Inception is the reason why I watch movies. It’s the reason why I write screenplays. And it’s the reason why I feel that cinema can be not only entertainment, but also a sophisticated (if expensive) expression of art.

Inception is quite simply one of the best movies of the year.

On the surface, it’s a thriller. But it’s also an action movie, a crime caper, a psychological drama, a mystery, and a contemporary sci-fi flick.

An outstanding Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, who is a master of extraction – the crime of entering people’s dreams to steal valuable secrets. But his skills have also made him one of the most wanted men on the globe. His only path to redemption is to accept an offer from Japanese tycoon Saito (Ken Wantanbe) to enter into the dream of a corporate rival — not to steal an idea, but rather to plant one. This dangerous process is called inception, the act of planting an idea so deep into a mark’s subconsciousness that he will wake up believing the idea was his own and, therefore, more likely to act on it.

Most screenwriters would stop at the “stealing ideas in dream” premise and be pretty proud of themselves. But Nolan doesn’t settle for just “good;” he aims for brilliant, and pulls it off by adding the ingenious twist of inception.

Fortunately, Inception’s heady sci-fi themes are grounded by Cobb’s emotional character arc. His highly touted talents belie the fact that he’s actually estranged from his kids and wracked with guilt from holding a deadly secret about his wife.

In this way, Inception is a classic man-vs.-himself conflict, as much as it is a crime caper set in the mind. Without revealing any spoilers, I just have to say that this type of subgenre is usually handled pretty poorly (think The Hulk or The Wolfman), but Nolan makes Cobb’s internal battle pay off in spades.

Cobb’s characterization doesn’t come at the expense of the supporting characters, either. Nolan makes sure each of Cobb’s allies is given a little something to chew on. I could go on and on about Watanabe’s Saito or Tom Hardy’s Eames or Marion Cotillard’s Mal or, especially, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Arthur — but I won’t. Suffice to say, every character brings his or her own intricate piece to the puzzle that is Inception. No wasted faces, no wasted words. Their dialogue rings true, with each person having his or her own cadence and rhythm.

Inception’s screenplay does have one minor flaw, though: there are one too many flashbacks. Actually, they can’t be considered flashbacks; they’re Cobb’s subconscious projections based on his memories that pop up into various people’s dreams.

Um, yeah.

Kinda hard to explain without spoiling the magnificent subtleties. Just know that some of the scenes and images are repeated one too many times.

Audiences these days are so movie-savvy that a flashback (or pseudo-flashback in this case) only needs to be used once or twice to have them get the idea (no pun intended). More than that and it just gets redundant and slows down the pacing. At two and a half hours, Inception could probably endure some trimming and still retain much of its emotional and intelligent complexities.

I could write more about Inception’s cinematography, action, stunts, music, production design, and special effects, but I’d just be slathering on the same type of praise that I have been heaping on Nolan.

In today’s empty movie landscape of mindless remakes and retread sequels, Nolan has written something that is wildly unique, extremely creative, hyper intelligent, and most of all edge-of-your-seat exciting. If you haven’t seen Inception yet, just know that you’re going to come out of it feeling utterly mindf**ked.

Or maybe that’s just the idea that Nolan will plant in your mind….

The Hurt Locker wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, along with Best Picture, Best Director and three other naked statuettes.

Wow.

I’m both thrilled for the filmmakers and kinda stunned at the same time. I love the fact that this “little movie that could” has, in fact, “did.” But is it really better than other great nominees out there?

From a screenwriting point of view, Mark Boal‘s script is an extremely taunt dramatic thriller, a fresh take on an established subgenre of war movies. It has extremely real characters, fantastic dialogue, and a real sense of immediacy. (It helps that Mark drew from his experiences as a journalist embedded with a real Iraq War bomb squad unit.) But, as I wrote previously, I was left wanting a stronger character arc (as the hero doesn’t learn anything by the end of the flick) and a bigger conflict.

From a directing stand point, I’m thrilled for Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman director to win the Oscar. She’s been around a while and is extremely talented. She pulled the strings at just the right moments to up the tension then pulled back . But is her work a bigger accomplishment than what he ex-husband James Cameron did with Avatar, a gargantuan movie that not only destroyed the box office but has redefined the very essence of 3-D movies and what can be done mixing live action, performance caption, and CGI? No doubt Avatar was a logistical nightmare from which he draw an amazingly thriller crowd-pleaser.

