ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

Daddy’s got a new .45.

But this .45 isn’t the kind of .45 you think it is.  It’s a revolver chambered in the .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (.45ACP) cartridge.

With much joy from the results of the 2010 Mid-Term Election Victories, we celebrate with a Smith & Wesson 625JM:

The particular model (625JM) is an item specifically marketed in conjunction with Jerry Miculek, the world’s fastest revolver shooter.  It features a tuned trigger mechanism, custom grips, and an engraved “JM” marking on the side all while wearing an attractive matte stainless steel finish.

The 625 is the modern incarnation of the S&W Model of 1917 revolver pressed into use during World War I as a substitute arm for the US military.  Colt and other companies couldn’t turn out enough Colt .45 Model 1911 semi-auto pistols at the time, so the Army came to Colt and Smith & Wesson and asked them to modify their already-in-production revolver line to handle the standard issue .45ACP cartridge.

Now I know what you’re saying:  “But Carnivore, how does a .45 ACP cartridge without a rim and designed for a semi-auto function in a revolver with an extractor mechanism which requires the rimmed edge of a cartridge designed for a revolver?”

Well, back during WWI when  the Army came to Smith & Wesson and Colt and asked them to produce a revolver in .45 ACP, they needed to devise a way to make it headspace and extract in a revolver.  A simple, but brilliant device was manufactured out of stamped sheet metal to load an extract the rimless .45ACP cartridges, 3 at a time, which we know as the half moon clip.

The half moon clip has developed into the full moon clip which allows for rapid reloads of all 6 cartridges at a time.  You can reload just as fast as Jerry Miculek if you are good.

A lot of people think revolvers are outdated for home defense, but a 6-shot S&W Model 625 chambered in the powerful .45ACP offers plenty of big medicine for any home defense situation.  The adjustable sights and smooth trigger action make it great for the target range and competitions as well.

The all-American Smith & Wesson 625 in all-American .45ACP.  The perfect way to celebrate the all-American conservative election victories of 2010.

There aren’t really any conspiracy theories I believe in. Occam’s Razor is practically a religious tenant of mine.

At the same time, those who believe in conspiracy theories tend to hold onto them with a suspension of disbelief that Scientologists would envy. Maybe that’s why I love reading them so much. You hear one perspective of an event that piques your interest, then you get to read intelligent people surgically break down every leap of logic and misstated fact about the conspiracy. It’s always two stories for the price of one. The best part might be the feeling of condescending intelligence that you temporarily borrow from the experts who are assertively telling you the truth about a myth they are tired of debunking.

What makes conspiracy theories interesting are not just the fantastical yarns of fiction accepted as fact nor how they co-opt so many people into a false conventional wisdom. Conspiracy theories are most interesting when an event occurs and people coincidentally act the exact same as if there was a conspiracy. Like in these instances:

For all of the fear that Christine O’Donnell was going to completely embarrass the Republican Party – and she has – wouldn’t a puppet master of sorts put an O’Donnell out there to make Rand Paul and Sharron Angle look moderate or even take attention away from them?

Are the establishment Republicans preparing to seamlessly co-opt the most popular platforms and politicians of the Tea Party in order to marginalize the rest of the movement in 2012 in order to seem like the centrist party compared to the Tea Party and the Democrats?

Wouldn’t the Democrats want to promote some fringe and inexperienced candidates on the right to split the conservative vote? Um, scratch that!

Was 2008 a marketing test of Sarah Palin’s political appeal during a “can’t win” election? And now 2010 is the 2nd part to test her political viability?

With his Administration chastising their liberal base for being unappreciative and openly antagonizing them with a stay on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, is Obama trying to lose this election so he can run against a Republican Congress in 2012 the same way Harry Truman ran against the “Do Nothing” Congress in 1948?

http://twitter.com/Evil_Con

Ok.  It’s an old story.  But it still should wrankle.

While leading the House in the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, representative Betty McCollum deliberately omitted the words “Under God.”  The video is here.  It’s fully obvious that it wasn’t a ‘catch in the throat’ or anything of that nature.

This isn’t likely to change the complexion of her almost certain re-election bid.  But now that it’s surfaced again will the local media finally cover the story a week from the election?  I’m not holding my breath.

It was no big surprise when Arnie Carlson threw his Republican roots fully under the bus and his support behind the Independence party candidate for governor.  Arnie morphed long ago from the penny-pinching auditor that Minnesota knew and loved into a no-tax-increase-left-behind progressive.

