How Inception Could Have Been Great

This is random, but I was thinking about Inception, and you know what I wish? I wish Nolan had asked a different visual director to construct a different "dreamscape" for each character. One of the things that disappointed me about Inception was that all of the characters' minds appeared to be so uniform and geometric - apparently, everyone dreams about living in a James Bond movie, and there is no discrepancy between Leonardo Dicaprio's mind and Cillian Murphy's. Nolan would respond to the change in subconscious level by just shifting the location. A snowy mountain with a military-like complex, really? That's Cillian Murphy's deepest, darkest level of subconscious, his innermost refuge? The essence of dreams, the inexplicable and unfathomable details that leave us lying awake in the morning, musing - were left out. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if each dream level had been a different world, each designed by a different director - like Guillermo Del Toro or David Lynch? Wouldn't that have made Inception so beautiful to revisit?

Unfortunately, I've seen it once and have no interest in seeing it again. I feel like Nolan was more influenced by videogames than he was by dreams. Time up, points earned, faceless enemies counted - onto the next level!

A Very Tarantino Dream

I had a dream last night about Quentin Tarantino (!). We were sitting together and collaborating for his next movie. Ideas were spinning out of his head faster than I could process them, though at point I told him it reeked in comparison to Pulp Fiction. "And you want to make the protagonist have a dead wife?" I said scornfully. "That's so Christopher Nolan."

"Nolan is a silly director," he muttered, still writing feverishly. "In my hands it'll will be instant auteur material." I nodded, very impressed. Then I opened my mouth again to ask him what he thought of Bright Star - I always strongly associate Tarantino with Bright Star, since one of the biggest surprises of 2009 was hearing that Tarantino was a strong fan, and even wrote Jane Campion a letter detailing his appreciation for the movie. Sadly, my dream zoomed into another dimension before I could ask the question.

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