But should anyone really be that surprised the Avatar didn’t win any of the major awards? It is, after all, just an “sci-fi” flick, a genre that is looked down upon by the Academy. No genre film has ever won Best Picture.

Ultimately, though, any time a small indie like The Hurt Locker wins, it’s a good thing for filmmakers and screenwriters like me, guys on the out edges of Hollywood trying to bust into the inner circle.

Congrats, Mark and Kathryn!

My Top 8 now becomes a Top 9. I didn’t bump anybody off the list because they’re all stellar work. But at the same time, I didn’t put Kathryn Bigelow’s intense drama (about a U.S. Army bomb squad unit) in the Top 5.

Why? It just didn’t blow me away (pun totally intended). Don’t get me wrong: I thought it was quite powerful. And critics lavished it with all sorts of honors (i.e. Writers Guild Award for Best Original Screenplay), but I felt the screenplay didn’t provide much an arc for the main character, Staff Sgt. William James, played by Jeremy Renner. He starts off as a cocky cowboy-in-fatigues figure and — save for a subplot about him befriending a locale Iraqi boy — he pretty much ends the movie in exactly the same fashion.

Almost no change. Nothing learned. Zero character development.

In my book, that’s not Top 5 screenwriting material. But still, the script by Mark Boal offers plenty of good things: a strong supporting cast, an exotic setting, a timely subject, and an intrinsically butt-clenching premise (a gung-ho bomb specialist takes over an Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad and clashes with his by-the-book subordinates in the midst of roadside bombs, insurgent snipers, and unrelentingly harsh Iraqi environment.

Some of the praise should go to Bigelow, who does an amazing job of capitalizing on the hair-raising tension and mind-numbing lulls (much like real-life military life) with her mix of documentary style camerawork and slow-mo visuals.

But then again, that’s why both Bigelow and Boal received Oscar nominations in their respective categories, eh?

1. Up
Written by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter
The first three on my list are all running neck and neck and neck for the top spot, but ultimately, I had to give it to Up, this funny, emotional, unpredictable, and technically brilliant animated film from (where else?) Pixar Studios. It has everything a near-perfect screenplay should have: real (and really flawed) characters, realistic (yet witty) dialogue, strong (and strongly motivated) villains, and a believable character arc (there’s two actually, one for each of the main characters). Who knew a cartoon about a senior citizen and a chubby kid in a balloon-powered floating house would be so riveting?

2. District 9
Written by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell
“Wow.” That was my first impression after seeing this movie. Smart on so many levels and wholly different from anything Hollywood could ever hope to produce, District 9 is a ticking time-bomb of a story: it starts off like a real-life documentary about alien refugees, sprints off like an action movie on fire, and ends with one cataclysmic sci-fi bang that leaves you blown away.

3. Avatar
Written by James Cameron
James Cameron’s screenplay for this year’s most anticipated film and history’s most expensive movie ever is by no means subtle. But it does exactly what a good script should do: act as the solid blueprint for an amazingly sound yet beautiful cinematic monolith to be built upon. From paying off small first-act setups to putting a 22nd-Century twist on cliched elements, the Avatar story is breathtaking, intense, and otherworldly — it reminds us of the very reasons we go to the cinema in the first place.

4. Star Trek
Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Director J.J. Abrams is a pop-culture God. Just look at his recent credits. And his re-imagining of the original Star Trek series was a pretty damn good balance between appeasing the Trekkers and Trekkies (depending on your level of geekdom) and telling a suspenseful, witty, and action-packed sci-fi opera for the newbies. But it’s really the screenwriting duo of Orci & Kurtzman who should share in the glory. Though their screenplay has a few flaws ([spoiler until the end of the parenthesis] why the Hell does Kirk go from ensign to captain of the Enterprise in less than a day???), its solid structure is what allowed Abrams to pull off the sacrilegious move of remaking a classic.

5. Inglourious Basterds
Written by Quentin Tarantino
This historical fantasy made a big splash because it was Quentin Tarantino’s return to form, his entree back into pop-culture consciousness after the dismal performance of his half of Grindhouse, Death Proof. Unique anti-heroes (a band of covert U.S. Army Jews infiltrating Nazi-occupied France), long-winded monologues, and the most delicious villain we’ve seen in a long time. Sure some of his scenes needed to be trimmed (the pub scene was way too long!) and the alternate-history ending didn’t sit well with me, but overall, Inglourious Basterds was one of the most unique screenplays of the year and one of the most enjoyable movies.

