There was an entire post about Watanabe (and Rampage Jackson and Vin Diesel) mumbling on IO9 of his, and seriously, I missed one sentence, which later worked out by context. Maybe your theatre had a compromised audio setup.

I really enjoyed the movie.

I didn't see the supposition here that the actual job was on Cobb to get the idea of the inception out of his head. Which was why Ariadne had to talk him into going as far as he did.

No comment on the final state of the totem. Plenty wobbly noises, But we weren't meant to know the answer--the question is, when would the dream have started? With the movie, or with the part where the heavy drugs started? Because once he starts revisiting Mal, we never see him spin the top to falling again, but we have seen it done so before.

However, if it started at the beginning, he's a thoroughly unreliable narrator on all aspects of dream reality, and every plot hole from then on is is his fault.

I have to admit, I found some of the jump cuts jarring, after he explained the "no, but how did we get *right* *here*" speech to Ariadne in the dream. I suddenly felt like there was a lot less movement in segments of the movie. Plus they'd shown an Old Spice ad before the flic started.

I saw Inception. Still have to go back and read all the white font. I think I need to see it three or four more times. I definitely liked it.

Marion Cotillard blew me away. Her character was all over the map, and had to carry all of it convincingly, which she did.

I'm living life by Netflix, which means I just (finally!) watched Moon and just walked out on 2012. DH watched all of 2012, but at 3x speed. We agreed that the script meeting for 2012 was a few Art Bell fans and industry types writing all the cliches they could think of on Post-it notes, putting those in a random order, and sending that to the render farm. Done.

Moon, however, was exceptionally good. I had a couple quibbles, but I can handwave them pretty easily.

Raq,

Beau and I just saw 2012 last weekend. We MST3K the movie - which is probably the only sane way to watch it.

Saw Inception last night. I'd definitely like to see it again.

I think the last shot is the most important one, and I think I agree with the Salon piece's interpretation: this feels like a movie about movies, about the way we agree to share a reality, and the stamp we each put on it. It doesn't bother me that one interpretation is that the whole thing is a dream, but it does bother me that then there's no clear starting point. If I'm following the rules of dreaming, too, it seems then that this would mean Cobb is not the dreamer, he's the subject -- if the whole thing was a job to plant an idea in *his* mind. But then who is the dreamer?

I don't think it really matters, in the end. The emotional sticking point for me, the thing that resonated, was that Cobb doesn't stick around to see if the top falls or keeps spinning. He doesn't care anymore -- what he wants is his children, and he chooses them, real or not.

I also agree with Jessica's criticisms upthread -- the movie was gorgeous and fascinating, but the emotional heart of the movie was Cobb. By the time we got to the snow level, I was confused and sort of bored, because I wanted to know what was going to happen to Cobb, not Fisher. It seemed really clear all the way through that the point of the movie was not whether they succeeded in inception with Fisher, but whether Cobb was going to figure his own shit out.

I feel I should add that Joseph Gordon-Levitt grew up FINE. Wow.

The emotional sticking point for me

For me too.

My favorite bit in Inception was Arthur's whole bit in the hotel after the gravity went out. So imaginative, and I had not thought that it would be awesome to see Joseph Gordon Levitt floating around in a suit. But it was super awesome.

Absolutely, Dana. And that part *felt* like a dream, too, which I appreciated, whereas the snow level just felt like a generic action movie .

That was the best practical (in camera) weightlessness I've ever seen (outside of Apollo 13, which used actual weightlessness).

Okay, as I said, I think I need to see Inception three or four more times to really get a handle on it. I still need to catch up on all the white font, but here's my take:

I'm not at all convinced that there's a single moment of that film that takes place in the waking world. I got the distinct impression very early on in the film that we were watching Nolan's Finnegan's Wake.