Should I still whitefont Inception ponderings? Because I just rewatched it on DVD, and I think I'm confused again, after thinking I had it all figured out after seeing it four times in the theater.

I think you only have to whitefont the HSQ at this point, for two more weeks.

That map is cool.

I remember making a map of the dream layers in Bergmen's Persona for a paper in college.

Wasn't that complicated, though.

I'm not even sure what's HSQ at this point, so I'll whitefont, no big:

1) At the beginning of the movie, Saito doesn't realize that his mistress's house is a another dream until he rubs his face on the carpet, but when he first wakes up on the bed, he reaches under the pillow and grabs a gun. Why is there a gun there? Surely Nash, as the architect, wouldn't have put it there for Saito to use, and Cobb told Ariadne that only the dreamer can manipulate the dreamspace, right? So if they are in Saito's subconscious, Cobb said (when they were in his subconscious) "Remember, it's my subconscious, I can't control it." So it would seem like Saito couldn't just dream up a gun just because he expected one to be there, whether he knew he was in a dream or not. (UNLESS, FANWANK, it's a small manifestation of Cobb's self-sabotage, like a tiny freight train.)

2) The movie establishes that they can't kill themselves out of the first dream level, because they are so heavily sedated, which is why Saito getting shot is such a bad thing. The movie also establishes that the 10-hour flight from Sydney to LA is a week on the first level. But as far as I can tell, it never establishes what the kick is that gets them out of the first dream level. Do they just have to wait out a week on that level? Ariadne and Fischer killing themselves in limbo got them to the third dream level, blowing the hospital up got everyone to the second dream level, dropping the elevator got everyone to the van, and the van dropping...appeared to get everyone to the riverbank, but still on the first dream level? I'm not sure why that didn't kick them out onto the plane, but they were still dreaming, so then what? Do they hang out on the first dream level for a week, dodging Fischer's projections, trying not to get killed, waiting out the sedatives, hoping Fischer doesn't see them? Keep an eye on Fischer, covertly, to make sure the inception took?

TBC...

I still haven't seen Inception but I'm pretty spoiled and I often scroll past discussions of movies I haven't seen yet.

3) When Ariadne throws Fischer and herself off the building in limbo, they end up in the third dream level, but presumably when Saito shoots Cobb and himself (assuming that's what happened to get them out of limbo) do they go directly to the plane? Why? Because the other dream levels have closed for business? Because they want to? If they ended up on the third dream level, they'd be totally screwed, because they wouldn't be able to kill themselves to get out, and they missed the kick, so they'd have to wait out the sedative there.

1) If they'd scouted that location in the real world before recreating it in the dreamspace, maybe they knew Saito always keeps a gun under his pillow?

2) I was trying to figure that one out too, and all I can think is that yeah, they just have to wait until the sedation wears off. Or until the plane hits some turbulence, since supposedly the sedative left inner ear function intact, so a real-world kick should have taken them all out immediately, right?

3) only way I can make sense of that is that since the dreamers of those levels had woken up already, those dream levels were "closed" and so Cobb & Saito skipped all the way to the top.

1) That seems like valuing verisimilitude over safety though, doesn't it? I'd leave that detail out and get the carpet right.

2) If turbulence could take them out, then doing the whole thing on a plane seems overly precarious. I think them waiting it out for a week is my new canon, which means they must have had one CRAZY, projection-dodging, Fischer-dodging, rainy-ass week!

3) Yeah, that must be it. Or, alternatively, whenever Saito shoots himself to get out of limbo, he ends up wherever he wants. If he's powerful enough to erase Cobb's criminal record in minutes from a in-flight phone call, he can do that. (I also wonder if he fixed Cobb's problem before the job ever started, because WTF, is that even possible to take care of that quickly? But he didn't tell him because he wanted to make sure he got the job done.)

I saw Burlesque this afternoon and it was great fun. Loved the setting and enjoyed the singing. Cher and Stanley Tucci were great, Kristen Bell played interestingly against type, and Eric Dane may actually have learned to act somewhere. Christina Aguilera... should probably stick to singing, though at least Taylor Swift ensured that she's not the least convincing singer-turned-actress of the year.

I was skeptical, but I must admit eyeliner, a bowler, and cabaret lighting really do make Cam Gigandet a lot more attractive.