I thought it was ‘alright’… a slightly above par Hollywood thriller.

The opening 30 minutes are deliberately confusing, so as to make the audience feel smart when they finally get a sniff of a plot. After that it’s pretty much the same old hokum repeated until the end of the film. I didn’t really find this clever or exceptional in any way, and I can’t really understand how people thought it was confusing.

It does take itself very seriously, which adds to the banality of it, and I found myself laughing in all the wrong places (the 3D model ‘the architect’ produces killed me). The terminology for basically ‘having a snooze’ was similarly laughable (a dream withing a dream? let’s go to level 2!).

Leonardo was his usual average charming/outraged self and I didn’t think any of the other cast members particularly stood out. I felt they really drew out the ‘battling personal demons’ part of it, personally I would have been happy with some Matrix style effects. I had no emotional connection with Mr DiCaprio.

All in all I thought it was a good tale well told (flaws aside, I’m not that anal), but it didn’t really change my life, as others seem to be making out.

I guess it’s a sign of the times that expectation of a film is so low these days, a reasonably average one like is literally blowing the roof off the multiplex.

If you haven’t seen it I would say catch it on DVD if you can. It’s a creative romp that’s not too pressing on the old noggin.

Never has so much been written by so many and read by so few.. is that what they say about this blogging lark? Well I thought I’d use it as somewhere to ramble on about stuff and post links and that… more as catharsis than anything - if anyone else like it, it’s a bonus etc… to quote some mid-ninties band my friend Sam will remind me of if she ever sees this.

OK, so I’ve really been missing the nineties of late. Like an old friend who checked out, I am (once again) mourning them. Not really in a ‘remember the old days’ type way. I’ve been thinking specifically (as I do) about 90’s MTV. I think MTV had a birthday yesterday? One of my cooler than cool website subscriptions reminded me about it in a slightly underwhelmingly short video link on their site. Anyway, that’s not what sparked it. I don’t actually know what sparked it, but it has obsessed me of late.

I’ve found myself thinking about Bevis and Butt Head (two words?), the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (when they were good, before all that ‘repeat the word California in every song’ nonsense), Unplugged and Daria. Oddly, I decided that I really miss Daria. I have no idea why. It seems to represent something I can’t put my finger on. I was never really a fan. I thought it was interesting in a bland kind of way, and being born of MTV it always had that was a faint smell of cool about it, but I never made a point of watching it, until now.

So I’ve not been sleeping so good lately (stay with me on this). Again, no idea why? work? money? nothing like that. Usually I’m the kind of person who would worry about any given subject, but not this time. It’s like a bout of random ‘I can’t switch off-ness’. I’ve tried running, I’ve changed my diet, I’ve cut down on caffeine. You name it, I’ve tried it. So I seem to have combined my need for sleep, with my foundness for nineties MTV and found a cure. It’s Daria. So if like me you find you can’t sleep, and need to feel like you’re back in a safe place (‘the nineties’ anyone?), I can recommend Darias droning tones. No offense like… I’m sure it was very progressive in it’s time.