I saw Inception today. Then I talked to Mike about it, because he (along with many others) loved it, and said it already made his top 5. He asked me to rate it 1 to 10. As I did this and was pondering my scale and comparing it to other movies that I loved I realized something. Emotional movies really get me. Those are the one that have a lasting impact on me.

Here some of the movies in my top 10.

#1 (currently)

12 Angry Men (1957) - starred Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. I had no idea what to expect going in. And isn't that always the best way to go in sometimes (that was how I went into Huckleberry Finn, 1984, and Predators)? The movie cover looked boring in my opinion. However, I was very pleasantly surprised at how well the movie paced itself, keeping the drama tense, intriguing, and best of all, personal. The story is about 12 jurors who must decide if a young man is innocent of the murder of his father. The interesting part is that you don't get to hear the trial: the movie starts as the jurors are deciding. All except one vote the young man guilty.

Execution wise it was excellent. The majority of the movie (probably 85%) of it was done in one single room. Now that tells you something of about how well the movie is done to keep your attention.

Most of all I love how intensely human the movie is. It has layers. Its deep. Its philosophical, psychological, and human management behavior 320. The movie climaxes surprisingly well.

#2 (and number one chic flic in my opinion)

It Happened One Night (1934) - Not a typical chic flic in my mind. For one, I don't find the female lead to be all that attractive. Its also very old. But I guess that doesn't have anything to do with anything. So how did I end up watching a chic flic? It was a class assignment. That's how. But I'm glad I did that assignment.

The story is kinda typical. Rotten daughter of a rich man runs away from home because she dislikes her marriage. She runs into a man who finds out who she is and wants to help her get home. Turns out the man is actually a reporter and threatens to return her to her father unless he gets the rights to her story. Anyway, this is a chic flic so you can guess what happens next.

Its not so much the plot that I liked, but what happens in between. Note. I gotta watch this one again. One of the reasons I liked it so much is because it was a chic flic that I actually enjoyed. And that's gotta be worth something. Something like #2 on my list.

Those two movies are, from what I can think of off the top of my head, sit atop my list of favorites. I would rank these 9+ out of 10 in my mind (and yeah, my scaling is skewed). After these two there is a sharp drop off as my next favorite movies are

Cloverfield, War of the Worlds, Transformers, and Cars.

So what to I think of Inception?

It was the best thing I've seen in a long time. I'm always up for sci-fi (as you can tell by above list). The execution was amazing, the dream idea is crazy, and I'm floored at what it was able to do with that concept (all the action scenes were made just that much more intense). The characters were believable, and most surprising of all, it was personally touching in several scenes. There were multiple layers to the movie in plot (and several in idea, but not as deep as Munich ). I liked it a lot. But I can't say that I love it yet. It didn't blow me away the way it did for Mike. i left the movie as excited about it as I was about Predators. It didn't leave a deep impact. Maybe it was because I couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. I do need to watch it again because some areas were deep thinkers.

Again, creatively, it blew away EVERYTHING else. It smashes Dark Knight to pieces. But interestingly enough, the Dark Knight made me think a lot more than Inception did.

8 out of 10 for now.

There are movies that make me depressed for days (King Kong, Star Wars Episode III) because of its tone and gravity and its parallels to real life. There are movies that leave me thinking (Dark Knight, Star Trek) either because of its great story or because of how it impacts real life. And then there are movies that make me want to tell everyone to go see it and it stays on my mind or even effects my reality. Or at least recommend it to them when they ask. Inception is definitely in the second category. I'll have to see it again before I can say it goes in the third.