The second time is the charm with Inception, especially if you catch it in IMAX. It definitely comes together with a second viewing while the things you enjoyed the first time are agreeably underlined and intensified. My ambiguous feelings about Chris Nolan‘s epic have now been significantly lessened. I am pretty much in the boat now. Faraci was more right than Scott. Inception is dense and challenging, but a masterpiece of its kind.

Sound quality is a key factor. I made my 8:30 pm showing at the Metreon last night, and what a pleasure to (a) actually be able to hear all the dialogue (which was more than I could say for the sound at last Tuesday’s Lincoln Square all-media) and (b) pick up on all those plotty-pat expositional doo-dads that I missed (or wasn’t entirely sure about) the first time.

The first time I missed Leonardo DiCaprio‘s line about how the spinning dreidle will keep going in a dream but will collapse in reality. Last night I heard it. Plus I could actually hear about 85% of Ken Watanabe‘s dialogue last night whereas last Tuesday I was able to make out very little of it.

Warner Bros. publicity made a serious mistake in not showing Inception in IMAX to the assembled media last Tuesday. It’s a much more riveting film in IMAX — simple as that. IMAX sound is much sharper, cleaner and stronger than regular theatre sound.

Notice to all distributors: I’m telling you the God’s truth when I say that the sound in Lincoln Square’s theatre #1 isn’t good enough and in fact is infuriating. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or an incompetent schnook. My ears have been frustrated and driven nearly to madness in that theatre twice now — i.e., with Inception and with Tim Burton‘s Alice in Wonderland.