The MoFo Top 100 of the 2010s Countdown

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Two solid,
films - but neither of which I've had a particular desire to revisit.
__________________
Yeah, there's no body mutilation in it



Silver Linings Playbook is just on the edge of fine for me. I enjoyed it when I saw it in the theater. I appreciated structurally the way that it takes trope-ish moments from romantic comedies or films about people who have "quirky" mental health problems and pushes them a bit further. But I don't think it ever really escapes the gravity of that quirky mental health trap, and it ends up feeling muddled and maybe even a bit insincere.

Inception is a film I enjoyed watching, but have never been inclined to revisit. I'm a big fan of the cast, but as a story it didn't grip me much beyond wanting to see how the plot ended up.



Victim of The Night
And yeah, I like Inception less now than I did when I first saw it. It's good, it's audacious, it deserves to be remembered. I think he's made a lot of stuff cinephiles would love if it weren't as famous, didn't do as well, as if he's being penalized for managing to make trippier concepts more mainstream. I go the other way, I think it deserves a little extra credit.
I don't think this is totally fair.
I think he gets penalized because his films have the air of cinephilia and intellectualism but don't really hold up under the scrutiny of consideration. His third acts rarely pay off satisfactorily and it has never been more evident than in Inception. And, let's face it, Ariadne is a character created entirely so that Nolan can throw slow-pitch exposition of his ostensibly high concept at the average audience-member without striking them out, which is weak and actually makes me cringe when I watch the film.
I think Nolan gets points off not because he's too popular but because the reason he's so popular is because he never risks alienating the popular audience by challenging them too much, leaving "cinephiles" wanting every time despite his obvious mastery of craft.
Inception is not an intellectual film that's accessible to mass audiences, it's actually kind of a mid-brow film masquerading as intellectual.



Hot take: All the exposition in Inception, though it could grow somewhat tedious to get through on repeat watches, is entirely necessary for the film.



Victim of The Night
Hot take: All the exposition in Inception, though it could grow somewhat tedious to get through on repeat watches, is entirely necessary for the film.
I don't think it's that hot of a take. I do think there are much better and less cheap ways to explain concepts to an audience than creating a character whose only function is to listen to exposition dumps and go "ooh" and "ahh" and then dump all the exposition on her in big dumps. Of dump.



I don't think this is totally fair.
I think he gets penalized because his films have the air of cinephilia and intellectualism but don't really hold up under the scrutiny of consideration.
How "fair" it is depends on who you think we're talking about, I suppose. Who do you have in mind in the description above? Most people? Most people here? Just yourself? I don't deny that some people react exactly as you say. But people also react exactly as I say. We're speaking generally here.

I think real art house stuff routinely fails to "hold up," at least in some kind of plot coherence sense, but people who like art house films tend to let that go because they admire the vibe, aesthetic, or audacity. In the same way our reaction to some band playing in a hole-in-the-wall is probably going to be a lot more generous than our reaction to the ones filling arenas. Try as we might, we can't disregard all the people we know like it, and bring our opinions of them into it, affecting our opinions of the work itself.

His third acts rarely pay off satisfactorily and it has never been more evident than in Inception. And, let's face it, Ariadne is a character created entirely so that Nolan can throw slow-pitch exposition of his ostensibly high concept at the average audience-member without striking them out, which is weak and actually makes me cringe when I watch the film.
As much as I hate exposition, it's pretty hard to find a film with any intellectual ambition at all that doesn't resort to it in some way, so I'm included to grade on a curve. Anyway, this isn't about whether Inception is brilliant or perfect; as I said, I think it's closer to one of his middling efforts.

But I think it clearly gets judged more harshly because of its success, and as a (sometimes unconscious?) counterweight to the culture's admiration for it. The best comparison I can think of is when The Matrix came out and all sorts of serious, philosophically-minded people felt the need to mock it because they saw a lot of teenagers overreacting to it because it happened to be their first exposure to some of the existential questions it poses.

I think Nolan gets points off not because he's too popular but because the reason he's so popular is because he never risks alienating the popular audience by challenging them too much, leaving "cinephiles" wanting every time despite his obvious mastery of craft.
Are we talking about Nolan or Inception now? Because you say "never," which makes me think you're talking about his whole filmography. And if you don't think Memento and The Prestige are risking alienating anyone, then, respectfully, I'm not sure we're going to agree on anything here.

