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Inception was brilliant!  At first I thought ‘Matrix ripoff’ - but the plot complexity and superb all-round acting (as well as a bit of action) really impressed me.  I may even see this one again in the cinemas it was that good.  A 9/10 from me.

Step Up 3 in 3D was disappointing.  Very much like the first two without any improvements, and the 3D was just a gimmick as is the case for a lot fof films these days.  So only bother seeing if you haven’t seen either of the first two.  5/10.

Hi Arthur,
check out my review. There’s some bits and pieces you might find interesting now that you’ve had some time to think the movie through.
http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/inception-review/

Nice review, Dave.  I liked the bit about the song and the actress.  That’s actually the sort of stuff that goes right past me; the techno-babble doesn’t faze me that much.  I think I will definitely see it again soon, possibly in V-Max. 
       
As for the movie not having deep enough or sympathetic enough characters, I thought they were developed enough.  Sci-fi almost never has much character depth; that’s not its focus.  Sci-fi is all about ideas.  My husband has bookshelves full of the stuff, and half of them, you’re lucky if the characters are even credible, but the ideas can be fascinating. 
       
I thought it was great that in ‘Inception’ they managed to get all those ideas in movie form - most sci-fi movie attempts don’t even try, and end up looking really lame.

Cool, what does he read? My favourite cyberpunk author used to be William Gibson, but of course half his ideas about the internet have already happened, and the other half are getting old. (Johnny Mnemonic was a Gibson novel, and had Keannu plugging in his head, and then Keannu had to do it again for “The Matrix” by Wachowski brothers).

But lately I’ve enjoyed Neal Stephenson’s works such as “Snow Crash” (American democracy is almost over as the rise of the Corporate-suburb takes over) and then “Diamond Age” (where American democracy appears totally gone, as it has morphed into various burb-claves. All about nano-technology wars and the rise of a new kind of social order as the heroine grows up learning from an ‘interactive book’ about the world).

Then there’s Bruce Sterling who writes some really interesting novels about a post-global warming world where in his novel “Deception” various internet social software systems, and real world cheap biochemistry, have allowed a totally new kind of ‘street gang’ to evolve that can pretty much live off the prairies eating yoghurts and noodles from demi-digested grasses running through a biocooker.

Then there’s “The Caryatids”.

The Caryatids, a 2009 science fiction novel by Bruce Sterling, tells the tale of the four Mihajlovic “sisters”, clones of the widow of a Balkan warlord now exiled to an orbital space station. From the viewpoint of a “Dispensation” entrepreneur from Los Angeles, the sisters, raised in an environment of ubiquitous computing, may succeed in rescuing the earth from environmental collapse (see environmental degradation, ecological collapse, pollution, and other related concepts) in the year 2065.

The novel’s locations include the Croatian island of Mljet, a Los Angeles threatened by a supervolcano, and the wastes of Central Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caryatids

Interestingly realised world, but sadly the plot seems to drag and lack focus as the story shifts from one sister to another. But hey, maybe I’m still getting over my ‘space opera’ days. Not every young vaporator farmer from Tatooine gets to slay the death star and bring down an empire by the end of the trilogy!

Oh, I see you’re way ahead of me!
Not sure what he’s been reading lately, but from a quick look at the bookshelves I can see Iain M Banks, David Brin, Greg Bear, CJ Cherryh, Peter F Hamilton, William Gibson. 
 
Some years ago, he *made* me read a selection, including Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, and Neuromancer (Gibson).  My other favourites were CJ Cherryh and Cordwainer Smith (very old, only a couple of collections, mostly short stories, but brilliant).  More recently, I’ve read Gibson’s ‘Pattern Recognition’, which is not sci-fi, because, as you say, it’s already happened.
           
I’ll check up Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling; they sound good.

