Inception sure seems to be popular with the kids (ie: the under 30 set), but fortunately the Academy is made up of a more mature thoughtful group. Once the fad wears thin, and the backlash starts to set in, Inception will be nowhere in sight come nomination time.

(Plus, there's no way in hell that horrendous score is nominated.)

Maybe he does it for you, Libs.

Blah blah blah blah pretentious contrarian performance art for the sake of being weird cakes

Director Christopher Nolan is such a master movie technician -- a combination of engineer, architect, game designer and God -- that it's startling to realize how constricted his vision is and how clumsily he tells stories....

Managing all these nested levels of narrative is a marvelously nerdy accomplishment, no doubt -- but this is the most tight-assed vision of the innermost human psyche I've ever seen....

It inhabits a Philip K. Dick-style universe of psychological warfare that suggests "The Matrix," "Total Recall" and "Minority Report" -- all of them, by the way, better movies -- but it's fairer to call "Inception" a maze movie or a labyrinth movie than a puzzle movie. Because, as the wisecracking fellow critic sitting next to me observed, every time the story gets puzzling the characters call a timeout and explain it.

So, yeah, if you approach "Inception" with lowered expectations it's a pretty good time. Problem is, there are no lowered expectations around Christopher Nolan, whose adherents have proclaimed him as the heir to Kubrick and Hitchcock and declared "Inception" a masterpiece. I don't want to get sidetracked here, but let me suggest that the comparisons aren't entirely misguided. They're just not helpful. Nolan has inherited some of Kubrick and Hitchcock's worst tendencies, most notably their defensive, compulsive inclination to work everything out about their stories and characters to the last detail, as if human beings and the world were algebraic or geometrical phenomena requiring a solution.

But the mysterious power of Hitchcock's "Vertigo" cannot be explained by the ludicrous official story revealed in the final act -- indeed, it nearly scotches the whole movie -- and the attack of "The Birds" is never explained. As Kubrick's career progressed he was increasingly drawn to stories that defied or challenged rational analysis, like "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "The Shining." (I think I'd put "Full Metal Jacket" and "Eyes Wide Shut" in that category too, but let's discuss some other time.) Nolan seems to have learned exactly the wrong lessons from these mentors. For all the complexity, craftsmanship and color of "Inception," it's yet another of his 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....

So the themes, ideas and characters of "Inception" are all introduced with brilliant economy, along with its moral and philosophical universe. And then Nolan proceeds to hammer them relentlessly into the ground with an increasingly clumsy, clunky plot and an allegedly profound mystery that just sort of fizzles out into what-if-this-world-isn't-real sophomoric musing....

Talk to me after the Oscars next March.

No. I don't like you.

It has not shot at winning the majors. All I care about is nominations though for BD and BOS.

Anybody that said that it would win a major is a little naive or dim. Though, I suppose I could see an Original Screenplay win. Maybe. DGA and LAFCA like Nolan, but I doubt that too. I'd actually be more against a Screenplay win than anything else. It does have plot holes and is a tad mechanical for a film about dreams.

Inception sure seems to be popular with the kids (ie: the under 30 set), but fortunately the Academy is made up of a more mature thoughtful group. Once the fad wears thin, and the backlash starts to set in, Inception will be nowhere in sight come nomination time.

(Plus, there's no way in hell that horrendous score is nominated.)

I don't see the score being nominated.