I have been challenged to write about Inception once a week until the end of the year.  Not that this really changes anything because I was planning on doing that anyway.

I’m getting progressively more nervous with every installment of this column because we are catching up to a future in which Inception will be pulled from the theaters and a long, dark wait for the Blu-Ray will loom over the world.  But since we’re not there yet, chin up, all!

The other day, I was making conversation with a clerk at my local shopping mall.  Of course, I quickly steered our dialogue onto the subject of Inception and she informed me that she had seen it with her boyfriend.  After I got over my disappointment, she commented that she had liked it but that her boyfriend thought it was a “little complicated.”

She went on to say that he felt like it was good but that “you really have to pay attention the first 45 minutes or you’ll get lost.  Otherwise, the dreams feel random.”

Jesus Christ.

I feel that Inception is indeed an intricate film, definitely compared to most others out in theaters right now, but it is by no means impossible to figure out.  But no, what really incensed me about that statement from her inferior other was the bit about having to pay attention to figure out what happens later in the film.

Excuse me, what? You have to pay attention? What else could you be doing?  Oh yeah, maybe you are tweeting about watching the movie to your 57 followers.  Or maybe you are updating your Facebook status to tell your friends the movie is complicated.  Hell, maybe you are actually talking with them on your phone during the movie.

OMG ITZ A DREAM SHIT

Seriously, it’s your own damn fault that the movie’s hard to follow if you spent the first half of the movie NOT FOLLOWING IT.

Which begs the question:  just how much of your attention is on the movie when you’re in the theater?  I mean, at home, I’ll occasionally see friends or family start playing a DVD while they’re getting dinner ready, causing them to miss the opening, but I can’t fathom what else you’d want to do that isn’t sexual that could distract you from a movie at the theater.  I could tweet at home for free; I don’t need to pay 13 bucks to tweet in a darkened theater.

Although I guess you need to pay 13 bucks to tweet in a theater and then later say said movie is way too complicated.  Yes, I guess that’s a privilege that costs 13 bucks.

Inception is a film that asks you to be attentive and participate, to not just sit and tune in and out.

No room for Tourists.

By the way, not angry.

COBB OUT.