6. Taken
Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
A stellar example of how a script with a simple premise -– Liam Neeson plays an ex-CIA agent who must find his daughter’s kidnappers in France -— can result in a tight, suspenseful thriller so long as the execution is done right.

7. The Hangover
Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
There was no single funnier movie in 2009 than The Hangover. Lucas and Moore take the tired “bachelor party in Vegas” subgenre, put a subtle Memento-like slant on it, and deliver one of the most jaw-droppingly, surprisingly hilarious films of the year.

8. The Hurt Locker
Written by Mark Boal
This is an intense war thriller about a gung-ho bomb specialist who takes over a U.S. Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad and clashes with his by-the-book subordinates in the midst of roadside bombs, insurgent snipers, and internal demons. Not perfect and lacks a strong character arc, but otherwise pretty invigorating. Makes me glad I never joined the military — and grateful to those who have.

8. 9. The Blind Side
Written by John Lee Hancock
I usually don’t fall for the based-on-a-true-story, tear-jerking, feel-good dramas, but this Sandra Bullock-starring football movie took me by surprise. Why? Because the screenplay had well-rounded characters and a simple but effective plotline — all causing you to empathize with the main character. An effective family-friendly drama if ever there were one this year.

Honorable Mentions:

• Paranormal Activity
• I Love You, Man
• Watchmen
• The International

ttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/

He’s got some common-sense advice mixed in with some real-world experience. Here’s a taste:

“…you simply want to intrigue them enough so that they can’t wait to read the entire screenplay. If you have a twist ending you can tell them about the twist without giving it away. Make them want to read the full script.”

Meyers actually wrote a book called, coincidentally enough, Selling Your Screenplay. I haven’t read it, but it seems solid.

It’s kinda hard to judge a screenplay by watching the resultant film without reading the actual screenplay. But I’ll do my best here to strip away the director’s gorgeous choices, the actors’ brilliant human touches, and the rest of the crew’s awesome work, so I can focus on the movie’s spine: the script. (Keep in mind I have not yet seen the usual late-in-the-year Oscar bait, such as Precious, Up in the Air, or Nine, or highly praised smaller movies, like The Hurt Locker.)

Below is my list of 2009′s Best Produced Screenplays:

1. Up
Written by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter
The first three on my list are all running neck and neck and neck for the top spot, but ultimately, I had to give it to Up, this funny, emotional, unpredictable, and technically brilliant animated film from (where else?) Pixar Studios. It has everything a near-perfect screenplay should have: real (and really flawed) characters, realistic (yet witty) dialogue, strong (and strongly motivated) villains, and a believable character arc (there’s two actually, one for each of the main characters). Who knew a cartoon about a senior citizen and a chubby kid in a balloon-powered floating house would be so riveting?

2. District 9
Written by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell
“Wow.” That was my first impression after seeing this movie. Smart on so many levels and wholly different from anything Hollywood could ever hope to produce, District 9 is a ticking time-bomb of a story: it starts off like a real-life documentary about alien refugees, sprints off like an action movie on fire, and ends with one cataclysmic sci-fi bang that leaves you blown away.

3. Avatar
Written by James Cameron
James Cameron’s screenplay for this year’s most anticipated film and history’s most expensive movie ever is by no means subtle. But it does exactly what a good script should do: act as the solid blueprint for an amazingly sound yet beautiful cinematic monolith to be built upon. From paying off small first-act setups to putting a 22nd-Century twist on cliched elements, the Avatar story is breathtaking, intense, and otherworldly — it reminds us of the very reasons we go to the cinema in the first place.

4. Star Trek
Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
Director J.J. Abrams is a pop-culture God. Just look at his recent credits. And his re-imagining of the original Star Trek series was a pretty damn good balance between appeasing the Trekkers and Trekkies (depending on your level of geekdom) and telling a suspenseful, witty, and action-packed sci-fi opera for the newbies. But it’s really the screenwriting duo of Orci & Kurtzman who should share in the glory. Though their screenplay has a few flaws ([spoiler until the end of the parenthesis] why the Hell does Kirk go from ensign to captain of the Enterprise in less than a day???), its solid structure is what allowed Abrams to pull off the sacrilegious move of remaking a classic.