Today’s announcement that former Governor Al Quie has done the same is less expected.  To be sure, Mr. Quie has caught a whiff of the same progressive disease that infects much of Minnesota’s political culture.  His recent efforts include proposals to push citizens further away from the selection of judges into the better arms of political appointees.

At this point it’s rather difficult to know what it is about Tom Horner’s positions that Quie finds more appealing when contrasted with Tom Emmer’s.  Neither Horner’s press release or the Star Tribune story have any detail.  But it’s a sad ending to what used to be a grand political career that believed in citizen governance rather that citizen shepherding.  I have great respect for Mr. Quie’s past, including his recent work in prison ministry, and it has been my honor to work with him in that capacity.

So long, Al…we’ll remember you fondly.

It’s been puzzling to see the Obama Administration once again shilling for the Healthcare bill. One can imagine them and other federal Democrats taking the most well-polled aspects of the law – no pre-existing conditions prohibiting the purchase of medical coverage for children, the ability for parents to keep their children on plans until age 26, no lifetime limits on coverage – and these insulated liberals thinking “if only the American people really knew how important these new requirements are, then they would like this health care bill more.”

The Administration does not seem to realize that they have reminded us of these portions of the bill for almost a year. And all of these things do not outweigh the fact that even if all of the few dozen or so positively-viewed aspects took up an absurd 1,000 pages to detail in the legislation, there are still 1,700 pages of regulations, mandates and layers of bureaucracy Americans don’t like and are learning more about every week. 

But why are they calling attention to the millstone around the entire Democratic Party’s neck so close to the midterm elections? It was the millstone around their neck in last year’s elections. Scott Brown ran for the Liberal Lion’s seat in Massachusetts as the 41st vote against Obamacare and won.

Apparently they felt that since the inaugural provisions of the Affordable Care Act were set to begin on September 23rd, the past week was the perfect time to re-communicate these new provisions and as an extension defend the legislation as a whole.

This is likely to backfire on the Democrats because the September 23rd date is very misleading. The mandates they are campaigning on do not take effect on September 23rd for the 59% of Americans under 65 who receive health care through their employer.  They take effect on their employer plan’s renewal date after September 23, 2010.

The Administration is hurting themselves with the employees of organizations that renew on off-calendar year cycles – the most common being July 1st (mid-year) and September 1st for some schools. These inaugural health care law provisions will not go into effect with these plans until July 1, 2011 and September 1, 2011. Employees of organizations that renew that far into 2011 will be disappointed if they hear from Kathleen Sebelius that they can cover their child that recently graduated from college in one of the worst job markets in history, but discover they cannot until their renewal date well into 2011.

The real harm the Administration is doing to themselves and their party is with the majority of the employed and their families around the country. Most employers renew on a calendar year basis so the provisions being touted are still months away from affecting even their employees on the January 1st renewal date.

Like the past dozen years, most employer medical plans are increasing their contributions from employees’ paychecks and increasing the cost-sharing for medical care (i.e. higher deductibles, coinsurance and copays). But this is the first year of medical coverage under Obamacare, which might leave some to believe that these increases won’t be like last year’s.

What’s bad for the Democrats is the new health care law requires all employers to communicate these higher costs to their employees at least 60 days before the renewal date. 60 days before the January 1st renewal date of most employer plans is November 1st. Election day is November 2nd. To be sure to meet that 60 day deadline, most employers are likely to communicate these increased costs sooner for their employees and their families over the coming weeks.

The message on this kitchen table issue will be clear, health care reform isn’t going to make medical plans cost less over the next year. Costs are actually going up as much or more than prior years. The Democrats just gave themselves their own October surprise.

http://twitter.com/Evil_Con

Over at Powerline Paul Mirengoff discusses the problems Dino Rossi is having securing the Washington Senate seat from a weak incumbant, Patty Murray.  The problem might actually stem from some early missteps taken by Rossi.  A good friend of mine is involved in GOP politics in the Seattle area.  We were discussing the Tea Party movement early this year when he mentioned that Rossi was invited to a Tea Party event to express his views.  Apparently, his response was (and still is) along the lines of  ‘Not on your life! Stay away! You need me more than I need you.’

