8 years before Leonardo DiCaprio stole his first secret from his victim's dream in Inception, Don Rosa had already Donald Duck in Scrooge McDuck's dreams, defending his secrets from the invaders the Beagles Boys. Pure coincidence? or is Christopher Nolan a big fun of the Duck? He did pitch the idea of the movie roughly at the same time…

You can read the whole comic here

Uncle Scrooge in the Dream of a Lifetime

Review: the most mind blowing movie of this year – by Ghaith Semaan

Before going into plot and Nolan's sick (meaning AMAZING) way of making you scratch your head, I would want to let the numbers speak for themselves...

USA Gross total up to August 13th, 2010 reached up to a little shy of quarter of a BILLION USD 240,514,000 to be exact. (according to Bob Office Mojo) As for the rest of the world, it did almost the same going a little higher to reach 252 million! Not a bad figure for a total of four weeks showing since the July 16th premier.

So, that being said. Some might start to wonder what kind of movie is capable of such feats. It is definitely not a Harry Pothead movie where it might gross a little over 300mill in the first week, yet, it is one of the most entertaining movies of this year and definitely the most mind blowing.

[spoilers ahead] The story follows the attempts of Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), a dream thief, in an attempt to come back to his children after mysteriously being cast out of the United States. In his last attempt, he agrees to do that one final job that can set thins right.

Yet, this time, instead of stealing an idea through a state of "shared" dreaming, he is instructed to plant one for the advantage of a certain power tycoon (Saito).

The movie leaves us leaping from roof top to roof top, running through narrow alleys, constantly ducking to avoid the debris of some blown up building or market or elevator. It deals with a very interesting concept and that is the construction and interpretation of the dream world. Layer after layer, dream upon dream, DiCaprio embarks on a journey to do the impossible, go into deeper states of dream within dream, plant the idea through a carefully instructed scenario, get out and go home. Sounds simple rather than impossible right? Well, the director Christopher Nolan tries and combines successfully the world of the Dark Knight with Memento and creates a movie in between both. He joins the "huh? what's happening" effect of Memento, with the action sequence and climax build up of Dark Knight.

It might sound like a controlled environment when the dream is constructed by the architect and designed and played by a team of professionals. Yet, what happens when projections of Cobb's own past, Maul and her suicidal and destructive instincts pop out... The result is a series of events that keeps you wondering what is really happening and who is really dreaming... Are they in reality or still in the dream state... you will never know... 

This the biggest vice of the movie, you will never be sure... who is dreaming and when does this dream start and when does it end... or... does it?

Simply a must watch movie of the year... TWICE...

PS: the first few minutes of the movie are extremely important. Be sure to take that in mind while trying in vein to understand the movie!

 
Marion Cotillard & eonardo DiCaprio

Review: A visually interesting movie - by MrU

For those familiar with programming, the way Inception was constructed felt like a multi process program, where going "down one level" is like spawning a new process, "limbo state" is a zombie process or an infinite loop, the earthshakes that pass from one dream to another are like passing SIGHUP signals to the processes, etc.

The story was complicated to understand, definitely fell in the trap of its own rules (the math for the calculating the time didn't match the time they spend in each dream), but ultimately that didn't really matter. I looked at it as an entertaining series of mini action movies, with the same cast of actors in all of them.

Watch it if you want to see a visually interesting movie and if you want to see a movie that will leave you scratching your head. And, by all means, avoid watching Salt.

Review: Requires a lot of attention - by Anis Tabet

Like most of Christopher Nolan's movies ("Memento", "The prestige"...), it will take your brain on a rollercoaster ride. The story is so beautifully crafted, that it's almost impossible to find a plot hole.

So far this year, I haven't seen a movie as perfect as "Inception". Even "Shutter Island" had its moments of weakness. Not the case in Nolan's world; his movie is simply brilliant.

Leonardo Dicaprio is perfectly cast as Dom Cobb, a skilled thief with the power to extract valuable information from deep within the subconscious during the dream state. In his final job, he is asked to plant an idea rather than steal it. And this is where the fun begins. With perfectly designed dreams, we are taken into a world beyond our imagination. I don't think anyone could have pulled this off better than Nolan. His vision has no limits. And it's easy to see why; "Inception" is definitely the best movie of the year so far.

A dream in a dream in a dream…

Leonardo DiCaprio & Cillian Murphy

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Ellen Page

Ken Watanabe

Marion Cotillard

Tom Hardy

The Avengers actors assembles on the Comic-Con stage, announced by Samuel L. Jackson:

• Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.
• Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson.
• Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow.
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
• Chris Evans as Captain America.
• Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.
• Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.
• Mark Ruffallo as The Hulk.
• Joss Whedon as The Director.

Downey calls this film more ambitious than Inception.

"The Avengers" is based on the comic book series of the same name, which brings various Marvel superheroes together Source

if you think that reflecting deeply on the movie Inception requires some serious brain gymnastics, just consider what it was like to star in it; Leonardo DiCaprio explains that shooting the film was both a mental and physical challenge:

Nolan, a stickler for naturalism, insisted that his actors and crew bring his vision to life without the use of computer-generated effects as much as possible, from making Joseph Gordon-Levitt perform zero gravity fisticuffs inside elaborate, rotating sets to asking the cast to feign peaceful slumber inside a van during a high-speed chase. “Actually, the van sequences were much easier than doing five pages of dialogue and the whole set is tilting and we have to hold onto a bar in order to not slide off the stage.” DiCaprio said. Source

Gordon-Levitt’s fight scene in the rotating hotel

#1 "Inception" directed by Christopher Nolan took the top box office spot during the weekend, bringing in a healthy $60.4 million in estimated gross box office receipts.

Leonardo DiCaprio & Marion Cotillard

#2 "Despicable Me," in its second weekend, was No. 2 with a strong showing of more than $32.73 million in gross receipts.

#3 "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was third with more than $17.37 million.

Nicolas Cage & Monica Bellucci

#4 "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" was fourth with $13.5 million;

Kristen Stewart & Robert Pattinson

#5 "Toy Story 3" was fifth with more than $11.74 million;

Tom Hanks is the voice of Woody

#6 "Grown Ups" sixth with $10 million;

Chris Rock

#7 "The Last Airbender" seventh with $7.45 million;

Noah Ringer

#8 "Predators" eighth with $6.8 million;

Alice Braga as Isabelle in Predators

#9 "Knight & Day" ninth with $3.7 million.

Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz hard at work

#10 "The Karate Kid" rounded out the top 10 with $2.2 million.

Jackie Chan

Source

Christopher Nolan's “Inception” could have been a 3D movie. But the director nixed the idea.

That’s one of the tantalizing tidbits that came out of a discussion between Nolan, whose mind-bending caper “Inception” opens July 16, and Geoff Boucher, whose Hero Complex blog hosted a screening of Nolan’s “Insomnia” and “The Dark Knight” on Saturday.

“I’m not a huge fan of 3D,” Nolan said when asked about his attitude toward Hollywood’s newest obsession.

His response resulted in an explosion of claps, signaling that while box office numbers suggest audiences are embracing the format, a certain segment may be getting tired of it. Source

Leonardo Dicaprio in Inception

Another cool re-cut trailer: Chris Nolan's "Inception" as done by Pixar for Toy Story 3.