INSOMNIA (2002)

"Don't lose your way."

Crooked Los Angeles homicide detective Al Pacino and his partner are called to the remote fishing village of Nightmute, Alaska to investigate the murder of a local teenager.  Right from the very beginning, Pacino’s character seems unstable, but then when stress and the town’s perpetual summer daylight cause him to not be able to sleep (I guess, they haven’t heard of blackout curtains yet in Nightmute), Pacino starts stumbling around like the Drunk Stork in the Looney Tunes cartoons.  “Congratu…congr…congratulations. You’re a mother.”  Soon, Pacino’s sleepwalking existence turns into a nightmare when he shoots and kills his partner. D’oh!

INSOMNIA is a good film and definitely watchable.  Unfortunately, the emotional pace of the film is flat for pretty much the entire film.  Yeah, yeah there are a few moments of heightened interest (the fog scene, the dog corpse), but for the vast majority of the film we’re merely watching two despicable characters going around being turds.  Then again EBOLA SYNDROME is one of the most entertaining things ever filmed and it’s just a single dude running around like a total asshole for the entire movie, so what do I know?  I’m so goddamn heartbroken and confused and depressed that I cannot construct full thoughts.  I should lay off the serious movies for a few more months.  I thought I was ready.  I guess not.  It was sad, it was sad, it was sad.

Eh, whatever.  I enjoyed the film and always love watching Al Pacino chewing up scenery.  Steady pace, gorgeous locations, above average acting, one guy with an annoying mustache, a Pantera poster, a video store sign over a florist shop, ol’ girl from GINGER SNAPS, good lighting, nowhere even close to being as violent as I had expected, Twin Peaks vibes, SEVEN vibes, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS vibes.  Good movie, but it could have been much better.

Original - Insomnia (1997)

INCEPTION (2010)

Angus McCootybritches is the world's most highly skilled dream theft. But he can't just get into your dreams using hocus pocus.  No, first he has to, in the real world, get a hold of your body, then put you under and infiltrate your noggin. One day, a super rich dude employs him to implant an idea into somebody's noodle. People say it can't be done, but Leo knows it can, because he once implanted an idea into somebody's mind and, well, it worked a little too well. Fast-forward some and Leo has assembled his top-notch crew of dream warriors to sneak in and go multiple layers down into the target's brain.

I liked the movie alright, but I kept expecting more.  I was also very disappointed in just how boring the dreams were! I dream about all kinda of wacky shit: rats with mechanical legs chasing me down the cereal aisle at HEB; an intellectually disabled samurai taking a shit on a child's birthday cake; a demon-possessed pot hole that chases cars down and kills people; Leatherface chasing me around my kitchen with his chainsaw; Jesus getting beaten to death in the restroom of a Waffle House by an assassin boxing kangaroo; Stanley Kubrick being alive a directing this movie; people filming a big budget zombie movie getting attacked by real zombies, but never just sitting around in the bar of a hotel talking.  Then again, I'm a worthless piece of shit that should have been shot to death with a shotgun as soon as I came out of the womb, so what do I know?

Mildly entertaining, but it definitely could have been better.