Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.

There’s a moment early in “Inception” (beware mild spoilers) when Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page meet within a Parisian dream world of Page’s creation. Leo is a former architect turned professional dream thief, and he’s trying to convince Page to ditch her architectural studies and become part of his crew.

In the course of their discussion, DiCaprio raises a metaphor about the act of creation: When you’re truly inspired, it’s almost as if you’re not creating so much as discovering something that already exists. Their dialogue exchange, writer/director Christopher Nolan revealed, is actually ripped directly from his experiences penning the script.

“That’s how this felt to me,” he explained to MTV News. “It felt like there’s a world here that I’m just trying to understand and put together for the audience. … You feel like it already exists, and you’re kind of uncovering it.”

Unlike James Cameron in the writing of “Avatar,” Nolan declined to create an “Inception” bible to track his various ideas, characters and plot threads. “I kept thinking about doing that,” he said. “But what happens is, you come up with a rule set, then you’re writing the script, and you need the story to go somewhere else, you don’t want to go back in and change the rule set.”

Because, as Nolan made clear, he would have had to do a ton of revision to that bible over the course of the writing process. “The backstory, the rules of the world, they evolve as the picture of the whole movie evolves,” he said. “You also want to bring actors in and technicians in and really keep the thing fluid until it has to be locked down. So to me, the rules are sort of evolutionary in a film like ‘Inception.’ You have to be true to them. There’s no question about that. You can’t cheat with them. But you don’t want to sit down and put one to 10, ‘OK, these are the rules.’

“Writing is a strange thing, because sometimes it’s cart before horse,” he added. “Sometimes you know there’s a scene that’s going to happen, but you don’t quite know how you’re going to get there. And that’s one of the things that I really enjoy about writing.”

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.

It happened last winter with “Avatar” and it’s happening again with “Inception”: a hugely hyped, big-budget thrill-ride hits theaters, pretty much everyone loves it, yet there remain a few critics on the sideline defiantly shouting, “But it’s really not that good, people!”

To those “Inception” haters, we might ask: Um, what exactly do you expect from a summer blockbuster? Because “Inception” is about as perfect as a summer blockbuster can be. Which is not to say it’s a perfect movie. No doubt, Christopher Nolan’s cinematic dreamscape has its fair share of flaws. But if you expect a ripping story line, whiz-bang special effects and the sense of being transported to another world, you will not be disappointed. In fact, you will be elated.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, the brains behind a crew of thieves — including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy — with a peculiar specialty: They possess a machine that allows them to enter another person’s dreams and steal a secret. Their quest in “Inception” is to implant a memory, which requires them to create dreams worlds within dream worlds — and not get lost forever on the bewildering shores of their own subconscious.

Will you be a fanatic or hater of “Inception”? There’s only one way to find out: Get thyself to the multiplex. And before you do, check out what the critics have to say.

The Hype
“The accomplishments of ‘Inception’ are mainly technical, which is faint praise only if you insist on expecting something more from commercial entertainment. That audiences do — and should — expect more is partly, I suspect, what has inspired some of the feverish early notices hailing ‘Inception’ as a masterpiece, just as the desire for a certifiably great superhero movie led to the wild overrating of ‘The Dark Knight.’ In both cases Mr. Nolan’s virtuosity as a conjurer of brilliant scenes and stunning set pieces, along with his ability to invest grandeur and novelty into conventional themes, have fostered the illusion that he is some kind of visionary.” — A.O. Scott, The New York Times

The Dissenters
“If you approach ‘Inception’ with lowered expectations it’s a pretty good time … For all the complexity, craftsmanship and color of ‘Inception,’ it’s yet another of [Nolan's] ultra-serious schematic constructions with no soul, no sex and almost no joy, all about some tormented dude struggling with his ill-managed Freudian demons. That same guy sitting next to me cracked that Nolan needs to stop seeing a therapist; there’s not nearly enough sublimation in his movies.” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

The Complexities
“Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay, lays out the rules of his world deftly. A ton of exposition is needed, yet it never feels like exposition. Things are explained plausibly, and in just enough detail for us to get it — the last thing Nolan wants to do is over-explain himself. The information is parceled out carefully, not all at once, but not in a way that’s maddening or cryptic, either. Again, I marvel at how many films with concepts far simpler than this one never make sense at all, or else only make sense because they repeat themselves clumsily.” — Eric Snider, Cinematical.com

