Christopher Nolan is no longer a director, he is a magician. The type of magician that has the power to transform the audience’s thoughts and question the reality of not what is in front of them, but what exists around them.

Nolan is no stranger to the thriller genre. With overflowing, complex plots in Memento and Prestige, toying with the viewer is his strong suit. After ten years of writing, Inception is Nolan’s opus.

Viewers will find much of the film adrift in their own interpretation. Much like Prestige, Inception isn’t about seeing what is there, it is about understanding what isn’t. Cobb (Dicaprio) works as some dream robber, performing jobs to gain valuable information from the subject’s dream that he is in.

Cobb has just burned his last bridge when Saito (Watanabe), a rich businessman, offers Cobb a opportunity to return from his exile to be with his kids. The offer, however, is the perpendicular task of the implantation, or inception, of an idea into the victim’s psyche. A task that everyone, except Cobb, passes off as impossible.

The mission is to subconsciously convince the son, Robert Fischer (Murphy), of an ailing energy tycoon to split up his father’s company. A move that would prove too prosperous to Saito’s business interests. Cobb collects a team of dream magicians all charged with unique jobs. Ariadne (Page) becomes the architect, employed to create the visual aspects of the dreamer. Others take part as being able to change personas in the dream or sedate individuals. All, in the end, falling victim to the secrets Cobb has let seep into his dreams and memories.

There is no way to fully explain the rest of the plot with any respect to the reader. As the audience, we often find ourselves trapped in the maze of reality, with only the Virgil-esque Cobb at our side for interpretation. To simply put words next to each other would leave the moviegoer lost in a sea of ink, one that only Nolan could helm out of. There are plenty of gun fights, car chases, and explosions which will quench any yearning for action. Playing off of Momento and The Prestige, the final scene will leave the viewer to question the existence of what really just happened. Again, was it something we saw, or was it something we thought we understood.

The director uses the labyrinth of the subconscious to question the idea around the audience. Maybe, in theory, we are all victims of each other’s subconscious, constantly interpreting and creating the world around each other. On the way home, I couldn’t help but think that everything around the next corner was just a recreation from my memory. I had driven down this street a thousand times and because of this, my subconscious was recreating something that I had experienced those thousand times, leaving me to dream or delve in other thoughts. Maybe this is Nolan’s scope, then again, maybe it is Nolan’s hope that when we die, we only wake up as if it was just a dream.

If the world was fine with turkey and ham, why did we create SPAM? Such a question could be pondered with the ostentatious remake of The Karate Kid.

Jackie Chan as a comedy prop in the past

I have empathy for Jackie Chan. After basically whoring himself out to the American stereotype of Chinese culture in films such as Rush Hour and Shanghai Knights, Chan has finally gotten a mainstream role that can exist on its own in Chinese culture. He overall succeeds with a stellar acting performance void of those unnecessary one liner’s found in Rush Hour. Still, the atmosphere that exists around him is laden with puns and unconscious racial obscenities.

The film starts in a subtle Detroit atmosphere where Dre (Jaden Smith) and his mother (Tariji P. Henson) are leaving for a new life in Beijing, China. The first thing that is to be noted is the heavy use of English language. Everyone from Dre’s principle to his love interest, Meiying, speaks fluent English.

After making a pass at Meiying, Dre is approached with the vociferous Cheng. Dre tries to fight Cheng but ultimately ends up in the dirt, lacking the kung fu to best Cheng. After getting his ass kicked a few more times, Dre finds rescue at the hands of the maintenance main, Mr. Han (Chan).

Han and Dre go to Cheng’s gym leader to settle the feud, but the Hollywood-esque gym leader challenges Dre to a tournament in return for the bullying to cease. Only here does Han agree to train Dre.

Han notes Dre’s predilection for laziness and punishes him by making him take off and hang up his coat for about 45 minutes of the film. When Dre finally has enough, it is revealed that when he goes through the motion without the coat, he has become a superb blocker, keeping up with all of Han’s punches instantly.

Dre fights in the tournament and is able to beat fighters twice his size. After undoubtedly breaking his leg, he still is able to beat arch-rival Cheng for the title and good has officially defeated evil. The students of the wanton gym leader pledge allegiance to Han and Dre, which is cute, but an ultimately obvious ending.

The film comes up short by only incorporating fifteen minutes of Chinese heritage. We go up to a temple on a mountain to drink spiritual water and do a short routine on top of The Great Wall. In the end, Karate Kid fails to incorporate more scenery than Big Bird Goes To China.

Casting Jaden Smith was an overall ultimate mistake on behalf of director Harald Zwart. The Hollywood pond is too small for the cocky, “I’m better than everything” attitude filled by father Will Smith.

Columbia Pictures had a real opportunity vessel to educate American youth on the misconceived notations of Asian culture. Sadly, they only continued to highlight racial stereotypes on both sides of the Pacific.

I will be the first to admit, I loved the first Sex and the City movie. Superior costumes, great plot, good acting, passable direction and writing. I’ll also be the first to admit that I’ve been waiting two years for the sequel, and now I’m just disappointed.

For those of you living on another planet (caves probably have satellite reception these days), Sex and the City follows the lives of four New York City socialites and their intricate, often shallow, exploits. We meet  the characters again two years after the first film; the audience is thrust into a same-sex marriage in Connecticut. The nuptials reminded me of a Tim Burton adaptation of the Lawrence Welk Show, but then I remembered that this was real life…kind of. There are swans, a male choir, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Liza Minnelli weds the couples and follows with a performance of “Single Ladies,” which was almost surely a harbinger of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Appropriately, two Sodomites were being wed.

Back in NYC, the girls gripe and moan about their middle aged lives. Carrie tries to motivate Big to return to his old self (the one that went out on the town), Samantha is combatting menopause with a cocktail regimen of hormones so she can maintain her slutty lifestyle, Miranda complains about her new boss not liking her, and Charlotte, stressed about her children, becomes jealous over her nanny (the gorgeous Alice Eve). At 22, I questioned why the audience would sympathize with four (upper) middle-aged women who deal with very common problems in a very uncommon, superfluous, and STUPID way.

Somehow, the film travels to Abu Dahbi where Samantha is doing business with a hotel exec. Instead of getting business done, the girls have an unexplainable (6 days) of free time to don their Gucci, Valentino, and Dior around the conservative fashion of Islamic women and the emirate.  The interactions between the four girls and Islamic culture was disturbing in general.

The film often walks a fine line between smut and cinema. While there is never full frontal, tons of cleavage and bulges appear at the most unnecessary times. Soccer players, in town for the World Cup try outs, often take their shirts off at the shutter of a lens and wear mankinis. Samantha, hunting for man-prey the minute the plane touches down, eventually sets her sights on a european architect, Rikard (Dick) Spirt….

After an incredibly stressful scene at dinner where Dick Spirt and Samantha are fondling each other in front of a mortified Islamic couple, Samantha finds herself in jail for violating a serious crime. The hotel manager severs ties (before the business meeting) and it is time to get the hell out of Dodge (or at least a $20,000 a night hotel room). Upon trying to escape, Samantha further upsets a mob and the girls seek shelter in a women’s book club where it is revealed under burkas, muslim women where Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, etc.  Of course, because how else are women supposed to function?  I remember when the show used to be about the “everyday-ness” of womanhood, and how relatable these girls were supposed to be.  Now it’s just lost in ostentatiousness and offensive showcasing.

In the end, the dodecahedron of plot is never resolved. The characters undoubtably return to their Upper West Side apartments to refuel on cosmopolitans and watch The Real Housewives of New York (or maybe the Jersey Shore). Nobody learns anything and the movie felt as if the writers had 20 good jokes that they padded with two and a half hours of cinema. I feel like I’m so far removed from the Sex and the City franchise which drew me in originally.