Said and Done
The Salt vs. Inception competition has been settled and resolved, and the plain fact is that Chris Nolan‘s film — complex plot and all — has beaten Phillip Noyce‘s despite the supreme skill and relative ease with which Salt goes down. So the Eloi weren’t intimidated and turned off by the Inception challenge, or not to any significant degree. It was a misreading on my part to suggest that they might be. I stand corrected.
This weekend wasn’t a photo finish. Inception was #1 with almost $44 million (a relatively slight 31% drop from last weekend) while Salt came in second with $36.5 millon, a little more than $7 million behind. By the standard of a strong film tripling its opening weekend haul, Salt should end up with a bit more than $100 million domestic.
There’s nothing “relatively” slight about a summer blockbuster dropping only 31%. That’s amazing.
What does it say about critics that a few of them chose to pan a brainy popcorn movie like Inception and then come back a week later and praise something as mindless as Salt?
K. Bowen, well said. A.O. Scott said, in his Salt review, that the movie was loud and empty, and that wasn’t a bad thing. I know the movie’s getting some solid reviews from a number of top critics, but it seems like every single review says the movie is as mindless as you say….but then praise it for said mindlessness. I am baffled.
And yeah, this is a really great hold. Thrilled for Inception.
Gee, K. Bowen, maybe said critics realized that Salt and Inception are total apples and oranges and decided to praise/criticize each film individually, taking into account each film’s wildly different context and aspirations.
Bottom line: Nolan has saved the movies and we are all greatly indebted to him.
I saw Inception last week, might go back this week. it is good enough to see twice. Salt? I’ll get around to it when I can, or wait for the dvd.
If he’s “saved the movies” with this then we’re in even worse shape than I thought.
Though actually it isn’t an unexpected reaction. Inception is, after all, smart and clever, which is more than enough to help distinguish it from almost everything else at the multiplex. But it’s also an ultimately shallow and hollow experience, fixated on superficial questions and equally superficial answers. This goes more or less unrecognized for a variety of reasons. Nolan’s underlying philosophy (as it’s been seen to develop throughout his work to date) is an almost perfect expression of prevailing cultural attitudes; in other words, his themes and emphases articulate what the larger culture has come to see as valuable and pertinent questions–the *only* valuable and pertinent questions.
Inception’s success with the general public is not shocking as it is a sop to them. There is great value placed on things that can be “figured out” and, beyond that, the film provides a safely delimited imaginative vision, straight jacketed by the kind of deference to rationalism that the middle class has come to respect above all else (this is partially why universiites are all turning into glorified tech/training schools as well, because of capitulation to an economic construct which requires that). So it is “challenging” but it’s the sort of challenge an obsessively pragmatic society can handle and thinks is worthwhile.
Cyrus is finally playing here in Ohio. So I will see that before I watch Inception again. That’s what happens when you don’t live on one of the coasts.
JohnCope, you don’t have many friends, do you?
isn’t johncope adorable?
i went through that phase, too, johncope. and listen, bro, i still love cassavetes and renoir and reggio and jarmusch and all of the other proper filmmakers “serious” cinephiles revere, but if any of them made a film like inception, you’d be heralding it for the complex meisterwork that it is. this is really a matter of marketing. you think of yourself as above a mainstream film by “that batman guy” and so you predictably sneer at it (cue you rattling off a list of some mainstream films you like, in order to prove me wrong or whatever); were it advertised in a different package you would be gobbling it up with proper indie verve. the simple fact is, it burns you up that “that batman guy” made a film like inception, meanwhile obscure filmmakers still have their heads up their asses about how hard post-college life is.
and, really, i’m dying to know, what *is* the answer to inception? you’ve figured it out, obviously; please elucidate us. because, as far as i can tell, people are discussing the film and trying to “navigate its text”–everyone has theories and the film doesn’t provide these “shallow” answers you seem to think it does. but let me guess: you maybe saw it, “totally figured it out within the first 5 mins.,” and then just proceeded to pat yourself on the back as smugly as humanly possible for the rest of the film’s duration, content with the knowledge that you’re “not one of the sheep, man”? i mean, is that at least an approximation of you and your whole “thing”?
i also dig you lumping in the degradation of universities and that whole “capitulation to an economic construct” thing. wow, bro. that chick sitting next to you in social studies would be SO WET right now. if only she knew . . . but good stuff, bro. thorstein veblen would be proud. what’s next? lacanian psychoanalysis to explain why inception is, like, so shallow and why nolan is the new naked emperor?