The Performances
” ‘Inception’ benefits immensely from a series of low-key and thoroughly credible performances. DiCaprio, in a kind of riff on his ‘Shutter Island’ performance, embodies both the steel and the putty of Cobb, a man who can do remarkable things and is at the same time deeply vulnerable. Gordon-Levitt, stylish and lean as a dagger, makes a fine and steady cohort, Page is utterly at home in the intellectual depths of her character, and Hardy has a seedy nobility that suggests a John le Carré antihero. In [Cillian] Murphy we have a man who isn’t a villain but a decent fellow with reasonable defensiveness, and in [Marion] Cotillard, as you might expect, we have a woman worth losing one’s mind for — literally, as it happens.” — Shawn Levy, The Oregonian

The Director
“Nolan exemplifies the best kind of filmmaking, unchained from the laws of time, space and even gravity, but never from the most basic rules of narrative. Even at its most tangled and paradoxical, ‘Inception’ keeps circling back to the motivation that has driven films from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to ‘E.T.’: Cobb, finally, just wants to go home.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

The Stunts
“Many of the movie’s effects and digital manipulations are spectacularly imaginative, especially a sequence of weightless action in a rotating hotel corridor, the unexpected arrival of a huge train in a scene without tracks, and the startling sight of a long boulevard peeling up off the ground and rising to double over on itself.” — Kurt Loder, MTV News

The Final Word
“When was the last time you had your mind blown by a movie? Because when ‘Inception’ ends and the lights come up, you’ll be sitting in your seat, staring at the screen, wondering what the hell just happened. Of course, it won’t be the first time director Christopher Nolan has shaken us out of the apathy that modern moviegoing induces. ‘Inception’ blends the blockbuster enormity of his ‘Dark Knight’ with the indie insights of ‘Memento’ to create an all-encompassing experience that makes most other summer films seem mediocre.” — Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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John Edwards
Photo: Jonathan Torgovnik/ Getty Images

The saga of disgraced North Carolina politician John Edwards is on its way to the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter and “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin has acquired the rights to the tell-all “The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down.” The tome was penned by Edwards aide Andrew Young, who divulged damaging details about the pol’s extramarital affair.

Edwards was vilified in the press for carrying on an affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. The politician was apparently cheating with Hunter while his wife, Elizabeth, battled cancer. The former senator, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, also fathered a daughter with Hunter. Edwards initially denied he was the child’s father until a paternity test revealed otherwise.

“This is a first-hand account of an extraordinary story filled with motivations, decisions and consequences that would have lit Shakespeare up,” said Sorkin, who will make his directorial debut with the movie.

“There’s much more to Andrew’s book than what has been reported, and I’m grateful that he’s trusting me with it.”

Sorkin has worked extensively in film and television. In addition to helming the hit political show “The West Wing,” he also created the shows “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “Sports Night.” He has written screenplays for “Charlie Wilson’s War,” “A Few Good Men” and, most recently, “The Social Network,” based on the rise of the social-media juggernaut Facebook.

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.

Are they handing out joints at the box office for “Inception”? That would make the movie considerably more fun. Christopher Nolan’s latest is a terrific-looking picture that bounds around the globe from Paris to Tangiers to Tokyo (among places that actually exist) in the wake of a freelance dream thief named Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). Cobb’s specialty is infiltrating the dreams of corporate big shots and extracting their most valuable secrets. His latest assignment, however, is a little different — a Japanese industrialist named Saito (Ken Watanabe) has hired him to implant an idea in someone’s head that will allow Saito to take over a rival titan’s business empire. Cobb’s reward for achieving this goal: an end to his exile from the United States, where he’s currently a wanted man, and a yearned-for reunion with his two children.

Right here you may wonder why anyone in search of secret information would break into someone’s dreams, which are so often distortions of waking life, rather than their memories, which could be more straightforward recollections. But Cobb is not a memory man, so … whatever.

Gearing up for his mission, Cobb assembles an A-team of dream-work specialists. There’s an “architect” named Ariadne (Ellen Page), whose job is to structure dreams; a “forger” named Eames (Tom Hardy), who can pass for any other person in a dream world; and a “chemist” named Yusuf (Dileep Rao), whose drug concoctions allow penetration not only into dreams, or into dreams within dreams, but into dreams within dreams within dreams. There’s also a fixer named Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose purpose is to handle details and look sharp in skinny suits.

