4/50: Inception

There is nothing like a good mind f@#k in the morning. And that is exactly what Inception was able to do for me.

I had heard the praise. I had read the reviews, but I did my best to stay away from any possible spoilers. I still didn't think it would be as good as it was. It may have even surpassed The Dark Knight as Christopher Nolan's best film.

So, let me try and explain a little bit about what story Nolan is portraying. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are both able to move around inside other people's dreams. They are so good, in fact, that they are even - technically - thieves inside these dreams.

Cobb is a fugitive of the United States and really wants to return home to his two children. He is approached by a business man, Saito (Ken Watanabe), that promises him a safe return home if he can pull off something that is thought to be impossible - inception.

Saito wants his business rivals' son, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) to break apart the company once his father has passed away. The only way to do that is to go deep into Fischer's dreams and plant this idea so that he believes he has thought of it himself.

The way this is done is so crazy and imaginative that I won't even type about it - just go see the movie. I will only mention that the rest of Cobb and Arthur's team consists of Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao). Ariadne is the 'architect' who puts together the world inside the dreams - which again you need to see.

DiCaprio was incredible in his role as Cobb and once again I was blown away by Joseph Gordon-Levitt - he just continues to be one of the best young actors in Hollywood. It is sort of funny how in this film you end up truly rooting for the bad guys - it takes a great story and casting for that to work as well as it did.

Grade:

Great Escape Weekend

This past weekend, Erika took me to The Great Escape for our anniversary (yes, our anniversary was a few weeks ago, but this was the time we had to celebrate).

Things started on Friday when we said goodbye to Kasey (he was watched by Nana & Papa Reyell) and headed out to Lake George around 3:30 p.m. We arrived just after 5 p.m. and checked into a hotel right next to The Great Escape. Erika decided to take me out to dinner at my favorite restaurant Red Lobster - I knew she doesn't like seafood, so I tried to persuade her to go to Outback instead, but we didn't.

I hadn't been to Red Lobster in awhile, and in the past I had always purchased the shrimp platter. This time, however, that was not on the menu, so I got crab legs and shrimp. Erika got a spicy chicken alfredo - she didn't like it.

So, we went back to the hotel room and got some nice rest before our day at The Great Escape the next morning. The room was ok, but I was expecting more. There were marks on the walls and doors, we ordered a room with a large tub in the room, but it wasn't large enough - the bed was comfortable, but overall the room was just subpar.

With Kasey gone for the night, I was hoping to be able to sleep in the next morning, but Erika was wide awake at 7 a.m. So, we got ready and had breakfast before heading down to the park.

A few years ago, Six Flags took over The Great Escape - so we were hoping for things to be updated and fixed up - it wasn't. We didn't go on any of the water rides, but we hit all of the rollercoasters. I was just disappointed that things have not been updated or fixed up, plus a few rides have been removed. Basically, the only thing changed is the name and the prices went up.

Despite the fact that things didn't really go the way we expected, it was nice to spend the day with Erika - with Kasey around and being so busy all of the time, we don't get to spend too much time together, just the two of us - so that was nice.

Sunday was Father's Day and Kasey got me a razor and Sesame Street card (thanks Mom). We went to my parents for lunch and to give grandpa his card. Finally, we had a graduation party for Erika's cousin before we finally were able to go home.

I finished the day with mowing the lawn, watching the final hole of the U.S. Open then starting the Basketball Finals.

During the day yesterday, Erika and I did get a chance to watch Juno. We had been wanting to watch it for awhile now, and it finally showed up on Friday from Netflix.

She quickly pointed out that it reminded her a lot of Napoleon Dynamite which of course was due to the fact of the odd music and that it too was an indie film.

The movie itself wasn't as special as I was expecting with all of the hype, but overall was a pretty good movie. I was sort of disappointed with the ending, but I can deal with it. Jason Bateman and J.K. Simmons were very good in the film. Ellen Page and Michael Cera were both good as well, but I sort of despised Jennifer Garner's character - perhaps I was supposed to, I don't know.

Despite the over-hyping I will give this movie a 3/5 (in my old rankings). Check it out, it's worth a watch.