5. Inglourious Basterds
Written by Quentin Tarantino
This historical fantasy made a big splash because it was Quentin Tarantino’s return to form, his entree back into pop-culture consciousness after the dismal performance of his half of Grindhouse, Death Proof. Unique anti-heroes (a band of covert U.S. Army Jews infiltrating Nazi-occupied France), long-winded monologues, and the most delicious villain we’ve seen in a long time. Sure some of his scenes needed to be trimmed (the pub scene was way too long!) and the alternate-history ending didn’t sit well with me, but overall, Inglourious Basterds was one of the most unique screenplays of the year and one of the most enjoyable movies.

6. Taken
Written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
A stellar example of how a script with a simple premise -– Liam Neeson plays an ex-CIA agent who must find his daughter’s kidnappers in France -— can result in a tight, suspenseful thriller so long as the execution is done right.

7. The Hangover
Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
There was no single funnier movie in 2009 than The Hangover. Lucas and Moore take the tired “bachelor party in Vegas” subgenre, put a subtle Memento-like slant on it, and deliver one of the most jaw-droppingly, surprisingly hilarious films of the year.

8. The Blind Side
Written by John Lee Hancock
I usually don’t fall for the based-on-a-true-story, tear-jerking, feel-good dramas, but this Sandra Bullock-starring football movie took me by surprise. Why? Because the screenplay had well-rounded characters and a simple but effective plotline — all causing you to empathize with the main character. An effective family-friendly drama if ever there were one this year.

Honorable Mentions:

• Paranormal Activity
• I Love You, Man
• Watchmen
• The International

“I deduce that this movie is elementary entertainment, my dear boy.”

Bad joke aside, Sherlock Holmes could have been an excellent action thriller…but it’s hampered by a slow second act and unoriginal third act, resulting in only an above average popcorn flick, despite Robert Downey Jr. starring in the title role and Jude Law as his sidekick Dr. John Watson.

A lot of gripes have been made that director Guy Ritchie‘s take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s literary detective is a bastardization, or Hollywoodization, an attempt to make Holmes into some sort of action superhero. And it’s partly true: the script by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg immediately establishes that this ain’t your great grandfather’s Sherlock Holmes. His intellect is matched only by his physical prowess.

But this might be a more faithful take on the character (I’ve never read any of the stories or novels myself, but apparently Holmes has always been a swordsman, boxer and martial artist) and is certainly more interesting than previous iterations of Holmes.

Sadly, Ritchie’s handling of the action scenes are something to be desired: While the gunplay and explosions are shown in clear (sometimes even slow-motion) angles, the hand-to-hand combat is shot in the very annoying, very trendy fashion of vomit-inducing handheld camera work and seizure-sparking rapid-fire editing. Shame, considering that Downey can actually fight (he practices Wing Chun). The villains are fairly stock and Holmes’ archnemesis, Moriarty, makes nothing more than a cameo.

Fortunately, Downey and Law are excellent as Holmes and Watson, so they save the movie from becoming a Hollywood-rapes-literary classic scenario. Their rapport is palpable and witty. Plus, their takes on their respective characters are smart and realistic.

A franchise this most certainly will be.

If you haven’t already, treat yourself to a holiday present and watch Avatar.

Is it the best movie ever made based on the best screenplay ever written? No, of course not. But it’s certainly one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. Though it’s wrapped in the most mind-blowing special-effects package, the true gift inside is the no-gimmicks heart-felt action-packed story — it’ll satisfy your mind and heart long after you toss the goofy-looking 3D glasses that the box-office attendant hands you before you enter the theater.

If you’ve been living under a rock lately or swamped with holiday shopping, here’s a rundown: Avatar is set in the far future when humans have consumed Earth and is looking to extract minerals from the planet of Pandora for fuel. But aliens called Na’vi live there and refuse to make way for bulldozers. Enter Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-Marine (played by Sam Worthington) who volunteers to control a Na’vi-human hybrid to inflitrate and influence the natives. One problem: Jake realizes he’s playing for the wrong team when he falls in love with a Na’vi princess.

Writer-director James Cameron has been working on this movie for 12 years, and his hard work and persistence pays off plenty of dividends. His script combines so many great elements (action, sci-fi, romance, politics, and history) in one unified, poetic tale.

It’s not Cameron’s most subtle script (the aliens in Avatar are clearly a parallel to Native Americans), but it’s certainly his most ambitious. Twelve years and $300 million later, he still doesn’t let that all that overshadow the action-packed love story.

Sure, I’m a little biased, as Cameron is probably my favorite writer-director out of the myriad of filmmakers I admire. Aside from also being a Canadian-born Southern Californian like me, Cameron is one of the rare auteurs who can handle both visuals and story, action and drama.

He’s never made a bad movie. (OK, I’ve never seen his first one, Piranha Part Two, but I’m certain if I did watch it, I’ll think it’s the greatest B-movie ever.) From the original The Terminator to Aliens to Terminator 2: Judgment Day to Titanic, every one of Cameron’s movies are epic entertainment.

Why?

Because he understands how to use intense action to further a compelling story, rather than the other way around.

So sprinkle a little holiday cheer on yourself and watch Avatar.

Everything about this movie screamed, “Predictable Cheesefest!” Yet somehow I ended up liking Armored. Quite a bit, to boot.

This Matt Dillion-starring heist flick reminded me of early 1990s action movies, kinda a combination of gritty crime thrillers like New Jack City and hard-hitting violent flicks like Die Hard 2. Old fashioned (in a good way) in terms of aesthetics, Armored emphasizes tension based on the characters and (thankfully) not on mindless CGI or vomit-inducing editing.

It is an effective action thriller for two reasons:

1. The premise is straightforward: What happens when a team of armored truck guards steals $42 million…then finds one of their own turn against them?
2. James V. Simpson writes a screenplay that keeps the characters aren’t too complex yet quite real, thereby allowing the suspense to build atop their flaws and hubris.

Plus, despite the trailer giving away much of the plot, there were still several surprises that kept the movie from falling into B-movie territory.

I give it 3.75 stars out of 5.

Inglourious Basterds is – surprisingly — kinda glorious.

Writer-director Quentin Tarrantino has finally shot a script that A) doesn’t beat us to death with pages and pages of unending Tarrantino-ese, and B) actually tells a story that goes beyond his ego — in that I mean its sole purpose is to not show off how many movies he can quote (AKA plagiarize) in his own movies, but rather to actually tell a unique and interesting story. Hands down, Basterds is his best movie since Pulp Fiction.

As you probably already know, Basterds is a World War II fantasy about a group of Jewish-American soldiers (led by Brad Pitt) who infiltrate Nazi-occupied France before D-Day to kill, terrorize, and scalp as many Nazis as they possibly can. That in and of itself is a great premise, a rarity for Tarrantino movies. (Don’t believe me? Try to summarize Pulp Fiction in one 60-words-or-less logline.)

The movie shines not because of Pitt and his spec-ops platoon but because of the European characters filling out the cast — this doesn’t happen a lot in Hollywood WWII. Rather than being cardboard cut-outs opposite Pitt’s stellar Lt. Aldo Raine, the French, German, and English supporting actors are all given full-bloodied characters to ply their brilliance with. And Christoph Waltz as the highly-intelligent, morally-corrupt Col. Hans Landa practically steals the show!

Another reason Inglourious Basterds works so effectively is that Tarrantino’s script makes sure it always works on two levels. There’s always a sense of dual suspense, due to the espionage elements for a variety of characters.

For example, in one scene, a famous German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (played by Diane Kruger) is actually a spy for the Allied Forces and calls a clandestine meeting at a Nazi bar with two of the Basterds and a British agent (the latter three of whom are disguised as Nazi SS officers). Things seem simple enough until some drunk, enlisted Nazi soldiers cause a raucous, which draws out a Nazi Gestapo officer into the fray.

There’s the conflict at the surface (will von Hammersmark be able to trade the secret information with the Basterds while surrounded by Nazis) and then there’s the added layer of conflict that complicates everything (will the Gestapo officer blow their cover, find out their secret and have them killed?).

It’s this multilayered tension that makes Inglourious Basterds far more effective than any of Tarrantino’s previous works — at least in terms of drama, action, and general storytelling.

Bravo, Tarrantino.

After the over-talky Death Proof, the uneven Kill Bill franchise, and the plain boring Jackie Brown, you’ve renewed my faith in you as a unique filmmaker.