Residence and Inception

I was recently asked to fill out a security form and they wanted to know how long my wife had been living in Britain. I wasn't sure so Nina dug through some old diaries and discovered that she first moved here on 1st September 1990. She has been living here for exactly 20 years. I felt this was a cause for celebration and a night out was in order. The first thing I thought of was dinner out, but the only thing I could think of that would cover both German and Scottish cuisine was deep fried Bratwurst in batter. So on second thoughts we went to the cinema.

This also gave me a chance to try out "Orange Wednesdays". This is a 2 for the price of 1 film offer which Orange mobile offer to their phone subscribers. As I have an Orange phone from work I thought I would give it a try. After all, the mobile itself seems to have no use as a telecommunications device so I thought I should get some use from it. After brief deliberations we went to see Inception: Christopher Nolan's latest movie.

I've really enjoyed Nolan's films with the likes of Memento, The Prestige and the last two Batman films - that hen's tooth of the cinema: an intelligent comic book adaptation. The Prestige really impressed me, although I think it helps if you know a little about Nikola Tesla; at least his reputation as the cranks' crank. Inception was somewhat similar as it helps if you know a little of the central deceit: which is that groups of psychic spies can engineer a group dream to steal secrets from their intended victims. However, a Japanese businessman hires a group of these psychics to plant a thought in the mind of a rival - a process known as "inception".

That might sound a little far out but once you can accept this basic premise what follows is an intriguing, if rather confusing, thriller as the psychic architects weave an elaborate dream - in fact a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream - to carry out their task. I say it was rather confusing but in fact I was very baffled at the time. However, it seems to make more sense after thinking about it for a day. I suppose that's a sign of an intelligent plot: it makes more sense the more you think about it - rather like the actual aim of the psychics.

I'd give the film a 4 out of 5. I'd definitely like to see it again but I don't think it was quite as clever as The Prestige. I suppose I should start thinking of what to do for Nina's 30th UK anniversary.