18th
If Michael Mann made 8 1/2, it might look an awful lot like this. Inception delivered in the most unexpected way. Instead of being a cold philosophical/intellectual ride, the film is an incredible experience, filled with the brim with awe-some images and a love of dreams and cinema. The last two-thirds fly by in an edge-of-your-seat wave of excitement and amazement at how well Nolan so gracefully spins all of his plates. The movie plays with film time so well, with how we experience time within a dream, within a shared dream (the cinema), how exciting event slow while the shoe leather vanishes in hindsight. Never before has Nolan’s claustrophobic way of shooting (the guy detests establishing shots in the first act of his movies) been used to such pitch-perfect effect, keeping us guessing the whole time.
And how amazing are Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt?
