Say Anything (1989)

I wanted to watch a romantic movie for February, but I had no interest in menstruating so I didn't want it to be too girlie. The magical world of the 80s was the obvious destination...a place where anything is possible...a land where a woman can have sex with a duck or a robot and it's totally acceptable (Howard the Duck and Short Circuit respectively).

I had never seen Say Anything before. I was certainly aware of the legendary boombox scene and its iconic status, but we had never crossed paths...until now.

So here we have a story about an average dude named Lloyd (played by John Cusack when his "John Cuack" schtick was still fresh) who dreams of being a pioneer in the exciting world of kickboxing. But those plans are railroaded when the hottest valedictorian in the history of education (Seriously? Has Cameron Crowe ever met a smart chick?) bewitches him with her "stick-in-the-mud" mentality and her creepy loyalty to Frasier's father (who is also her father) in an attempt to blackmail Lloyd for a nursing home Ponzi scheme!

Or maybe that's not what happened at all...

Ok, I admit, I didn't really...get it. Whatever is supposed to make this movie so iconic, I just didn't see it. I get that it avoided most of the clichés of the genre driven into the ground earlier in the decade by John Hughes, but I didn't find Crowe's movie any less unrealistic. I've still never been to "that movie party" where every teenager in the entire town converges on a single home and no one seems to notice or care. We've still got the "dark night of the soul" moment where the couple breaks up momentarily...which occurs in this movie FOR NO REASON! Then Diane returns to Lloyd only after learning of her father's thievery when she needs someone. Not very romantic.

And can we talk about the whole "Dad's stealing from the nursing home residents" B-storyline? What the hell was that? It seemed so random. And who the hell tells their dad that they just got banged in the back of a Malibu by some trench coat-wearing loser? WEIRD!

And while we're talking about it, have any of these filmmakers ever actually tried to have sex in the backseat of a car? It's the worst! It's about 0% romantic so they need to stop presenting it like it's anything but the worst thing two naked people could possibly do. It's the equivalent of sitting in that seat on the school bus where the tire is...except you're naked and trying to hump something.

And I have to admit, after the iconic boombox scene came and went, I literally said, "That's it?" I was expecting so much more. Diane couldn't even drag her ass out of bed to check the whole thing out. She never even saw it! Get your ass out of bed, bitch! Someone is playing the shit out of Peter Gabriel!

What I did enjoy, however, was...the pen. The bitch breaks up with the dude and sends him off with...a pen. Man, that was awesome. I bought a shitload of pens just so I can go around pissing people off and then giving them a pen as a parting gift. Booya!

Why It's Not as Good as People Say it is:

Here's the bottom line: Some Kind of Wonderful is a better movie.

Best Quote:

Lloyd: Kickboxing. Sport of the future (He was right!).

The Avengers (2012)

If this is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, then we need more than The Hulk to save us...

I was one of the ten people who didn't go see The Avengers last summer. It was a wise decision. I've been superheroed out since about 2008. I'm certainly a fan when they're done well (The Dark Knight, X-Men: First Class), but most are just blindingly mediocre bullshit for stupid kids or adult nerds. This was, by far, the most blindingly stupid uber-bullshit I think I've ever seen. This movie made Independence Day look like a legitimate Oscar contender.

Here's the problem with superhero movies: people like underdogs. They're relatable, they're sympathetic, they're vulnerable. You can't help but cheer on Indiana Jones as he faces off against THE ENTIRE NAZI ARMY or John McClane as he battles an entire building of terrorists WITHOUT ANY SHOES. These are underdogs. A super invincible robot billionaire is not relatable. A godlike indestructible alien with a hammer is not sympathetic. A giant, green, bullet-proof rage beast is not vulnerable. It's the reason people hate Superman and love Batman. We need to believe the hero is in actual danger so we can care about them.

So if you're going to assemble a half dozen invincible superheroes, you need to pit them against a force that is soooo powerful that it makes even them look vulnerable. So who do they choose? Loki...the guy who Thor beat single-handedly in his own movie. WHAT?! How was Loki, who couldn't even beat ONE Avenger, ever going to beat ALL the Avengers? Loki is bitch tits. He sucks. In fact, he gets beat not once but TWICE in this movie! And then when he's defeated at the end, it takes The Hulk all of FIVE SECONDS to squash him.