From press and blogs in Washington that summation is probably correct.  But this blogger makes an astute point:

Senator Murray has a huge amount of money built up for her re-election campaign and Dino Rossi is correct when he states that he will be out spent in this campaign. It SHOULD not be too much of a concern though because of the arrival of grassroots organizations such as the local Tea Parties. You cannot put a dollar figure on the support of these groups. However, it is these very groups that Dino Rossi has made an incomprehensible decision to distance himself from.

The Murray seat was very winnable; but after trailing she’s now 5 points up (the usual caveats apply).  Rossi could have split the seam by showing unity with the Tea Party on a couple of points.  It certainly seems that he does agree with many of the Tea Party’s main concerns (government is too big, has too much debt, taxes too much, regulates too much, bails out too much).  But if he’s too afraid to show it, then maybe he’s not a very strong candidate to begin with.

Look, it’s great that the right-wing grassroots is motivated which will bring up the turnout and money needed to sweep a large number of Republicans into power this year. Endorsements from the Tea Party and Sarah Palin work very well in states and districts that lean to the right, but in blue states they can be trouble.

One of those states is Delaware.

Joe Biden’s Senate seat was more than probable to be a Republican pickup by former Governor and Congressman Mike Castle.

Castle is pretty liberal, but he would put us one seat closer to a Senate majority needed to halt and overturn the Obama agenda.

Christine O’Donnell seems like a nice enough woman. I remember seeing her on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect show when I first began following politics in the mid-90’s. She didn’t talk about much issues besides abstinence to which she spoke very candidly about her (lack of a) sex life.

I don’t think this is going to play well in the Northeast.

The Tea Party is apparently giving O’Donnell $200,000 to defeat Castle and pledged to give $600,000 toward her campaign (it’s unclear if that is only an additional $400,000).

But how much will the Democrats now put into the Delaware race? There were just reports leaking Democrats’ strategy of triage where the national campaign committees were going to form their own death panels and only divert resources to very few races in an attempt to hold the majorities. The Administration’s plan to rally the base speaks to this defensive mode of maintaining a turnout to prevent a disastrous November rather than reach out to swing voters.

Now the Republicans have to spend more time and money on a very winnable race instead of narrower contests. Likewise, the Tea Party is invested in a state it won’t be popular in instead of states where they will be the difference in many races.

The worst part: there is a really good chance this could be the candidate that careens off the precipice that Rand Paul and Sharon Angle have already dangled over by saying the most outrageous statement of the 2010 election season that will jeopardize Republican challengers all of the nation.   

That is, if O’Donnell wins tonight.

This is what happens when these simpleton checkers players begin playing political chess.

The best part: for the rest of the campaign I can choose from 11 different bourbons purchased on the Kentucky Distillery tour my wife took me on.

http://twitter.com/Evil_Con

______________________________________

References:

Why Castle is the obvious choice for Republicans: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/2010_delaware_senate_race.html

Kentucky Bourbon Trail – absolutely awesome: http://www.kybourbontrail.com/

Why does Mark Levin have to be so bombastic? John McCormack did basic research and came up with this embarrassing information about O’Donnell. The Democrats are going to railroad her: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/mark-levin-emails-lol-i-think-youre-ass-you-can-quote-me

The Hammer nails Palin and Jim DeMint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9djTPMkPQc

Rich Lowry compares O’Donnell to Toomey and Angle: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/246455/when-lose-rich-lowry

Jay Cost is now writing long articles every day for The Weekly Standard. Mandatory Reading: http://www.theweeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-delaware-fun-facts-house-polls-ny-rebound-and-more

http://www.theweeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-coming-dem-pocalypse-senate-polls-cooks-dire-warning-and-more

Rubin Rosario, columnist for the Pioneer Press, had an article on page 1A yesterday regarding Muslims at the State Fair who will be informing the attendees that Islam is a religion of peace.  Mr. Rosario accepts all their premises unquestioningly, and heaps scorn all who might not agree.

The day his article appeared happened to be the 15th day of Ramadan.  To that point during the holy holiday the following can be noted:

Terrorism in the name of Islam:  94 attacks, 396 dead.

Terrorism in the name of all other religions:  0 attacks, 0 dead.

Muslims indeed should be talking about how Islam is a religion of peace.  But they, and Mr. Rosario, are trying to convince the wrong people.

