Big slick Hollywood movie making 101

Inception is the latest big event movie. As such it invites direct comparison with the other BEM of 2010 - but it's a much better movie than Avatar - much less gimicky, much less simple minded and a uniformly terrific cast.

But ... I can't call it great.

For example, it invites comparison with The Matrix, involving worlds that exist only in the mind, but it is not as primal as The Matrix, it's only playing with the concepts. It reminded me more of Wim Wnders Until the End of the World, which was a bit of a mess of a movie (coming for me, as it did, on the heels of Wings of Desire which is one of my greatest ever movies) - but has in common with Inception the idea that our dreams could be addictive if we were ever able to control our access to them. In Inception our dream worlds threaten to become our reality and the end (somewhat simplistically) plays with our inability to discern reality over delusion.

But, for me the deep issues of Inception are laid over the top, they're not really significant to the movie. They're more like a shallow attempt to make the movie important.

Basically it's a heist movie. The main characters are thieves on a mission impossible. The direction is almost flawless. At one point we are four dreams into the maze of the unconscious and we know exactly where we are at all points. The only thing that slightly confused me was the firefight in the snow where everyone was wearing white - I wasn't sure who was actually dieing and who was surviving.

The apparent emotional core of the movie, the main character's angst over the death of his wife, remained extremely unmoving, although it did complicate the heist.

There was remarkably little in the way of SFX, which was refreshing, and if you want to cast an action hero Leonardo DiCaprio is probably your best bet. The unbelievably dependable Michael Caine turns up, and Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard - I told you it was a great cast.

Inception is a brilliant action/sci fi movie that doesn't rely too much on gimmicks. Just don't expect a masterpiece.

How to write chick lit

I have read chick lit on and off my whole life, obviously being a chick and being into lit, and I have come to some conclusions about how it's done.

True chick lit involves the friendships of women. Books and stories mainly about men/women relationships are romances. I think this is probably my arbitrary division, but it seems chick lit celebrates something about women. Chick lit is about how women are the best friends of women, how our relationships with our friends meet all our emotional needs, how wise and special women are. Men are in these books and stories only as objects or caricatures. So Sex and the City is the TV version, The Jane Austen Book Club or The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants or The Joy Luck Club are the book (and sometimes movie) versions. Another movie version in The Making of An American Quilt (I haven't read the book). In all these stories a woman's girlfriends put her back together after crisis, or help her mature and grow up, etc.

Another strand of chick lit builds on the premise that women are wise and loving and the fount of all that is good. Examples here are Chocolat, Babette's Feast, Like Water for Chocolate, The Colour Purple (I'm aware that these are movies, but they started as books, three of them are also about food - hmmmmm).

Most of the sisterhood books have in common that you really can't understand what brought these women together in the first place. Margaret Atwood's Robber Bride comes close to answering that. The three friends are drawn together over each other being the victim of the same Other Woman stealing their men. Atwood correctly identifies that sometimes the enemy is one of us, not all are sisters.

So my recipe for chick lit:
1. Take three or four women as different as possible
2. Put them together over a particular past time (quilt making, a book club)or
3. Have them share an experience (the same woman stole their husbands)or
4. Just have them be friends for no apparent reason (Sex and the City)
5. Have them meet and talk endlessly
6. While recounting their rotten marriages, rotten children, thwarted dreams
7. Have them come through a life time of friendship stronger and happier

OR have one particularly strong woman befriend a whole lot of weaker, more victimised ones
have her power be absolutely benevolent and mysterious and have every woman (remember men are the enemies or the weak ninnies) who comes near her be blessed and live happily ever after.

See, they're fairy tales!