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The snow fortress heist

The pick is hard because the set pieces are interthreaded in a dreamlike way; the candidates laid out are the ski heist three dreams down, the hotel heist two down, the Los Angeles rain heist, the training scenes with Ariadne that explain the movie, and the heartbreaking Dom and Mal scenes in limbo.

Mallory Rubin: The Cobb and Mal scenes, whether the elevator memories or the limbo train reveal, are the most emotionally gripping, but for sheer captivating rewatchability it is the snow scene where every single thing is white, with the good guys distinguished from the bad only by a light dusting of gray on their outfits and even the guns wrapped in gauze or painted white.

"Eames, you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling"

Eames's 'you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling' gets an immediate ding-ding-ding and a suggestion the rest need not be read; one host dislikes the quote despite the great line reading and the grenade launcher, because it is confusing about who controls the rules when it is not his dream level and he is not the architect, and the film never gives clarity on how his forgery works.

The film

Inception (2010)

Directed by Christopher Nolan · Drama

148 minutes

Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Cast credits have not been imported yet.

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

5:50

Casting What-Ifs

Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before Marion Cotillard; Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Robe...

Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before Marion Cotillard; Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jesse Schramm (as transcribed), Taylor Swift and Terry Mulligan (as transcribed) were considered for Ariadne; James Franco was offered Arthur; Don Johnson was considered for Peter Browning

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:50Read transcript
  • Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before the part went to Marion Cotillard; the hosts think Cotillard, who often plays a stormy femme fatale, is a very different actress, and that a French rather than English woman is what the crazed dream wife needed, since Winslet would not have been as frightening.
  • Nolan's films are said to keep returning to a dead woman who lets the leading man discover his emotional vulnerability; the casting is seen as letting him pretend something more complex was going on with the character, and a joke in a producer voice notes that Kate with Leo would have added twenty million.
  • For Ariadne the considered names were Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jesse Schramm (as transcribed), Taylor Swift and Terry Mulligan (as transcribed), to disbelief around the table; Ellen Page is judged perfect for combining intense intelligence with wide-eyed vulnerability, something clinical and nurse-like, where Evan Rachel Wood would be too tall, beautiful and imperious.
  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur was also offered to James Franco, who turned it down over scheduling; JGL's blankness and deadpan are liked for the part.
  • Don Johnson was considered for Peter Browning, the part Tom Berenger took; Johnson's ruined-man quality might have worked, Berenger was a shock to recognize, and Browning is not an essential character so Johnson would have been fine.
13:29

Most Rewatchable Scene

The snow fortress heist; the Paris training scene with Ariadne; the zero-gravity hotel corridor fight

The snow fortress heist; the Paris training scene with Ariadne; the zero-gravity hotel corridor fight

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:29Read transcript
  • The pick is hard because the set pieces are interthreaded in a dreamlike way; the candidates laid out are the ski heist three dreams down, the hotel heist two down, the Los Angeles rain heist, the training scenes with Ariadne that explain the movie, and the heartbreaking Dom and Mal scenes in limbo.
  • The Cobb and Mal scenes, whether the elevator memories or the limbo train reveal, are the most emotionally gripping, but for sheer captivating rewatchability it is the snow scene where every single thing is white, with the good guys distinguished from the bad only by a light dusting of gray on their outfits and even the guns wrapped in gauze or painted white. — Mallory Rubin
  • The avalanche and the rope trick are extremely fun, and although the snow heist lacks the emotional weight of other scenes it feels like a relief at that point in a movie that asks you to track so much; the color choices are tied to Nolan being colorblind, with little red or green and everything slate, night or pure white.
  • The snow heist has some of the film's only humor: after the missed first kick there is Cillian Murphy's line about dreaming up a beach next time, and Tom Hardy gives a thumbs-up after throwing an explosive onto a truck; the same scene also has the most moments that make no sense, like staring at the explosive for forty-five seconds, while Leo's perfect sniping is excused because it is a dream.
  • The training scene in Paris, or dream Paris, in the cafe is pretty incredible. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • Watching the cafe scene again, the moment when Cobb's question of how they got there arrives still lands because the viewer realizes they do not know either, which is called a masterful thing to do, as is his explanation of how the dreams operate.
  • The zero-gravity fight scenes hold up really well; A.O. Scott's review compared the film to The Dark Knight and was dubious of Nolan, as this host is, but Nolan has built a career on being arguably the best at set pieces that make you say oh shit, like the truck flip in The Dark Knight, and there is no sense of how he pulled off Joseph Gordon-Levitt sliding up the ceiling like a spider. — Sean Fennessey
18:35

What’s Aged the Best?

