Stand By Me (1986)

"Do you guys want to go see a dead body?" Everyone stopped. It's the summer of 1959 in Castlerock, Oregon and a local boy has gone missing. 12-year-old Vern (Jerry O'Donnell), overweight, timid and bullied, approaches his three friends Gordie, Chris, and Teddy with the proposal for the ultimate summer adventure to find the body and collect the reward. Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's novella "The Body" exquisitely captures the vulnerability of youth and the heart of true friendship in this simple yet sweeping story.

This troubled but carefree band of brothers rely on each other through summer days with contraband cigarettes in their treehouse for a home. Our narrator Gordie (Wil Wheaton) is coping after the recent death of his older brother and subsequent neglect at home. Teddy (Corey Feldman) nearly had his ear burned off by his father who is now confined to a mental institution. Chris (River Phoenix) is beaten by his alcoholic dad and regularly stereotyped as a criminal. These boys are there for each other through the deep stuff that troubles youth but doesn't screw them up enough to ruin summer fun just yet. They set off with backpacks, Cokes, and Converse shoes and through episodes with leeches in the river, close calls with trains, and quintessential stories by the campfire, these boys are brought closer together like nothing but shared experience of searching for a dead body can. This is more than band camp.

Everything is just so incredibly real. These kids are at the bridge between boyhood and maturation. They talk about the greater issues of life, "Hey guys! What animal IS Goofy anyway?""You think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?" in the poignant campfire scene. But though they laugh at the hysterical tale of "Lardass" anyone can see that the true issues of family instability and uncertain futures plague over them. I've never been a 12-year-old boy, but I can still relate to many of their pre-teen ideals. I remember what it was like to bury real pain and shake off real issues with fantasy games with my friends. (On that note - why is that that there are no stories about groups of girls? Just a thought).

River Phoenix has never acted this great, and the scene between Chris and Gordie stands as a defining moment not just for the climax of the movie, but for all of childhood. Maybe you didn't have a friend like that, but you certainly wanted one. He is the rock of the group and knows how to calm fears and invoke courage in one conversation. The heart of this movie are the characters and Reiner nailed it with his acting picks. These kids can handle heavy scenes like pros. Will Wheaton's delivery is neither forced nor contrived but is still deliberate and emotional. His excellent acting is coupled with one of Kiefer Sutherland's better performances as the local bully, Ace. 

Ace: "What are you gonna do? Shoot us all?"

Gordie: "No, Ace. Just you."

With characters we can fall in love with, a script that is sharp, raw, & realistic, and cameos from Richard Dreyfuss and John Cusack you have yourself a movie that will stay with you. Honestly, I don't know what it is about it that gets me every time. It's been nearly six years since I saw it for the first time and there is something timeless about it that touches me and has resonated with me. Maybe it's the nostalgic music. Maybe it's because it reminds me of summer. Stand By Me can rest with the likes of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Man in the Moon as one of the greatest and most timeless coming of age stories around. I am a sucker for these poignant stories bc THE FEELS. And every time I watch it, I am reminded of the friends with whom I've shared something. 9/10

"I never had any friends later on like the ones when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" 

Inception (2010)

I will always remember the first time I saw Inception. Because I was living in Tahiti when it came out I wasn't able to see it right away (unless I wanted to hear a francophone Leo which I'm not really into). I was geeking out for WEEKS leading up to its release nonetheless and doing everything I could to avoid the internets. I would talk to my friends on the phone and the second the conversation turned to the great new Christopher Nolan flick I'd shout "STAHHHHP!!!" and then their eardrums broke. I lost friends. I take spoilers verrrrrry seriously.

I saw it within a week of being home. Three times. I remember eating Red Robin with two of my guy friends and not having two seconds to eat my onion rings because we couldn't shut up about whether or not the top was still spinning or whether it was wobbling. (Kinda sad I couldn't have enjoyed those onion rings more). But I was just so mind-blown. I had endless discussions about the ending, the music, the buildings folding on top of other buildings, how beautiful Joseph Gordon Levitt and Tom Hardy are, and the fact that THERE'S A ZERO-GRAVITY FIGHT SCENE. Those conversations didn't stop for weeks.