As we see, the movie all but nudges us to notice that some of these characters’ names refer to celebrated figures outside the story. But this is cute to no purpose. Ariadne shares no qualities with her mythological namesake, and Eames displays none of the talents of a famed architectural designer. (Anyway, wouldn’t that be Ariadne’s turf?) Similarly, there’s nothing poetic about a lawyer called Browning (Tom Berenger), and an industrial heir named Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) offers no indication of a chess-master’s cunning. Then there’s Cobb’s estranged wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), who haunts his dreams and does her best to screw up his every plan: as her name unnecessarily denotes, she be bad. And what about Dom Cobb himself? Is his unlikely moniker meant to suggest Dummkopf, the German word for a dope? That would seem entirely counterintuitive. But, as I say, whatever.

Many of the movie’s effects and digital manipulations are spectacularly imaginative, especially a sequence of weightless action in a rotating hotel corridor, the unexpected arrival of a huge train in a scene without tracks, and the startling sight of a long boulevard peeling up off the ground and rising to double over on itself. These eye-popping amazements are much-appreciated in a story that goes on and on for two and a half hours, with Cobb and his team flashing back and forth disconnectedly from one dream level to another, occasionally touching down in reality (whatever that is). Each of the dream-invaders carries a “totem,” an everyday, real-world tchotchke that tips them off as to whether or not they are in fact in a dream, either their own or someone else’s. As the dream levels and their far-flung locales piled up and intermingled — a collapsing Japanese mansion, a bullet-pocked snowscape, an exploding Parisian street — I wished I had a totem myself to keep track of what was going on.

Unlike Nolan’s exceedingly clever 2000 film, “Memento,” which was a devilishly complex mystery, “Inception” is basically a complicated heist flick — there is no mystery to ponder and penetrate. Cobb’s goal is clear from the beginning; we spend the rest of the movie attempting to parse its many confusions as he attains it. Nolan says he spent 10 years obsessing over this story (the script is only the second one he has written on his own), which may explain its central problem. Despite its technical brilliance, and its fine cast (Hardy is clearly a star, and DiCaprio brings an emotional depth to the tale that is nowhere else in evidence), the picture is a puzzle palace with far too many rooms. The director himself may have gotten lost in it.

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

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Leonardo Dicaprio in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.

“Inception” is defined as a beginning — the act of commencement — but in Hollywood these days, “Inception” might just be shorthand for what happens when you make two immensely profitable movies and a studio backs up a truckload of cash onto your front lawn and says, “Thanks, man! Now go make the movie you’ve always dreamed of making.”

Because that’s essentially what went down between Warner Bros. and director Christopher Nolan, who helmed “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” which grossed a combined $1.4 billion worldwide and resurrected one of the comic world’s most beloved film franchises.

Nolan took his pile of cash — a rumored production budget of $200 million — and put together a film about a band of dream thieves, led by Leonardo DiCaprio, that can infiltrate another person’s sleep-time reveries and swipe coveted secrets. Their task in “Inception” is to implant an idea rather than steal one — a task so monumental they’re forced to construct dreams within dreams within dreams.

What follows is nearly three hours of hallucinatory imagery, killer performances and story lines that unfold like origami to reveal hidden layers you never even thought existed. MTV News, however, has been tracking every hidden layer of this production since word of the movie first dropped. Before you hit the theater this weekend, check out our “Inception” cheat sheet for everything you need to know about what is thus far 2010′s coolest flick.

Gotham Will Have to Wait
In February 2009, a few weeks before Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar for his turn as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” word leaked that Nolan would not immediately return to the world of the Caped Crusader for “Batman 3.” Rather, he’d be embarking on “Inception,” which was described at the time as a “contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind.”

Aside from that rather vague description, precious few plot details about the new movie would arise for months. Instead, we stood back as the cast came together. DiCaprio signed up in March, and in April, “Dark Knight” vet Michael Caine told us he’d be joining up as well. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Tom Hardy eventually rounded out the cast. “I can’t wait to talk to you about it, but I’ve been very specifically asked not to talk about it,” Gordon-Levitt told us that June. “I want to respect [Nolan's wishes], because I love his movies, and I’m so honored and grateful to be working with him.”

“Inception” Commencement
By the middle of summer, key details about plot points had begun to spring up on the Web, but we still didn’t really know what the heck this movie was about. And after the teaser trailer popped up online, well, we didn’t know a whole lot more — except that it looked freaking amazing.

The cast continued to reveal almost nothing about the film during interviews. “It’s conceptual. It doesn’t fit into any genre,” Murphy told us. “There are elements of different types of things in it, but it is all from Chris’ imagination. I’ve never read anything close to it before.”