Tom Hardy without a mask and with a normal voice; Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a suit; the zero-gravity set pieces; that t...

Tom Hardy without a mask and with a normal voice; Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a suit; the zero-gravity set pieces; that there is a $150 million movie about dreams

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:35Read transcript
  • The category is awkward for a movie only seven years old; one answer is Tom Hardy not wearing a mask and speaking with a normal human voice, plus JGL in a suit, which the host would like to see more of.
  • It is doubtful a studio would pony up for a $150 million movie about dreams now; the counterargument is that at its core it is a fantasy story, a genre with more money than ever, just packaged differently, prompting jokes about a YA label, aged-down stars, Taylor Swift and magic wolves.
  • The film is sequel-ready, but a sequel would undo the power of the ending, if you think the ending has power, which two of the hosts doubt.
  • The set pieces, as already said, are the answer: the gravity scene is incredible, and the bedroom fight where JGL grabs the gun at the last second is stunning in how abruptly the man falls and how the gun keeps sliding toward them across the room. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • The hallway rotation is questioned: the van flipping on level one should itself count as a kick that wakes everyone, which one host finds a distracting logic flaw; the kick is defined as the sensation of falling that pulls dreamers up a level, as when Arthur tips Ariadne's chair.
  • The defense offered is that the team is heavily sedated and several levels down and needed synchronized kicks; the objection is that the film never establishes synchronization is required to wake, only that it is a timing problem, and that close-ups of the sleepers swaying should by the film's own rules have served as a kick.
  • The hosts wonder how many of the cast understood the movie, and whether a Freudian psychotherapist was on set the way an astrophysicist was for Interstellar, since the science is high-level and bunk at once.
23:23

What’s Aged the Worst?

Movies about dreams, from a director who is not visually interesting

Movies about dreams, from a director who is not visually interesting

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:23:23Read transcript
  • Dreams in general, movies about dreams, have aged worst, especially from a filmmaker who is not that visually interesting all the time; the 1984 Dennis Quaid film Dreamscape is offered as a wild, very eighties example of what a dream movie should look like, whereas Nolan's at times looks like an ad for Suits.
24:00

Half-Assed Internet Research

Nolan pitched the film in 2001 after Memento and made the Batman films first; his treatment ran 80 pages; it is one o...

Nolan pitched the film in 2001 after Memento and made the Batman films first; his treatment ran 80 pages; it is one of two original stories he has told; it was influenced by The Matrix, Dark City and The 13th Floor; the hotel hallway was a rotating 100-foot corridor on eight rings driven by two motors; Pete Postlethwaite was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009 and died six months after release

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:24:00Read transcript
  • Nolan first pitched the film in 2001 right after Memento but felt he lacked the experience for a production this complex, so he made the Batman movies first and honed the script; his original treatment was eighty pages, around script length.
  • An eighty-page treatment would be an eighty-minute movie, which makes sense for a convoluted story that needs explaining to producers who must price it; Nolan is also in love with his own ideas and this is one of only two original stories he has told, the rest being comics, novels or, with Dunkirk, real life. — Sean Fennessey
  • A treatment is explained as a long synopsis of stage direction and plot summary, with highlighted set pieces, used to get a production company to sign on; the hosts wonder whether the pitch already included the scene where Cobb, the director figure, yells at Arthur, the producer figure, over the armed projections, a self-reflexive streak that makes one host like the film less.
  • Because of when the script was written the film was influenced by late-nineties and early-aughts mindbenders like The Matrix, Dark City and The 13th Floor; for the hotel scenes the filmmakers built a fully rotatable hallway that grew from forty to a hundred feet, suspended on eight concentric rings and driven by two electric motors.
  • Pete Postlewaite (as transcribed), who played the elder Fisher, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009 and died six months after the film's release while playing a character dying of cancer, which is eerie to watch later.
  • Flagged early for this segment: Nolan spent almost ten years on the script after realizing the character's emotional motivations had to be central.
30:25