Where Following is Memento's father, Inception is Memento's son. Inception borrows elements from both films and marks Nolan's first original film since Following. I mention these connections because I have not been so floored by a movie since seeing the 1998 & 2001 predecessors. Though Inception is more impressive on a visual scale than Memento, we are still thrown for loops and twists in the narrative (albeit linearly this time). Memento is a puzzle built on polaroids and tattoos. Inception is a maze in a much more literal sense. The very buildup of the dreams in Inception is a labyrinth mirroring the maze that we the audience must navigate. Most of the time we're disoriented and confused, so we just have to trust that Nolan knows what he's doing and that we'll make it out safely. He didn't lead us astray in Memento, so we're confident it'll all make sense in the end this time, too.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a thief (another nod to Following). His burglarizing territory, though, is not homes, offices, or computers. He specializes in breaking into the mind stealing secrets from high executives and business tycoons in their sleep. His skills make him a coveted player in this new game of corporate espionage. After a mission seemingly gone wrong, Cobb and his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) are approached with a risky job of a different nature by a wealthy Japanese businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe). Instead of asking them to extract an idea, he asks them to plant one. His target is the heir to a rival company, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). If all goes well, Fischer will wake up from a dream and decide on his own to dissolve his father's company.

It appears, though, that inception - the plantation process, not the movie title - is harder to pull off than their run-of-the-mill extraction jobs. "Don't think about elephants. What are you thinking about?" "Elephants." Arthur explains, "Right, but it's not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake." "No it's not," Cobb disagrees. He doesn't go into detail, but he knows it's possible because he's done it before. Despite the imminent risks, the stakes are high for Dom. He is less motivated by the excitement and intriguing concept of "inception" and more by Saito's promise to let Cobb walk away from the business and return home to his kids. Dom, after all, means "home" in most Slavic languages. DiCaprio plays Cobb similarly to his performance of Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island. Both are driven to obsession over loss and guilt (more on that later) and Leo can deliver in that type of role

So in true classic heist movie fashion, Cobb assembles his team to get the job done. Along with right hand man Arthur we have Eames (Tom Hardy), the "forger", shape shifter, and scruffy badass (associated with Ray & Charles Eames - famous architects), Yusuf (Dileep Rao) the sedative-concocting chemist (think Joseph - biblical dream interpreter to add to the name-tally), and Ariadne (Ellen Page) the maze-building architect wiz. Cobb is introduced to Ariadne by his father-in-law Miles (Michael Caine) who seems to know the ropes of the dream-invading course but doesn't run it anymore. It's just one of those things where Michael Caine appears on screen and you automatically assume he is wiser than anyone else and he definitely knew what he was doing when he brought the new girl on.

Cobb shows Ariadne just how limitless her power is in dreamland. We learn right along with her that physics and gravity no longer matter and architectural paradoxes are now possible. This is where all of the special effects eye candy happen and we're not disappointed by the grandeur and dazzling impossibilities. Not only does Ariadne build the mazes, she is the guide. Just like Ariadne the daughter of King Minos helped guide Theseus through Minotaur's labyrinth, she guides the characters and the audience through the maze of Inception and Fischer's brain. (More name significance, guys). Ellen Page portrays her with just as much realism and intelligence as she did the lead character in Juno three years earlier. We trust her like Cobb trusts her and her character is cleverly devised to enlighten us in this unfamiliar subliminal territory.

As an aside to that thought, let me give a plug to Nolan's storytelling genius, here. It is brought to our attention that we never really remember the beginning of our dreams - we always end up in the middle of the action. Holding to that idea, Inception is much more about process than about beginnings. Of course the idea behind dream invasion is foreign to our concept of reality. But the origins to the dream-sharing don't matter. During Ariadne's apprenticeship, we are provided with just enough detail to keep us satisfied, but ultimately we are enveloped in the process of this dream-world, not with how it came to be.

I digress.

Though special effects and visual bravado trump emotion in the story arc, the one relationship we are invested in is that between Cobb and his late wife Mal (enchantingly played by Marion Cotillard). Though Cobb is, like, on the run, forbidden to return to the US on charges for her murder. It's complicated. Mal is by far the most interesting character of the bunch. We get to know her as she haunts Cobb's dreams and the dreams he shares with others sabotaging their missions along the way. We feel invaded by her piercing gaze, enchanted by her curly bob and French accent, and haunted by the way she thumbs that knife. Her character is so complex and deeply layered that we connect to her internal conflict better than any of the other comparatively thinly-written characters. Cobb is driven to near insanity with guilt and grief over her death and his intense love for his unstable wife. If we're going to keep going with the whole name thing then "Mal" is "bad" in French which unmistakably reflects on her infecting presence in the dreams.

Also noteworthy is Marion Cotillard's connection to Edith Pilaf's song "Non je ne regrette rien" - a fun little inside joke with that key plot device.

Since it is so difficult to plant an idea without the dreamer detecting its origins and since Mal is making it her business to sabotage Cobb's missions they need to delve deep into the subconscious. A dream within a dream within a dream, if you will. Everything comes to a climax in the dream-sequence that spans over an hour of screen time. Fischer's name is no doubt a nod to the game of mind-chess that is going down in his psyche and each character needs to carefully strategize to get the check mate at precisely the right time. Regret, loss, obsession, and redemption are important themes intertwined with the intense action sequences jam packed with special effects. It's visually enthralling, mind-bending, confusing, and moving all at the same time. The more I write, the less sense it makes. It really is something that should be experienced.

