The point of this site was to warn people about certain films that may cause hurling and other unpleasant side effects, but I wanted to cover all the Best Picture nominees and wouldn’t you know it, only three out of ten have earned any barf bags at all. Where is Cloverfield when you need it? So we’ll just consider Inception to be a nice tall glass of ginger ale that will soothe that tummy and not cause any more problems. Lord knows we all need a break now and then – they can’t all be The Fighter.

I’m a little late to the Inception party and after viewing it tonight, I’m kind of sorry I missed all the hoopla. There were clearly divided love/hate camps arguing about this movie, and after Christopher Nolan was totally left out of the Best Director category, a general outcry ensued by fans. Its best chance at a statue is probably Best Original Screenplay, although it does seem like there is a serious wave building for The King’s Speech.

I’m not sure I’d say this movie was completely original, as there were some pretty specific Matrix-y concepts scattered about here and there. The whole idea of an alternate universe going on while you’re in a state of unconsciousness is kind of appealing to me, sort of what an average day at work is like.

Many people found the movie confusing, although I felt the story was fairly easy to follow. If you think this one was hard, try watching Nolan’s Memento. That one went backward as well as forward and alternated between color and black and white. I had to write myself a post-it note to remember that I had seen it. I also read that people who play a lot of computer games were entranced by Inception because of all the levels of difficulty and the movement between the different layers. I’m not a gamer by any means, but I was completely absorbed in the film. I think this is probably because I work in Photoshop and deal with layers all day long. I also like onions.

The cast was mainly composed of baby-faced actors who will always look like they are thirteen to me. Ellen Page was pretty much there to look worried and explain to the audience just what the hell was going on. Leonardo DeCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are both fully grown men now, yet I see them on screen and can’t help but think Growing Pains on the Third Rock From the Sun. I think Leo may also need to consider some possible medication, because between this one, Shutter Island and The Aviator, dude is having some serious issues.

This is one film I really wish I had seen in a theatre instead of on DVD, because I was swept away by the awesomeness of the settings and the mounting tension. I also loved the pounding score by Hans Zimmer, which was the perfect accompaniment to my favorite scene: Joseph Gordon-Levitt trying to get all the dreaming protagonists into an elevator car so they can be jolted back to reality. But because time is cubed or multiplied or … something, depending upon how deep you are in the dream, he has only minutes to do this, and he is working in zero gravity because the van that has the first level of sleepers has plunged off of a bridge (although the original bodies were all on a plane) and Leo and his crazy wife are all the way down in the third level and the time for them is fifty years or more, yet the whole scene is collapsing while Ellen Page says again “do you mean to tell me that…” and Ken Watanabe is dead (or not) and … wow, I’m getting kind of dizzy. Maybe this film is going to need a barf bag after all.

Barf Bag ranking: ONE BAG (your stomach will be fine, but trying to figure out the plot may cause internal bleeding.)