"Inception" or "How 'The Matrix' forever ruined movies for me."

When I saw "The Matrix" for the first time, I had that "What the...?" moment that I'm sure many of you had. I went home and thought and thought and thought about it.I didn't quite understand what had happened; Keanu's terrible acting and all that heavy metal music had distracted me. Everything became clearer upon second viewing, and by the third time I'd seen it, I felt comfortable discussing it at length with others.

That was the first movie that ever really baffled me. The first movie where I missed sections of dialogue because I was trying to wrap my head around this giant perception shift.

So now, ever since I saw 'The Matrix,' I can no longer just watch a movie - I have to analyze every bit of it from start to finish. And this makes enjoying a movie awfully hard. Within the first ten minutes of a film, I typically have a fully-formed opinion about: which direction the plot will take, who will die (if it's that sort of picture), whether the romantic leads will end up together, and who the double-crossing friend will be (if it's that sort of picture). It's an understatement to say that the brain is a phenomenal multi-tasker; so, obviously, I can still watch the movie while all this opinion-forming is going on... but it's not the same.

You sort of ruin it for yourself when you boil a movie down (even internally) to its most basic points - girl meets boy, boy dies via T-Rex attack, girl meets new boy, new boy double-crosses girl, girl is sad but eventually rides off into sunset with archaeologist - and you have the potential to miss a lot when you do this. The nuanced performances, the stunning visuals - you're not getting your metaphorical money's worth if your distracted by trying to figure everything out before the first handful of popcorn has been munched. And because I know this, I TRY not to extrapolate the plot so much... but it never works.

Enter "Inception," the buzzed-about film from Chrisophr Nolan ("Memento," "The Dark Knight") - I went to see it last week. I knew that this movie was supposed to be a mind-bender and that there was somewhat of a surprise ending, so what do I do? I start plotting it out in my mind five minutes into the show. No spoilers here, but, for me, the movie did not quite live up to the hype.

But is it because the mass media overstated its greatness? Or is it because I just had to be super sleuth and guess the ending shortly after the opening credits rolled?*

*The author is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment for her problem. She is being made to watch films such as "Citizen Kane" and "Unbreakable" where the endings make no sense and are therefore good aversion therapy.