Inception (2010) ****1/2

“Inception” won a bunch of awards a few years ago, but somehow I never got around to seeing it. I think I got the idea that it was all special effects, and no story. I guess compared to the typical Oscar movie, it doesn't quite fit in. No one is gay, no one is sexually abused, and it isn't about the Holocaust. It turns out to be a crackin' heist movie, though, and I'm glad I finally watched it.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a peculiar kind of thief. He and his team hijack the dreams of their victims in order to steal secrets. It's complicated just getting access, as they have to be physically wired to the sleeper during the dream. They typically co-opt something like a dental anesthesia, or else they have to slip sedatives into the victim's drink, then hustle them off somewhere the team can get some alone time. Once in the dream, they manipulate things to get people to reveal their secrets. The highest-value, corporate targets are prepared to defend against dream assaults, so getting their secrets requires elaborate, dream-within-a-dream scenarios.

This can be heady stuff. The process of repeatedly waking up, only to discover that one is still dreaming, can be hard on the psyche. Cobb has spent a lot of time in dreamland, and he carries some demons that make his job even harder.

Despite his demons, Cobb and his team are the best at stealing secrets, what they call doing extractions. Then, they are hired to do an infinitely harder job, an inception. Businessman Saito wants Cobb to plant an idea in his competitor's head that will lead the man to break up his empire. Cobb and his team (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Ellen Page) craft a multi-layered psychic attack to achieve the toughest task of their careers.

What follows is one heck of a heist film, with car chases and gun-fights, sprinkled with head-trippy questions about dreams and reality. You do have to pay attention, or you'll miss details, like the nature of dream-time, which are necessary for things to make sense. In truth, it may not all quite make sense, but it comes close enough to be one damned enjoyable action movie. It'll haunt your dreams.

4.5 stars out of 5

Ocean's 8 (2018) **

So first, I'll have to admit that while I've seen the original “Ocean's Eleven,” starring Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack friends, I've never seen the 2001 remake, starring George Clooney, nor any of its many sequels. So why did I watch this spin-off sequel, starring Sandra Bullock as Danny Ocean's shady sister, Debbie? My wife wanted to watch it.

Fresh out of prison, Debbie has a big heist in mind, so she assembles an all-star cast of crooks, including Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, and Awkwafina. The plan is to steal a priceless, Tiffany necklace full of massive diamonds right off the neck of a movie star (Anne Hathaway) at the Met Gala.

Sounds like fun, right? Well, it is some fun, but not nearly as much as it should be. With this kind of star power, and the standard heist movie playbook to follow, it should be easy to make a decent, entertaining movie. Apparently easy wasn't easy enough for writer/director Gary Ross, who presents the laziest, most half-baked crime story I've seen in a while (which is kind of inexplicable when you consider Ross is known for movies like “Big” and “The Hunger Games.”) These excellent actresses do their best with the material, but there really isn't much to work with. Necklace or no necklace, what Debbie Ocean really steals is a couple of hours of your life.

2 stars out of 5

Touch of Evil (1958, re-release 1998) ****1/2

Orson Welles's last major-studio film, “Touch of Evil”, is known as much for its back-story as for the material itself. Welles is considered a genius today, but in the 50's, he was on the outs in Hollywood. Stubborn and temperamental, he was considered hard to work with and, worse, a bad investment. As revered as Welles is now, and was then among artists, none of his movies turned a profit at the box office. After a decade in Europe, Welles returned to Hollywood to re-write, direct, and act in this film, based on the noir novel Badge of Evil, by Whit Masterson. He was proud of the work,but the studio hacked it up, cutting some scenes and getting another director to re-shoot and re-arrange others. Welles sent them a long letter, detailing the changes he thought should be made, but the film was released as the studio wanted it. Years later, Welles's letter was used to re-cut the film,making it as close as possible to his vision. I loved it when it was released in 1998, and it's now streaming on Netflix.

Charlton Heston plays Miguel “Mike” Vargas, a police officer in what is essentially the Mexican DEA. He frequently works with American cops across the border, and he has just married an American woman, Susan (Janet Leigh). On their honeymoon, Mike and Susan witness a car-bombing on the border. The American police detective sent to investigate, Hank Quinlan (Welles), is a law enforcement legend. He has a long string of solved cases, and while he is fat, decrepit, and racist, he still has a sharp mind. Like many movie cops, he also has a tendency to play fast and loose with the law. In “Touch of Evil,” this isn't presented as a strength, but as the corrupt short-cut that it is, and when Mike Vargas witnesses Quinlan planting evidence on a suspect, he vows to expose him, giving one of the greatest lines in movie history, “A policeman's job is only easy in a police state.”