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:30:25Read transcript
  • The listed candidates are Tom Hardy as Eames, Lucas Haas, a member of the Pussy Posse assumed to have been cast as Nash as a favor to Leo, and the work of M.C. Escher.
  • Lucas Haas being in this is called incredible, a flex of incredible proportions by Leonardo DiCaprio: he said yes and kept hanging out with Leo long enough to be in a Christopher Nolan movie for five seconds and collect a check, with the hosts guessing his two scenes took about a week to shoot and that he gets to tell people in bars he played the architect.
  • Asked for candidates, the response borrows dorm-room philosophy from the list but declines to answer the prompt, redirecting to whether anyone remembers when they first saw the film; this host was certain it was in a Syracuse dorm with college friends, yet the film came out two years after graduation while she was working in New York, a bizarre discovery made while rewatching with her husband Adam. — Mallory Rubin
  • That false memory is said to be the problem with the movie: it is the literal version of the hits-blunt-once meme, so base level that described plainly, a dream inside a dream, a hallway fight, then snow, it sounds silly, like the first time you partake and think you understand everything.
  • Hans Zimmer is floated with the caveat that he may not fit the bill, since his influential theme dominates the movie to the point of hurting one listener's ears; he is called more than a role player, maybe bigger than Dion Waiters.
  • The film's only pop song is Edith Piaf's 'Non, je ne regrette rien', a strange choice given Marion Cotillard played Piaf in La Vie en Rose, over whose closing credits the song plays; this host's pick is Hardy as the heat check.
  • Hardy was just coming up when cast and thought Nolan hired him for Bronson, the Nicholas Winningrath (as transcribed) film where he plays a British criminal, only to learn on set it was for RocknRolla, a bad Guy Ritchie movie; the hosts ask why he is not one of the biggest stars in the world, a Mel Gibson in 1989, and note that after this he went to a one-for-them, five-for-me formula and now does zero for them, appearing in the Dutch East India Company show Taboo.
39:59

Apex Mountain

Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Wally Pfister

Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Wally Pfister

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:39:59Read transcript
  • The shortlist is Christopher Nolan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, cinematographer and longtime Nolan collaborator Wally Pfister, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy.
  • Wally Pfister is a yes: he went on to become a not terribly successful director, but the first scene of Cobb showing Ariadne how dreams work is masterful mind-blowing stuff, and watching a building fold onto another like an M.C. Escher painting is about how the film is shot, not just conceived, since any stoner in a dorm room could conceive it. — Sean Fennessey
  • Calling the cinematographer the winner is admitted to be not the most interesting opinion, but it feels true to someone who is a little dubious of the movie while liking it.
  • JGL is a yes. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • The hosts ask where Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been since: commercials, his company Hit Record, which one thinks is an app, dressing up as Edward Snowden, Lincoln's son in Lincoln with a mustache, Looper under prosthetics, and a so-called Robin in The Dark Knight Rises; he is really good here, and his ribbing rapport with Tom Hardy is funny.
  • A second participant also has JGL, calling him great in this.
42:39

Unintentional Comedy Award

Lucas Haas; Leo's face when he wakes on the plane after limbo

Lucas Haas; Leo's face when he wakes on the plane after limbo

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:42:39Read transcript
  • Candidates were hard to find other than the movie writ large, or perhaps its coherence, though the host stresses liking the film; Lucas Haas is offered and welcomed as a very good choice.
  • The look on Leo's face when he comes back from limbo on the plane resembles Chris Ryan in the Claytheism video (as transcribed) and is called hilarious.
45:52

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Is Dom dreaming, and is the whole film his dream? Was Ariadne sent by his father-in-law to find out whether he killed...

Is Dom dreaming, and is the whole film his dream? Was Ariadne sent by his father-in-law to find out whether he killed Mal? How can Saito erase a murder charge with one phone call? Why does Mal have a French accent when her father is Michael Caine? Why can't Cobb see his children's faces?