Nolan’s “Inception” was shrouded in secrecy, but as 2010 rolled around, he had to begin telling the world just a little bit more about the movie. “I think it’s really a balance between creating intrigue about the movie, getting people excited to see something original, something different that they don’t know what they’re going to get,” the director explained to us in March. “We have to start giving people a little bit of information, a little bit about what ‘Inception’ is.”

Then in April, he let loose in a spoiler-filled interview with the Los Angeles Times, shortly before a full trailer appeared on the Web.

Welcome to Our Shared Dream
As the film’s July 16 release date approached, Nolan, DiCaprio and the rest of the “Inception” crew began to make the press rounds. Murphy and Watanabe took us inside one of the film’s craziest scenes, Nolan explained how the movie builds on his “Dark Knight” experiences and DiCaprio highlighted the epically layered story line.

“It’s a very rare occurrence where you can do a movie that exists on four different planes simultaneously,” DiCaprio said of the film’s various dreamscapes. “That was the immediate intrigue: delving into the world of the subconscious with Chris Nolan.”

For his part, Nolan had one specific goal in mind when he decided to take a detour from Gotham City and head straight into “Inception.” “I think, for me, my whole career in making films, really every time I set out to make a film, I want to try and give somebody in the audience the experience I had watching ['Star Wars'], where it really felt like anything was possible in that world,” he said. “That’s a really extraordinary experience to have as a moviegoer. I think that’s the highest aspiration of the Hollywood blockbuster.”

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Taylor Lautner
Photo: Jim Spellman/ WireImage

Taylor Lautner already plays one of the most recognizable onscreen characters as werewolf Jacob Black in the teen hysteria-inducing “Twilight” flicks. But another star thinks Lautner should put his ripped physique to good use in another role. “Wolverine” star Hugh Jackman says Lautner could convincingly don a pair of claws as a teen Wolverine in next year’s “X-Men: First Class.”

“My only question is: Can he grow mutton chops?” Jackman wondered to Eonline.com’s Marc Malkin. But then, remembering the droves of girls around the world enamored with the considerably less hirsute Jacob, Jackman reconsidered the idea of a woolly Lautner.

“Actually, I think people would probably prefer him as a hairless Wolverine than a rather hairy-chested version. Certainly about a billion young girls would,” Jackman observed.

Although he’s got a co-sign from the star of the “Wolverine” franchise, Lautner’s not pressed for work. The young heartthrob has some other flicks lined up, including the thriller “Abduction,” which recently started production and stars Lautner as a teen who gets entangled in a web of espionage after seeking out his birth parents. And while he might not be shredding foes as Wolverine anytime soon, the “Twilight” hunk is also slated for a superhero flick in the title role of the upcoming “Stretch Armstrong.”
Lautner hasn’t mentioned sprouting heaps of hair for a film, but he has expressed his willingness to transform physically, even abandoning his muscular bod, for the right part.

“If it was for a role that I was passionate about, I would definitely do that,” Lautner told MTV News last month. “I want to challenge myself to everything,” he added, noting that he’s open to sinking his teeth into a range of flicks. “I’ve got a really cool action thriller [in 'Abduction'] and then an awesome superhero movie [in 'Stretch Armstrong'], but I want to find a great drama script.”

Should Taylor consider a part in the next “X-Men” flick? Tell us what you think in the comments!

For breaking comic book movie news, columns and more — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com.

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Ryan Reynolds on the July 16 cover of <i>Entertainment Weekly</i>
Photo: Entertainment Weekly

For Ryan Reynolds, the most professionally satisfying moment of 2009 was the first time he saw the Green Lantern costume he’d be rocking for the upcoming big-screen adaptation of the classic DC Comics superhero.

“It was a moment when I was like, ‘This is happening, and it’s happening in the right way,’ ” Reynolds told MTV News last fall. “That’s a pretty cool, definitive moment for me.”

Now the rest of us are getting a chance to see the costume that blew Reynolds’ mind. Entertainment Weekly has debuted a first look at the Green Lantern — and his test-pilot alter ego, Hal Jordan — who will be gracing multiplexes in the summer of 2011. The cover image shows Reynolds in familiar Lantern garb, complete with green mask, glowing green suit and iconic power ring, which can bring into existence nearly anything Hal can imagine.

“Will and imagination are his superpowers,” said Reynolds, who reportedly injured his shoulder on the “Green Lantern” set earlier this week. “We need a circus of Timothy Learys to think of things Hal would invent with his ring.”