Inception is not an intellectual film that's accessible to mass audiences, it's actually kind of a mid-brow film masquerading as intellectual.
Right, this is the most common criticism: not some ridiculous inversion like "it's actually stupid," just the ol' "it's not as smart as it thinks it is." There's no way to litigate this, I can only offer my competing explanation, which is: I think if a film told exactly same story were told with a tenth of the budget by a French director 50 years ago, we'd be talking about how seminal it was. And I think he tackles stuff that very few directors can make accessible to this many tens of millions of people, and is so successful at it that he hurts himself with cinephiles by making it look easier than it is.



I don't think it's that hot of a take. I think there are much better and less cheap ways to explain concepts to an audience than creating a character whose only function is to listen to exposition dumps and go "ooh" and "ahh" and then dump all the exposition on her in big dumps. Of dump.
Can't tell if we're on the same page or not, but I'll try my best to elaborate. My take on the exposition in Inception is that it's necessary to the film, so the audience understands all the dream rules. If it wasn't in the film, many of the dream rule scenes in the second half or so of the film wouldn't make any sense, so explaining this to the audience is vital. With something like Interstellar, the various scientific concepts explained via exposition feel unnecessary since you could easily look up the concepts yourself (such as the wormhole explanation with pen and paper). Inception, however, is a different case since the dream-sharing technology was made up for the film, so looking the concepts up online wouldn't really be feasible. You'd need the film to help you with that.

Also, in regards to Ariadne, I'm curious to hear more of why you dislike how her character is utilized in the first hour, because I think she works just fine. Given that she's new to the team, it makes sense that she would be in training when she first starts out and that the film wouldn't just skip right to her first mission the second she begins working with Leo. Given my first paragraph on why the exposition is necessary, it seems to me that using her character to get the exposition across is a perfect way to explain that to the audience. I mean, you're basically killing two birds with one stone.

Also, in regards to the bolded, that's not an accurate reading of her character. Like, yeah, part of what she does is listen to the exposition, but you also get scenes of her contemplating not working with Cobb anymore once she learns the dangers of what he does and she also brings up his conflict with Mal once she becomes aware of it. These are both vital parts to her character in the first hour, especially the second part since it comes back later in the film.



Victim of The Night
How "fair" it is depends on who you think we're talking about, I suppose. Who do you have in mind in the description above? Most people? Most people here? Just yourself? I don't deny that some people react exactly as you say. But people also react exactly as I say. We're speaking generally here.

I think real art house stuff routinely fails to "hold up," at least in some kind of plot coherence sense, but people who like art house films tend to let that go because they admire the vibe, aesthetic, or audacity. In the same way our reaction to some band playing in a hole-in-the-wall is probably going to be a lot more generous than our reaction to the ones filling arenas. Try as we might, we can't disregard all the people we know like it, and bring our opinions of them into it, affecting our opinions of the work itself.


As much as I hate exposition, it's pretty hard to find a film with any intellectual ambition at all that doesn't resort to it in some way, so I'm included to grade on a curve. Anyway, this isn't about whether Inception is brilliant or perfect; as I said, I think it's closer to one of his middling efforts.

But I think it clearly gets judged more harshly because of its success, and as a (sometimes unconscious?) counterweight to the culture's admiration for it. The best comparison I can think of is when The Matrix came out and all sorts of serious, philosophically-minded people felt the need to mock it because they saw a lot of teenagers overreacting to it because it happened to be their first exposure to some of the existential questions it poses.


Are we talking about Nolan or Inception now? Because you say "never," which makes me think you're talking about his whole filmography. And if you don't think Memento and The Prestige are risking alienating anyone, then, respectfully, I'm not sure we're going to agree on anything here.


