I could tell you what I thought about Inception, but I don't think you want me to spoil anything before you go and see it for yourself. Which, obviously, you would be absolutely Crackers Patel not to do. So instead, here are some thoughts about a piece of promotional material I was given when I went to see it:
It looks absolutely beautiful; it's expensively glossy and the colour palette is gorgeous.
But it's not just about looks. It's also substantial and weighty, thanks to the way it folds in on itself. As you delve into its inner layers, it expands perfectly to reveal goggle-boggling images, a plot which reads like Dreamscape plus The Matrix but infinitely better than both of those films, and a bunch of people in some absolutely Incredible Suits.
Inside are some amazing actors. Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't look like he's holding in a window-shattering fart for once, Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks dashing but a bit silly with a massive shooter and there are too few shots of Tom Hardy and Michael Caine.
If you press your ear to it very hard you can hear Hans Zimmer having the time of his life inside a terrifying nightmare.
I can't describe the final page to you. It's the perfect way to finish but you need to see it for yourself to truly appreciate it.
It's not flawless; there are some parts of it that I need to look at again to work out whether or not they make any sense. Also from end to end it's about 62cm long, and if I'm being honest it could do with being about thirteen percent shorter.
Having said that, as promotional material goes, it is without doubt THE BEST I'VE SEEN THIS YEAR. Especially in comparison to certain others.
I watched Dreamscape recently, the forgotten 1984 low fat sci-fi / horror (contains 98% less horror than the leading brand) starring The Quaid as a cocky young punk with the ability to enter people's dreams. I thought I'd better watch it because I talked about it being quite good in this post, despite not actually having seen it for about 20 years. I'm happy to report that it wasn't entirely awful, although The Quaid's hair is the real stuff of nightmares.
What struck me more than anything, however, was what I think might be the least special feature ever committed to a DVD. Clearly embarrassed by the dearth of anything interesting on the disc, somebody has cobbled together a 13-second compilation of clips and bunged it on the Special Features menu with the title "THINGS THAT MAKE YOU JUMP!"
No doubt you have already soiled yourself with fear just thinking about the terrors that lie within. Well just for you I braved this frightsplosion of scaregasms, and barely came through it with my sanity. Here, if you think you can take it, are some of the most blood-curdling, bone-chilling horrors to which my eyeballs bore witness:
Welcome to the first in a comically occasional series of posts about The Incredible Suit’s Movie Heroes. I’m hiring out that big room from the end of Star Wars and calling forward several legends to receive a blog-shaped medal from me as a thank you for being really quite ace. I have yet to decide whether or not to dress as Princess Leia.
The Incredible Suit’s Movie Heroes aren’t going to be the usual suspects. Much as I think Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Buster Keaton, Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Nolan, Harrison Ford, James Stewart, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, John Williams and so on are truly outstanding individuals in their respective fields, there have been mountains of keyboards worn out writing about them. I’m concentrating on less obvious people who’ve had a significant impact on my film-watching over the years; people whose talents are unique and whose work has been carefully and delicately fashioned so as to fit perfectly into that peculiar-shaped hole marked ‘things what I love’.
So without further ado, because god knows there’s been enough ado so far already, here’s my first Movie Hero: Drew Struzan, illustrator of some of the finest movie posters ever to seductively stroke your eyeballs while gripping your heart and shouting “This film is going to be bloody marvellous, just look at the poster!”, even though sometimes that was a lie (I’m looking at you, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).
Mr Struzan’s work speaks for itself, so I’m going to shut the chuff up and let you pop a bib on and drool over some classic examples in peace. In theory, clicking on each picture should embigulate it so you can appreciate it in all its airbrushed glory, but I don't know if it works like that, I'm a novice with this new interweb thing.
But this is my absolute favourite of Drew Struzan's work, from Revenge Of The Jedi, before it had its balls lightsabred off and renamed Return Of The Jedi.