Though experienced in the action movie realm, from “Blade: Trinity” to “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” Reynolds confessed that nothing could prepare him for the wire-work involved in the “Green Lantern” shoot, which required him to fly through the air at up to 60 feet per second to simulate the illusion of real flight.

“The first time you do it, you’re seriously considering an adult diaper,” Reynolds said.

Directed by Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) and co-starring Tim Robbins, Blake Lively, Mark Strong and Peter Sarsgaard, the movie is set to hit theaters on June 17, 2011. In MTV News’ earlier conversation with Reynolds, he heaped praise on Campbell’s vision for the film.

“When you have a guy like Martin Campbell, part of his charm is that he has ba–s of titanium, and the other part is that he’s slightly crazy, and you have to be to take on something with the scope of ‘Green Lantern,’ ” he said. “I sat down with him, and I could not even believe what he was saying. When I went to the meeting, I was entirely cynical. I thought, ‘What the hell, I’ll see what they have to say,’ and I left the room with a completely different perspective.”

Check out everything we’ve got on “Green Lantern.”

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Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.

The demented memory flipbook that is “Memento,” the noir-ish freakery of Gotham City in “The Dark Knight,” the intricately woven, epically scaled “Inception” — all this can be traced back to a formative experience director Christopher Nolan had at the cinema in 1977.

Seven years old at the time, Nolan took in a screening of “Star Wars.” Nothing was ever the same.

“That completely changed movies for me,” he told MTV News. “It changed everything, really.”

Nolan had never seen a film that was so, well, intricately woven and epically scaled as George Lucas’ space odyssey. “It created a world that lived on in your mind after you saw the film and seemed to have this limitless potential,” he said.

And, as Nolan explains it over three decades later, he’s made a career out of trying to instill a similar sense of wonderment for ticket buyers.

“I think, for me, my whole career in making films, really every time I set out to make a film, I want to try and give somebody in the audience the experience I had watching that film, where it really felt like anything was possible in that world,” he said. “That’s a really extraordinary experience to have as a moviegoer.”

Nolan started out small, shooting “Following” on a shoestring budget with a bunch of friends. He graduated to “Memento,” gaining some financial backing and the talents of professional actors. Eventually, Warner Bros. handed him the task of resurrecting the dormant “Batman” franchise. After delivering two blockbuster takes on the Caped Crusader, the studio basically gave Nolan a pile of cash and carte blanche to make a movie he’d been dreaming about for 10 years: “Inception.”

As with all his earlier films, Nolan set out to deliver an experience that would create a world that lived on in the minds of moviegoers, that seemed to have limitless potential.

“I think that’s the highest aspiration of the Hollywood blockbuster,” he said.

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

Leonardo DiCaprio at the “Inception” premiere on Tuesday
Photo: Robyn Beck/ Getty Images

HOLLYWOOD — The anticipation for “Inception” hit a fever pitch Tuesday night, when the film’s stars descended upon the U.S. premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Tourists and fans alike crammed together, trying to catch a glimpse of the star-studded black-and-red carpet, backed by a continuous loop of Hans Zimmer’s intense, ominous score. The stars of Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-bender were less-than-ominous, however, when they shared the highlights of their experience working on the movie, which opens on Friday.

For Lukas Haas, the most fun aspect of shooting “Inception” was the stunt work … and getting to slap his longtime friend Leonardo DiCaprio in the face.

“I had to slap Leo a few times,” Haas told MTV News. “I was a little hesitant [to do it]. He’s been a friend of mine for a while. I pushed him in a big tub of water; it was fun. I loved the stunts.”

The stunts were also a highlight for Tom Hardy, but for different reasons. “I got the pipe and slippers job,” he admitted happily of playing Eames, an expert at assuming others’ identities within dreams. “[Joseph Gordon-Levitt] took most of the weight of that. I got to sip tea and wear slippers.”

When asked if he was harassed by fellow castmates for lounging around while they did all the work, Hardy said they hadn’t, but he was happy to relax a bit, having just finished the upcoming cage-fighting flick “Warrior.”

And though veteran actor Ken Watanabe did his share of stunts for the film, he was more frightened by the risks the movie posed to his mental state.

“I’m not a big dreamer, but after seeing the screening I had a nightmare,” Watanabe told MTV News. “I woke up and felt like I had [been the victim of] inception from Chris Nolan.”