Of course, Loki does have some assistance from a moderately-sized alien army that poses ABSOLUTELY NO THREAT to The Avengers...like, at all. They're appropriately named, too: the Shitauri. At no point during the 40-minute (not an exaggeration) marathon final battle in New York does it EVER look like The Avengers might lose...not ever. The Avengers dominate from the very start of the battle and just totally pwn the fuck out of the skull aliens with their little air go-karts and their flying alien whales to the point I actually felt bad for them. The Avengers made me feel bad for the invading aliens trying to take over Earth...that's quite an accomplishment.

And I guess I could overlook all this if I thought this movie was just trying to be a big, stupid clusterfuck, but it attempts to be more than that. They kill off Agent Coulson as a means of inspiring all the superheroes to work together and AVENGE him...but any impact that death created was obliterated seconds later with a string of horrible, juvenile jokes and then the fact that when they do finally capture Loki, it, too, is a big joke ("I think I will have that drink now."). They don't avenge anybody! Hell, they don't even kill Loki. They just capture him politely. Aren't they pissed that their friend died? I can't wait for the moment in the sequel  when Nick Fury is telling the Avengers they need all the help they can get and a door opens and Loki walks in smiling and someone (probably Thor) says something like "You've got to be kidding me..." or "You can't be serious..." or something equally shitty. God I hate superhero movies!

But worst of all, The Avengers is guilty of committing the most heinous sin an action movie can commit: it bored me. I was bored. There was a moment when all the heroes were bickering on the stupid flying aircraft carrier where I turned to my wife and said, "This is boring." And then I was bored again during the final battle that lasted so long I started and finished watching another movie during its duration. Shame on you, Avengers.

Now don't think I'm just a mindless hater. I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan (Buffy is one of my favorite shows ever and I'm still pissed Firefly didn't get a second season) and I was rooting for him, but this was just an absolute dinosaur turd. It was stupid and I think Joss knew it was stupid and it just proved how many stupid people there are in this world...and that they're stupid. And that makes me sad...or maybe I'm just too old for this bullshit.

Why It's Quite Possibly the Most Overrated Movie since Inception:

And another thing, why can Bruce Banner all of a sudden control The Hulk at the end of the movie? Wasn't that the point of everything we've been told about The Hulk throughout the entire film? That he's just a mindless destroying machine? Then why can he follow orders and participate in complex combat maneuvers when it's necessary for the plot? Just forget it...

Best Quote:

My Wife: Where's Batman?

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Most people think John Hughes' Pretty in Pink is a story about finding love across socioeconomic barriers. Those people are wrong.

Pretty in Pink is a story about GINGER DISCRIMINATION!

Yes, on the surface it appears as if the problem between Molly Ringwald's Andie and Andrew McCarthy's Blaine is that he's rich and she's poor. That doesn't really matter. The problem is that Andie is a ginger, and Steff and the other BLONDE rich snobs are concerned he'll come down with ginger-vitus. Duckie, on the other hand, accepts Andie's condition, and yet she still rejects him...because gingers have no souls.

I remember liking this movie as a teenager, but now, watching it as an adult, I realize it's god-awful. It's really bad. The problem is that it doesn't matter who Andie ends up with because all her options are HORRIBLE and she's a total bitch so why would I care? Many cinephiles claim she should end up with Duckie. Seriously? Did you see what that guy wears? Let's look at the competitors and their stats:

Blaine: A richie with the personality of a Triscuit cracker. This guy is BLAND! He takes her on the single WORST date of all-time, believing the best possible place for his date with Andie is a house party where everyone hates her...and with good reason. Pearls, Andie? Who are you? My grandmother?

Duckie: Weird stalker friend with a terrible sense of style. Many consider his antics and dedication to Andie to be sweet, but really it's creepy as hell. Leaving a dozen messages on her phone? Driving past her house in the middle of the night? Plus, she treats him like garbage, and he just comes back for more. And let's be honest here, we all know he's secretly gay so what's the point?

Steff: Alpha snob who bangs girls in his parents' bed and likes to dumpster dive every now and then. He tells Andie at the beginning he wants to fuck her and then gives Blaine shit when he wants to do the same thing. He's awesome.

So there you have it. Amazingly, the best option for Andie is...Steff. At least he's not a sopping wet pussy like the other two competitors. Or maybe that's just because James Spader is the man. Anyways, like I said before, none of this matters because Andie is a bitch anyway. She deserves to be treated like crap. Her father is on the verge of committing suicide due to depression and unemployment, and she's worried about whether or not she's going to the prom.