PWN me, bro. pwn me.
Damn, JohnCope, what kind of movies do YOU watch? It’s posts like this make me want to thank my wife for allowing me the opportunity to get laid. Thanks wife!
movie watcher — go check out cyrus ASAP. terrific movie. dark and sad but very, very funny.
>What does it say about critics that a few of them chose to pan a brainy popcorn movie like Inception and then come back a week later and praise something as mindless as Salt?
Brainy != good and mindless != bad. It’s a question of the skill with which the films are made and how well they perform on their own terms.
Salt’s a good thriller. It deserves good reviews. Inception is much more ambitious and IMO the better film, but it does not always entertain (sometimes feels like a homework assignment while you’re watching it) and its action sequences are of uneven quality. I do not agree with, but can certainly relate to, critics who felt it missed the mark.
>It’s posts like this make me want to thank my wife for allowing me the opportunity to get laid. Thanks wife!
I wonder what’s more tiresome — the “I get laid more than you do” message-board post, or the “I could beat you up in real life” one.
Again: NO MOVIE MOMENT OF 2010, or in the entire history of cinema, has sunk an otherwise watchable movie like the prosthetic disguise sequence of SALT. 24 hours on, I’m still depressed and melancholy over how DREARY the movie becomes in the last third, from that cheesy SALT SALT SALT SALT song (seriously!!!) to the prosthetic Inspector Balls disguise to Angelina in men’s clothes for the entire last stretch… the setup for sequel ending is kind of a HUGE downer, too. MELANCHOLY and weird movie.
Actually Blue, it’s the “parents basement” post. Thanks for playing though.
And Lex, You have just turned me off of Salt completely by mentioning that song. It sounds impossibly awful. I was gonna wait for the Blu-ray release…but Inception again, it is.
phantasmata: Best. Post. Ever.
Wait, this is a joke, right? There’s not actually a song in Salt with the title in it, right? Tell me you are kidding, please.
First off, not trying to steer anyone away from SALT, because I generally love Phillip Noyce and UNEQUIVOCALLY love Angelina, and the first hour is fun and exciting and Jolie has more screen presence than just about anyone going, especially when it comes to this genre…
But, yes, about an hour in there’s an otherwise riveting action sequence where some Russian choir starts chanting SALT! SALT! SALT! SALT! Or at least that’s how I heard it. Massey confirmed it another thread, as did a friend via email… unless we’re all mistaken and it’s just generic Russian chanting, in which case I apologize. But it sure as hell sounds like a choir singing “SALT!” over and over in staccato, OMEN-like cadence.
Thanks for clearing that up. It actually doesn’t sound half as bad as I imagined it. I was thinking it was gonna be some lame techno nonsense and pictured Noyce supervising the sound mix, bobbing his head to the music and thinking “fuck, I’m hip. The kids are gonna love this shit!” kinda like that old guy in Wayne’s World with his Noah’s arcade rap.
Salt was mad mediocre. Although if there’s a word for “Most Plot in a movie under 100 minutes”, it’s the sure winner.
The action is serviceable, although I think a few of the haughtier critics are praising it too much because of Noyce’s involvement, but all the flashacks to Angie and her husband are just weird and a good number of the twists kind of insulted my intelligence.
re: The weird flashbacks: Was it sometime around QUIET AMERICAN that Noyce started using that Jonathan Demme device of characters looking straight into the lens? I can’t remember him employing it much before that, but (along with the occasional Dutch angles) it adds to the weird, melancholy, semi-arty tone that seems out of place against the cold, icy action beats. It definitely lends some personality, though, I guess.