It’s really difficult to grasp what passes for ‘Letter of the Day’ honors at the Star-Tribune. Today’s selection reads as follows:

Letter of the day: In English-only debate, recall our Minnesota ancestors

The folks who carried multi-language welcome signs in the Lino Lakes parade are simply heroic (”Lino Lakes parade attracts an act of ‘civil obedience,’” Aug. 22). I applaud them for proclaiming a message of inclusivity rather than the “English-only” propaganda. They are a group of astute Minnesotans who remember that their ancestors came over speaking German, Swedish or other languages. Clearly, many other Minnesotans have forgotten.

Where to begin? First of all, while our Minnesota ancestors arrived speaking other languages, they committed themselves to learning English.  I’m willing to bet the above author’s ancestors were immigrants who did not speak English; ironic that she writes it so well.  Second, the practice of ‘inclusivity’ was displayed in this country’s acts of accepting their immigration and assimilation.  ‘Inclusive’ does not mean the place you moved to will change to suit your tastes.  Third, ‘English only’ is not propaganda or racism, but common sense. It is unreasonable to multiply taxpayer burdens by providing services in all imaginable languages.  Fourth, those who write such letters or march in such parades would do better to volunteer their services teaching ‘English as a Second Language’ courses.

The Drudge Report headline yesterday in red and all caps “SHOCK VIDEO: DEM CONGRESSMAN BRAGS: ‘FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN DO MOST ANYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY’…”

If you’re inclined to get your week off on the wrong foot, you had no choice but to watch – knowing it would infuriate you.

But what Drudge highlighted wasn’t what that clip was about.

Instead, it was the essence of the political debate over domestic policy in this nation for the past century and likely for the next century.

First, the latest characters in this great drama. On one side of the debate was Pete Stark the Democrat Congressman from California – casually dressed to match the appearance of his constituents which betrays his 37 years inside the Beltway.

Then we see an ordinary American woman – unpolished and reading off a prepared statement. Stammering her way through a question she was taught by our inadequate education system to write over and over, but not trained in the oratory to deliver the final product.

She clumsily quotes the 13th Amendment and uses a highly emotive word like “slavery” in lieu of the better analogy of involuntary servitude. She chooses a shocking word because it’s the best way to convey her anger. Anger that gave her the energy to google all of her research and write-out her question.

She has an intuition, a sense that there is something that doesn’t seem quite right about the new Health Care Reform bill that gives all Americans the right to health care.

What she senses intuitively is one side of the debate of maintaining the existing Bill of Rights that was ratified with the original Constitution rather than supplementing it with a Second Bill of Rights.

The Second Bill of Rights are a list of entitlements that all Americans are to be given such as health care, housing, employment compensated by a living wage, and an education. These are positive rights and are often regarded by Democrat politicians (like Rep. Stark) to be on the same level as negative rights since FDR introduced this litany in 1944. 

Aside from your rights as a potentially accused criminal, the original Bill of Rights consists mainly of rights that you as an individual can perform as an action and the government cannot infringe on your right to perform that action yourself. The woman used the Founding Fathers description of “inalienable.” They are also called negative rights because each individual has these rights and it is a violation for another person to prevent these actions from happening. 

The major issue that is being debated right now is not so much philosophical, but the realization – made worse by a bad economy – that in order to implement the Second Bill of Rights for all Americans, then there must be an infringement on the liberty and property of other citizens. Either by requiring those with the necessary skills to provide these services for Americans who could not otherwise have them or by enforcing on the most productive citizens a punitive tax burden needed to adequately fund the former.

In this particular clip, the woman discusses an overlooked aspect of the health care debate which gets to the heart of the real-world consequences of implementing the Second Bill of Rights.

In order to have the right to something like health care, then it must be delivered to us by professionals who will likely not be compensated appropriately for their services. So doctors and nurses will be forced to provide health care services to people they would otherwise not deliver care to.

The same thing would happen if other positive rights are given to us.

For a person to have the right to be employed at a living wage there must be an enforcement of employers to hire people and pay them a minimum amount predetermined by authorities. Likewise engineers and construction workers would have to designate property to build homes and apartment buildings for every American to live in so the land cannot be used for commercial interests. And teachers must educate everyone, even those who fail and drop out. A plight that sounds remarkably similar to doctors having to spend more time treating patients that have used their money to diminish their health with bad food and smoking without paying anything for health care over the past few years.

The framework of these debates pits FDR’s promise of a Second Bill of Rights against the original Bill of Rights. Everything in the Second Bill of Rights is based on you getting something from someone else and that infringes on someone else’s liberty and property.

http://twitter.com/Evil_Con

Jersey Shore – Season Two Premiere at 10pm EST Thursday night on MTV. Season One marathon leading up to it begins at 1pm EST. I’ve had this date circled for a month.