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Joaquin Phoenix
Photo: Jacob Andrzejczak/ Getty Images

While fans of Joaquin Phoenix remain divided about whether to take the actor’s rap music aspirations seriously — some saying his bizarre public appearances qualify him for “kooky actor” status, à la Gary Busey — he may get the last laugh. The documentary “I’m Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix,” has been picked up for distribution and release by Magnolia films, according to a recent report.

Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles confirmed to Deadline.com that the film, directed by Phoenix’s brother-in-law Casey Affleck, is slated for a platform release on September 10, with a wide roll-out planned for a week later.

Bowles told Deadline’s Nikki Finke that the film, which chronicles his evolution from A-list actor to MC, will surprise people — in a good way.

“No matter what I thought coming in, I came out feeling this was a pretty amazing piece of work, jaw-dropping but dimensional,” Bowles said.

“It is going to get a lot of attention, but it is not some cheap stunt where they said, ‘Let’s do some wild stuff and film it,’ ” he continued. “It is extreme behavior but really good filmmaking as well. Frankly, some of the behavior is very extreme. But it is in the context of the insanity of being in Joaquin’s life for that period of time. It is a unique piece of work that is going to surprise people in different ways.”

Not too long ago, a credible hip-hop authority told MTV News that Phoenix’s foray into rap was legitimate and that his career change was no hoax.

“If he’s not for real, he tricked me,” Diddy told us in May.

What do you think about Phoenix’s career change? Are you convinced he’s for real? Tell us in the comments!

Mark Ruffalo
Photo: Mike Coppola/ FilmMagic

Hot on the heels of Marvel’s big announcement Monday that Edward Norton would not be reprising the role of Bruce Banner in “The Avengers” comes a report that studio head Kevin Feige and company have tapped Mark Ruffalo to take over the role.

According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Ruffalo is “now in late-stage discussions between Marvel and his brand-new agency United Talent to play this key member of the Avengers ensemble.”

Regarding the ensemble in question, which includes Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/ Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Feige’s statement seemed to hint that the production wanted more of a team player: ” ‘The Avengers’ demands players who thrive working as part of an ensemble. … We are looking to announce a name actor who fulfills these requirements and is passionate about the iconic role in the coming weeks.”

Whether Norton fit the bill is up for debate, but Ruffalo has often appeared in films as part of an ensemble or in various scene-stealing supporting roles (he was also an MTV Movie Awards nominee with “13 Going on 30″ co-star Jennifer Garner for Best Musical Performance in 2005) and has a reputation within the industry for being very well-liked among his peers.

When MTV News spoke with Ruffalo about the possibility of his taking on a comic book character or movie, the actor revealed he had been in talks to play Harvey Dent in “The Dark Knight,” calling it the “Godfather” of comic book movies. “[It] raises the bar on anything,” he said of “The Dark Knight.” “Nothing can touch it in that genre. It’s great filmmaking.”

Ruffalo added that he wasn’t sure if tights or superhero garb were in his future, but that he’s open to the opportunity. “I don’t know if I’ll ever end up in that world,” Ruffalo told MTV News. “But I’d love to work with Christopher Nolan. He’s one of those directors you want to work with. He’s a great director.”

What do you think of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner? Let us know in the comments!

Cillian Murphy
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

“Inception” is one of those movies that’s impossible to talk about with people who haven’t seen it and desperately want to avoid spoilers. To discuss any given scene in this thriller about the world of dreams — no matter where it takes place in the story, no matter how minor it might seem on the surface — you have to reveal whole swaths of plot secrets.

But the mere fact that we want to talk about “Inception” — however tricky it may be — speaks to just how mind-bending Christopher Nolan’s epic really is. Thus, when MTV News hit the red carpet premiere for “Inception” on Tuesday, we had to ask the stars to reveal the secrets behind some of our favorites scenes. Read on for some insight, but turn back now if you want to avoid some meaty spoilers!

First some setup: In “Inception,” Leonardo DiCaprio heads a team that can enter another person’s dreams and either steal a secret or implant a memory without the person ever knowing. For their big mission, they create a series of three different dream worlds, each existing independently yet connected by a subconscious thread. In each successive dream level, time moves progressively slower, so that what only takes, say, five seconds on level one takes maybe 60 minutes on level three.

Still with us? OK, that brings us to a wicked chase scene on level one. DiCaprio and his team hop in a van as they flee some nameless assassins. As they drive, they descend to the second dream level but continue to exist in the van, so during a few-minute chase sequence, hours and hours pass on dream levels two and three — leading up to a point where the van plunges off a bridge and takes about an hour to hit the water. The van’s descent in super-slow motion was a massive undertaking to film, the “Inception” stars told us at the premiere.

