Latest Action: Inception & Zion Narrows

I'm just going to touch on the Zion trip for now. My friend Gary and I went to Zion last week and camped in the most beautiful spot I have ever camped in (and it was free, as opposed to the $20+ or -/night fee to camp in the park's lousy campground). We hiked the Narrows top-down and it was the most difficult physical experience of my life, as well as the most fun and exciting. I'll be giving a more detailed write-up with pictures later on though. More recently though, Tamara and I went and saw the movie Inception last night. The director and writers created my favorite movie ever, The Dark Knight, so I was really pumped up and excited to see this movie. Inception grabs you from the very beginning, and as soon as the first scene opens with Leonardo DiCaprio lying passed out on a beach in the surf, you are confused. The dialogue is intense and loaded, and you have to hang on every word. Even then, a lot of it goes right over your head until you see what they are talking about play out in front of you and then it comes together. DiCaprio plays a family man torn away from his family by circumstances beyond his control. The movie is about the task he must perform in order to be re-united with his family, which all takes place inside layer after layer after layer of dreams. The dream worlds created by Christopher Nolan (director) are simply incredible. There is a lot of buildup and explanation that happens before the characters enter the dream world, which had things fairly slow for a while, but very, very interesting. Then, inside the dream world, the intense action sequences are influenced by the events taking place outside the dream world, which makes for some incredible scenes like you have seriously never seen before. It is extremely heady stuff, very deep, very intense, and it moves very, very fast once they enter the dream world so you have to commit yourself to keeping up or you will get lost. The cast was fantastic. I never really liked Leonardo DiCaprio but he won me over in this movie. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is always fun to watch, but he plays a different character here than any other. His role in The Lookout may have had some similarities, and his work there is probably what got Christopher Nolan's attention. He is just brilliant in this though, although there was a bit of a lack of character development for all but DiCaprio's character. The movie really was about him and only him. Everyone else is just there for support. Ellen Page earned my respect as an actress, and Cillian Murphy was also fantastic in his role. Michael Caine only had about five minutes of screen time, but he is always a pleasure and he is always in Christopher Nolan films. Seriously though, they went all out with the cast. There were faces I recognized popping up everywhere, even for the most insignificant roles. Keep your eyes open. This was one of the most interesting, entertaining, brilliant movies I have ever seen. Go see it. Plan on seeing it two or three times, because you will need to in order to get it.