Inception

Maybe all the hype about Inception meant that it could never be as good as I hoped it could be. Don't get me wrong-- it was a good movie. But so many of the dream world rules seem to be contrivances that serve no purpose other than to create drama. The movie wasn't a mind blowing experience.

Inception is visually luscious though. The dream worlds-- the rolling city, the zero-g fight and many other details are great eye candy.

Once

I can't help but compare Once to August Rush. The plots are very different. At their core both are tales of talented musicians.

In Once, the actors actually are *very* talented musicians. August Rush has actors acting as talented musicians. In Once you get watch and listen to the music with no misdirection-- no overdubbing, no tricky cuts that separate the hands holding the instrument from the actor playing musician, no by-standers saying "Wow! That's brilliant!" to nice but not great music.

Plus, Once is a very sweet move.