Mike understands the costs of corruption; his country is rife with it. He does the best he can to see justice done, and one of his big drug busts is coming to trial. The accused drug lord's brother, “Uncle Joe” Grandi, has a plan to discredit Mike, using his pretty, new wife. Desperate to avoid exposure, Quinlan joins in Grandi's plot, crossing a line he has never crossed before.

It's a sordid, twisted plot that doesn't always make much sense, but shot with such style that it doesn't matter. The cinematography is so remarkable that you could watch with the sound off, although you'd miss some great lines from Welles and Heston, not to mention Marlene Dietrich in a small, but pivotal role as a Mexican madame. Janet Leigh's acting isn't impressive, but she's an alluring damsel-in-distress in her pointy bras. Actually, the acting in general isn't what you would call good, but it's stylish as hell.

“Touch of Evil” is a classic, and in the end, it's about what every other noir movie is about. You can't just be a little bit evil. Once you dip your toes into the muck, you get dirty all over.

For some truly great reflections on the film, check out Roger Ebert's review. 

4.5 stars out of 5

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) ***

Well, it's all come down to this. After 10 years of Avengers and Avengers-related Marvel comics films, this is the big showdown. At least, that's how it was billed. If you are one of the handful of people in the free world who haven't seen “Avengers: Infinity War” yet, I think you deserve to come into it knowing that the story does not get resolved in this film. It ends in a cliffhanger, making this just the first part of the final story, with the second half, “Endgame” slated to come out this spring.

So if you've watched any of the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU) films over the years, you know that many of them feature some sort of shiny object, like the Tesseract or that green amulet Dr. Strange wears. It turns out these are called Infinity Stones. They were formed during the Big Bang, and they are incredibly powerful. A giant, bodybuilder of an alien, named Thanos, is collecting the stones so he can carry out his plan to cull the population of the universe by half. Up til now, Thanos and his army have had to go planet by planet, slaughtering half the population at random. With the combined, godlike power of the stones, he would be able to achieve his goal all at once, just by thinking it.

Big stakes. Big enough to bring (almost) all the MCU heroes together? You betcha, and there's some fun to be had in that, although most of them had already met in previous films. All that was really left was to bring Dr. Strange and the Guardians of the Galaxy into the fold and have them butt heads a little with the other Avengers.

Then the fighting starts, and we run into a problem of over-powered villains. Thanos and his minions are so ridiculously powerful, even without the stones, that it seems unlikely the Avengers could defeat them. Once he begins filling that gantlet with powerful stones, it becomes apparent that only the smartest, most coordinated effort by the Avengers could succeed. Unfortunately, the Avengers make one dumb decision after another, basically handing the stones over to Thanos.

Speaking of that gantlet, it sort of symbolizes my complaints about this film, which is just full of wasted potential. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the movie, but this cheesy, stone-covered gantlet looks like something a high-school theater troupe made using a hot-glue gun. The film, itself is full of good actors, but they are forced to make their characters do the stupidest things in order to make the plot of this mess lurch along to where it needs to go.

Now for the good stuff. The acting is actually good. The MCU characters have always been played by a relatively high-talent group, and these actors do the best they can with the material. My man, Peter Dinklage, even has a surprise role.  There's also some decent humor sprinkled through this thing. The best thing about this film, I think, is the villain. Thanos's plan is more evil and destructive than anything the Avengers have faced, but Thanos, himself actually has some humanity (or whatever, since he's not human). His concerns about overpopulation are based on his home planet's decline, and he genuinely believes that his culling makes life better for the people who remain.

The biggest thing to know about “Infinity War” is that it's just Part 1 of the final story. We'll have to wait until spring to find out how they unravel this conundrum, whether all those seemingly dumb Avenger decisions will lead somewhere good. As for the rest of it, it doesn't really matter what I or anyone says about these MCU movies. Some of us are simply compelled to watch them, the same way you are compelled to munch on chips and dip at a party. Sometimes it leaves you feeling bloated and disgusted with yourself, but you know that, come the next party, you'll eventually find yourself at the snack table, shoveling it in.

3 stars out of 5