I found a possibly-legitimate quote about Inception in which a guy says that “the best way I can put it is, imagine if The Matrix raped The Fountain…but in a good way.” (What the hell does that mean?) Another guy, I’ve been told, feels it’s a close kin of Shutter Island, apart from Leonardo DiCaprio being the star. In both films there’s tragic current involving emotional loss that’s affecting the lead guy, and is causing lots of pain and stress and disturbance.

So I ran this by a friend who saw Inception a while back, and he said he gets the Shutter Island analogy, but insists it’s mainly a stew — it’s James Bondian, it’s The Matrix, it’s Ocean’s 11, it’s The Dark Knight…a lot of things thrown into the pot. My friend loves it and ranks it high on the list, but doesn’t think the Eloi will warm to it like they could or should, and while every cinematic Catholic will see Inception without fail, he thinks Salt (which comes out a week later) is going to sell a lot more tickets.

He remarked that he’s friendly with a critic who didn’t care for it much, and feels that Chris Nolan is too tricky for his own good. He also heard about the husband of a woman who was invited to see it who came along to a screening, and then fell asleep. Inception runs almost precisely 150 minutes, he said.