In the discussion (17)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:52Read transcript
  • The opening question is the entire movie: is Dom dreaming, what part is real, and is he dreaming at the end; the hosts decide to do theories as well.
  • A theory from Christopher Ryan's piece on TheRinger.com: beyond the broader idea that the whole film is Cobb's dream, Ellen Page's character was sent by his father-in-law, Michael Caine, posing as a student, to enter Cobb's subconscious and get him to admit he murdered Mal, which is why she asks questions incessantly, as an interrogator rather than only an audience surrogate.
  • Michael Caine having a completely different accent from his daughter is called a Christopher and Jonathan Nolan issue with no reason behind it; they should have cast a French actor.
  • One response is that she is still the audience surrogate; another is that Nolan keeps killing wives in movies without knowing why and may have written a character to find out; the theory is called poppycock and more interesting than the movie, but the film was consciously designed to let such theories propagate.
  • The ending is recounted: Cobb returns home, spins his totem, hears his children, goes to them, and the camera stays on the wobbling totem before cutting to credits; this made one host angry and still does, because it does not matter should never be the message of a movie, and the better ending would follow Cobb to his kids without ever showing the totem wobble.
  • A totally different read, noted as a rare disagreement between the two: it is not only okay but the point if the takeaway is that it does not matter, since a reality so unclear or painful that your existence becomes about combating or warping it is compelling; the Harry Potter line in which Dumbledore tells Harry that something happening inside his head does not mean it is not real is cited as the coolest idea in stories, mentioned with an apology to Sean, who is said not to like Harry Potter.
  • The defender of the angry view says it is specifically the wobble that bothers them, a filmmaker's aha like retweeting someone with boom written on top; the reply is that it is a heavy-handed but effective prompt asking what reality is, and that the hosts all talking about it, like The Sopranos ending, is why it is rewatchable and regenerative.
  • Asked if they like the ending, one host respects it as a good troll that keeps people talking, with Nolan refusing to come down either way, and so does not really like it but has to respect the hustle.
  • A material question: Saito, played by Ken Watanabe, hires Cobb to make Fisher break up his company and promises to clear his murder charge; after the job he makes one call before landing and customs welcomes Cobb back, which the hosts find absurd, with a side complaint that customs does not look like that and the familiar point that he could have flown the kids to France.
  • The film never clarifies whether Mal's mother believes Cobb killed her daughter, though she begrudgingly puts the kids on the phone and seems disgruntled with him.
  • Polled directly, two voices think Dom is dreaming at the end; another says it does not matter.
  • Whether Dom is dreaming does not matter to this host. — Sean Fennessey
  • That different viewers can process the film differently is called a good thing: you can take it as an adventure story where the plan worked and Cobb went home, even though Saito's phone-call power implies he could have beaten his rival on his own, or believe Cobb is forever lost in limbo by choice or by going too deep.
  • The meta reading is enjoyed: Nolan making a movie about a man who looks like Nolan and gets so lost in his own stories that he cannot see his kids or tell what is real; pure creation is a quote from the film, and devoting your life to movies is likened to choosing to stop living in reality, unless you are a documentarian.
  • Raised during unintentional comedy: nobody understands why Cobb cannot see his kids' faces; it is called movie bullshit that exists only to set up the final reveal, within a broader argument that movies are nonsense you appreciate more by accepting them on their face.
  • A charitable explanation nobody fully believes: viewers must accept a difference between a projection like Mal, a piece of Cobb's subconscious trying to tear him down, and a memory; the children not turning is the last real moment of his former life, when he fled before they could look at him, replayed on a loop to torture himself, so they behave freely because they are not fragments of his mind.
  • The rebuttal is a joke that the explanation is acceptable only if in real life Mal looks like Artie Lang (as transcribed) rather than Marion Cotillard.
58:05

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"Eames, you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling"; "an idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagi...

"Eames, you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling"; "an idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious, and even the smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you"; "you're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure"; "don't think about elephants. What are you thinking about?"

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:05Read transcript
  • Eames's 'you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling' gets an immediate ding-ding-ding and a suggestion the rest need not be read; one host dislikes the quote despite the great line reading and the grenade launcher, because it is confusing about who controls the rules when it is not his dream level and he is not the architect, and the film never gives clarity on how his forgery works.
  • The logic objection is called the concern of a serious fantasy consumer; another host was more bothered by how customs works than by the grenade launcher, but concedes that if any participant can change a dream at will it contradicts the idea that Cobb corrupting the dream world is a fundamental flaw that keeps him from building.
  • Much in the film happens because the film says it can, deus ex machina after deus ex machina, like suddenly clarifying that you can make a new gun; the hosts ask why stop at a grenade launcher rather than a laser gun, and feel the dreams could be more creative.
  • Cobb's opening line that an idea is like a virus is liked a lot, though one host holds that an opening line can never be a movie's best because screenwriters always try for a grabber; it is noted the dialogue around it mentions intestinal worms, and it states the point of the film right away, which is both lame and compelling.
  • Cobb and Mal's 'you're waiting for a train' riddle is called a good one and evidence of very good dialogue; one host asks whether Mal's 'don't know for sure' to Ariadne versus Cobb's 'can't know for sure' in limbo was intentional.
  • The reading offered: the change is intentional because Mal is the projection of his guilt and regret, the regret named in Saito's leap-of-faith speech, so Cobb rationally says can't while his guilt says don't, maybe you should have known; a side note insists we all die alone despite Saito.
  • Another liked line is 'don't think about elephants', with the note that it references a psychological book of that name, so Nolan is ripping someone off once again.
1:03:34

Who Won the Movie?