Right, this is the most common criticism: not some ridiculous inversion like "it's actually stupid," just the ol' "it's not as smart as it thinks it is." There's no way to litigate this, I can only offer my competing explanation, which is: I think if a film told exactly same story were told with a tenth of the budget by a French director 50 years ago, we'd be talking about how seminal it was. And I think he tackles stuff that very few directors can make accessible to this many tens of millions of people, and is so successful at it that he hurts himself with cinephiles by making it look easier than it is.
Yeah, it sounds like you're right and, "respectfully" we're not going to agree. Except that by using things like "the 'ol" and "not as smart as it thinks it is" (which I never said) and immediately implying that I'm comparing it to "art house stuff", you're actually basing your argument in diminishing me as a movie-watcher. As if the flaw is clearly not with the movie you're defending but with me as a viewer for having a snooty, "art house" opinion. Without, I think, really engaging what I'm actually saying. You're quick here to just lump me in with the people you've already decided unfairly judge the film (and maybe all his work) and paint "art house" and its supposed crowd (as if I can't love both) as the villain in your story where this film and maybe his others(?) are unfairly maligned) and then use that as your platform to discount my position. But that is not gonna do it for me.
My position is that it's high-concept with high-craft filmmaking execution but routinely with middle-brow narrative execution. Inception AND his whole catalogue (with the possible exception of Interstellar where I think he finally pulls a film off completely). Which is ok. Fine. I like the idea of popcorn fare with a little high-mindedness from time to time. I like popcorn movies pretty much as much as I like "art house" (which I will always put in quotes because I think it's a bogus term). It's just always painful to me how close he keeps coming to making really stem-to-stern good movies but routinely falls into the same traps of weak third acts and relying on Exposition Dumps. And Inception might be the best example of both.
Of course, lots of films require exposition. Expository dialogue is a part of nearly every film ever made. But that's different from Exposition Dumps. Those are, in my opinion, a weak, almost tawdry mechanism and I feel embarrassed for the filmmaker when they do it. It's easier to forgive in pure popcorn fare like a Marvel movie or something like that, where you're basically watching a Saturday matinee serial. But in an ostensibly high-minded film, which, I don't care what you say, Nolan is always pretending at and often coming close to, it is unacceptable. Unacceptable.
You're ok with it, fine, knock yourself out. But there's no reason to paint me as some sort of "art house" snob looking down my nose at his work when I am merely pointing out what I think are genuine flaws in the film and in his work in general.

And to be clear, I'm not offended, I'm not mad, and my feelings aren't hurt, I just don't think you're playing the discussion game fairly on this one when you try to paint me as a certain character that you've already identified as unfairly maligning the film for the reasons you say, when I don't believe I am that person, and I don't think you've actually refuted my points, just made me a straw-man and gone after that.



21. Grand Budapest Hotel


I think it's either Roma (my guess) or Drive, but this is the best I can do (unless Transit is pulling a real shocker here).



21. Grand Budapest Hotel


I think it's either Roma (my guess) or Drive, but this is the best I can do (unless Transit is pulling a real shocker here).

It could be GBH, but I expect that to get much higher.



I was very impressed by Inception. It was not like anything I'd seen before, and it's certainly spawned a lot of imitators, both in plot and effects. I had to watch it a couple of times to figure out what was really going on. I put it all the way up at my number 4.



It could be GBH, but I expect that to get much higher.


Yeah, and it's a stretch as well (which maybe makes it better). Maybe I didn't look close enough (and don't remember the opening well enough), but did we get a shot of the timer on the dynamite? If so, that goes so well with the clock close up before the political massacre in Roma.



And to be clear, I'm not offended, I'm not mad, and my feelings aren't hurt, I just don't think you're playing the discussion game fairly on this one when you try to paint me as a certain character that you've already identified as unfairly maligning the film for the reasons you say
I'm honestly not sure why you think this. I said in the first part of my reply that "fair" depends on who we're talking about, and that we were necessarily speaking generally. If you can point me to something I've said that makes it seem like I'm talking about you, specifically, you'll have my apology for it.

If you do feel that way, though, shouldn't I take some offense at the idea that the film is not as intellectual as it claims to be? Should I take that as a shot at my intelligence, or assume you're lumping me in with the masses who've been fooled by it? I don't think you meant anything like this, of course, and I similarly didn't expect you to take my disagreement as being personal, either. I assumed it was understood we were both speaking generally, and went out of my way to say it explicitly just in case.

I don't think you've actually refuted my points, just made me a straw-man and gone after that.
I responded to several of them specifically, so I don't really understand this. If you'd like to highlight some key point you think I've failed to address, please feel free.

I'm happy to go through the rest of the response point-by-point, but hopefully the above makes it unnecessary. But I will say, first, that while you did not literally say "not as smart as it thinks it is," I honestly can't see the distinction between that and "masquerading as intellectual." And second, that I definitely did not take "middlebrow" to mean "middlebrow narrative execution." I take lowbrow, highbrow, et al, to specifically be descriptors of intelligence and taste, not just synonyms for bad and good.