Inception

This movie is like an onion. Once you think you've cut through and understood the whole thing, a new layer forms and you have to learn even more information about something that you may have never even understood in the first place. That's why this movie is great. In other movies, it may be fun to watch, but you don't learn anything from it or are forced to pay attention to understand the plot. With this movie, if you miss 5 minutes, you are completely lost. This keeps people engaged in what they're watching. Also the fact that this movie deals with the mind and everything within the mind, people can relate since each of us has a mind.

And I think that this movie is perfect for English class, especially ours this year. Inception deals with learning from different perspectives and the ideas of other people. In the movie we go through multiple dreams of different people. Also, since this movie is like a puzzle, its a really great example of impressionism. You may not know what he meant by "I hate trains" in the first scene, but by the end of the movie, you understand what he meant by that.

Thinking about the ending, I think that the totem fell. Even though we do not see it fall, it looked like it was wiggling a little bit versus just staying in one position not moving side to side at all. But also, if it were to keep spinning, that would mean you were in someone else's dream or reality. So if that was the case, then Cobb would not be in the real world which means that those wouldn't be his real kids. But, then what would his real world be? However, there is a scene towards the beginning of the movie where they are showing the girl how to share dreams and he spins his totem. The totem falls. That's in the same "reality" as they're in at the end. Since it fell then, it would fall at he end of the movie.

Fiction Is Not Real

I think that some of the things that we've learned so far this year have been interesting; especially some of Nabokov's ideas. One that stuck out to me is the idea of fiction not being real in the slightest bit. Most, when reading a book, start to imagine that what they are reading is a true story, or that it really happened at some point. That is why people think that non-fiction books are boring; because some people then realize that the world is a boring place sometimes. We don't see knights fighting dragons or people being saved by superheroes or aliens visiting us from other planets. Life is just not that extraordinary. However, we can still enjoy fiction books. We just can't make the mistake of identifying with characters or believing that you're a part of the story.

One thing that I enjoy about what we are reading is that most of these stories have ambiguous endings. Most people hate that because they crave closure and resolution so that they can feel like they're lives are "complete". However, if the story just gives you the ending, then that's that. In other words, there is no freedom of thought when the book is over. You know what happens, and there's nothing else to be had. But, when there is no clear ending, then we can all create our own endings and reasoning for those endings which can lead to a discussion that can be much more interesting than simply knowing exactly what happened to each character. Some people hate this however, because they feel like they went on this journey for nothing when they don't get an ending. (A peak to the mountain). But, these types of books represent the real world in the way that in your life, you may not have a definite ending all the time where you are left wondering if you did something right or not. If someone told you everything, then there would be no point in trying to learn.