I’m predicting a 5.5 rating or higher.

This season Vinny is going to vault himself to be as valuable as cast members Snooki, Situation, Pauly D and Jwoww. He’s the smartest member of the cast. He’ll find his groove with observational humor and one-liners in the midst of the drama.

In February, Philalawyer had a discussion asking his readers to define the exact makeup of the tools that cause us misery every day. Lots of harsh language here.

After reading many insightful comments in the attempt to find a definition of a tool, I created a flow chart of sorts that can be used to pinpoint this elusive, yet destructive creature. Four resounding “Yeses” and you’ve got yourself a tool.

There is no better way to define something than through examples and Jersey Shore was the perfect place to test out The Tool Mechanism. You might be surprised who it is.

__________________________

Before this thread, a tool had to be identified through a process of elimination similar to how ALS is diagnosed by ruling other diseases out. Now there’s been consensus with Red’s hypothesis that all tools are douchebags.  So we need to analyze 2 douchebags and differentiate the tool according to this list of agreed-upon traits that are unique to tools. Let’s use Jersey Shore “stars” Mike “The Situation”  and Ronnie  in the following proposed framework.

1) Tools are being used – The product they’re hawking is usually crap: the internal campaign within the company about its “culture” or maybe they’re promoting the latest movies at the water cooler and on social networking sites as a way to show what they think you perceive as cool. What they are unknowingly promoting changes often because they don’t understand cool is a state of being not shifting with trends. We’ll get to their awareness of this next.

Situation – A total douchebag, but he sometimes is playing up to the cameras. He’s promoting himself to get his own show and his Gym, Tan, Laundry lifestyle. The latter is a bit toolish.

Ronnie – A complete tool. Fauxhawks, meatheads, glitter shirts, “My girlfriend  is the hottest girl in the Shore”… the guy is a freaking shill for everything guido. He’s a shapeshifter – angry, fighting, sad, lonely, loving all in one segment of the show – with no personality. His girlfriend Sammi manipulates him by talking crap and getting into fights. He manipulates her by telling her not to trust other people in the house (his office for the summer).

2) Tools take the archetype to the extreme – Lack of self-awareness and a lack of authenticity leads to the tool’s adaptability. Which trait comes first is arguing the chicken and the egg. The manifestation of those symptoms comes from little feeling of self-worth. They work the most hours every day not because there’s work, but because that’s what they think successful people do. They post that they saw The Hangover for the third time because they think everyone says it’s the funniest movie ever.

The Situation – He’s a guido, but he doesn’t talk about how proud he is to belong. He has too big of an ego to talk about a group and the show would have been different without him.

Ronnie – He looks and acts the most like a guido even though Pauly D’s blowout and nickname should have won running away. JWow called Ronnie “the most down to earth” which fits whatever planet that acne-ridden, cum depository is from. To Les’ point, he narrows an already narrow world – guidoes in Seaside Heights was reduced to him and Sammi alone together. He could have been replaced by any meathead and the show wouldn’t have changed at all. His avatar in the show’s beginning credits was him laughing.

3) Arrogance about their shill skill – Possibly the most grating personality trait. If only it was self-promotion like other douchebags. Instead we deal with a condescending attitude toward others that only a true believer could conjure. This is where we get BL1Y’s “the myth of their own self.”  The tool epitomizes the person who not only thinks he is the starring character in the movie about his life, but he is deluded to believe every other character in the drama should be more like him for a climactic ending of total peace and harmony in the world.

Situation – He is not nearly as self-deprecating as he should be. When he got too defensive he was being a tool, but he gave some props to people on the Reunion show when they busted on him as he grows into a more watchable douchebag.

Ronnie – He’s regressing. During the Reunion he tried to get into a rivalry with The Situation and couldn’t even articulate why he was better except how some random slut in the house liked him. Instead of a comeback line when he gets put down, it’s just “yeah whatever, bro” because a taste of his own haterade is petty to him.

4) The sheer hopelessness of their plight – It’s like they don’t know how the world works. This is why we feel sad for them when we are on break from being annoyed by them. They live in the world of office politics because their social lives fall of the cliff within two years of entering the workforce. That’s when their college friends stopped feeling the need to hang out with the tool because they no longer live together in a dorm. The same thing happened to the tool’s high school friends he lost touch with by the second semester.

