>> ^EDD:
>> ^Maze:
It looks like OMOH to me, which in a mirror would be HOMO. Much like how "ambulance" is written backwards.

Phonetic "N" in Cyrilic looks exactly the same as Latin "H".


-passes hand over head-

WHOOSH!

>> ^Maze:

It looks like OMOH to me, which in a mirror would be HOMO. Much like how "ambulance" is written backwards.


Phonetic "N" in Cyrilic looks exactly the same as Latin "H".

Needs a Pac Man Maze and Soundtrack.

Awesome. Make a maze!!

Uhh...lucky!

My parents never put up cool marble mazes on the walls of my room!

>> ^OmarBinHashishin:

•Can't get a gauge on speed through this maze of proxy servers

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Macintosh the da house, bi-otch

FYI- the "generated" time has nothing to do with your connection nor your computer. It's not how long the data takes to reach you; it's the amount of time the Sift servers took from the time they received your page request to the time they finished generating the content to respond to your request before ultimately sending it to you.

Obviously, even with greater overall response times, some page loads are occasionally a little laggy, but hopefully for the most part, the majority of users are experiencing a bit of a speed-up the majority of the time.

•Can't get a gauge on speed through this maze of proxy servers

Well done. I played until the maze when I had to get back to work. Nice blend of different gameplay elements.

Maze was too small for the rat!

I'll answer up here because I'm scared of the quote monster;

Pacing. The film is 148 minutes long. And it does move quickly. Too quickly. Pacing is very important in a film so it's a legitimate point to bring up. Nolan actually has a lot of pack in to this film but his exposition is crass. We absolutely fly through Cobb's backstory (Ariadne is only there to reveal this which is why she's another non-character) when a better director would reveal it slowly and with more effect. Particularly as it's the hoary old dead wife plot. I just think he wants to set it up super quick so he can get on with the action and then finally use it as his emotional capper. Also the egregious use of music on dialogue scenes suggests he doesn't really want us focusing on what's being said too much. Why not? Because the dialogue is crap and he just wants it all done and dusted so he can get to the inception action scenes.

I just mentioned the maze because Cobb makes a deal about this and then it has no further role in the film (I did enjoy Ariadne holding up her maze prop). But there are other things you could also point to. In the end it was glossed over. This was lazy and I don't like lazy writing where the ideas aren't joined up or followed through.

I don't have a huge issue with Mr Caine but again it smacks of laziness. Nolan worked with him on the Batman films (and there's Murphy as well) and using him again for a very small role doesn't make much sense to me. That's a moot point to be honest but it was one more thing I personally found irksome.

Re proffering students for dodgy illegal activity - I think that's clear. Does she not have parents and a family? Is he not concerned for her safety? After all people with guns ARE after Leo. The authorities ARE on his trail. I'm for suspending disbelief but this was obviously ridiculous. Which includes the lack of contextual setup regarding how the tech has come to be and it's place in the real world. That's why you should give a fuck. Even The Matrix addresses this and did it very well. The social and cultural impact alone would be interesting to hint at but again Nolan can't be arsed. Nolan only has one scene with the guys "who come to wake up". It's jarring and that's why I'm bothered about it.

It's full of these problems that pull you out of the film and this is because he's purely focused on the technical, procedural aspects of extraction/inception. I find that focus means everything else goes to hell. Most other sci-fi (and most of it average to bad) I've seen aren't this wonky. I CAN and happily do suspend disbelief. But this one kept poking me in the eye.

But the main reason I'm bothered about this film is it's feeling of utter shallowness. I can see people enjoying this as pure hokum, as a film about the procedural aspects of dream invasion.
But as a film with interesting themes, memorable characters or even or a single interesting bit of dialogue? Inception fails at all of these. It was a film about nothing.

>> ^spoco2:

