With Inception, Christopher Nolan delivers the perfect blend of action and intelligence. The precisely constructed script is told through striking visuals set to a superb score. The film is massively original, complex yet easy to follow, and wildly entertaining. This magnificent mix of elements makes for the ultimate summer movie, and without-a-doubt the best film of the year so far.

In the world of Inception, technology has been developed that allows dream-sharing, a technique through which which multiple people can inhabit one dream world. Many problems stem from this new technology, including the possibility of idea theft, but I’ll stop before I give too much away. The film utilizes these unique sci-fi elements to create an elaborate heist adventure, but everything is centered upon an emotional core. The real heart of the film is DiCaprio’s performance as Dom Cobb. In another amazing performance, DiCaprio portrays his character in all his shades, including the suave professional thief as well as the heartbroken man he is on the inside. The only reason the audience cares about the conclusion of the story is because we empathize with the leading man.

Inception asks, ”Is there a difference between the real world and the dream world?” By exploring the dream world, the line between reality and imaginary is blurred, causing not only the characters in the movie, but the audience themselves to question what is real and what is imaginary. The powerful ending of the movie puts forth this question very clearly, but the answer is left up for discussion. I was literally left speechless after seeing this film. There are so many aspects of this movie that could be discussed at length, but I am going to hold back for now in order to avoid spoilers. In any case, Inception is the most recent entry in a series of films in which Chris Nolan explores the nature of reality (Memento and The Prestige being the first two) and is the culmination of both those films and his more mainstream fare (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight).

However thought-provoking the film may be, the fact that it works on so many levels at once makes Inception a truly amazing film. Not only does Nolan present another intelligent, mind-bending mystery like Memento, Inception is also wildly entertaining. From the opening scene all the way until the stunning conclusion, you are taken on an awesome ride. The action set pieces are great, including a fight in a zero-gravity hotel, a very James Bond-esque snow fortification assault, along with a few others. Still, your attention is only held so well because you are invested in the characters. The best action comes during the extended finale, which takes up a majority of the film. The players get deeper and deeper into this multi-layered heist which provides suspense that is heightened by the fictional dream technology. As the movie concludes, this intricate set-up pays off as each layer is unpeeled perfectly. The entire story is so tautly written that each and every piece fits perfectly together to provide for a very satisfying tale.

Another key to the movie is also in its script. At the beginning of the film, the viewer has no idea what is going on, which is to be expected. However soon afterwards the ground rules are laid and the dream technology is explained. Rather than have several confusing pieces which fuse only in retrospect as in Memento, the plot here is much more straightforward. At first this seems like a weakness, the one flaw that holds the movie back from becoming a classic piece of cinema. There is a trade-off, however. In laying the foundation early, Nolan was able to take his idea a lot farther, and really explore the entire realm of possibility of this dream-exploring concept. Inception is much more accessible to a wider audience then, say, 2001 is. This makes for a very entertaining summer movie, while at the same time hardly sacrificing any of the intellectual or emotional weight of the film.

The screenplay is only one aspect, however, of an entirely magnificent film. The acting is excellent all-around. Inception’s ensemble cast is one of the most impressive ever put together. In addition to DiCaprio’s usually impressive performance, the other players are fantastic as well. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as Arthur, Cobb’s straight-laced assistant who takes part in one of the most interestingly staged fight scenes in a long time. Ellen Page plays Ariadne, the new member of the team, and while she doesn’t show anything spectacular, she holds her own very well for a young actress. The rest of the star-studded cast also give great performances. Another integral part of the film is the sound. Both Hans Zimmer’s amazing, non-traditional score, as well as the sound design in general, play a huge part in generating the mood for the movie. Different sounds represent different things, including some that are very memorable such as the sound that tubes of the dream-sharing machine make and the crunching of the glass from the apartment where Cobb’s life was altered forever.

The visuals are also impressive, as the various dreams are portrayed through unique, surrealist images. This feeling of unease is essential to the film, as the dreams serve as allegory for what the characters are doing. From one point of view, nothing in the dream world is actually happening, but the intent are there. For example, when Cobb and Arthur must get a piece of information from someone this is visualized in the movie by an attempt to break into a vault in order to get some trivial item. The information isn’t on the item itself, the item itself is the idea. This is where the intriguing concept that forms the basis of the film really pays off. This visualization of dreaming is so key to the movie, that if it didn’t work as well as it does, the entire story would fall apart.

