releasing this week: Inception

Ok late again but I have a good excuse this week, I was out of the continent… but without further ado my (late) round up of the films that went on general release in Ireland on Friday 16th July 2010.

As I mentioned last week, we’re currently going through a quiet patch of movies. There’s actually only 1 film releasing this week that is opening on more than 2 screens; unless you count the previews of Toy Story 3 but I’m going to save that for next week…

I’m sure you won’t be surprised but the film I’m highlighting this week is… Inception. Some of you have probably seen it by now, since it’s been in cinemas since Thursday, but for what it’s worth here’s my two cents on it.

I have no idea what Inception is about.

I’ve been working very hard at not finding out what Inception is about.

Granted, I’ve already written two articles about it but nonetheless, I still don’t know sfa about it. Except that it pretty much had the coolest teaser trailer I’d seen in a long time.

Since then I’ve spent a fair amount of time in cinemas staring at my feet during the trailers and I actually only really glanced at the photos that I wrote about in the second article. I guess you can say that this week’s preview article is really poorly researched. Heehee, sorry about that.

Ok, ok, just in case you really, genuinely, haven’t heard about it, Inception is Christopher Nolan’s new film. Nolan is probably best known for directing The Dark Knight. I sometimes think I’m one of the few that didn’t think that The Dark Knight was a cinematic masterpiece (please, don’t flame me, I’ve this argument enough) but I did really love his earlier film Memento so his name carries a fair bit of weight for me.

Throw in Leonardo DiCaprio – for me, one of the better actors of this generation – and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an actor who always seems to pick interesting scripts (I said interesting, the end results vary), and you’ve got a film with potential. The clincher for me was the fact that the trailer reminded me of Dark City, I loved that film. Really. If you haven’t seen it you should. I’m confident though that Nolan has created an original film * here…

The only thing that really worries me about Inception now is the overwhelmingly positive critical response. I never like to expect too much but unfortunately, what with being on holiday and all, I wasn’t able to see this on the first night. The hype is sky high on this one, I saw The Matrix under a haze of similar hype and I think I just never entirely warmed to it because of that… I’ll just have to try and put it out of my head when I finally get to see Inception.

Anyway I’ll leave it at that. You can have a look at my earlier articles here and here if you want to know a bit more. Really I said pretty much the same things in those articles, but you can see the film stills and the teaser trailer so I guess that’s adding something. Still… I’m probably really just adding about one cents worth here…

Those of you who have seen it. What did you think?

Other films out this week…

The Concert – French / Russian comedy drama about a conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra who was fired for hiring Jewish musicians, 30 years later he gets the chance to try and put on a concert in Paris and decides to try and get his old musicians together. Starring Mélanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds fame. Showing in The IFI and Light House Cinema, Smithfield.

Good Hair – Comedy documentary about African-American hair by Chris Rock. Funny guy. I’ve always liked him. Showing in the Light House Cinema and Screen Cinema in Dublin.

Tetro – Acclaimed director, Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film. Vincent Gallo stars as Tetro, a tortured poet, long estranged from his family. When his brother comes looking for him 10 years after he disappeared from the family, he finds Tetro is very different from how he expected… soon the two of them find themselves having to deal with their long obscured past.

Inception, Good Hair, The Concert and Tetro are all in Irish cinemas now.

* = I’m only stirring with that link really ;-P. The Matrix is obviously different enough from Dark City… the similarities are striking though no?