“The Incredible Suit”, I hear you cry, “I loved your post about casting Bernard Hill or David Warner as M in the next James Bond film, but I just don’t know who should play Q! Please help!” Well, stop crying you big babies, it’s not becoming. But since you ask…
Let’s see. We could go one of several ways with Q:
a) Make him the same curmudgeonly lovable old goat Desmond Llewellyn played him as, which would be silly in this whole ‘reboot’ stage we’re in. However if it has to be done like that, let’s have someone curmudgeonly, lovable and goatesque like Bill Nighy.
b) Make him a bit younger, closer to Bond’s age, and a bit geeky as he’s a technology nerd. In which case go for someone like David Morrissey.
c) Make him a lot younger, twentysomething in fact, someone who knows all about the latest technology, someone who’s excited by his work and eager to see how it plays out in the field, but takes the piss out of Bond for not being nearly as geekazoidal as he is. This approach would gain The IncredibleSuit’s endorsement, and I vote for Noel Clarke in the role.
***Official Warning: On no account is David Tennant to be linked with the role of Q***
So this new Bond film is shaping up quite nicely in my mentally deranged fantasy world. It looks like it could be an absolute corker; it’s just a shame that you’ll only be able to see it by entering my dreams like Dennis Quaid in Dreamscape. Admission is £8.00, please don’t drop any popcorn in my cerebral cortex, it’s a bugger to pick out.
Now watch this. It’s nearly ten years since Desmond Llewelyn sat in the ejector seat of life and popped through the roof into the great R&D lab in the sky. The Incredible Suit gives you permission to resume crying like a baby.
A few days ago I tried to share with the world my respect and admiration for Dennis Quaid, but for reasons I don’t fully understand it swiftly turned into an ugly rant against Mary Jane Watson from the Spider-Man movies. Well you’ll be pleased to know I’ve got that out of my system and I find myself in a much happier place. Quaidland.
“The Quaid”, as I expect he likes to be known, is a legendary actor of great likeability, vast talent and cheeky dimples. Sadly it’s been his misfortune to appear in some utter bum chutney over the years. I don’t know why this is; perhaps his agent is a mallard or a wombat or some other creature incapable of identifying a good script.
Part of The Quaid’s problem is that he’s very similar to Harrison Ford in appearance and demeanour, and he had the hard cheese to be making his name in the 1980s, a decade which will probably one day be rebranded as ‘the Harrison Fordies’ due to his scruffy-but-lovable-hero-based dominance of the box office.
Incidentally, I was in a restaurant once when I overheard this conversation between some middle-aged types at a nearby table:
“We watched Air Force Oneyesterday”
“Who’s in that?”
“Harrison Ford, I think”
“You mean, Harrison Ford Fiesta!”
“HA HA HA HA HA!!! Yes, Harrison Ford Fiesta!”
I had to be physically restrained from going over and replacing all of their eyeballs with pickled onions.
So The Quaid had to pick up the scraps Harrison Ford left behind, which was a shame because he might have made a good Jack Ryan in Patriot Games, and he could have done something with Regarding Henryand Working Girlthat didn’t make them the movie equivalent of a glass of cod liver oil and raw eggs. Had he been in Frantiche may even have been able to give the impression of being awake.
Fortunately, The Quaid has brought us some gems over the years. InnerSpaceis a groovy sci-fi adventure romp; Dreamscapeis a cathedral of bonkersness about entering and manipulating people’s dreams, and Frequencyis a heartwarming slice of cheesecake about a dead bloke talking to his son, across time, through a knackered radio. Less fortunately, American Dreamz, in which The Quaid finally gets to play the President, is quite literally one of the worst films ever made, and Vantage Pointis as predictable and annoying as a Coldplay album.
What’s important, though, is that The Quaid is legend in all these films. He’s in his fifties now and he’s always been stuck at the border patrol of Megastardomland, frantically waving his passport and begging to be let in, so it’s time he found something truly brilliant to show how skill he is. Sadly everyone in the civilized world can see that his next two films, GI Joe: The Rise Of The Cobraand Pandorumwill suck bowling balls through a straw, so it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer.