There are so many areas of this movie that could have gone wrong, but they didn’t. Everything just clicks on every level. From an intellectual standpoint, Nolan has once again challenged his audience to think about their own reality. At the same time, the action and adventure also satisfies the needs of anyone who simply wants to be entertained. Finally, from an emotional level, the film deals with Cobb’s inability to let go, and the ultimate consequences of his actions. Many movies attempt to accomplish one thing well, but Inception succeeds on every level, placing it among the only a handful of other films in recent years that can claim as much originality, intelligence, or entertainment value as this extraordinary film. I think we’re going to be talking about this movie for long time to come.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Woody Allen announced today the full cast for his upcoming MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. This is his latest film which is now in pre-production. The film stars, in alphabetical order:  Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen and Owen Wilson. Co-starring in the film, in alphabetical order, are:  Nina Arianda, Kurt Fuller, Tom Hiddleston, Mimi Kennedy, Alison Pill and Corey Stoll. The film shoots this summer in Paris.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is a romantic comedy that follows a family travelling to the city for business. The party includes a young engaged couple that has their lives transformed throughout the journey. The film celebrates a young man’s great love for Paris, and simultaneously explores the illusion people have that a life different from their own is better.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is produced by Letty Aronson, Steve Tenenbaum and Jaume Roures. It is part of a three-picture financing deal between Allen’s Gravier Productions and Mediapro, the Spain-based company which also funded Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and the upcoming “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” to be released domestically by Sony Pictures Classics this fall. Imagina International Sales is handling international sales for MIDNIGHT IN PARIS for most territories.

What do you think? With a cast like that it should be a home run right?

Variety reported today that Colin Farrell and Marion Cotillard are set to star in Cosmopolis, David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel.

After the finances dried up for The Matarese Circle (which originally starred Tom Cruise), Cronenberg announced that he would be filming A Dangerous Method, which involves a love triangle between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), and a patient (Keira Knightley). Principal photography for that film is currently under way, but Cronenberg is already lining up his next movie.

In Cosmopolis, multi-millionaire Eric Packer (Farrell) travels across midtown Manhattan in order to get a haircut, and encounters many strange situations along the way. Cotillard will play his wife. What’s interesting is that the film is set entirely within a limo.

It seems like an interesting story, but I haven’t read the book. Don’t get your hopes up, though, as the film is still very far away from hitting theaters. In fact, Kinology, a Paris-based company, is selling the international rights this year at Cannes.

The $20 million film should begin production next March.

Inception has a great advertising campaign behind it. There is not doubt in my mind, of the last few years this movie has been kept a secret and baffled many, and on purpose. With that said, I have still not read the below synopsis from Warner Brothers on Nolan’s latest beauty. I want to go into the film knowing nothing more than what we have seen in the limited trailers.

What do you all think? Is this campaign one that many other should follow. Iron Man 2 has had way too many trailers and TV spots and last night I felt that I had already seen a ton of the film.

Check it out below: Mild Spoilers.

Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan directs an international cast in an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible–inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.

Inception will be released on July 16th and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine and many more.

Check out the trailer below:

The last time we talked about Woody it was the news of Owen Wilson’s joining Woody’s next project. Since then the yet-untitled project has picked up a pair of beautiful Hollywood starlets in Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard (La vie en rose) and Rachel McAdams (probably won a Teen Choice Award for something). Filming on this project begins this summer in Paris with an expected 2011 release date.

Set to release this fall is Woody’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger starring Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Gemma Jones, Freida Pinto and Lucy Punch. Filmed August 2009 in London and premiering at this year’s Cannes Film Festival You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger has been purchased by Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. distribution. Sony Pictures Classics also distributed Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown (1999) as well as 2009′s Whatever Works.

While I’m as excited for Rob Marshall’s Nine as any other film on the horizon (and I’ll give you one reason for that: Daniel Day-Lewis), the new trailer that has popped up online won’t sell anyone on the film unless they’re already aware of what it is.

