“Great meals fade upon reflection — everything else gains,” a great hustler of the past once said. But has Inception gained? I know it upticked between viewing #1 (which frustrated due to shitty sound at a non-IMAX showing at Manhattan’s Lincoln Square) and viewing #2 (a very high-quality IMAX screening at San Francisco’s Metreon with knockout sound). But since then Inception has kind of settled down and levelled out. It’s one of the most thrilling mind-fuck movies of all time, but I’m just not that into seeing it again on Bluray. Go figure.

Okay, I’m half into watching it a couple of weeks hence. But I’m not feeling all tingly about this. On one level I want to see it again, and on another level I kind of fucking don’t. I’m not sure I want to own it, to be honest. I may just Netflix it.

I got really sick of that slow-mo image of the van going off the bridge and into the water during my second viewing. I don’t know if I can take watching that again. It was even pissing me off the first time. “All right already…Jesus fuck,” I was muttering. “How long is it going to take for the van to hit the water? I could go out and hit the head and buy another popcorn and check my messages and it would still be falling when I get back.”

The thing I most want to see is a 44-minute Extras doc called “Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious,” in which “top scientists make the case that the dream world is not an altered state of consciousness, but a fully functional parallel reality.”

My Inception history has been primarily defined by my relationship with Ken Watanabe‘s dialogue. I could barely hear what he was saying during viewing #1, I could comprehend 70% to 80% of his dialogue during the IMAX screening, and I know for sure I’ll be able to hear every last word when I watch him on the Bluray. Ken — nice to know you finally!