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The Rewatchables ·

Inception

year 2010decade 10sdirector Christopher Nolangenre Drama
host Jason Concepcionhost Mallory Rubinhost Sean Fennesseyhost Andrew Gruttadaro
All 11 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 13:29

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.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 58:05

"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

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

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Everything from the episode

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

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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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