This movie reminded me why teenagers are idiots, and no one should listen or care about anything they say.

Why It's Lame: If I want to listen to a bunch of whiny teens bitch and moan about who's going to the prom with who...there's no way to finish that sentence because I would never, EVER want that. I think John Hughes was secretly a teenage girl trapped inside a man's body. How else can one explain these movies?

Best Quote:

Steff: Andie, you're a bitch.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Ferris Bueller is a punk.

Yeah, you heard me. I HATE Ferris Bueller. Don't misunderstand me, I like the movie, but I despise the character of Ferris Bueller. I realize the whole point of the character is that he's supposed to be a lovable, trouble-making rapscallion that everyone likes, but THAT'S exactly what I hate about him. He's a smug little prick. "Oooh, look at me, I'm so laid back and cool I can break the fourth wall and talk directly to the camera." I'm with Jeannie. He's a bastard.

This entire film is an affront to every hard-working school administrator in the country. Ferris' actions should not be praised or celebrated. He missed school nine times in a single school year...nine times. Now, I realize that may seem tame by today's standards, but by 1980 Caucasian standards, that's like, 50 days worth of unexcused absences. Society should condemn his actions. Young adults have a responsibility to be in school furthering their education so they can have a productive future as fully-functioning adults, not gallivanting around Chicago with their girlfriends in a stolen vehicle and lip-syncing (poorly) to German songs during some gay pride parade that inexplicably takes place during a work day in the middle of the afternoon. SHAME!

What's Ferris going to do in the future? Knock up Sloane and then leave her in the middle of her pregnancy to backpack through Europe so he can "find himself" and then never come back? That's what happens when you miss school nine times...nine times.

Ferris Bueller is such a prick he's the only title character in cinematic history who experiences exactly ZERO change from the beginning of the film to the end. He's a completely static character. He's a smug dickweed at the beginning all the way through the scene at the end of the credits where he basically tells us, the audience, to piss off. It's well documented that Cameron is, by basic storytelling standards, the main character of the story. He's the one who experiences the change after that terrorist, Ferris Bueller, totals the Ferrari.

But the true hero of the film is none other than the legendary EDWARD ROONEY, the dean of students at Ferris' school. This is what all school administrators should strive to be. He sees a young man on a path to destruction, and he does everything in his power to save the wayward lad from himself. He even makes a house call! What overpaid school administrator is going to do that in the year 2013?! Answer: none. This is a man who truly cares about his students. When he learns about Sloane's grandmother's death (another horrible rouse orchestrated by that liar, Ferris), he shows true compassion. "Between grief and nothing...I'll take grief." You are wise, Edward Rooney, so wise...

Save Ferris? I think not.

Why It's Awesome: It's the story of how far one dedicated educator will go to save a single student from his self-destructive behavior. They should remake this movie and just call it ROONEY.

Best Quote:

Charlie Sheen (ironically enough playing a drugged-out junkie): You wear too much eye makeup. My sister wears too much. People think she's a whore.

Primer (2004)

After watching the greatness that is 12 Monkeys, I've decided to spend March watching time travel movies. Since I've already watched the Back to the Future series, I'll be starting with some more obscure entries in the genre and work my way back to some classics.

Every now and then you'll finish watching a movie and have no idea whether you enjoyed it or not...because you have no idea what the hell you just watched (think Vanilla Sky or The Matrix). So is the case with Primer, a low-budget flick about two engineers who accidentally invent time travel and then deal with the question of how to use their newfound power.

There are layers upon layers to the narrative that starts out linear (the first half hour is just technical babble about how the time machine is invented), but then it gets all kinds of complicated. In fact, it's so complicated I needed to watch it three times and then read a research paper on the film's plot and study several diagrams of the time travel mechanics online just to figure it out (I'm not joking either). It's impossible after a single viewing to understand, completely and entirely, exactly what occurs in the movie, and I wanted to understand it as much as possible before writing my review.

I can say with complete confidence that I understand the movie completely and can offer an intelligent diagnosis of Primer and its overall effectiveness as a film. And here it is:

Primer is bullshit...complete and utter bullshit. The reason this movie's reputation has been blown out of proportion is because it suffers from Inception complex, where just because a movie is complicated, people think it's great. The problem with Primer isn't that it's complicated; the problem is that it's poor storytelling. That's what makes it complicated. Certain information necessary to understand what's happening is purposely withheld and other information is either unclear or must be assumed by the viewer. If you have to read a research paper to understand the plot of the movie, then the filmmakers failed to do their job.