Back in April 2009, John Horn wrote a piece positing that “smart thrillers are over” and I vehemently disagreed and I wrote the following (edited out the references to budgets which is another discussion):
———————————————-
comment #7
Gaydos says …
… Here’s an idea: make a really exciting sexy smart thriller with characters you care about, starring young appealing stars people want to see… Then let’s judge….
Posted by Gaydos at April 16, 2009 12:31 PM
———————————————
Thank you, Chris Nolan, for proving my point.
googs: Saved the movies with another remake?
Salt is a mess. One is never clear – by intention – of the motives or loyatlies of the main character, which would be fine if the movie wasn’t executed like a straight “popcorn” thriller people keep saying it is. It’s “mindless” because no attempt seems to have been made to determine what we, in the audience, are supposed to think is going on at any given moment or, okay, I’ll say it, who we’re supposed to root for. A superficial resemblance to the Bourne movies seems to have driven the filmmakers to mimic that approach, even though it makes no sense in this case. When the public ultimately rejects this, it will be simply because they don’t like it.
Another thing re: Salt:
I think Angelina Jolie is a great star and I want her to keep doing action flicks, but does anyone else think she is completely wrong for the supposedly chameleonish character she’s supposed to be playing here? Every time she did something to change her looks, all I could think was “But she’s still smoking hot.” Except when she became a man, that was just bizarre.
It is nothing short of jaw-dropping amazing that that a film as front loaded as INCEPTION dropped only 31% in its second week. As to this whole idea that the film had some sort of ambitions on being a “masterpiece’ that’s just a script everyone else cooked up in much the same way our resident no-tipping crank cooked up the SALT vs INCEPTION box office derby hook to push page views.
I guess Nolan really needs to give a press conference so he can apologize to everyone for attempting to infuse as much intelligence as he can into his movies, every which one has been a variation in the thriller genre.
@ john cope – sorry there wasn’t a Transformers movie for you this summer.
The choir is definitely chanting SALT! During the running through the woods I had to shake my head.
Anyone else have “(dismissive wanking motion)” go through their mind reading JohnCope’s post?
All the air starts leaking out of Inception once the actual inception job begins on the airplane. The endless shootouts with the faceless security team…the INTERMINABLE snow-fort battle…a new set of “dream rules” cropping up every 20 minutes in endless exposition…and a weak-ass twist at the end.
Plus, those slo-motion shots of sleeping Joseph-Gordon Levitt in the falling van! I honestly think they may have re-used the same footage three or four times.
Seriously, this is Nolan’s first stinker.
twicks: Seriously. I can play FPS games at home. I don’t need a recreation of one.
I liked Salt. Popcorn’s right. The main point of Salt is the action and it has plenty. I love Angelina Jolie. I loved that halfway throught he movie it took me down a course I didn’t expect and so had to wonder where they planned to go from here. I agree, the make-up was too John Woo, and hye, maybe that’s why Cruise turned it down, but it was fun. I enjoyed it more than A-Team and anything Bruckheimer’s done this year.
Of the 38 movies I’ve seen copyrighted 2010, Salt is in the top ten. Not top five but top ten. If it’s still in my top ten at the end of the year, we’ve had a crappy movie year.
JohnCope, see what happens for not thinking Inception is the greatest movie ever. The Stalinists come out in full force to stomp out any opposing view.
The biggest indicator of the dismal state of American movies is not that movies like Transformers or Salt get made, but the fact that a good-but-not-great movie like Inception is called a “masterpiece” simply because it is a bit more ambitious than most Hollywood movies. “Nolan has saved movies.” Gimme a fucking break.
I think DZ means:
“I DO play FPS games at home. And RPGs. And I dress up like an anime character. And by “at home,” I mean my mother’s home. Now if you’ll excuse me, my dragon figurines need a second coat of paint.”
Using “Stalinist” to describe someone telling you you’re acting like a jerkoff should fall under Goodwin’s Law.
I still don’t know why Wells keeps getting this sort of thing wrong all of the time.
The formula is quite simple, really: what makes people go to the movies in 2010?
To see things they’ve never seen before, things that require the full impact of a theater screen to appreciate.
