Posts Tagged ‘The Matrix’

Short Take: An absolutely mind-blowing experience - One of the most creative films in years

Director: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige)

Screenwriter: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige)

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island), Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima), Marion Cotillard (Nine), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer), Ellen Page (Whip It), Cillian Murphy (Sunshine), Tom Berenger (Sinners and Saints), Tom Hardy (RocknRolla), Michael Caine (Harry Brown), Dileep Rao (Drag Me to Hell)

Length: 2h 28m

Synopsis: Neuroscientists Cobb (DiCaprio) and Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) have a unique job, which is to enter the dreams of others and navigate them in order to find out important information – mainly secrets (this is called Extraction). The invention that they use to perform such a task allows for several people to share another person’s dream, which they can more or less construct to their liking. While working within dreams may sound (pardon me) like a dream, the procedure can in fact be very dangerous. Many things can go wrong that can leave the individuals inside a dream with severe psychological problems, not the least of which is the inability to ever be sure if you’re dreaming or not. Cobb and Arthur’s newest assignment asks them to not just steal information from someone’s brain, but plant an idea in it as well (this is called Inception). The mission demands that they recruit a team and delve deeper into someone’s mind than they’ve ever gone before, and the deeper they go the less chance they have of ever waking back up. Read the rest of this entry »

Short Take: A good mix of what is traditional with what is new

Directors: Michael and Peter Spierig (Undead)

Screenwriters: Michael and Peter Spierig (Undead)

Cast: Ethan Hawke (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), Willem Dafoe (Fantastic Mr. Fox), Claudia Karvan

Length: 1h 38m

Synopsis: In the year 2019 most of the world’s population consists not of humans, but of vampires. Like a plague, the supernatural makeup of these undead has spread to all corners of the earth, dropping humanity from #1 on the food chain down to #2. Vampires soon overgrazed on their primary food source, reducing the human population to less than 5% of what it once was. If starved for human blood long enough vampires are transformed/deformed into nothing but wild animals, which is a change the vampires want to avoid at all costs. A small number of humans continues to fight for their lives with the help of certain sympathetic vampires, and together their goal is to find a cure that will re-humanize the earth. Read the rest of this entry »