'Inception'

I literally can't remember the last time I saw a decent film at the cinema, let alone the last time I looked forward to seeing one. I've been following the production of 'Inception' since its very early stages, as I've followed the career of Christopher Nolan closely after loving both 'Memento' and 'Batman Begins'. He went on the make 'the Prestige' and, obviously, 'the Dark Knight', giving him - in both my opinion and near-undisputed fact - one of the most impressive track records of directors in recent film history. Not one of his seven films has failed to impress, both critically and commercially, and even his remake of the Norwegian film 'Insomnia' - his weakest film yet - was a strong effort.

His films all display the many attributes of his rare talent. He's worked on all his films with his wife Emma Thomas and Wally Pfister acting as Producer and Director of Photography, respectfully, and often collaborates with his brother, Jonathon Nolan on his scripts. He displays a knack for post-modern narrative, effective ensemble casting of huge talent, and the ability to pull the best performances out of his actors.

After the success of 'the Dark Knight', Warner practically gave him free roam with a $200 million budget to develop a script he'd been working on for over 12 years. He put together an incredible ensemble cast and filmed in over 7 different countries in order to make his genre-bending "heist" film 'Inception', "set within the architecture of the mind".

But, aside from all the details and the fact that Nolan has become one of my favourite directors in his relatively short career, the hype around this film can mainly come the fact that this is the first big summer blockbuster (I can think of) in years that is not a sequel/remake/reboot/adaptation, but instead a truly original script.

Dublin

I haven't used my blog in nearly a month now that term's finished, but I don't think this is due to lack of motivation since I went home for summer, it's due to lack of inspiration. For some reason I keep forgetting how dull and uninspiring Chichester can be as a home town, especially being here for a stretch as long as 3 months. I'm quite fortunate to have friends in Brighton I can escape to frequently and my dad's place in London that often stops me from going mad. But this week I grew increasingly frustrated at home and decided to escape for a bit. So, at around 3am after a (quite dull) night out, I booked a ticket to Dublin by myself to return in five days.

I've been here three days now it it's turned out to be the best decision I've made in a very long time. Being part Irish and never having been to Dublin I felt it was the obvious choice in destination - granted, I didn't quite realise just how expensive it can be, 5 euro for a pint being a cheap deal. It's a great city full of really interesting buildings and structures and I've managed to start reading and writing a lot again (of which I was doing nothing at home), meet lots of new people and just feel more relaxed in general. I'm staying in a hostel right in the centre of town and spent the last two nights on pub crawls with a group of 30-year old, ultra-conservative American frat-brothers from Ohio and New Mexico who are on a reunion.

I've been reading two books, one a background to British Politics and the other called 'the Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable', a theory put forward by Nassim Nicholas Taleb about the logic behind randomness and uncertainty and how we deal with events. I really like his ideas about things becoming 'predictable' only after they occur, and his thoughts about man's great ability/determination to apply logic to rare, unpredictable events afterwards in order to make it seem as if they could have been easily foreseen. I will write more about this once I've finished the book.