That end, tho.

I won't get into it too much. Just like the beginning matters less than the process, the end is the same. Some argue that it was all a dream. Indeed, the audience doesn't have a totem like the characters do to distinguish reality and dreams and are therefore never clearly able to identify a given scene as reality. This would explain why the other characters are flat since they're only projections of Cobb's subconscious and it would also negate most plot holes. It's a compelling theory, but ultimately I am of the camp that there was some reality and that Cobb is not dreaming right before the credits roll (the he wasn't wearing his wedding ring, the kids are older, the top was definitely wobbling camp). Why? I don't know, maybe because I would like to think that Cobb found some happiness and catharsis in real life, not just in his dreams. Regardless of whether or not the top toppled after the screen turned black is rendered irrelevant because Cobb doesn't care anymore. He doesn't obsess over his dreams like he used to and he has emotionally broken through prepared to be with his kids again.

These theories are fun to hash out, but they're not why I love Inception. My experience with this movie four years ago changed the way I viewed dreams and my expectations for sci-fi movies. It anchors me in to experience something phenomenal. The music is enthralling, and the wholly original plot exciting. In short, Inception dazzles and reminds us why movies can be magical. 9/10

My last plug for the name thing: Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal, Saito = DREAMS. Wut.

American Psycho (2000)

Everyone day-dreams. It's automatic. To fantasize is an exciting ability of our psyche that many of us thrive off of. Think about it. Every time you go on a date there's probably a before, during, and/or after day-dream of some sort. There certainly is for me. Before a date my mind goes through a best-case/worst-case scenario and I wander to the realm of what-if's. What if he kisses me? What if I say something witty that makes him laugh? What if he doesn't like me, what if he tries to take advantage of me? What if I punch him? Yeah, that would be pretty funny... Then there's the after-date fantasies. You replay over and over in your mind the things that happened and you dream about what didn't happen. You dream about what it was like to kiss them or what it would have been like to kiss them or what it would have been like to go further. In the mind there's no such thing as jumping to conclusions too quickly - everything is fair game. Pretty soon, though, you're criss-crossing reality with fantasy and you can hardly distinguish what was real and what wasn't. It doesn't matter if it actually happened or if it is all fake because in your mind everything is real. To quote Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, "Of course it is happening inside your head... But why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" 

Our mind and our imagination are absolutely incredible. Sometimes dreams, or even day-dreams, can haunt us, though, and be so invasive that they creep into our reality. Our minds, in essence, affect our existence. What we imagine combined with what is real can change the way we view people and situations. The idea of imagination mixed with reality is explored and examined in American Psycho. 

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a 20 something Wall Street yuppie living his own American dream. On the surface he has everything going for him. He's attractive and healthy, he's got a hot fiancée (Reese Witherspoon), and he's living in Manhattan and making the big bucks as an investment banker. Every morning he wakes up and goes through his same beautification routine using 20 different gel cleansers and exfoliating lotions. He does his stretching, his yoga, his push ups and sit ups. He is the American dream. But there's something hiding behind his perfect exterior. His appearance and careful selection of his business card or his watch ("don't touch the watch") is a metaphor for his materialistic drive into nothingness for he gains no emotional reward. "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there." 

You see, this man who has it all is also a sadistic murderer. It's nothing overly premeditated - it's just something to do. It's a stress relief after a day in the office. Some people go on shopping sprees, Bateman goes on killing sprees. "I just had to kill a lot of people!" This drastic change in the typical Wall street routine puts the "psycho" in this American story. It's graphic, it's unsettling, and you can't take your eyes off any of it.

If you'll allow me to step back momentarily I want to make it clear that most of the time that I was watching American Psycho, I had no idea what the hell was going on. Even now - after watching it three times, writing and re-writing drafts on drafts on drafts of blog posts - I still don't have a clue what the hell was going on. But director Mary Harron and author Bret Eastman have succeeded in getting me to think for hours about the man who works in murders and executions - I mean mergers and acquisitions. 

I'll come back to Patrick. 

Here's the thing: the more you watch it (and really, I don't necessarily recommend watching it more than once - twice TOPS) the more you question. Nothing can be taken at face value, and that is where the worth lies in this masterpiece - albeit a flawed masterpiece. It succeeds in its agenda as an over-the-top satirical commentary on yuppies and greed and I must admit there was some entertainment value embedded in the disturbing over-the-toppery of Christian Bale and his business constituents (including Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, and Bill Sage). But at the end of the day, the question remains: what was real?

