Inception (2010)

For my fans and critics who say I like everything, I wasn't crazy about this over-long mind-bending fantasy about people joining each others' dreams and dreams-within-dreams. It's making huge piles of money in most every cineplex in the country, including lots of repeat viewers, so my panning it will not hurt it nor its exhibitors in the slightest (it has a high rating of 87% on rottentomatoes). I was with some of my favorite people: Jack, Amy, Sally, and Mike, so you can't blame this on a bad mood. Amy, the youngest of us, perhaps liked it the best, but she didn't love it either. This afternoon Jon gave me two links to include here: the spoiler-filled "Inception explainer" from salon.com (I care so little, I haven't even read it all the way through--skip to the section starting with What?) and an "infographic" (likewise full of spoilers) he got from his son Jake.

This just in: more spoilers, so don't read them if you're among the 50 people who haven't seen it yet, one about the end, and another about the characters.

I'm a fan of director/writer Christopher Nolan's previous work: Following (1998), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), and The Dark Knight. After seeing Memento (2001) on the big screen I made a note to rent it (as we did in those days) and watch it with the scenes in reverse order, but never got around to it. Now salon.com has an explainer for that as well. Some of the special effects are fun: I liked when Paris folds over onto itself. Nolan picked a great cast for this one, with plenty of references to their earlier work (for example, Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for playing Edith Piaf, who sang Je ne regrette rien, which is featured). That's Lukas Haas, who was 7 years old when Testament (1983) was released and 9 in Witness (1985), in some early scenes. Always great to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt (I wrote about him in (500) Days of Summer) and all the rest. I don't need to list them. You've probably seen it already.