memento Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Here's what we currently know about Christopher Nolan's between-Batmans project, Inception:

• It is not, as initially asserted by a commenter, concerning "a war for the colonization of Venus."


• It is more likely along the lines of a sci-fi action film "set within the architecture of the mind" (which, coming from the brains behind The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Memento, is a scary-thrilling thought).


• Currently on board are Leonardo DiCaprio (as some sort of CEO), Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, and Michael Caine...

...and, according to THR, rounding out the ensemble (for now) are Ken "Batman Begins" Watanabe as a blackmailing villain and Tom "apparently awesome in Bronson" Hardy as a colleague of DiCaprio's.

Sorry to be Avatar-level vague, but with a cast like this and a crew like that, there's little left to do but twiddle our thumbs and hope for the best between now and next summer. Either that, or Nolan just recast most of the third Batman film and doesn't want Christian Bale to know...

While the premise is certainly intriguing, I'm getting kind of tired of that whole "guy wakes up in a strange place and doesn't remember anything" storyline. The most recent film to apply this premise was Unknown, and that flick was a prime example of why this is a risky set-up. Basically, it all comes down to the script. Anyone can come up with some bizarre situation to throw their main character in, but if the script gets lazy (and the writer gets afraid), then the film just won't work. Memento worked because the Nolan brothers were sticklers for details, and made sure every piece of that film serviced the plot and moved things forward. Unfortunately, Unknown was so focused on the surprise twists that it botched the details, as well as the characters, leaving us a fantastic set-up with nowhere to go but downhill.

Now, Nala Films is apparently confident that writers Eddie and Chris Borey got things right, and have launched development of their script, Open Grave, with plans to begin shooting next year. Here we go again -- the plot revolves around some dude who wakes up in the middle of the woods in a pit full of dead bodies with no idea who these people are, how they were killed and whether or not he was the one who caused their death. Sure, it sounds like a great set-up -- but what about the rest of the script? I have no idea who the Borey brothers are and there's a good chance this is their first produced script. That's unsettling, however Nolan was fairly new to the game when he wrote Memento -- so you never can tell. No word yet on a cast or director; we'll let you know if any more details pop up.

According to the trailer for the documentary Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party, the scene-stealing actor Stephen Tobolowsky, "has been in more movies than Tom Cruise," and, "is linked to more movie stars than Kevin Bacon." His name isn't all that familiar, but his face and voice are both distinctly recognizable. Not so much for being the lead singer in an early band featuring Stevie Ray Vaughn or for co-writing True Stories, but for his stand out appearances in a number of films, most of which he hardly features in more than one scene. Most people would probably place him first in Groundhog Day or Single White Female, where he played the similar-sounding characters Ned Ryerson and Mitch Myerson, respectively. He also features prominently in Memento, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Thelma and Louise, and many other films.

His best part, though, has to be Dr. Werner Brandes in Sneakers. In the film, which stars heavyweights Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, Mary McDonnell and Ben Kingsley, his character is not only significant to the story, but the actor's voice is even more vital to the plot; in my opinion, it's one of the best purely vocal pieces of scene-stealing in the history of cinema. In an attempt to enter a high-security office, which requires voice-identification, Robert Redford's crew sends in McDonnell on a date with Tobolowsky, where she must get the man to say the following words: "Hi, my name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me." Only she has to get the words through casual conversation, so he doesn't catch on to her reason for needing them -- Redford's crew can stitch the out-of-order individual words into the pass-phrase; the way McConnell gets Toblowsky to say "passport" is the best part. Later, when the edited recording of these words are played to gain entry into an office, Tobolowsky's voice is immortalized forever. More than any other scene in the film -- and there are some great ones in there -- I always remember Tobolowsky's and McConnell's scene together the best.