The other major problem with the film is that the character motivations don't make any sense. The point of the movie is to explore the ethical issues of time travel, but the example provided in the movie is petty and stupid. A guy breaks the ethical rules of time travel to stop a woman he knows (not his wife or girlfriend or anything) from getting threatened with a shotgun by her ex-boyfriend. Not killed or maimed, just threatened. It doesn't make any sense. If you have the power to travel through time, would you waste it making sure an associate doesn't have a shitty evening? Then there's the random guy who travels back in time who we really have no idea who the hell he even is or how he got back. Add to that all the implied action that occurs off-screen that we're told about through a dump of voice-over narration and we don't have one of the best movies ever made; no, we have an example of poor storytelling.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and 12 Monkeys both have complicated, non-linear plots that leave you with a sense of completion, a sense you've seen something complicated but also quite wonderful. Primer leaves you with a sense of having seen something complicated...that's it. It spends an inordinate amount of time explaining the time mechanics of the time traveling device in an attempt to seem deep and authentic. Fuck that! Tell me time travel involves a Delorean traveling at 88 mph or a phone booth. I'll believe it. Just tell me a good story and I'll believe anything!

Why It's Overrated: Like Inception, people watched Primer, were confused, and assumed anything they didn't understand must be magnificent. At its core, all film is nothing but visual storytelling. Primer is an interesting movie in that it avoids Hollywood clichés, but, like many Hollywood blockbusters, it fails to deliver what every movie must: a coherent and satisfying story.

Best Quote:

Aaron: Man, are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)

And now...the thrilling conclusion to Quentin Tarantino's revenge epic, KILL BILL...or not.

What should have been the action-packed denouement to Tarantino's best flick falls way flat. It's a steep decline from the Crazy-88 slicing and dicing the first half has to offer. This time around the Bride earns back her name, finishes off the rest of the DiVAS, kills Bill, and reclaims her daughter, B.B.

The only problem is that all of this happens in the least interesting and exciting way possible.

After the retelling of the events at Two Pines, we open in the desert with easily the most complex character in the movie, Budd (played by the always amazing Michael Madsen). Budd is a broken man. He's out of shape, broke, and works in a POS titty bar. His life is shit. And yet, Budd is the only person in the movie capable of gaining a victory over the Bride, thus proving that even the deadliest woman is no match for the most slovenly man (I'm pretty sure that was the point Tarantino was trying to make). Budd's victory also shows what happens when a samurai steps foot in a Western - she gets her ass blown away by a double-barrel shotgun.

The Budd/Elle confrontations are where this movie fails to achieve LEGENDARY status. The Bride's mission is to gain revenge on each individual who played a role in the wedding day massacre. In that mission, she fails. She epically fails to kill Budd, and, even though the showdown between the Bride and Elle in the trailer is pretty sweet, the Bride leaves Elle alive (although the eye squish is fairly epic in its own right).

And if those showdowns are disappointing, the showdown between the Bride and Bill is like waking up on Christmas morning to discover your parents have converted to Judaism. The ending is so un-Quentin-like it's mind-boggling. I realize that's the point, to have a very personal verbal confrontation between two ex-lovers, but we still could have had a sweet sword fight to end things. I mean, this is what we've been building to for nearly four hours! And what we get is fight that lasts less than thirty seconds and where neither participant leaves his or her seat! WHAT?! Apparently the samurai sword fight on the beach, bathed in the moonlight was supposed to actually happen, but the film ran long so what we get is a total waste of Carradine's talents.

Even as a single movie, I still feel like everything that happened after the Crazy-88 fight would be disappointing. As a single movie, Volume 2 falls short of its predecessor, and that should never be the case when comparing the first part to a second part. If you title your movie Kill Bill, you better FUCKING KILL BILL...HARD!

Why It's Awesome: It's not. It falls short as the conclusion to one of the most epic revenge tales in cinema. Still, punching your way through your own coffin, the trailer fight, Pai Mai, and the cleft lip chick are all pretty sweet.

Best Quote:

Bud: Wakey, wakey...eggs and bakey.

