Inception

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This is one of those movies that has a tendency to divide audiences in several different ways. Some find this movie confusing, some find it intriguing, some find it not to make any sense, and some are just angry as hell at the way it ended, and completely missed the point altogether.

Personally, I've always held this title very near and dear to me. It was released the summer I turned 28. It was a memorable summer in 2010 for movies. There was a lot that was kinda just thrown out there and forgotten about, it was the summer 'Iron Man 2' aired, which was pretty weak for the time, 'Prince of Persia' was offending people, and 'Twilight' was very, very popular. However, there were a few gems along the way that were simply unforgettable. This includes a few personal favorites - 'Scott Pilgrim vs The World', 'Toy Story 3', 'Despicable Me' when Minions were still new and cute, and this, which at the time I loved so much, I dubbed it my "favorite movie of all time". Although that was a very bold statement, and ultimately untrue, one could consider it to be in my Top 5 of all time, several years later.

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is hired to put a team together in order to infiltrate a CEO, Robert Fischer's (Cillian Murphy) dreams, and implant an idea that will ultimately give his competition, Saito (Ken Watanabe) the advantage. So what we have here is pretty sci-fi, and ALMOST completely original. I'm sorry, but as a Fred-Head, I have to say, as much as I love this movie, 'Dream Warriors' laid out that group dreaming idea first. And maybe someone did it before that, but I digress.

Cobb's team consists of what could be considered a "Dream Team" of actors. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was new to dramatic acting on the big screen at the time, and proving that he shouldn't just be remembered as the kid from '3rd Rock'. Ellen Page had already been nominated for an Oscar a few years prior for her role in 'Juno'. Tom Hardy was still fairly new to the screen as a big name, and I would personally consider this his breakout performance. You can also sprinkle a bit of Michael Caine, Tom Berenger and Marion Cotillard, and there's your acting team for this movie, with Christopher Nolan at the helm as director. I mean, how is the idea already not at least intriguing? Maybe that's just me.

This movie does a great job with inventing rules within this futuristic world. There's neat things you can see in trailers, such as the manipulation of cityscapes, and being able to control your environment within a dream. And it gets right down to different dream layers, and a time increase ration for each deeper layer. There's even a specific math behind it.

This movie was up for eight Oscars the following year, winning four of them. It missed on Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Original Score and Art Direction. But it did manage to snag Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and of course, Visual Effects, as once again Nolan proves 3D isn't always the way to go.

Missing out on Original Score was rather criminal, though, as Hanz Zimmer does a fantastic job here, making the music very dreamlike, itself. It was probably my favorite score that year altogether, and at one point I had the soundtrack. It had a unique quality to it, being sort of grand scale but easy listening at the same time.

What more can be said? Everything about this movie is great, in my humble opinion, and it's still a movie I hold close enough to my heart to watch at least once a year. Hell, a few years ago I even paid a small price for a ticket to see it on the big screen all over again. This technically actually makes it the movie I have seen the most on the big screen at four times. I even own it on blu-ray and still wanted to go back to experience it in the theater again. Not everyone will love it as much as I do though, and that's okay. The main thing to keep in mind is to follow along with no distractions, and keep an open mind about the ending.

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