“Months, off and on,” said Dileep Rao, whose character drives the rest of DiCaprio’s team in the van. “We’d shoot it one day, go off and shoot something else. Then shoot another piece of [the van]. It was so complex and there were so many locations and so many different moves I have to do. It’s the stuff that makes or breaks that last sequence.”

To capture that last sequence of the van falling off the bridge, Rao said, “they shot [the van] out of a cannon.”

The shots of the actors suspended within the van in slow motion took a “whole day shooting and seven times to take,” co-star Ken Watanabe recalled.

Eventually, the van lands and sinks under water. “The underwater stuff was challenging because the default setting is to panic,” Cillian Murphy explained. “And when they ask you to act, it’s a bit of an ask.”

The actors had to hold their breath for “four or five minutes” as they sucked air from scuba tanks, Murphy said.

But they pulled off the sequences, and trust us when we tell you it is one the coolest things you’ve ever seen on the big screen.

“[Nolan] was very precise with us, and we nailed it,” said Rao. “I think it was awesome.”

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Tom Cruise
Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage

Paramount and Tom Cruise chose to accept another “Mission: Impossible” in February, and despite a slew of questions surrounding the project, both the studio and its leading man remain committed to one another.

“We absolutely are excited about having Tom Cruise star in this movie,” Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore told The Hollywood Reporter.

Yet the fact that Paramount even had to go on record in support of Cruise highlights the issues surrounding “Mission: Impossible IV” four years after the last installment in the franchise. (Paramount and MTV are both owned by Viacom.)

Last month, Cruise’s action comedy, “Knight and Day,” opened to an underwhelming $20.1 million box office haul, and Paramount is reportedly keeping a watchful eye on the overseas numbers to see if the actor can sustain his appeal to foreign audiences.

“It all depends on whether Tom Cruise brings in foreign bucks,” an executive not involved with the film told THR.

For the moment, preproduction on “M:I 4″ continues. Brad Bird (“The Incredibles”) is reportedly onboard to direct, with J.J. Abrams producing, and Paramount is said to be expecting a final script within weeks. Shooting would reportedly begin by the end of the year with a theatrical release planned during 2011′s holiday season. The studio is targeting a budget of around $140 million, significantly less than the $165 million budget of “M:I 3,” and Cruise is not expected to receive a $20 million payday, as he had not long ago.

“Everybody will do their best to make it work,” said a Cruise rep about the star’s “M:I 4″ payday.

And then there’s the ongoing talk about just what Cruise’s role in the movie will be. There is a long-standing rumor that his Ethan Hunt character might not even be the face of the franchise for the new film, but that he’d hand off the reigns to a younger actor or even an ensemble.

” ‘Mission: Impossible’ is a brand,” an unnamed former studio chief said. “It didn’t have anything to do with Tom Cruise in the beginning.”

Do you think Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt should be the main character in “M:I 4″? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Check out everything we’ve got on “Mission: Impossible IV.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Los Angeles premiere of “Inception” on Tuesday
Photo: Steve Granitz/Getty Images

HOLLYWOOD — “Inception” is shaping up to be the moviegoing event of the summer. The sci-fi thriller written and directed by “The Dark Knight” maestro Christopher Nolan has dazzled critics and whipped expectant audiences into a frenzy before its release on Friday. But one aspect that has sparked heated debate is the particularly dubious last scene. On the red carpet of the film’s L.A. premiere, MTV News asked the film’s stars to weigh in on that compelling final moment — as well as whether an “Inception 2″ is a possibility.

The film’s leading man, Leonardo DiCaprio, deftly dodged revealing any particular stance on the issue. “I have my own specific take on that final scene,” DiCaprio told MTV News, leaving his opinion out of the public debate, adding instead that he hopes the viewers make up their minds for themselves. “This is an interesting movie, because I really believe people can extract what they want from this film and interpret that in a lot of different ways. I think that’s something that doesn’t come from the Hollywood studio system very often nowadays. Oftentimes, I get scripts that came to me recycled from other ones. Chris [Nolan] pulled off something pretty ambitious, pretty existential, pretty cerebral and daring with this movie, and I jumped on the opportunity to do it and work with him.”

Cillian Murphy wished to remain neutral about the last scene. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to give an opinion on that,” he said, and of the possibility of a sequel, he added, “I don’t have the authority to speak on that.”

