For the week of August 3rd, Warner Home Entertainment is releasing a number of 4K steelbooks, largely as Best Buy exclusives. First up is Christopher Nolan's sci-fi extravaganza Inception. Nowadays, it seems like the dominant form of Nolan conversation is how many people he may or may not kill if he opens Tenet too soon, so it's nice to be reminded of a time when the biggest controversy dogging Nolan was how much exposition he doled out per given movie. And Inception certainly holds the record, I think. For a movie that essentially cross-pollinates Ocean's Eleven with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Nolan spends the first ninety minutes of this 148-minute epic detailing dream crime, and how gentleman thief Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, at his most Nolan-esque) uses it to engage in corporate espionage. Nolan gives us reams of information about totems and architects and dream levels and shifting perceptions of time, and all while introducing us to Cobb's team (Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Dileep Rao, and a wonderful Tom Hardy) and his central mark (Cillian Murphy, in a performance that starts out as an archetype and turns into the heart of the film). It is a lot, and I must confess that on rewatches, these info dumps start feeling a little repetitive. However, Nolan manages to overcome this density of exposition through sheer will. This is such a muscular, entertaining thrill ride, with the best pure action scenes of his career and some of the best technical credentials (Wally Pfister's cinematography is gorgeous; so is Hans Zimmer's immediately iconic score) to boot, and all thrumming along to Lee Smith's metronome-like editing. Furthermore, the last hour of the film - Cobb's big "inception" job - only works because we've spent so much time absorbing the particulars of the planning. Nolan is able to pack the third act with so much action and intrigue because he's gotten all of the table-setting out of the way. As far as studio blockbusters go, this is one of the most important films of the 2010s.
Next steelbook: Ben Affleck's 2010 crime drama The Town. If we're judging Affleck just by his directorial output, then each film he has made is worse than the last. You can chart a clear downward trajectory from 2007's Gone Baby Gone to 2016's awful Live by Night. Since Gone Baby Gone is a masterpiece, though, the quality differential between it and The Town is far more respectable. The Town's only crime is that it suffers by comparison to its predecessor: it's still a solid, effortlessly entertaining programmer. Even more so than Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, The Town owes a huge debt of gratitude to Michael Mann's Heat. Both films use the battle of wits/wills between law and order as a means of characterizing the very character of an American city. For The Town, Affleck has returned to Boston, unsurprisingly, and he retains his keen eye for both geography and local character. His main thieves (Affleck, rapper Slaine, Owen Burke, and a phenomenal Jeremy Renner) lack the steely professionalism of Heat's Jean-Pierre Melville-inspired baddies; no, they're a far more hotheaded bunch, prone to unpredictable violence (note the funny/scary scene when Renner goes way too far in helping Affleck attack a rival gang) and impulsive action in the heat of battle. It's that latter characteristic that causes Affleck's principled antihero to bring along a terrified bank teller (Rebecca Hall) after an otherwise successful heist, and this decision colors his judgment and brings him ever closer to Jon Hamm's dogged FBI agent. I'd argue Affleck actually improves on Heat in one regard. There, the interpersonal romances tend to drag the action down, yet Affleck is able to mine a lot of empathy and tension from the way that he and Hall's characters warily circle one another. In fact, only the scenes with Hamm underwhelm. As good as he is on Mad Men, Hamm seems hopelessly out of his weight class. It does not help that his scenes are often the most clichéd. Still, the overall narrative is absorbing enough that these little stutters barely register, especially once Affleck unleashes a flurry of visceral action sequences, including a bravura setpiece that starts in the employee parking lot under Fenway Park and spills out onto 4 Jersey Street. I'd be delighted to get one great TNT-ready movie like this per year from Affleck. It'd be enough to help forget Live by Night.
Finally, Grindhouse Releasing is offering a new Limited Edition of Frank Perry's cult favorite The Swimmer. The film, which takes inspiration from John Cheever's classic 1964 short story of the same name, is one of the most unusual films of the 1960s. In a lot of ways, Cheever's story might seem to be unfilmable. It tracks the life-long dissolution of successful ad executive Neddy Merrill (played in the film by Burt Lancaster) exclusively through a series of pit stops he makes at his neighbors' pools. Yet the film works precisely because it embraces the surreal, challenging aspects of Cheever's work. What is allegorical on the page remains allegorical on screen, with each of Neddy's encounters symbolizing resonant moments from his ruined life. It's an incredibly unique picture, blending naturalism (Neddy's confrontations with Janet Landgard and Janice Rule's characters, both of whom are electric as former objects of Neddy's desire) and surrealism (the film's staggering final scene, which unveils the "secret" of Neddy Merrill to devastating effect) into something equal parts mysterious, frustrating, and alluring. If The Swimmer doesn't quite rank with other great screen explorations of the era like Petulia or Last Year at Marienbad (the film went through some horrific post-production woes, with Lancaster firing Perry and hiring Sydney Pollack to reshoot much of Perry's footage, and the clash between the two creative visions shows), that hasn't stopped it from seeming more important with each passing year. In its unsparing critique of "the good life" amidst the turmoil of '60s counterculture, The Swimmer feels like a test run for the kinds of ennui and alienation that airs weekly during AMC's Mad Men. Best of all, it offers Burt Lancaster the finest role of his career. As great a star as Lancaster was, he also never shied away from seeming broken or weak, and Neddy Merrill allows him to fold those characteristics into one another. Lancaster's athletic good looks and easy charm are little more than a distraction to hide Neddy's deep spiritual void.