Inception

Fire. This was way better than I remembered. It's been haunting my watchlists for 15 years, my subconscious must have known it was a true classic of my generation. I watched it I believe twice in high school. I saw it in theaters; I was annoyed how everyone was calling it deep. I thought it was cheesy, perhaps deep in plot but shallow in substance. Shockingly I remembered very little of it. All the better -- thus it became a fresh thrill this time around.

This has all of the elements of a good Nolan movie: it's mind-bending and epic while blending straightforward action with psychological mining. Oppenheimer has the last bit; Tenet a couple of the others; Inception joins Interstellar in striking every key.

It also features the standard stupidity of a Nolan movie. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is insufferable, and every other actor puts on some flavor of the same dumb suave. I blame Nolan more than I blame the actors. His idea of cool is fading with his generation -- it's overdone and cringey now.

Cotillard's character is provocative, though I regret her overarching affect is like a clingy witch: she can't let her husband live his real life, she must haunt him with wide wicked eyes, beckoning him back in her cauldron of id. She ended up being a sensible choice for Lady Macbeth, years later.

The top definitely wobbles at the end. Not as ambiguous as I remember it being.

Am I saying I love Inception? No, but I'm storing it in my memory as not only a meme of my generation (saying "inception" is to younger millennials what saying "the matrix" is to older millennials) but a classic of my generation. I couldn't see it at the time, but this movie did what it needed to do. I'll double down on the Matrix comparison: it planted philosophy in many minds, not an easy thing to do. It thrilled those inclined to the sensory and those inclined to the cerebral alike. It may have even turned the sensory cerebral and re-grounded the cerebral in the sensory. It missed me... I must have been just out of sync, in fact just joining the cerebral, therefore too proud of my new status. Inception would have been a regression at the moment I needed nothing but advancement, so I rejected it. It was too overtly cerebral and too unapologetically sensory at a time I needed actual sophistication. The funny thing is, for my sophistication, I'm sure I didn't understand the movie. I think that's one reason I don't remember much of it -- I must have been lost. It took full adulthood before I started keeping up with intricate plots. But I needed subtler art and secret intellect, and this movie was too gaping and gawking and obvious... and popular.

Severance: S2

I watched E1, 4, and 10, parts of others, and read synopses of everything.

The ending was devastating. While I really like Helly, Gemma is the one who's really suffered, and like innie Mark says, outie Mark had a longer, fuller life, thereby elevating Gemma as the true love of his life. Helly-love exists in his brain, but it and Helly herself fold if Lumon folds. Outie Mark existed longer, and inhabits a much greater landmass, making innie Mark tenuous and transient. Innie Mark's entire existence is a single thread stretched betwixt trembling shears. Those shears are held by a sinister corporation. It doesn't make him less real, but he's an easier sacrifice, if it comes to it. Apparently, it has.

I can't imagine a perfect outcome that isn't laced with tragedy, but the one I was rooting for -- which seemed feasible -- was Helly supporting Mark and Gemma, even if it meant the death of all their innies. Mark reintegrates, dearly misses and thanks Helly, but ends up happy with Gemma. That's assuming Gemma lives, in her old state. There's an alternate solution in which Gemma dies or is revealed to have helped orchestrate the whole charade, and Mark and Helly R persist together. Maybe that's better, but it would require some tragedy of Gemma.

Helly foils the first solution by showing up at the moment of Mark's indecision. She doesn't coax him verbally, but she doesn't need to. I wonder if Lumon subbed in her outie at the last moment, to prevent Mark's departure. Why?

I like how the show plays with the basic instinct for survival. A creature, however insignificant, however artificial it recognizes itself to be, is liable to fight for survival. Humans sometimes defy this instinct, but sometimes they cling to it -- the innies all appear to be clinging to it. Maybe it's because they don't know enough about the world to defy it like many outies. All they know is their office and their instincts.

I still don't know what Lumon does. They're investing a lot in their severance product, originally a tool for their internal operations, now seemingly a product in itself. It's a world-altering tool if it works, so I don't blame them for investing in it, whatever else the company may be up to. If they have anything nearly as compelling as severance, I'll be impressed. Maybe they're working on wormholes or something.

I also don't know why they're doing all of this. If they orchestrated Gemma and Mark meeting in the first place, along with every step since, what's it all for? Just refining severance? Or is the severance serving something bigger? I still wonder if Lumon is not the enemy at all. I expected more of that to come to light this season, but it may come still.

So what's next season? Gemma tries to get Mark back. Maybe Mark refuses to leave the office, and outie Helena masquerading as innie Helly persuades him to stay. Gemma finds Devon and Cobel and they work to take down Lumon, even if it means losing the innies. Gemma and Devon want Mark's outie back, and Cobel... who knows.

I like that it took a mindfuck turn like Lost. Lost was a survival story that started dropping in elements out of left field, to be explained (to audiences and possibly showrunners) later; that elevated it far above the survival genre. It's legendary because it went off the rails and sort of managed to keep one wheel attached. Severance is doing similar, hoisting high above its workplace genre, keeping a wheel attached, flirting with incoherent disaster. I'm glad. It may be sloppier but it's far more interesting.

I wish Adam Scott was a litttttle more of a conventional hero. Just barely. He is now expressing the full range of protagonist emotion, and his nature just doesn't quite accommodate it. To be more honest, it may just be his look, not his nature. He's acting well but he doesn't have the look of such a consummate hero as he's becoming. I think I would like the series better with another lead actor. It would also make his romance with Helly more plausible.

Severance: S1

The last episode was easily the peak. It reminded me of the tense, ticking sequences of Detroit: Become Human and Interstellar.