It’s a cliche because it’s true: it takes a LOT to get people into a theater. Jeff is in a critic’s cocoon, he doesn’t appreciate that for an average person or family, movies have to be extra-compelling to get them out of the house with their affordable Netflix, big screen, and great cable TV dramas.
If there’s any hesitation– ANY AT ALL– the average filmgoer will judge “rental” or “cable” and stay home. That’s why dramas don’t do that well anymore, and comedies only seem to do well during the opening weekend, i.e. when the communal theater experience is strongest, making weak laughs stronger in the happy weekend crowd.
Which leaves the action films. But even here, folks can smell them a mile away these days. Yes, the loud CGI fests still make money, but they don’t do a lot of business if they’re not good. Open big, close fast. We’ve all seen it before.
But stuff like Inception, stuff like Avatar… these films make money not necessarily because they’re great, or even good (Avatar… not refighting that fight). They make money because they’re COMPELLING THEATER EXPERIENCES. They *demand* to be seen in the theater. They’re watercooler fodder. “Event” pictures not because the movie theater is the only place to see them, but because it’s the BEST place to see them. Little mini cultural events played out on IMAX and 3D (the *good* 3D, people are already beginning to see through the crappy conversions).
Jeff keeps insisting on his little stereotypes to explain this stuff– “Eloi” and other insulting crap.
It’s not that, or at least, not ALL that– or even *largerly* that.
Give people a reason to leave their big screen television to go into the theater, and guess what? They take it.
Inception is a reason to leave home and go to the theater in order to see something people haven’t seen before.
Salt? Salt is going to be the number one Netflix rental in six months.
DZ
I can’t recall if you made a box office prediction for Inception. If you did, what was it? The movie has been out for two weeks now so be honest.
Fuckin’ A! Well said crazynine. Well fuckin’ said.
Quantrell: No, I don’t play FPS’es, cosplay, or have dragon figures. That doesn’t make Inception’s execution less shallow, though.
Bukowski: I actually was positive about Inception’s prospects, and argued that, if it didn’t deliver here, it would still make its money back internationally. No way it’s gonna go broke. Not so sure about that Jack Black Gulliver thing, though.
What DZ actually said was that Ellen Page was going to hold ‘Inception’ up from being successful. He then cited other random message board people saying that they didn’t like Page as proof that he was “winning”.
Gordon: I said if it bombed, it would be because of her. Fortunately, however, Nolan kept her Juno-isms to a minimum.
I don’t give a shit about whether or not someone made a good Batman film or not, but I think JohnCope brings up some excellent criticisms of Inception. The responses are sort-of proving his points, at that.
It’s a fun puzzle film, unsolvable and somewhat wonderful, but it’s also, at times, an incredibly painful slog with people sitting around telling each other things over and over again and only missing Rick Moranis from Spaceballs looking at the camera and saying, “Everyone got that?” before proceeding to the next scene where people have to be told everything that could or should or maybe might happen.
That said: I’ll probably love it in 5 years and feel bad about this post.
Crazy Nine says it better than anyone I’ve read so far….
Three out of the five trailers before “Salt” were horror movies like “The Last Exorcism” and “Paranormal Activity 2.” You could feel the air go out of the theater during those trailers — this was definitely NOT the audience for those movies.
I don’t know know who decided those were the trailers to front “Salt,” but they were immense turn-offs at my suburban Westchester, NY multiplex on Saturday night.
“Three out of the five trailers before “Salt” were horror movies like “The Last Exorcism” and “Paranormal Activity 2.” You could feel the air go out of the theater during those trailers — this was definitely NOT the audience for those movies.”
I had the same damn trailers in front of Salt here. Devil, The Last Exorcism and Paranormal Activity 2 – didn’t understand it one bit.
crazynine in a TKO. When I have Dexter, True Blood, Mad Men, Entourage, Weeds, Breaking Bad, Big Love, and Damages as *required* viewing throughout the year, I need a better than good reason to go out to a theater.
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Our previews were Devil, Paranormal Activity 2, The Green Hornet, The Expendables, Step Up 3 and Wall Street 2.
an incredibly painful slog with people sitting around telling each other things over and over again
Wow with those numbers its like a recession is over
grants for single mothers