Holy crap that's a lot of anger! A few points about your points:
I don't get your issues about pacing. Some films are slow moving, considered pieces, this isn't. That doesn't make it any worse or better than films of that ilk, just different.
Why do you really care about the maze she makes? What does it matter, really, ANY maze she designed you would have issues with, so why show it? It's not the point...
Why do you have issue with Michael Caine being in it? And why shouldn't he be offering up students? Does it need to be explained in some large exposition to you, he used to also have some dodgy life, he understands what it can be like, he thinks it's liberating for people... who cares? Why can't you fill in some holes yourself?
Also, who the F ck should care how or why this tech exists... that's not the point of good sci fi, the point is... what might happen if X existed, or Y happened... that's what sci fi is good at, you don't need to have yet more exposition to explain how or why this tech exists, it just does in this world... let's move on. Films are better if some things are left unexplained and left open to interpretation, if you feel the need for every little nuance to have its back story explained you're going to be only watching 4hour plus movies, or normal length ones where almost nothing interesting happens.
Myself and the fried I went to see the movie with had no issue following the plot either and were surprised that anyone really could be.
I get that you didn't like it, but some of your reasons for not seem strange and I'm sure could be levelled at movies that you like too.
And, hey, I like Total Recall, I really do, it too is a great bit of what is and isn't a dream. But hey, it has its issues too.
>> ^Deano:
Hello! Just back this minute from seeing the film. I have a few comments to make which may involve SPOILERS.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

Holy crap that's a lot of anger! A few points about your points:
* I don't get your issues about pacing. Some films are slow moving, considered pieces, this isn't. That doesn't make it any worse or better than films of that ilk, just different.
* Why do you really care about the maze she makes? What does it matter, really, ANY maze she designed you would have issues with, so why show it? It's not the point...
* Why do you have issue with Michael Caine being in it? And why shouldn't he be offering up students? Does it need to be explained in some large exposition to you, he used to also have some dodgy life, he understands what it can be like, he thinks it's liberating for people... who cares? Why can't you fill in some holes yourself?
* Also, who the F*ck should care how or why this tech exists... that's not the point of good sci fi, the point is... what might happen if X existed, or Y happened... that's what sci fi is good at, you don't need to have yet more exposition to explain how or why this tech exists, it just does in this world... let's move on. Films are better if some things are left unexplained and left open to interpretation, if you feel the need for every little nuance to have its back story explained you're going to be only watching 4hour plus movies, or normal length ones where almost nothing interesting happens.
* Myself and the fried I went to see the movie with had no issue following the plot either and were surprised that anyone really could be.

I get that you didn't like it, but some of your reasons for not seem strange and I'm sure could be levelled at movies that you like too.

And, hey, I like Total Recall, I really do, it too is a great bit of what is and isn't a dream. But hey, it has its issues too.

>> ^Deano:

Hello! Just back this minute from seeing the film. I have a few comments to make which may involve SPOILERS.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

Pizza shit!

In all seriousness though, I remember very vividly playing the arcade game of TMNT that looked like this:


Then after getting this NES piece of shit for Christmas and ending up getting frustrated as hell trying to make it past that water level. Then finally getting past the water level with a sliver of hp only to find myself in some kind of sick maze of terribleness. THEN when I finally got "TMNT 2:The Arcade Game" I thought "FINALLY the game I'd wanted to play all along!!!" only to end up with this:


Granted that was much closer to the arcade than the first installment, but "The Arcade Game" tacked onto the title let my childhood imagination run wild with the thoughts of the potential for the NES. Perhaps it was true! The original game developers had just never heard of or seen the arcade game because they were Chinese sweat shop programmers, I reasoned. These new programmers surely would stay true to the original gameplay/graphics. Instead of a carbon copy of the game though, I ended up with something that by comparison looked like it should be played on a Gameboy. Alas, another let down.

Still though, the purchase of TMNT2 The Arcade Game was a letdown that would have been an easier blow to handle if it had not been for the piece of shit game that was the original.

Hello! Just back this minute from seeing the film. I have a few comments to make which may involve SPOILERS.

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS


Hmmm.

The short review is - what a load of disappointing and quite frankly tedious crap.

Oh Nolan why are you getting worse with each film? Who honestly thinks LDC is an actor with enough charisma to hold a film like this? He really wasn't enough for this role. Why the fuck does Nolan insist on having that thuddingly monotonous soundtrack pounding over virtually every single scene of dialogue? Why not give the actors some space instead of making it feel rushed and forcing them into layering soundbites for only the sake of exposition? Why not make this about the performances rather than worship the god of pacing? (it certainly didn't feel like 148 minutes I'll give him that).

Sorry, that girl he hires? Where was that maze she designed? Oh fuck that, we want a shortcut now. And why is Leo's dad (Michael Caine again for some reason) offering up students to do dodgy work? And what was she studying? Extraction 101? What world is this that dreams can be hacked in this way? This is never explained. Should we expect to see the flying cars out the window? Has cancer been eradicated in this world? How many other people are doing this shit?

