Inception 2013, Featuring Raymond Burr

(Note:  If you've never seen Godzilla or Inception, you'll hate this post and should pass it by. Frankly, most people who have seen either or both of those movies hated this post and wish they'd passed it by.)

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In 1956,  fearing American audiences could not relate to a movie with an all Japanese cast, American producers took a Japanese monster picture named Gojira and strategically inserted actor Raymond Burr playing reporter Steve Martin.  The result was a new film named Godzilla in which Burr reports on all the action in the movie and interacts rather clumsily with the characters from the original footage.

In 2010, the movie Inception directed by Christopher Nolan opened with one of the most complex and confusing plots ever presented in a major American motion picture. To help audiences better comprehend the film, Hollywood moguls had the bright idea to try the Godzilla approach once more.

And so, we not-so-proudly present:

 Inception 2013  

Steve Martin:  I was greatly looking forward to seeing my old friend Dominic Cobb again. I'd heard he'd been experimenting with techniques to enter the dreams of other people to extract secret information from them.  How fun!  My name is Steve Martin.  I'm a reporter. Not the comedian.

Cut to shot of Cobb looking up. Oddly, whenever Steve Martin's face is seen on camera, you only see Cobb's back.

Cobb: Why, Steve!  Steve Martin!  I haven't seen you since your excellent reportage on the Godzilla rampage in Japan.  What can I do for you?

Steve Martin: I'd like to do a piece on Inception, the manner in which you implant ideas in people's minds while they sleep. I think I can sell it to Christopher Nolan.

Cobb:  Great, Steve!  We are working for a businessman named Saito to implant an idea in his competitor Fischer to destroy everything Fischer’s father worked tirelessly for all his life. 

Steve Martin:  And what will you gain from this, Dominic?

Cobb:   I'm wanted for the murder of my hauntingly lovely wife Mal, which I didn't do, and can't get back in the United States to see my two lovely children until Saito arranges for me to get past U.S. Customs.  

Steve Martin: Sounds like a case for Perry Mason!  But tell me, Dominic, how do you know when you are sleeping?

Cobb:  You spin this!

Steve Martin:  A dreidel? I never knew you were Jewish!  

Cobb: No, Steve, it's a top which keeps spinning if you are in the dream state and topples over if you are not.   By the way, Steve, you are in the dream state right now!

Steve Martin: I awoke in my elephant print pajamas needing desperately to go the bathroom, both No. 1 and No. 2. Then I got a call from Cobb telling me to meet him and his new dream architect in a nearby cafe.

Cut to shot of Cobb and Ariadne sitting in a cafe talking.  Oddly, whenever Steve Martin's face is seen on camera, you only see their backs.

Cobb:  Ariadne, I'd like you to meet my friend, reporter Steve Martin.

Ariadne:  Steve!  Steve Martin!  Nice to meet you.

Cobb:  Steve, Ariadne will design the multiple dream levels to be dreamed by each of the members of my team. We're somewhat concerned that Fischer's mental projections may battle us, thereby adding a lot of wanton violence to the movie.

Steve Martin:  Good,  I love reporting on wanton violence!  And your thoughts, Ariadne? 

Ariadne:  I'm worried that Cobb's projections of Mal will screw up everything, especially if we land in Limbo, the bottom level of dreams where 24 hours of awake time plays out like 50 years, or even longer if you're stuck watching a movie by the Farrelly Brothers. Watch out, Steve, that fruit stand's about to explode on you!

Steve Martin: Escaping from the terrible mixed fruit carnage, I joined Cobb and his team aboard a plane with Fischer and Saito. Oddly, whenever my face is seen on camera, you only see their backs.

Cobb:   Sandman's comin', Steve!  Want a drink of water first?  Or a story?

Steve Martin:  I joined the team on their manifold adventures at multiple levels of Fischer's maze-like dream.  Cobb told me the only way back to waking state was through a kick, the experience of something horrible like dying in the dream, getting blown to smithereens, or listening to ABBA. 

Cobb and Ariadne:  Watch out, Steve! We're falling into Limbo!

Steve Martin:  Now it seems Steve Martin, like Tokyo, has no defense!

Cobb:  Steve, down here we have to finish implanting in Fischer the idea to decimate his father’s legacy, locate Saito who’s now 147 years old, and - by the way - kill Mal.  

Steve Martin:   Sounds like a plan, Dominic.

Steve Martin:   Cobb and I found Saito wearing a latex mask which made him look like Abe Vigoda’s father.  I haven't seen such cheesy special effects since Godzilla! Cobb and Saito killed each other, and I initiated a kick based on some sausage I ate before I went to sleep. Oooohhh!! I still feel it!