High Fidelity (2000)

Recently during a movie discussion with an associate, I was asked the most annoying question any movie person can be asked: "You've never seen (fill in the blank of a movie speaker CAN'T BELIEVE you've never seen)?!!" And, to get the full effect, you need to picture the person asking the question like you've just stated that you've never heard of Martin Luther King Jr. or George Washington. Although I do enjoy movies, believe it or not, I have yet to watch every movie in the fucking world...although I am working on it.

The movie that filled in the blank was High Fidelity, a movie my associate claimed "every movie person should see." Well, my friend, I have seen it and I fucking HATED IT. Now, I can see why it's considered a "movie person's movie." The breaking of the fourth wall is done well and sets it apart from other flicks. The main character is presented as a flawed, realistic individual rather than some cliched lovesick likable underdog. The supporting cast is balls-out awesome with Jack Black at his comedic best, Todd Louiso stealing the show with his subtle acting, and Tim Robbins is perfect as the creepy, pony-tailed rebound fuck.

My reasons for despising this movie are mostly personal...check that, they're generational. This is a Gen X movie, plain and simple, and, as a member of the Millennials, I despise this movie on the basis that I despise everything Generation X stands for. The main character is a whiny, indecisive bitch who thinks he's superior to everyone and is "too cool" to put any effort into anything, least of all his relationships. No one displays any sense of morality in the movie, claiming to love one person while they sleep with another...dumb. At no point in the movie did I ever want Rob and Laura to get back together. In fact, I thought it would have been way more meaningful if Rob decided he didn't need a woman in his life to feel fulfilled and moved on on his own...no such luck.

So, again, I can see why people praise this movie, but i was born too late to get anything out of it. It's a generational thing, similar to why I don't suck my own dick over Citizen Kane or The Godfather. Power to the Millennials!

Why I'm Not Sold: The movie breaks cardinal sin #1 of film-making: the main character is unlikable and without sympathy for the protagonist, you're sitting on a mountain of dogshit.

Best Quote:

Rob: "Sometimes I got so sick of trying to touch her breasts I'd try to touch her between her legs. It was like trying to borrow a dollar, getting turned down, and asking for 50 grand."

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later...

Eventually Fate was going to reach out and bitch slap me across the face, and it finally happened. I reached into the Bag of Fate and pulled the one movie I took a blood oath never to watch again: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that Indiana Jones was my idol growing up. He was so badass fighting Nazis and rocking a five o'clock shadow and pulling hot chicks on all his adventures. Plus his dad was James Bond so that's just icing on the cake, bitch.

So I had mixed feelings when a fourth Indiana Jones was released back in 2008 because I didn't want George Lucas to rape another profitable franchise from my youth, but I gave the movie the benefit of the doubt and attended the midnight showing rocking my fedora and five o'clock shadow. And then I watched a CGI-infested shitfest complete with Shia Ladouche and Russians instead of Nazis...and I was APPALLED!

Here are the top three reasons why this movie sucks ass:

- First of all, Spielberg betrayed his earlier statements and filled the movie with crappy looking CGI effects. Those scorpians weren't really there, but those snakes, bugs, and rats were in the first movie and that's what made them awesome! CGI ruined the new Star Wars trilogy and it took a liquid dump all over Indy, too. I knew I was in trouble the second the movie opened with a CGI praerie dog.

- Next, say what you will about the infamous "Nuking the Fridge" moment, it still wasn't the most ridiculous part of the movie. That distinction goes to the "Shia LaDouche swinging from jungle vines with CGI monkeys" moment, a moment that, even if the rest of the movie had been decent (it wasn't) would have been enough to fart all over the legacy of Indiana Jones.

- Finally, Lucas INSISTING on using aliens...wait, I'm sorry, INTERDIMENSIONAL BEINGS THAT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE ALIENS AND FLY AROUND IN ALIEN SPACESHIPS as the central plot point doomed this movie to EPIC FAIL status. I'm sorry, but Indiana Jones and aliens should not mix. Send him after the Fountain of Youth or Noah's Ark or ANYTHING but aliens was just the wrong way to go here. It made the whole thing a cheese-fest instead of an archaelogist adventure.

I thought I might hate this movie less the second go around, but I hated it equally as much as when my heart was originally broken upon viewing the rapedown of my boyhood idol. Fuck you, Steven and George, fuck you hard up your CGI-enhanced asses.

Why I Hate It: CGI everywhere, as far as the eye can see...

Worst Quote:

Indiana : Knowledge was their treasure...their treasure...was knowledge.

The Running Man (1987)

Trust me, we're only a few years away from seeing The Running Man as an actual reality show. All you'd have to do is add murder into The Amazing Race and you'd be there. This quote from Killian is great:

"This is television. It has nothing to do with people, it's to do with ratings!"

Perfect. Television nowadays is absolute dogshit and it has everything to do with trying to get as many stupid people to sit and stare at a magical picture box for as long as possible. That's why I prefer movies. Movies end. Television doesn't. After one shitty show there's another and another and another.

But I digress.

The Running Man is one of Arnold's worst action outings of the 80's. The movie is just so fucking cheesy and the one liners don't make ANY sense whatsoever. Check this out:

Arnold kills an Asian hockey player (HUH?!) named Sub-zero by wrapping barbed wire around his neck and then says, "Killian, here's your Sub-zero...now plain zero." Terrible...just terrible (and by terrible I don't mean in a terribly EPIC Commando-way, I mean it's just fucking stupid.) And seriously, how many Asians play ice hockey?

And here's where this movie really fails: It's called The Running Man and it stars Arnold...what?! Arnold doesn't run from danger, he runs over it and stomps on its esophagus. The entire movie is him running around a garbage dump wearing a full-size body condom and looking like a sopping wet vagina as he complains about the Uplink. The big showdown is him vs. a game show host. I'm sorry, Arnold, but you've had better days.

Why It Doesn't Completely Suck: Say what you will about the action, but you can't deny that Arnold's little minority love interest looks hot in that little black nightie. Arnold liked his women spicy and ethnic in his action flicks. The Running Man, Predator, and Total Recall all have Arnold eating tacos...

Best Quote:

Arnold: I live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your goddamn spine!

Inception = The Most Overrated Movie of All Time

I don't usually comment on new releases, but, as an intelligent fan of film, I feel it's my personal responsibility to chime in on the buzz surrounding Chistopher Nolan's Inception, now #1 at the box office for three consecutive weeks.

Let's get this out of the way: Inception is a good movie. Visually - an amazing piece of cinema.

I will not argue that this is a bad movie. I will, however, argue to the death that Inception is not only the best movie of the year, but also "one of the best films ever made." Nope, no way, not even close. I have already almost forgotten the movie. In fact, if it wasn't for the insane comments on boards across the Internet, I would have already forgotten the movie and moved on to awaiting the EPIC arrival of The Expendables on August 13.

Allow me to explain why Inception does not deserve the fan boy worship it is receiving.

First, the aspect that boggles my mind is that people are claiming this is one of the best written movies ever. FALSE! Script-wise, this film is an absolute mess. Act I is ridiculously long and bogged down by an insane amount of explanation. Rules are set up early in the film (basically the first hour is nothing but set-up for the actual story) and then nearly every one of these rules is broken at the end (If you die in a dream, you wake up...except in THIS dream, if you die, you will fall into purgatory, never to escape...EXCEPT now we can come pull you out of purgatory, thus negating all the emphasis we placed earlier on the importance of not dying).

The movie fails in the same way that movies like Minority Report fail. In order to get the story going, the audience needs to be force-fed way too much explanation in order to justify the fictional universe of the movie. And before anyone says something asinine like, "You just didn't get it!" Oh, I got it, asshole. It really isn't that complex; it's just too complex to be effective in a movie. I think the reason people are praising the writing is because they didn't understand the story and for some reason dumb people convince themselves that if they don't understand something, then that must mean it's awesome.

Second, the ending that people are claiming is the best ending since Planet of the Apes (the first one, not the shitty Marky Mark version), was LAME. The most cliche ending of a movie about dreams is that the main character doesn't know if he's dreaming or not. I PRAYED to every deity that I know that that was not how the movie would end and that's exactly how it ended. People, let me explain something: There's no ambiguity here. He was obviously still in the dream. His kids were the same age, wearing the same clothes, and the top was still spinning. There's no question here. Still dreaming...not interesting...cliche...lazy writing...

See, the problem is that we're so used to watching shitty movies like Transformers or The A-Team that when a decent movie is actually made, we blow its greatness way out of proportion. The same thing happened when Dark Knight hit the theaters. Great movie, but did it warrant any awards (for the living or the dead)? Probably not. People are so overwhelmed by shit these days that when they're thrown a life preserver, like Inception, they praise it as their savior. Inception was just a good movie, folks...nothing more.