2.75/5: it's polished, it's provocative, it's just not all that fascinating. I don't think corporate thriller would ever be my genre anyway.

If I normalized the highest-quality series I've seen to 5/5, Severance beats 2.75, but if I judge it on being worth its while, I can't even give it a 3. It's higher-quality TV than Rings of Power, but it's less worthwhile. RoP has a large contingent that just has to watch it (Tolkien fans). Severance doesn't really serve anyone. That's the trouble with original material, and I hate to hate, but it has such a disadvantage. I think I heard something like 9/10 highest-grossing movies last year were sequels/prequels, and the last one was an adaptation. It's tough out there for new original work. And at the end of the day, RoP for all its weakness does way more for me than polished Severance. That isn't universally true of franchise vs. original -- Severance isn't nearly the greatest original series -- but Severance has a higher hurdle, which I guess is exactly why franchises dominate the media right now. I appreciate the effort, but to be worth my while you have to tap that nostalgia or you have to be profoundly original. Maybe there's a population who find nostalgia in Severance -- perhaps those who were corporate around the turn of the millennium. So RoP stands on deep inter-generational Tolkien love; Severance stands on the thin nostalgia of a certain generation who probably hated their office jobs. It's not original enough or executed well enough to surmount that barrier.

Biggest questions left: what does Lumon do? How is Gemma alive? Did Lumon (with her consent?) orchestrate her becoming a permanent innie? Where did they take her -- what's the black hallway with the elevator that only goes down? How does Irving cross his severance (when he naps inside and paints outside) -- just an imperfect severance procedure? Which Helly is more awake?

The answer to the last is obviously "neither" aka subjective, but I think it's worth reflection. Outside, presumably, she's the devoted daughter of the Lumon/Eagan dynasty... is she despicable, as we presume Lumon in general to be? Are Lumon and the Eagans actually despicable? If not, that'd be an interesting turn. Inside, Helly is no-BS, which I think we all like, because Lumon feels like a lot of BS. But what if her outie, who refuses to let her quit, has good reason, which her innie is now thwarting?

Helly and Mark's sister are probably my favorite characters. Milchick is a great character, well-performed. Mark / Adam Scott is a curious choice for this lead. He's not quite likable. This is the second thing I've seen Patricia Arquette in (Boyhood) and I've felt weird about her both times.

Inglorious Basterds

I rewatched the opening scene. It isn't as good as I remember or as I hear reported. It's original in its verbosity, but that's just Tarantino. Otherwise it's pretty standard, including Waltz.

Water for Elephants

I'm halfway through. Reese is joyless. Robert is unnatural. How can basic social cues be so unnatural for him? Or if so, why was he ever cast as anything but Batman and Edward? Waltz, as usual, is a quivering superposition of very pleasant and very unpleasant. August was moody in the book, but you typically knew in a moment which mood he was in. Waltz is subtler. You can't tell if his smile is glad or mad, or if it's even a smile. 

This movie is so typical, but I'd say it does it well, if not for Robert and Reese's fierce anti-chemistry.

Reese doesn't deliver any real personality, but to be fair, neither does the character in the book. I found it interesting a female author robbed her main female character of all character besides crying frequently.

Squid Game

They should have done one of the grander games (like tug of war or the glass bridge) in the first couple of episodes. Those were awesome. Instead they started with a very basic game involving merely shooting everybody, followed by an anticlimactic episode of no games.

Overall, the games were cool, the story was solid, and all of the production other than the cheesy dialogue was crisp. It's just that cheesy dialogue, man... and I don't think the story lived up to its potential. I think they broke the mystical mask too fast, especially with the cop infiltrating the compound. It was cooler when it felt like the players were at the mercy of gods. As you can tell I didn't look for lessons in living from this show, just coolness. But the story and the themes were strong nonetheless. I just think they could have maximized the wow a little further.

I watched the first few episodes, then skimmed the rest of the first season. Parts of it were fun; all in all I didn't feel the need to pay a whole lot of attention. I don't figure the class commentary has anything profound to tell me.

Bob Dylan movies

Dont Look Back: unadulterated immersion in the aura of an icon in his prime. He's cocky, contrary, and confrontational, yet so charismatic. He's going electric and his whole entourage follows his curious electricity. This is probably the best document of his personality at peak popularity. It's just unstructured scenes from his tour.

No Direction Home: from what I remember, it's a pretty standard documentary, but it's long and inspired and infused with the vigor of its young subject.

Rolling Thunder: I never loved this album, so I was surprised Scorsese took it on, but now I see it. It's a great story, and the album has grown on me. The gang is back together, even if most of the personnel turned over and Joan no longer has the appeal she wishes she had. Bob is several eras advanced as of 1975, although even in the present-day interviews you can see the same smirk as Dont Look Back -- it's still Bob. This is a good documentary that savors the magic and mystique of Rolling Thunder, a classic yet bittersweet point in his history. His marriage is crumbling or has crumbled, he's about done for good being relevant in the mainstream, periods of transcendence and mediocrity have alternately come and gone... but Rolling Thunder had the energy. Not the energy of Dont Look Back, perhaps something sadder and weirder, but there was something there.

Live at Newport: just essential concert footage. Three years; three different Bobs. You could say 63-65 was the crux of it all, where you see a lifetime of artistic development accelerated. His greatest personas come and go in those three years... although I acknowledge my take on his personas is biased by these very movies.

I'm Not There: abstraction of his shapeshifting. I wish more movies took this abstracted approach. Its approach to its elusive subject is that change is the only constant. So it's a dramatized, fictionalized Bob Dylan story, but much more abstract and adventurous than the next one.

A Complete Unknown: modest realistic approach to his core years. Doesn't make much of a cinematic statement, just soberly depicts a classic cultural moment.