Movie review Friday. (Warning: spoilers about Robin Hood, Benjamin Button, and Inception)

I'm watching the old Disney version of Robin Hood. I remember watching it as a child with my family, in the room of our house that we called "the cold room," because it was always cold for some reason. The movie starts out so happy and playful. Then it gets very sad and miserable in the middle (not only is everyone in prison, but the rooster sings a sad song, and it's raining!). And then it ends on a happy note. It's an emotional rollercoaster for a child. I'll get this for my niece in four or five years.

I watched Benjamin Button last week. It was a snoozefest. I actually fell asleep about 2/3's of the way through. Imagine the most boring romantic non-comedy ever, and then have one of the characters grow younger like Merlin, but without the magic or the mystery. Also too much emotionless Brad Pitt narration like in the beginning of Interview with a Vampire. Not recommended.

I saw Inception last weekend with Rachel, Peter and Leslie. It was good. Good effects, pretty interesting environment and story. The problem was that a lot of it didn't really make sense. Peter said that once you're accepting that one person can enter another's dream, then you have to accept whatever. But somehow I don't. There was that 80's movie Dreamscape, where Dennis Quaid was going into people's dreams, and this was sorta similar. But Dreamscape was more like the Matrix and less like, umm, star trek.

-Is there really such a thing as a dream within a dream? I've never had one. One morning in college I turned off my alarm and then went back to sleep and dreamt that I was going through my morning routine. That was kinda disappointing when I woke up and discovered I had to brush my teeth and shower all over again.
-Isn't no gravity the same as a falling sensation that supposedly wakes you up? It seems like having no gravity would be a pretty major thing that would echo back through the layers of a dream. Also falling into water.
-They said that time passes 20 times slower in a dream because you're using all of your brain, but why should the time dilation compound for a dream within a dream? You can't use more than 100% of your brain.
-I could tell what was going to happen at the end. Kate said she could too. It all got pseudo-dreamy and surreal. Maybe they were too clear, before the end, about the kicking out of the different layers of the dream, so when they suddenly started skipping through the end in a montage it was clear what the director was going to do. And did they pull the A Beautiful Mind trick and have the kids not age? I guess it depends how old his memory of them is.

It was a good movie, but doesn't hold water quite as well as most science fiction movies that I prefer. Maybe it's because they explained all the rules too explicitly about the dreams within dreams. They need to gloss over the less-realistic aspects and not expound on them.

(11:54:32 PM) me: i saw that bomb squad movie that won the academy awards. that one was really good
(11:54:58 PM) Dan: f that movie. i won't see if on principle
(11:55:07 PM) me: cause you loved avatar?
(11:55:13 PM) Dan: since when did we let woman direct movies?