Lucas Haas proved to be far more forthcoming. “My take? I think it’s real,” he said, which, despite its seemingly vague wording, is a definitive stance to the debate about that last scene. And is there room for a sequel? “Of course,” Haas said. “I think definitely.”

Dileep Rao offered further insight, advising viewers to pay attention to the scene in an unusual way. “You know what, I’ll just say this: Use your ears not your eyes.”

As far as a sequel goes, Rao deferred to Nolan. “That’s up to Chris,” he said. “If we’re talking about dreams, couldn’t anything happen?”

Check out everything we’ve got on “Inception.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Nicolas Cage in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”


Photo: Disney

Kid flicks have ruled this summer, with movies like “Toy Story 3,” “The Karate Kid” and “Despicable Me” racking up box-office grosses far beyond industry predictions. Now comes “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which looks likely to repeat that money-minting feat. Like all great kid flicks, though, it’s too good — too fast and too funny — to be confined within the “family film” ghetto.

It’s a Disney picture, of course, derived from a segment of the studio’s 1940 animated classic, “Fantasia,” in which apprentice sorcerer Mickey Mouse did battle with a platoon of out-of-control buckets and mops. For this live-action version of the tale, that eight-minute episode has been much-enlarged (although thanks to some of the year’s tightest editing, the movie still runs well under two hours). Now the story begins in 740 A.D., with the legendary sorcerer Merlin bequeathing his magical secrets to three acolytes, Balthazar (Nicolas Cage, back in top comic form), Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Veronica (Monica Belluci). But Horvath is secretly in league with the evil Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige), who wants to use Merlin’s secrets to (what else?) “enslave mankind.” Morgana knows that Balthazar loves Veronica, so she takes possession of Veronica’s body. Balthazar is torn, but Veronica implores him to imprison her (and her inner Morgana) within a Grimhold — a nesting-doll contraption designed as a repository for all sorts of nasty Morganians.

The director, Disney vet Jon Turteltaub, sketches in this prologue with gratifying brevity. The story then leaps ahead some 1,200 years. The immortal Balthazar is now the proprietor of a curio shop in downtown Manhattan. When a boy named Dave (Jake Cherry) blunders into his store one day, Balthazar — who still has the Grimhold, and has been searching for a kid to turn into a supremely great sorcerer, the “Prime Merlinean” — realizes that Dave is the one. But then Horvath materializes in the cluttered store, a fantastical wizard fight ensues, and the Grimhold is lost (well, misplaced). Jumping ahead another 10 years, we find that the grown-up Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now an NYU physics student well on his way to becoming a career nerd. Balthazar reappears to instruct him in the magical arts he’ll need to help recover the Grimhold. But Horvath is back on the scene, too, and soon recruits his own apprentice, a celebrity illusionist named Drake (Toby Kebbell, delightfully daft), whose rock-star affectations — snakeskin pants, bleached rooster hairdo — are decidedly post-Merlinean. (“Are you in Depeche Mode?” someone asks.) Now the furious hunt for the Grimhold gets underway in earnest.

The movie’s action, which rarely lets up, is a stunning blend of practical stunt-work and highly-imaginative CGI. (And the digital effects are so precisely applied that very little of what we see here looks like a cartoon.) You’re still marveling at a huge metal eagle that has sprung to life on the side of the Chrysler Building (Balthazar climbs aboard and flies away on it), when a frantic car chase (this is a Jerry Bruckheimer movie) gets underway, tearing through traffic-clogged Times Square, with Balthazar’s Rolls-Royce transforming into an SUV and Horvath’s Mercedes morphing into a Ferrari, a taxi and a scary garbage truck. (In one of the movie’s cleverest inventions, the two antagonists careen into a mirror-world universe in which all the famous Times Square signage is reverse-lettered). Then there’s a spectacular sequence set amid the confetti-blizzard of a clamorous Chinatown street parade, in which Balthazar and Dave are menaced by an exotic Morganian called Sun Lok (Gregory Woo) and a papier-mâché dragon that suddenly springs to rampaging life.

I’m leaving aside the raging wolf-pack attack, the angry iron bull and all the furious sword-and-sorcery (and fiery plasma-ball) combat. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is really a high-caliber action movie, and it’s not just for kids. Although there is a message, of sorts, for all the little nippers who’ll be pulling their parents along to see it. After listening skeptically to one of Dave’s evasive excuses for screwing up his magical training, Balthazar says, “You’re a bad liar, Dave. I like that.”

Check out everything we’ve got on “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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