My Very Own Original Thoughts on Inception (I Think)

There is nothing new I can say about the plot of Inception that isn't said here or here, but I do have a few tangentially related points that I'm pretty sure originate from my own consciousness . . . although I can't be completely sure . . .

1) In both of his 2010 films, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a role where he is married to an insane woman who detaches herself emotionally from her children . . . I think his agent should recommend a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston, not only to lighten things up a bit but also to prevent him from being type-cast as a guy who's always married to a deranged child neglecting filicidal woman;

2) Like Memento, Nolan's other mind-bending film, Inception is a far better idea than movie-- it's more fun to reflect on it than it is to actually watch it . . . and for pacing and action in this genre, I prefer The Matrix, and for shared dreams, I prefer Dark City;

3) None of the aforementioned movies is as good as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the reason is this: if you are going to be trapped in someone's mind, it's far more entertaining to dash about with Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey than to knock around with Leonardo DiCaprio and his somber crew.

Meta-Anachronism (Another Question of Dave)

How does Tank -- a self-professed child of Zion -- who claims to have been born outside of the Matrix, in reality, make the comment "Hey Mikey, I think he likes it" when Neo is down-loading ju-jitsu and various other forms  of karate . . . how could someone born outside of the computer fabricated reality make an allusion to a 1970's Life Cereal commercial which may or may not have even happened inside the complex computer program enslaving all humans in the film?

Some Good Movies and TV You May Not Have Seen #5

David Cronenberg's eXistenZ came out at the same time as The Matrix, but it wasn't as popular-- possibly because it's easier to spell "matrix" then it is to spell "eXistenZ"-- but Cronenberg's film is weird and fun and the acting is certainly more entertaining than what Keanu Reeves had to offer as Neo . . . Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh wade through multiple levels of a video game which may or may not be reality, and they run into Ian Holm, Willem Dafoe and lots of really gross props along the way.

Artificial Intelligence Invades High School English Class

 

In my new, very special episode of We Defy Augury . . . which is based on my experiences teaching high school English in the age of AI (with bonus thoughts-- loosely--based on three classic science-fiction novels: Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human and The Dreaming Jewels and They Walked Like Men by Clifford D. Simak) I attempt to answer this question: "Is AI Cheating Our Students Out of an Education?" and while I may not come to a definitive conclusion, somebody needs to address this issue . . . 

Special Guests include: Gary Gasparov, Jimmy Kimmel, The Beach Boys, Alan Turing, The Matrix, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, ChatGPT, Bard AI, and Mark "Imprint" Zuckerberg.

3/12/10

I am beginning to think that Hamlet is a little like Neo, from the film The Matrix; Hamlet is somehow subconsciously aware that he is in a play called Hamlet, he realizes that there is a larger reality than the word he inhabits, and this makes him so much larger than any other character int he play--and so he tries to direct the play's action, tone, and content, and eventually he realizes that forces beyond him (Shakespeare? God? Morpheus?) control his fate-- that he is embedded in some kind of five act program.

Kids Don't Know Shit

I can't refer to The Matrix any more in class -- my students haven't seen it-- and when my older son, who was involved in some inane either/or scenario debate with his younger brother, asked (with all sincerity) "Do you mean a pool or a pond?" I (of course) immediately said, "A pond would be good for you" but neither of them knew what I was talking about (so then I showed them the clip, but out of context it doesn't make much sense, so then I had to explain the clip to them, and then I found this ridiculous video . . . maybe I should just give up and only make allusions to stuff they've seen).

Just In Case You Thought You Had Things Under Control

Just in case you haven't read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" lately . . . or recently watched The Matrix, here is a friendly video reminder that human perception is limited, that what you see isn't what you get, and that our brains are barely hanging on to this thin thread we refer to as reality (this is also an opportune time to wish Einstein's Theory of Relativity a happy 100th birthday).

At Least It Was Short

Once again, I got sucked into another ridiculous Blake Crouch sci-fi thriller: this one is the first in a trilogy and it's called Pines . . . it's pretty much Twin Peaks plus Winesburg,Ohio inserted into The Matrix.