Nine is director Rob Marshall’s (Chicago) attempt at delivering a musical inspired by Fellini’s film 8 1/2. /Film’s press coverage for the film gives a pretty succinct explanation of what we have in store:

“The musical tells the story of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he prepares his latest picture and balances the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), a producer, a mistress (Penelope Cruz), a film star muse (Nicole Kidman), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Fergie), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), and his deceased mother (Sophia Loren).”

I’m wondering if Judi Dench will get her own sexy solo, and if Fergie is pleased with that brief assessment of her role.

With that plot description in mind, check out the trailer below. It’s certainly a good looking film, and will be released on Christmas Day.

It’s no secret that I think Michael Mann is the greatest director of all-time, dead or otherwise. One can throw all the Scorsese, Kurosawa, Ford, or Spielberg they want and I’ll still conclude that Mann is better than all of them. His style is unparalleled and has influenced my own approach to the way I make films. Maybe it’s how cool he makes everyone appear in his movies, or maybe it’s how no one does action better than him. Mr. Mann just has a touch to his films that really speaks to me. I’m awed by how well and how different he’ll shoot his material and how he builds his characters for the actors.  While not every one his films has been masterworks (Ali and The Keep come to mind) he rarely misses. Public Enemies, I’m proud to say, falls into the latter category.

Let’s address the look first which many have whined over since the first trailer has been released. Mann re-teamed with Dante Spinotti, the genius who helped him shoot Heat, for this picture and they used the new Sony F23 to film a good chunk of scenes. It looks nothing short of gorgeous and immerses the viewer in the 1933 era Mann so perfectly recreates. Had the picture been shot on film, the era would have been given a “glory days” type feel to it and that was never the intent of this story. Spinotti and Mann want to put the audience in the era, and shoot certain scenes as if one is next to Dillinger and company as they joyfully escape a prison or just had a successful score. Even better is a scene where Dillinger and Billie Frechette make love. Billie’s explanation of herself is inter-cut with the two engaged in intercourse to create cinematic beauty. The love-making is aggressively shot, in contrast to the stoic way Mann films the quieter moments of the scene. Perhaps though the best directed scene is Dillinger’s demise (which if you cry fowl over, do some research) and is nothing short of brilliant. Mann builds the scene by showing Dillinger watching Manhattan Melodrama and gives one the feeling Johnny thinks that’s him up on screen while Melvin Purvis and company wait patiently outside for him. It’s all subtle, yet pure magic as it unfolds to leave the viewer breathless.

Then of course, there’s the action and oh my, how amazing all of it is. By comparison, Michael Mann makes Michael Bay repeat every grade since pre-school. In fact, this is the most action packed of any of Mann’s films and he doesn’t fail. Where most directors blow their wad thirty, sometimes ten minutes into the film, the auteur that is Mann patiently builds up to an explosive shootout in Wisconsin that is arguably the best shootout since Mann’s own Heat. The action is placed wisely, moving the plot forward rather than slowing it down or happening just because it can. The opening prison break, as well as the other action pieces, all have a beginning, middle, and an end. But again, all the ones prior to the Wisconsin shootout don’t overshadow it and let it take center stage. Here is when Mann decides to go all out and deliver nothing but balls to the wall blitz and gunfire. What results is an edge of your seat sequence that blows the pants off of 99% of the summer blockbusters that claim to feature “dazzling action” or “superb effects”. Likely one will wish their theater handed out complimentary Tommy guns so they can fire back at the screen. The action in this film is just that terrific and is incredible and immersing the viewer into feeling like they’re there.

Every male’s dream was made a reality when Mann casted Christian Bale and Johnny Depp as the two leads and neither man disappoints. Let’s start with Johnny Depp who plays John Dillinger as reserved. True, Depp is known for being outlandish of his other roles but here he fits like a sequined glove. Like Vincent in Collateral, Depp’s Dillinger is cold and calculating but the epitome of slick and cool. The film obviously characterizes him as our protagonist, our hero, so you want to root for him. Mann has always excelled at making the villains the hero and here it’s no different. He shows Dillinger as an individual goes for the gold damning the consequences. Once faced with the consequences he finds a way out of it and it’s easy for Depp. Nothing comes off forced and not once does one wish for another actor to embody Dillinger. Much like Johnny himself, Depp has a presence that’s unparalleled. He commands the screen like few other actors have the ability to do and really feels at home here.