What is over-the-top on the surface is even more exaggerated and grotesque in the mind of our protagonist - assuming that these murders were, in fact, a figment of Bateman's imagination. This conclusion is shared by many, though the ending is meant to be ambiguous. Of course these brutal murders being imaginary is not apparent throughout the film despite the outrageous circumstances surrounding his threesome with two prostitutes and the subsequent physical abuse, his chasing a girl through an apartment suite butt naked with a chain saw and the praise he is given by a homeless victim whom Bateman blatantly insults and, well, murders. 

That's because everything is from HIS perspective and from HIS mind. It's all terribly real to Patrick. Not only is it real, but it's perfect. He insults with wit and timeliness. He sleeps with beautiful women and the sex is perfect. His murders are ravenous and maniacal but they feed his appetite. For a while after I saw this movie I came to believe that the murders were actually real just glorified in Patrick's crazed mind. It is all too crazy to be 100% real, but perhaps some of it was - only less perfectly executed and not so uncannily timed to Huey Lewis and the News. I might add, though, that the incredible use of soundtrack is strong evidence that this is actually happening in his head. Like, he's sitting on his leather couch plugged in to Whitney Houston and day dreaming about his next killing spree.

However, as soon as that ATM starts telling him to insert a kitten instead of a card and a police car just explodes, everyone's dropping eff bombs realizing that things aren't adding up anymore. Your expression of disbelief mirrors that of Patrick's as he stares at the exploding car and showing - for the first time in the movie - a sense of fear and bewilderment. It's as if he, too, realizes that reality and fantasy are merging and he can't believe what he is seeing anymore. With some superb acting by Christian Bale, Patrick shows vulnerability in just one expression. Despite how disgusted we are with his character, we see that there is a soul beneath this twisted, mentally insane man.

The problem that I see with this theory - the "everything wasn't real" theory - is that there is no barrier between what WAS real and what WASN'T. Take, for example, detective Donald Kimball (Willem Dafoe). Is that character completely made up? Is he a product of Bateman's mind reacting to his psychological deterioration? Because seriously when he pulls out that Huey Lewis CD you know that it can't be happening. Can it? Was he there? Who was there?

Also, the blood on the sheets? If that scene at the laundromat WASN'T real, then why was it even included? I'm just saying.

The only character I'm positive is not made up is the secretary, Jean (Chloe Sevigny). The scene where he takes her out and nearly murders her (all the while cracking Ted Bundy jokes) is another example of the lines between reality and fantasy being merged and indistinguishable. There is something real and tangible about that relationship - something not found in his interactions with any other character. Chloe Sevigny plays the genuine, soft-spoken secretary well and allows us to emotionally connect with someone more familiar to us.

The consistent theme of mistaken identity is the key to making any sense of the meaning behind the ambiguity. The humorous scene with the business cards is the most telling scene of American Psycho. The businessmen discussing the wording, embossing, color, thickness, engraving and typefaces are merely suits - their rivalries are over cards and dinner reservations, not over actual people. It's always someone who looks like someone else, a name forgotten, and a reputation without a face. No one remembers anyone's names because everyone looks the same, dresses the same, and has similar jobs. No one has individuating qualities. It's hard to follow the dialogue with Bateman and his colleagues because they keep calling each other by different names. If Patrick was actually a murderer, it essentially doesn't matter because no one cares enough about what's going on in each other's lives to do something about it. 

This theme could also be an argument for the reality of the murders. Bateman's therapist claims he ate lunch with Paul Allen in London after Bateman murdered him - this could be because it didn't actually happen or it could be because the therapist can't remember who Paul Allen is either. Bateman tries to confess but no one listens because no one cares. Paul Allen's apartment is for sale because it's been vacated of its previous occupant (dead) and the real estate agent would rather lie about finding dead bodies than decrease the value in the apartment. Perhaps the message is in the incredulity at such a self-absorbed, shallow society depicted to extremes with bright crimson blood splatters.

Which is right? Was it real or was it in his head? Unfortunately either conclusion pertaining to the reality of the events comes with plot holes and so it's difficult to come to a firm conclusion. But I don't think there is one right answer. I think that both sides are intertwined in this ambiguous message - the reality and the fantasy are mixed and indistinguishable just like in our day-dreams. I do think that most of the action is going on in his head, but that doesn't make it any less real.

The ideas and character study are fascinating and ultimately the film works because of Christian Bale's incredible performance. There is no self-preservation in his acting and he allows the audience to hate Bateman's despicable character without guile. It's a breakthrough performance for the future Bruce Wayne and Academy Award Winner. American Psycho is incredible in the realm of its own agenda. It's a graphic and gruesome commentary and a wild, amusing ride, if you can stomach it. Now I've got to go return some videotapes. 7/10