Steve Martin:  And then we were all back on the plane. But was this reality or still a dream? Am I nothing more than a portly unemployed rather bland actor who only dreamed he hit the jackpot with Perry Mason and Ironside?

Cobb: Steve, once I get past Customs thanks to Saito why don't you come home with me for lunch? I'll spin the top and we'll figure out whether we're real people or just stuff to sprinkle on oatmeal. 

Steve Martin:  We returned to Cobb's house and were greeted by actor Michael Caine who looks even better than I do, but of course he's not dead! Then Cobb at last saw his children.

Cut to shot of Cobb's two young children.  When Steve Martin's face is on camera, you only see their backs --- not so oddly, because that’s all you saw of them in the original movie!

Cobb's children:  Steve!  Steve Martin!

Steve Martin: The top is spinning round and round, however will it stop?!  It's teetering, teetering, teetering!  I'll get back to you with an update soon, but first:  

Word out of Hollywood is that Inception 2013 has bombed so badly that Godzilla has asked his name be taken out of the credits!

This is Steve Martin reporting ....

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Oy!  This may be the stupidest post he's ever written!

Perchance to Dream

To sleep, perchance to dream.

To stay up, perchance to snack.

Aye, there's the rub! And no fair making an X-rated joke out of that line, because this post is about dreams, not sex.   

I had that awful dream again last night, the one I've been having ever since I was a small child. In fact, I've had it so often and for so long that I'm now collecting royalties from other people whenever they have it!

In the dream, I am going in to take a final exam.  I have not attended class all semester, have not studied, and don't even know for sure what the subject is I'm taking the test in.  I am fraught with guilt, insecurity, and an extreme sense of deep and abiding  fraughtness!  

At that point I awake and experience inexpressible joy that it was all just a horrible dream. Then I do not sleep for the next six months committing Wikipedia to memory until I'm ready to ace that sucker!

Why do we dream at all?  

It is indisputable that dreams can tell us a great deal about the dreamer, such as that he is asleep at the moment.  One man dreams he is being chased by Nazis, another dreams he is being chased by a giant man's pants zipper.  What does it all mean?  

Absolutely nothing,  except either way both guys are being chased by really big pricks!

Of course, it was Sigmund Freud who first referred to dreams as "the Royal Road to the Subconscious."  Further research since Freud's day, however, has shown that the Royal Road to the Subconscious is actually Interstate 47, which leads to Schwenksville PA.  I'd wondered for years why my psychiatrist Dr. Kropotkin was always asking me "So how do you really feel about Schwenksville?" 

We often hear that dreams only occur during REM sleep, but we now know you can dream during non-REM sleep as well,  provided none of us tells the sleep researchers. 

Is it true that people only dream in black and white? 

Another myth is that most people dream only in black and white. Personally I always dream in full Eastman Color, although the quality is faded and badly in need of restoration.  I also tend to dream a great deal in French with English subtitles.  This can be extremely annoying, especially when they pull the caption away before I've had a chance to read it.

Once I went through an entire evening dreaming in Japanese dubbed into English.  Got to the point I didn't even need the dubbing to know what was being said was "LOOK! GODZILLA!"

I've also had a few random dreams in Italian dubbed into English, which is kind of nice except when people's lips move too much for what they are saying. This happens especially whenever I'm dreaming about the late actor Steve Reeves playing Hercules.  

Can dreams foretell the future?

I don't know about this, but it makes a good argument for not sleeping with someone who continually moans in his sleep "Oh no, another film with Nicholas Cage!"

There are on file a handful of unexplained instances which seem to strikingly indicate the existence of clairvoyancy in  dreams.  The noted Midwestern psychic Edgar Carsick once awoke in great panic after dreaming about an ocean liner, swirls of rushing water, and frantic cries for help. His dream unmistakably pointed to an unspeakable catastrophe involving a cruise ship, a chilling prophecy that came all too horribly and tragically true shortly thereafter.

The very next day Mr. Carsick paid twelve bucks to see The Titanic 3D.

Does the movie Inception accurately portray the true nature of dreams?

The movie Inception showed that other people can actively participate in our dreams, although I've never seen actress Ellen Page floating around anywhere in mine, not even one lousy goddamn time! Then again there are probably laws even in the Dreamworld that would have my ass hauled into court for even thinking about doing nasty things to someone as young as Ellen Page, if not to Ellen Page herself.

Inception revealed a whole new aspect, depth, and dimension to our dreams.  It certainly has me scared to death to play dreidel anymore come Hanukkah time. 

All this talk of dreams is making me kind of sleepy.  

So goodnight, everybody ....

OH, NO!  

 LOOK, GODZILLA!!!

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