There was one particular tool I know who c-blocked so many people unintentionally that we just called him The Shield. This tool had a Masters in Communications, but couldn’t figure out why he was always rejected for jobs and never promoted at his current one. He came up in conversation when my friend (who knew him longer) just said, “He has a Masters in Communications and he has no communication skills!” I’m not going to go into the MA in Comm part, but what do you do when someone gets worse at what they are studying to get better at?

Situation – Along with Snooki, he’s going to command the most money at club appearances and may even be given his own show at some point.

Ronnie – He’s Sammi’s boyfriend. There is nothing else noteworthy about him except getting into a bunch of fights. He’s going to be a mope the next season.

And speaking of tools, let’s talk about this guy that watched every episode of Jersey Shore twice and posted about it on some lawyer’s website then re-posted it on a political blog telling everyone to watch the show.

http://twitter.com/Evil_Con

There are a million people that offer their opinions on movies. The only time I would be tempted to do so is when there is a culturally relevant work and there’s an insight I’m compelled to share when no one else has said it.

For 2010, it looks like Inception is going to be that movie. It’s very good and a great idea for a movie, but that’s pretty much it. I’m sharing some thoughts below because people’s responses are predictably blown out of proportion to the quality of the film.

In the Internet Age, polarity and extreme views are the default position of content creators in order to get noticed. The movie is absurdly ranked #3 with a 9.2 out of 10 on IMDB’s Top 250 of All Time surrounded by both Godfathers. So let’s find a middle ground.

There are people out there absolutely gaga over this movie so feel free to read up on them here.   I agree with a lot of the praise. At the same time I have something different to say than some of the critical panning on that link that borders on obnoxious like saying the movie was “full of second-rate aesthetics.”

There’s a lot that was good. Christopher Nolan’s idea for the movie was an 11 out of 10. It’s a movie that should be seen in theaters and is likely going to be one of the best of the year. Even though the 11 blasted through the 10 Scale already, I might even give the concept a 12 or 13 as bonus points for an idea that could be pulled off best as a movie.

Inception gives the audience a lot to talk about and those types of movies are rare so that’s another plus. The issue with the movie is that while the concept of the movie was great, the execution of the concept was simply good.

We should definitely give credit to the filmmakers for going in an intelligent direction with the story. Inception could have been a feast of visual effects limited only by Nolan’s imagination. But that would have been an obvious path for the film and the final product would have been hindered by comparisons to the effects of Avatar – which was fortunate to escape comparisons to video games (but that’s another story).

About 40 minutes into Inception, something started bothering me and it never stopped even though I was enjoying what was happening on screen. The movie demands your full attention. I pretty much understood the plot and it deserves a second viewing on DVD, but I doubt even that would resolve some of the issues the movie suffers from.

Characters and Casting

A quick general comment before getting into specifics: many artists after achieving critical acclaim will do a big budget project like Inception to cash in on their newfound glory. Conversely, many artists who have gotten a big payday will get involved with a “passion project” in theater or independent film that will likely pay very little.

This applies mainly to two actors: Marion Cotillard and Juno. Both were nominated for Best Actress in 2008 with Cotillard winning. Inception was one of the “payday” movies that each chose to do. They’re both good actors, but that doesn’t mean they were right for the roles. Cotillard was a fine choice to fill the award-winner’s payday quota for the picture.  But…

Do you know what a girl playing a 16 year-old pregnant girl looks like 2 years after that role? An 18 year-old. Do you know how old that character should have been? 24 – minimum. This casting decision was the third-biggest problem of the film. If that character had to be a student, then she should have at least been a graduate student; we’ll get to that momentarily.

Juno was way too young to play this role. It doesn’t matter how old Ellen Page really is, she looks like a kid and is too close to a career-defining role as a teenager for her to be cast as anything without the audience thinking she’s one. That’s why I’m calling her that; because I had to fight the thought she was anyone else as it came to mind several times. These are the highest stakes possible: dangerous multi-layer dream expeditions with control of the world’s energy supply hanging in the balance and you have a kid as the architect of this complex world? Honest to blog, it was ridiculous enough when Julia Stiles was in The Bourne Identity, but she’s an Amazon-size woman that could’ve passed for late-20’s.

Leonardo DiCaprio – what the hell happened here? I have never been a DiCaprio hater; quite the opposite, it wasn’t the most popular thing for a guy to tell his friends that DiCaprio should have received a Best Actor nomination for Titanic. If they were giving the damn thing for every other award, you figure they would throw him at least a nomination for all of the girls that went 15 times just to see him.

Maybe he’s lacking in range or Nolan was complacent with subpar takes, but he went from this wide-eyed charming look in the first multi-billion dollar movie to having this angry constipated face in numerous scenes of Inception. The worst instance of this was when Juno confronts him about how his dead wife is being projected into other people’s dreams during missions. I think Leo wanted me to feel the sadness and frustration of a man in emotional pain over the loss of a loved one and how it was distracting his ability to work. But the whole time I was waiting for him to just suddenly grab Juno by the arm, hold a coat hanger in front of her face, and yell out “It’s this or a kick down the stairs!! Which way do you want it?!”

Two highlights in the casting were Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Ledger. Hardy is a badass and I hope this new MMA movie he’s in absolutely crushes the box office with a quality story to match. That sport has yet to be done right on the big screen. Worse, the attempts so far – Redbelt, Never Back Down, and the well-thought-out title: Fighting – have been embarrassingly bad.

It’s clear that the kingmakers in Hollywood are giving Gordon-Levitt what would have been Heath Ledger’s career. The kid deserves it. The same thing happened to DiCaprio when he started getting the roles that probably would have gone to River Phoenix.

Gordon-Levitt had the best role in the movie and he was great. The problem: this shouldn’t have been the best role in the movie.

The Setup

The best role in the movie should have been Robert Fischer the target of the inception. In the second-biggest mistake the filmmakers made, there was a poor setup of the plot of the entire movie!

I didn’t care a whole lot about whether or not Fischer decided to split up the companies. This is not just a key plot point; this is the explanation of the entire plot and it is inexplicably glossed over. In a pedestrian manner, Ken Watanabe explains to DiCaprio (and the audience) the danger to the world of Robert Fischer having a company that controls nearly all of the world’s energy. A little cliché, but the stakes need to be high for this movie to work and that’s about as high as it gets.

It’s not that I didn’t understand what was at stake or what was going on; it was that I was not involved on a visceral level of whether or not the team would succeed in their mission. The stakes of the movie are high, but because it’s explained too quickly with words instead of us being shown Fischer in scenes long enough to get the audience emotionally invested in the plot as it unfolds and its ultimate outcome.

Did you ever get the sense that Robert Fischer was this evil son that was arrogant and determined to rule the world? Yes, it would likely corrupt someone to have as much power as he was about to be given, but there was no evidence that it would have been really, really bad if the team failed the mission. We don’t know much about Fischer except the background in two or three brief scenes before we’re inside the dreams.

This could have been great role that required a range of being a hated or at least disliked antagonist who the audience gradually empathized with, felt the suspense of whether or not he was going to receive the inception, and really felt for him in the Level 3 dream as he at last opens the safe and breaks down in front of his father. We care about him as a character but not his character’s emotional investment in his father except for one memory of childhood and we’re not invested enough in his investment in the company.

That last scene was played perfectly, but had there been a better setup the scene would have had much more of an emotional impact and led to a more satisfying conclusion to the film.

I think a scene that could have worked earlier in the film to set this up could have gone like this:

Tom Berenger: Now you listen to me! This is my last shot at a corporate chairmanship and for some of the projections it could be their only shot. I don’t know what happened to you. But if you ever, ever tank another subconscious dream defense like you did today, I’m gonna cut your nuts off and stuff ‘em down your fuckin throat!

Cillian Murphy: Well that’s if you catch me with those 50 extra pounds you’re been hauling that’ve made you unrecognizable. How ironic you haven’t exercised since you were in a movie called Training Day! [runs away like a pansy]

The Tone

Maybe the reason why the Fischer plot wasn’t given the emotional weight it should have been was so it didn’t overshadow the climax of DiCaprio confronting his wife – a plot given much less time, but managed to hit the right emotions.

This goes along with the setup because this is what bothered me from the outset of the film. I’m going to give the filmmakers props for not insulting the intelligence of the viewer by refusing to spoon-feed us the plot and the “rules” of this fantasy universe. But this led to the whole movie having a very non-chalant tone between all of the characters.