Ah yes, Greg Bear (Eon, Cities of Stone, and many others) and Peter F HAMILTON! Not “Night’s Dawn” trilogy! The “Martian zombie killers from beyond the grave…” ... had some great moments, but I tend to cringe when the dead come back from beyond the grave to steal our bodies!

Stephenson and Sterling are classic Cyberpunk authors, but Sterling also focuses on the weird interactions with bio-tech and systemic changes. EG: Just another 10 or 20% change in a technology here overwhelmingly changes a basic economic and societal interaction point just over there. Which is great, because it is not just sci-fi but almost futurism, reverse historians, trend projections, or whatever you want to call them. Alarms? Prophecies? Warnings?

Martian zombie killers?  Really?  I haven’t read those, but I know some of the stuff he reads can be pretty junky.  Ha ha he’s sprung!  No, it’s okay, I’m not taking it seriously.

Well, they’re not really Martian’s… that’s just what my friends jokingly called it when I was recoiling in horror as I read it.

It had some amazing concepts nicely executed. But ultimately… it was about the possessed trying to force you to hand over your body…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night’s_dawn_trilogy

Wow, you are serious, they’re worse than I thought.  Hope he’s not reading these anymore.  The sci-fi authors I’ve read aren’t like that.

Cordwainer Smith Ros? Wow! He is the King of Sci Fi IMO.
His stuff was an amazing dscussion of faith, the future of mankind, what it means to be human and morality spread over a couple of novels, a plethora of short stories and a future that spans millenia.
The development and dangers of space travel, genetic manipulation and life extension are but a small part of his huge and amazing universe!
He Da Man!

Hi Owen,
This might be my fault but I think this thread is getting a little-off topic for movies, so I started a novel’s thread where we can rant about any good old-fashioned reads we’ve enjoyed.

http://mightychurch.com/forums/viewthread/269/

I asked a follow up to about Cordwainer there. Cheers.

Regarding Inception, there were certainly a lot of complex themes.  I liked the complexity of it, but couldn’t possibly get all the themes.  As long as I get the main themes - one of which is definitely regret - I am satisfied.  Certainly no completionist or perfectionist thinking here.

Saw an older movie called Crash; it was set in LA and dealt well with concepts of isolation and tolerance.  All-round acting was brilliant again.  Giving it 8/10.

That’s weird. We just watched a thing that was rather terrible so I won’t mention its name, but Rotten Tomatoes said “It was trying to be Crash, but wasn’t”. What’s Crash about?

Also, have you seen the Sci-Fi ESP thriller, “Push”?

Crash got the 2005 Oscar for Best Picture.  It features an all-star cast e.g. Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon, Ludacris?! etc who each star for a short period of time.  It describes how isolated society is and how strangers have to “collide” with each other through for example break-ins, car crashes, car destruction, police incidents, and purported acts of racial discrimination in order to stop going insane.  Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating with the word “insane” but hopefully you get the idea.

I haven’t seen Push just yet.

Crash is one of my favourite movies. Basically it’s about people with crappy lives who vent through racism. I don’t know why its so appealing.

Hi Ros ( and others ),

I’m back - after 4 days in the “wilderness”. Yes, I’ve discovered that being without a functioning computer is a scary place - especially in the midst of an election ! But it seems that every computer problem has a new expanded hard drive solution ;)

Three weeks ago I stated that we “still need to catch up with Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3, Karate Kid and Killers”. Well that list has now been halved. I found “Killers” to have plenty of action, quite a few laughs - and a totally implausible plot. But - what the heck - it’s just a movie isn’t it. The amazing thing that stood out for me was that, in a town where bullets, car chases and bombs were loudly exploding, and the bodies kept piling up, not one ( NO NOT ONE ) policeman is ever spotted in the whole movie. Maybe their town budget was as broke as NSW’s state coffers ;)

We thought we’d missed out on seeing “Shrek Forever After 3D”. Indeed it has disappeared from Greater Union screens - but Hoyts are still showing it at the special price of $12 so we travelled out to Blacktown for our first ever visit to that Cinema multiplex. Really nice and trendy decor. We really enjoyed it,  got all the funny movie references that they placed within the film for movie buffs - and greatly admired the 3D effects, the thought out storyline and the real pleasure that modern animated movies provide. So thankful that we were finally able to catch it on the BIG screen. Oh, and the sound track is absolutely marvellous.