Complaints likely will be made about his relationship with Billie Frechette played by Oscar winner Marion Cotillard in that they lack chemistry. These people are wrong in every sense of the word. Their relationship isn’t in your face and much like everything else in the film is handled very subtly. Marion portrays Billie as someone who didn’t think much of herself and wasn’t headed anywhere until Dillinger came into her life. While it would have been nice to have another scene with them (and that’s one of the very few strikes against this film,) what we’re given is enough for one to form their own opinion on what their relationship was. Cotillard is fine as Billie, hitting the right notes and clicking just dandy with Depp’s Dillinger. They seem natural and not “in your face” or sappy.

The best performance though comes from Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis. He’s ten times better here than he was in Terminator Salvation and The Dark Knight. Purvis here, is the young hotshot who’s just making his way up the ladder. Instead of making jokes left and right, this iteration is unsure of himself and of the FBI. One of the best shots in the film comes during Purvis’ confrontation with Dillinger. “Do you think this’ll hold me?” Dillinger retorts or something to that effect and Purvis stops to give a very soft-spoken look of doubt. It’s a great counter to Depp’s confident Dillinger while making one sympathize for Purvis. He’s quite possibly the antagonist, but one that’s hard to root against. He wants Dillinger, like a kid wants a new toy on Christmas but he’s unsure if he’s going to get that shiny new bike. Bale is virtually flawless while never succumbing to what hindered his performances in his last few outings.

The supporters all lend a wonderful hand in making the film as great as it is, the standout being Stephen Lang who’s worked with Mann before. Also wonderful is Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, playing him as a tough yet subdued boss. The real star here though is Mann’s direction. Likely, it’s the best directed film of the year so far and should (hopefully) earn a golden boy come February. No shot is unwelcome and Mann proves once again why he’s one of the best at placing music in his pictures. He conducts his actors in his own way, and the result is sheer genius. One might complain about his shots being “too shaky” but it’s not overdone and is meant to feel like the audience is looking at it. Mann has always achieved that in each of his movies and here it’s no different. Where Miami Vice was watching a maestro at work, Public Enemies is watching said maestro paint another masterpiece.

Mann always sticks some themes into his pictures and personally, different people are going to take something different from all films, not just his. Public Enemies gives the sense that Dillinger lived the American Dream in his own way. He was a celebrity (again, something else the film should have touched on a little bit more) due to his Robin Hood nature and even he had a kick out of it. With Frechette and Dillinger’s relationship, it feels as if Billie is filling a void in her life. For Dillinger it’s just going through the motions yet the film leans more toward Dillinger having feelings for Frechette. Did he? Mann ultimately leaves it up the audience to decide.

Melvin Purvis is the embodiment of a traditional hero. He knows the old way isn’t working and wants to shake up things. He represents the law our world is used to, and not the one that would let gangsters and such get away. In some respects the hero’s journey could be applied to him as he doubts himself, then is told by his superiors Dillinger is going to be a tough act to catch. He perseveres through it all, much like Luke does during the original Star Wars films. One of the final shots of Purvis walking down a Chicago street as chaos errupts around him, dressed in white. It’s this imagery that speaks good will prevail no matter how cool or chic bad might be at the time.

In case the previous 1503 words weren’t enough, I loved Public Enemies and feel it’s one of the years best. It comes with a warning though as Michael Mann’s style of filmmaking doesn’t cater to the masses. Through and through, this is a Michael Mann film that’s unapologetic in it’s approach and execution. Public Enemies demands one think on it and even watch it a second or third (or likey to be in my case six-hundredth) time to fully appreciate it. It’s not a film that one can easily come out of and proclaim “IT’S SO AWERESOME!” and needs time to chew on. Public Enemies isn’t for everyone, but for those it’s catered to, they’ll have witnessed a master who’s added another masterpiece to his repertoire.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Showing off seven brand new clips from the upcoming Michael Mann film Public Enemies, we get a bigger sneak peek of sorts on the world during the ‘golden age of crime’. Starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard, the 1930s crime drama comes out in theaters on July 1rst everywhere. In order to satisfy your hunger of movie goodness, check out the videos below: