"Synecdoche, New York" > "Inception"
I hadn't seen "Synecdoche, New York" when it played in theaters a while ago, but I saw that it was available on Netflix Instant view, so I saw it last night on the TV using my Roku device [recommended]. It was so much better a movie than "Inception," much more dreamlike and surreal, but less CGI-ey, and really more touching and gentle and funny and sad. There's no explanatory crap - no "and now we're in a dream in a dream, with kicks and 6 seconds means 10 minutes means 60 years." The emotions that characters had in "Synecdoche" are nuanced and conflicting and amorphous, whereas in "Inception" all the emotions are shorthand, like comic book panels or anime expressions.
When I went to go see "Inception" with The Complication on Saturday, he was less than impressed, and looking on the bright side, I tried to convince him that at least seeing that movie meant that you could discuss the concept of solipsism with a wide range of people, and have a ready illustration for it. I enjoyed "Inception" I like James Bond movies, and the musical score emulated a lot of 007 moments. But later I read Andrew O'Hehir's review in Salon, and he really pegged why it isn't a "Great Film" - that lack of femaleness, that total boy geekery of Chris Nolan that robs the movie of emotional subtlety. There's no emotional reality in "Inception", whereas "Synecdoche, New York" is so emotionally true that all the fantasy and weirdness of the plot just fades away, just the same way real dreams fade away when we wake up.