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.

P-C, I want to respond to this post and say that I felt like I caught several hints throughout the film that the "reality" level was, in fact, a dream. I have to see it again before I can list them off, but I felt like there were some tantalizing hints there. The most significant being that his kids hadn't seemed to have aged AT ALL, despite the fact that Cobb gave the sense that he had been an expat for a while, and those kids were clearly at an age where days, weeks and months bring about significant changes, let alone years.

I'm not at all convinced that [spoiler font]

Me neither. I think beginning the film the way we do, dropped right into the middle of the action, is a big clue to that effect.

And the best part is that it doesn't matter. I think Nolan's whole point was that the relevant part of the movie, the emotional journey, is completely irrelevant to the plot, even in super-plotty action movies.

Also, I'm very amused that Salt opened #2 this weekend, so not only did Chris Nolan just kick Angelina Jolie's ass, he's got better legs too.