And Leo with a bad case of dead wife syndrome (DWS). You know if you want to keep pulling that trick you might want to make it better than it was in Memento. Which is hard to do. Mainly because Guy Pearce is a better actor who makes you feel something about his character. Sympathy, disgust, shock, whatever. Something. LDC is like balsa wood in comparison.

But maybe I'm being too hard on Leo. Maybe the problem is with the script. I was surprised to find I had no problems following what was supposed to be a twisty, layered plot. I didn't see multiple plots criss-crossing and tying my mind up in knots - you want that? Try a James Ellroy novel. I still find Memento a mind-bending watch. The dream within a dream scenario is as hard to imagine as a box within another box. And here that's all that Nolan is concerned about. He loves the techie aspects of this. How does box C behave in box B. Oh B is jiggling about so C is getting all shook up. And do we get to care much about the inception itself? Nope. I thought this was a big missed opportunity to play the complex mind-games required to crack the subject. But in between explosions there wasn't much time for that.

Nolan has become a slightly more sophisticated version of the recent fanboy directors. But he's still thoroughly crass and obvious and doesn't have the talent to explore the spaces between what initially seem like promising ideas. But dreams? Hell, I enjoyed the more straightforward japes of Dreamcape and that was a long time ago.

But I am surprised that so many love this - I'd ask that you think about the characters. State what was memorable about them and what made them interesting. What did this film actually say that was of substance? Strip away the artifice and what are you actually left with?

I saw Total Recall, again, a few days ago. It was better than this.

The only option is to leave. Now.

COIN in Afhganistan and "The Surge" in Iraq have been utter failures.

In Iraq, "The Surge" is not why there's been a decrease in the amount of violence. We can start with Muqtada al-Sadr's cease-fire that happened before Petraeus' little surge ever happened. Armed Shiite militias pushed out almost all (unarmed) Sunni's from Baghdad, Patreus built huge blastwalls between ethnically opposing neighborhoods, complete with a maze of checkpoints to keep out "insurgents", and made most markets pedestrian only - to keep car & truck bombs from blowing the fuck out of innocent citizens.

There was no "political reconciliation". Unless that means dividing the citizens, arming the shiite militias, and kicking the Sunni's to the curb.

Baghdad has gone from 50/50 split of Sunni/Shia, to a horrible 15% Sunni.

Over 4 million Iraqis have been displaced. The vast majority have lost ownership of their homes and can never return.

We have 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan to fight 50-100 members of the Taliban. The Pashtuns want US and NATO forces the fuck out of their country right now, and are not afraid of either the Tajiks or the Hazarahs.

We are not, nor have we ever been in that country to end "safe havens" for terrorists. If so, Tora Bora would've been the last day our soldiers were there. Which was in fucking 2001.


Also, remember those "mineral treasures" we recently found (years and years ago) there? Yeah, that's never had anything to do with Bush's invasion mindset.

Portal in a Nutshell. (MAJOR SPOILERS - you'd be better off just playing the thing yourself - it's a perfect game IMO)

Created by Valve, makers of Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress, Portal is at it's heart an ingeneous puzzle game that focuses around a Portal gun. This gun is basically a wormhole gun that allows you to project entry/exit points onto walls, ceilings and floors which you can then travel through. The physics in the game are perfect and momentum figures into the puzzles in a very satisfying way. The increasingly more challenging levels are all based around getting from the beginning of the level to the end, and some of the later ones take some real brain power to figure out.

Beyond this, they've crafted a fairly brilliant story, narrated by the only speaking character in the game, GLaDOS, who is the insane computer in charge of the research facility that you are trapped in. The dialog is very witty and the rapidly decreasing mental state of GLaDOS's AI, and adds a lot of tension to the game. You slowly realize that there are major problems with this facility, and things unfold in an interesting way.

At one point, you are tasked with caring for a 'companion cube'. Later you are asked to 'kill' the cube by dropping it into an incinerator. Later in the game GLaDOS reprimands you for doing this.

As a reward for completing all of the research challenges, you are promised a tasty slice of cake. As inevitably escape research maze, you find notes from others who have presumably escaped too. You find things on the wall that say 'The Cake Is A Lie'.

Great boss battle at the end, and just when you think the fun is over, GLaDOS herself sings this amazing hilarious song by Johnathan Coultan.

In reply to this comment by Croccydile:
Am I the last gamer on Earth to not know what the deal is with this game? The limit of my knowledge involves overplayed jokes about some cake or something.