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For me, there are few things like the experience of a good movie in the theatre, it’s one of the reasons it’s my desire to make films for audiences. A great film is hard enough to do, but if you as a filmmaker can make a great film and suck the audience into its world to the point that the theatre comes under the films control – well there’s nothing like experiencing that. To this day I still remember what it was like when I first watched Jurassic Park and felt that dinosaurs were real, sat in Seabiscuit and realized audience members around me were cheering for a horse onscreen, and I know that the collective gasp and gleeful astoundment that came with the credits of Inception will stay with me as well.

I can’t tell you much about the actual plot of Inception, both because it’s so beautifully complicated I wouldn’t know how to begin, and because the film deserves to be watched for the first time with the freshest eyes you can, so that you too can be completely caught in the wonder. By saying the film is beautifully complicated does not mean it does not make sense, this is a film that is the complex, exquisite brainchild of master craftsman Christopher Nolan.

I do not throw the word auteur around much as I believe film is a collaborative process and auteur limits the results to one man’s contribution, but upon seeing this film I believe Christopher Nolan deserves the title of auteur. Inception could not be made without him completely involved in every aspect of the film – it reeks of an auteur’s hand.

With every film Christopher Nolan seems to be getting better. Even though the man makes giant films that make money hand over fist, I would in no way call him a commercial director, and I mean that as a compliment. Nolan makes films that achieve worldwide attention, steal the top stop at the box office, and gain critical recognition, yet they are by no means simple. Christopher Nolan has mastered the art of being able to tell a worthy, intricate tale in a compelling and entertaining way, getting the best performances possible out of his actors, and trusting the audience to come into his world instead of making his films fit into theirs. This is a balsy approach in a filmmaking era where tentpole films are generally more flash than substance and the audience leaves happy, but rarely thinking about what they actually watched for anything more than the adrenaline that it pumped through them. This is the reason it’s my desperate dream to have Christopher Nolan as a directing mentor – there could be no better hands to sit under and study.

Inception is worthy of all the critical praise it has received and I hope that it continues to surmass more critical and audience praise as it continues down it’s theatrical journey. I for one and excited to see what the visuals will look like on the IMAX screen, as they are already astoundingly visual on the standard screen. I can’t wait to go down the rabbit hole again and begin dreaming with Christopher Nolan one more time.

Director & Writer: Christopher Nolan
Cobb: Leonardo DiCaprio
Arthur: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Ariadne: Ellen Page
Eames: Tom Hardy
Saito: Ken Wantanabe
Yusuf: DiLeep Rao
Robert Fischer Jr.: Cillian Murphy
Browning: Tom Berenger
Mal: Marion Cotillad
Maurice Fischer: Pete Postlethwaite
Miles: Michael Caine
Mash: Lukas Haas

Cobb: You're asking me for Inception. I hope you do understand the gravity of that request.

Christine Brown has a great life; she is a loan processor up for promotion to assistant manager, her boyfriend is cute, successful and well off, and her life is on the up. Then one day at work she finds out that unless she can be trusted to make the hard decisions her co-worker Stu will get the promotion. Unfortunately for Christine she decides to start making the hard decisions the day that Mrs. Ganush comes to her for the third extension on her mortgage; when turned down Mrs. Ganush decides to seek retribution and curses Christine so that the Lamia will torment her and drag her to hell in three days.

Sam Raimi has a talent I envy. He takes some of the most bizarre pieces imaginable and turns them into startlingly striking images, he does this in Drag Me to Hell. Raimi has the corner on being strange, quirky, creepy and downright beautifully visual. His films have what so few young directors have now, when you see a Raimi film you know that it is a Raimi film – it cannot be mistaken for anything else.

Like most of Raimi’s horror films, I didn’t really enjoy this on my initial viewing. However, if this follows the pattern of his other horror films it will improve on me if I see it a second time. What bothers me about Raimi’s horror films are that he enjoys the gross out horror, and he telegraphs his films. I can tell you exactly what will happen for each plot point in the film and when it will happen. It’s downright clichéd and predictable. Normally, this gets brushed off by me because it’s hand-held directing, but somehow with each viewing Raimi’s films normally become more entertaining for me because deep down Raimi does have a considerable amount of skill – movies like Spiderman 1 & 2 have proven that.

I am also enjoying that Justin Long is getting some good parts. In Drag Me to Hell Long plays the boyfriend, a young college professor whose blue-blooded parents aren’t sure Christine is right for him. Long is able to be the one stable, grounded, human force in the otherwise bizarre horror-comedy – he is the sweet boyfriend every girlfriend dreams of having.

Drag Me to Hell is not the perfect Sam Raimi movie. However, it definitely feels like Raimi was trying to clense his psyche and appease his fans after the travesty that was Spiderman 3. The one signature missing from this film was an appearance from Bruce Campbell, I am going to have to hope that maybe he'll guest in Raimi's next project.

Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Sam & Ivan Raimi
Christine Brown: Alison Lohman
Clay Dalton: Justin Long
Mrs. Ganush: Lorna Raver
Ram Jas: Dileep Rao
Mr. Jacks: David Paymer