Leonardo DiCaprio is the new Michael Cera

Spoiler Alert: This post will include spoilers for Inception and Shutter Island. If you have not seen either of these films I would suggest that you watch them before reading this blog.

I recently went to see a discussion/Q&A with my favorite author Chuck Klosterman and he said something interesting about the process of critiquing and how it has changed. He mentioned that now people who are reviewing are not only responding to the movie but they are responding to the mass response as well. Most bloggers/movie reviewers will write similar things to what everyone else writes and if they don't they will at least acknowledge the differences between their ideas and the masses.

While I was sitting in Inception I was thinking about how although reading about other people's theories on movies is interesting it is first important to get a grasp on what you think leaving a movie in and of itself without other influences swaying your beliefs. I decided that the one thing that I knew about Inception that I had not heard is that Leonardo DiCaprio played almost an identical role to what he had played in Shutter Island.

Before I talk about that I will give a brief general review of the film. It was good. I thought it was very complex and perfectly done but I still do not know how much I enjoyed it. I think a second viewing would be more enjoyable but it was still good. I think that I personally have trouble suspending reality enough to enjoy certain movies (this included) but I believe it is hands down the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. It is even more beautiful because it is not in 3-d (thanks Nolan.)

In Shutter Island Leonardo DiCaprio plays a crazy person. The entire movie is about trying to learn about his past and understand what he is thinking and what is going on with the movie in general. This is similar to the dream-state that DiCaprio inhibits during Inception. The conclusion of the movie opens up the possibility that the entire movie was a dream. This is similar to Shutter Island because in both films nothing is how it originally appeared.

Additionally, in both films Leonardo DiCaprio is dealing with guilt over the death of his wife even through it is not his fault. This is a pretty extreme similarity and in both cases the death of his wife effects his mental well being and his sanity.

Finally both films have the exact same ending. In Shutter Island the last line of dialogue is "Is it better to live as a monster or die a good man?" This implies that Leonardo DiCaprio's character may actually know what is going on. He may be choosing to die so he does not have to live with all of the horrible things that he has done. It leaves the ending undecided and completely up to the interpretation of the viewer. Inception has a similar ending that creates the possibility that I mentioned earlier - the entire movie may have been a dream. The movie ends with Leonardo DiCaprio spinning a unique object. The object will spin forever in a dream-state but in reality it would fall. The film ends with the object teetering between dropping and staying straight. This again gives the viewer the chance to interpret the film in two different ways.

What I am saying is this: Leonardo DiCaprio is an amazing actor but he treated 2010 like he was Michael Cera.

The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule has many meanings. For the purpose of this blog I am going to be going off of the Christian quote/saying "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

As a child people are taught to treat others like they want to be treated and everything in the world will be great. People are taught to believe that what they want and value should be the same as what everyone else wants and values but it is not that simple. People all want different things and the way that I would like to be treated varies greatly from someone who has different expectations, interpretations, goals and mainly desires in life.

Some people want you to be honest
Some people want you to be nice
Some people don't want to talk to strangers
I love strangers
Some people want to be taken care of
Some people want to be left alone
Some girls want guys to buy them flowers
Some girls care about things that matter
Some men want to protect
Some men just want to love

This creates a problem because many people believe they are acting in the best interest of everyone because people see things through their own perspective. Some people feel special when they receive phone calls so they might call people they care about without thinking about how much they hate the phone. It is both difficult and important to always reflect on what you are doing and not how it effects you or what you believe is correct but how it effects the person you are dealing with (specifically in one on one situations.)

So I throw out 2,000 years of Christianity and propose a new Golden Rule.

"Treat people how they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated"