the accusation but not a valid argument against it. Scorcese knows the same rational will apply to the way the viewer will see the film, making visiting SHUTTER ISLAND such a deliberate and delicate mind trip. You may even wonder in fact whether you too don’t belong there by the end. This is what makes Scorcese the undisputed winner of his own elaborately designed game.

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