Christopher Nolan (2 of 3 attributed ballots; a further unattributed pick for the movie-going audience in 228-230)

Christopher Nolan (2 of 3 attributed ballots; a further unattributed pick for the movie-going audience in 228-230)

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:34Read transcript
  • Candidates: Christopher Nolan, for arguably one of his two great movies, Leo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, whose movie stardom is called a good thing.
  • Nolan is a huge win because anyone can make money with Batman, space or war movies but a profitable movie about dreams is hard; it certified him as bigger than comic books and showed studios a risk on him pays back, as Dunkirk did this year as the second biggest success story, even though much of the film is pure poppycock to this host. — Sean Fennessey
  • Another voice sums up the argument as Nolan being the Spielberg of our time, and the master-of-invention title he started getting is noted.
  • Tom Hardy is the pick for another host: he is extremely dashing, it is the last time we are allowed to see how handsome he is, his line readings are perfect, he is the center of every scene, his play with JGL is charming, and his Mombasa scene is a great character intro. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • Nolan is also the pick for a second host, for the reasons already given, with the added observation that this is a Leonardo DiCaprio movie people think of as a Christopher Nolan movie, because the debate over its logic is what has sustained its place in the culture. — Mallory Rubin
  • Zooming out, one voice says the audience won, since an ambitious non-IP summer blockbuster about dreams that made a lot of money may never happen again; the reply is that it is also a fairly conventional movie, a heist, a noir, a love story and a tragedy with gunfights and a villain, keenly integrating classic storytelling into an absurd premise.
  • Asked to name Nolan's other good movie, one host says Dunkirk and another The Dark Knight, a flawed film that sweeps you up; The Prestige and Memento are called very good but not the height of his talent; Dunkirk is praised as a 2017 war movie about the good guys being afraid, with bravery coming from citizens rather than soldiers.
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The film is called one of Nolan's two really good movies by hosts who think the director is overrated and often films incoherent action scenes, which work here.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:41Read transcript
Rewatching for the podcast made the film more confusing than ever, with the pattern described as hooked the first time, peeling layers the second, and either a breakthrough or the conclusion that it makes no sense by the third; the hosts call it fascinating to watch even if it might be bad.
Approx. transcript time · 00:02:13Read transcript
The most devastating critique is the meme in which Cillian Murphy tells Leo he could just fly to France and get his kids, met with Leo's confused face.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:32Read transcript
Nolan frames the dream world like a Jaguar ad, reality in hotel bars and suits with occasional strange things rather than morphing dream imagery, as if made by a director who has spent years at junkets explaining his own films; Ellen Page's character exists to ask questions until the last five minutes, and it is argued she should ask about the mechanics rather than Cobb's motivations.
Approx. transcript time · 00:04:08Read transcript
Every character is named for a historical or mythological figure, and Ariadne is the Minotaur-myth figure who helps Theseus; one host dislikes a clue that on the nose in a riddle film, contrasting it with Harry Potter, where Lupin's name sits among equally obscure meaningful names rather than standing alone, and notes the name sounds absurd every time it is spoken.
Approx. transcript time · 00:07:41Read transcript
The character Mal, pronounced Maul, is revealed to be short for Mallory, a distressing discovery for the host of that name, who recounts a year in Hebrew school taken in hope of bar and bat mitzvah money and an assignment on the origin of her name, which comes from the French malheur meaning misfortune or unhappiness; another adds that her parents got it from Family Ties.
Approx. transcript time · 00:09:28Read transcript
Nolan has said each character represents a figure in the filmmaking process: Dom Cobb is the director and is styled to look exactly like Nolan, while Arthur is the producer, which fits a host's sense that Arthur's presence is sometimes superfluous and that he is not an artist the way Cobb and Ariadne are.
Approx. transcript time · 00:11:29Read transcript
Tom Berenger's Browning, in a suit with that shade of hair and a vague sweat, looks exactly like one host's father, which is disorienting and makes the film hard to watch, especially when Browning, or Eames impersonating him, interrogates Cillian Murphy's character about his father.
Approx. transcript time · 00:12:14Read transcript
Dream reports: one host dreams about once a year, hazily, without Nolan's precision, and feels chased, possibly from class anxiety; another remembers dreams only when waking mid-dream; no one dreams as cleanly as the film shows.
Approx. transcript time · 00:26:31Read transcript
This host used to remember multiple dreams a night and still does with some regularity; they reflect her state of mind and are set in what feels like a real place such as her office or home, though on waking it was a completely different space.
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:38Read transcript
This host dreams in parallels to places recently visited and somewhat cinematically, with actual movies playing in his head that he is not part of, which another host calls a metaphor for his work.
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:27Read transcript
In closing the hosts float bringing Tate on to stump for Interstellar, which one host does not like, and sign off the Inception edition for Mal, Andrew, Sean and Jason.
Approx. transcript time · 01:08:23Read transcript