There’s only one fish out of water (Juno) and she wasn’t truly led into the world – which is really the audience being led into the world – as the story unfolds. Everything outside the rules of reality just wasn’t a big deal to anyone besides her and she quickly became as blasé as everyone else midway through the film.

Think of any movie that amazed you with a unique world. Wasn’t there a character on screen that shared in your amazement? Take The Matrix shooting script (essentially the final draft of a screenplay) which has Neo saying, “Shit!” when Morpheus jumps to the building across the street. But the Wachowskis were smart enough to use Keanu Reeves’ only asset as an actor – looking like an idiot. So they changed the line to his patented, “Whoa!”

The main reason I want to watch the movie again is to clarify how common or uncommon is dream manipulation in the reality that this movie takes place in. If I understand that better, then I’d understand why it seemed like the characters treated the situation like it was a typical Wednesday.

Take the scenes where DiCaprio comes to Michael Caine to recommend a new dream Architect for the Fischer project. He needs a new one because the previous Architect (Lukas Haas) is taken away. Maybe Leo was overcompensating because Haas is a real-life friend, but there was very little in terms of an emotional reaction from DiCaprio in the loss of his previous Architect. This was the first, “eh whatever” we get from this film. 

Caine recommends they poach one of his students because of her brilliance. This scene takes place in an empty lecture hall with ascending seating for about 60 students. Ok so what this guy teaches applies to the architecture of dream worlds and is just something that goes on in typical undergraduate classes?

We’re introduced to Juno and DiCaprio asks her to draw a maze to test her abilities… and it takes her several attempts. Wait a second. This girl is supposed to be brilliant. Why did that take her so many tries? Then they put her into the dream world for the first time in her life.

This is why they needed an older doctoral or at least graduate student for this role. We are supposed to believe that this is the biggest project DiCaprio and Gordon-Levitt have ever taken on. So naturally they get a very young person who can’t draw simple mazes and who doesn’t even know controlled dreaming exists. “Eh whatever.”

I admire Nolan for doing a Different World movie with non-chalant characters and forcing the audience to keep pace, but in some scenes it just didn’t work.

In one sense it was cool that there was a train in the middle of the road when they first kidnap Fischer in Level 1 and there was a shootout to give the protagonists something to confront. However, we’re 45 minutes into the movie and we don’t quite understand how this whole controlled dreaming thing works, but we’ve learned a lot so far. At this point they suddenly say Fischer has had his mind trained to attack intruders such as the team. Then the filmmakers commit a very dangerous violation of fantasy storytelling, they reverse a prior rule of the fantasy universe by telling us in the beginning of the film that dying in a dream will wake you and now they say, “Oh wait, under this level of sedation, dying makes you go to limbo.” I feel that these plot twists work and the movie wouldn’t be as effective without them. But you could argue that it seems like the film is making it up as it goes along.

Snowblind

My separate comment on the tone was an expansion on the second-biggest issue of the movie – the setup of the story. The main problem with Inception is the Level 3 dream in the mountains. From my Twitter:

Inception was fun. I’ll see it again on DVD. For you “4 star” reviewers, please explain how the ski scenes didn’t suck. #ReadMore

On Twitter you have to be really concise, something I have a problem with as you can see from this review. It would have been impossible to even hint at everything above in 140 characters or less. I’m keeping an open mind for the second viewing because it’s possible I missed some things and have nitpicked too much here.

But I doubt my opinion will change much about the mountain scenes. This was nothing more than a mindful movie showing mindless action. It was like they were under budget and thought to themselves, “We can either burn the money or spend it on unimaginative action sequences where the audience can’t tell what’s going on because everyone is wearing the same thing.”

I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, not in a “the characters are complex with an anti-hero protagonist and an antagonist with a relatable/heart-wrenching motivation” sense. I mean you literally cannot tell who is shooting at who. It was one fast cut after another and it was numbing. There can’t be much suspense amidst confusion.

I’m glad this wasn’t a special effects extravaganza, but we’re at the third level of dreaming within a dream and with the exception of Mal coming out of nowhere it seems like the rules of the real world weren’t violated much at all in this dream. It was just action.

__________________________ 

All of Christopher Nolan’s films demand a second viewing – even his first one Following. I appreciate the pressure he is under to consistently produce work of this quality; making any movie is extremely difficult and the ability to make one great one is reserved for less than 100 people around the world. Making several great movies like Nolan has done is reserved for about 100 people in the past century. However, Inception is not one of his great ones.

http://twitter.com/evil_con