Also caught “Knight and Day” a few weeks ago - despite an aversion to Tom Cruise. However, Cameron Diaz more than made up for it. Again, tons ( did I say TONS and TONS ) of action ?Crashes, violence, MORE crashes, MORE violence, MORE impossible stunts… more formulaic than plausible of course. But lots of ‘fun’ for the non-discerning viewer. But then this is just another MONEY SPINNER for Hollywood isn’t it ?  ( “Show me the money” )

MOVIE NEWS :

1. Woody and the gang made it look like child’s play, but “Toy Story 3” quietly broke a major box office record this week to become the highest-grossing animated movie of all time.

The third installment of the Pixar franchise, also the highest-grossing movie of 2010, earned $920 US million worldwide Friday, passing “Shrek 2,” Variety reported Friday. The movie was buoyed by its 3-D format, but also by stellar reviews and movie audiences’ nostalgia for the characters.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2010/08/14/2010-08-14_disney_abuzz_as_toy_story_3_sets_box_office_record_as_highestgrossing_animated_m.html#ixzz0wkFSjXi4

2.  Avatar 3D is returning to the BIG screens from August 26 with an expanded special edition.

I really loved Toy Story 3. I was a lot like Andy in the way I played with my action figures and monsters, with a very similar imagination to the opening story scenario. My son never really played with his action figures that way. Maybe he’s going to have a more mathematical brain? Not sure what it means. My brain is wired around the left-of-field, weird-connections, creative approach to life. In Myers-Briggs language I’m an ENFJ.

Anyone else play with their action figures when they were kids?

Are some of you so old they didn’t HAVE action figures in the olden days? ;-)

Are some of you so old they didn’t HAVE action figures in the olden days? ;-)

Some folk are so old that ( due to the aging process ) they can no longer remember the olden days ;)

Years before bendable action toys were around, I do remember this new fangled thing called ‘plastic’ being invented. My parents should have started being worried when I would set fire to the engines of my plastic Boeing passenger planes ( free in every Corn Flakes packet ) before they crashed in the backyard - usually with the loss of all aboard. I loved the black smoke and the smell of burning plastic in the morning ;)

“Smells like… victory!”

Ahh, now there’s an interesting movie!

men dont play with dolls, they play with ACTION FIGURES!

Back to “Inception”. The loud sound at many times nearly burst my eardrums, and then the long periods of whispers were inaudible to me. But if it’s what I think it is about , I don’t like it, for religious reasons.  God told Moses ‘I am, what I am ” and God created our Cosmos by evolution as it is. IMO we must accept it as it is, and not try to play God. That’s what they seems to be doing in Inception, running around with gadgets the looked suspiciously like souped up E-meters.

Are you referring to the world Dom Cobb made with his wife Mal way down in the Abyss, in the ‘4th’ layer of dream sleep where they could live out a lifetime in a few hours of super-accelerated sleep cycle?

The point of it was that they knew it wasn’t real, and it was time to ‘get real’. Which of course is what lead to the tragedy in the movie.

Scott Pilgrim is a very fun movie! I’m not much of a gamer, but I’m probably still in the target demographic, so I don’t know how it would appeal to the much older though.

Saw Underdog on TV late last week.  It was surprisingly entertaining and fun.  7.5/10.

Hi Arthur,
I haven’t seen the 2007 movie “Underdog” but marvel at the promotional tag line : “One Nation… Under Dog” ;)  Seems that Hollywood has ditched the Almighty in favour of Rin Tin Tin !