Inception

As the seasonal movie cycle draws to its conclusion, I’m reminded of my perpetually lackluster cinema attendance record, as I haven’t seen most of the films nominated for the popular categories of the Academy Awards. I understand that The King’s Speech is receiving bouts of applause up and down the country, but it still heads my list of movie-experiences not had. I also haven’t seen Toy Story 3, Black Swan, The Fighter, 127 Hours, Social Network, True Grit, Winter’s Bone, and I’m sure there are a few others, but, dear reader, I have seen Inception, and I say with some confidence, albeit utterly unfounded, that it deserves at the very least a nomination for Best Director. Although I left the cinema without the palpable sense of exquisite delirium that so befell my beloved, one of its obvious merits was the invisible hand of Christopher Nolan. Much to the derision of the people I confront on this matter, I still maintain that, by quite a margin, Batman Begins is a better film than The Dark Knight, and Inception doesn’t quite surpass my level of admiration for the first of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. And yet, Nolan clearly deserves some personal recognition. Needless to say, this isn’t the first occasion in which directors have been overlooked by the academy; Danny Boyle was completely sidelined for his masterpiece, Sunshine, and Shane Meadows was roundly ignored in 2006 for This Is England. With those kinds of oversights, perhaps Nolan would prefer not to be the recipient of Oscar recognition, though that seems like a stretch. The unerringly great Mark Kermode has my back on this one, and I recommend today’s special edition podcast.