Attractions: It's Time For Inception to Put Up or Shut Up

Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your one-stop guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or bitterly polarizing at the movies. This week, Christopher Nolan returns to the multiplex for another round of blockbuster target practice, while Nicolas Cage grunges up his magic side. (Magics up his grungy side? Not sure.) And there's a limited slate of indies as well. Let's take a look!

WHAT'S NEW: So here comes Inception! At last! Christopher Nolan's megabudget dream-heist mindf*ck has successfully divided American film culture into bloodthirsty factions for and against (actually, bloodthirsty factions for and survival-minded thinkers against, if the comments accruing at Stephanie Zacharek's review are any indication), and not a foot of film has screened publicly before today. Indeed, we are really on to something when it comes to a national dialogue about movies.

But at least we always have the hard data of the box office to reflect actual demand, and that's where I'll focus for now. To wit, nobody knows what the hell this movie is going to make. Tracking proved its ultimate worth last week when Despicable Me "over"-performed by more than 60 percent against what the "data" said; this week the "experts" are ranging from $45 million on the low end to the vague "$50 million - $60 million" in the middle to seizure-inducing call for $73 million.

Folks, trust me: Inception is not going to make $73 million this weekend. This is a highbrow movie nobody can explain with Leonardo DiCaprio leading a highbrow cast more than half the country doesn't even know, directed by an admittedly talented dude who owes his most marketable attribute to a comic-book hero who's nowhere to be found. If anyone could use a Bat-signal right now, it's probably Nolan. That said, to put a number on this one is to literally guess -- just like the rest, really, except I'll tell you I'm guessing and won't pretend to really know if a 2-1/2 hour sci-fi headscratcher will play in Peoria. My hunch is that it won't, at least not right now. Word of mouth will be fine, the tail will be long. But opening weekend will be on the lower side of expectations: $52.5 million, which is still pretty good under the circumstances above.

If you want art-house fare in an actual art house, you've got an OK selection out there. The Kids Are All Right is adding 31 screens after last week's wildly successful debut, though the only new entries on both coasts are the acclaimed Irish runaway drama Kisses and the spy spoof Operation: Endgame. NYC gets Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno -- a documentary about the tortured filmmaker's unfinished movie -- along with the flaccid Italian moper The Contenders, the docudrama Alamar, and another doc, To Age or Not to Age. L.A. gets the lesbian coming-of-age story We Are the Mods and, also coming off a scorching opening weekend in NYC, the riotous, splendidly bittersweet doc Winnebago Man.

X-FACTOR: The faith-based movie brand Rocky Mountain Pictures is offering the teen-musical knock-off Standing Ovation in limited wide release. It's not getting the most inspiring publicity push in large markets, but there's some chatter here and there. (Co-star James Brolin was on The View the other day, so there's that.) I have a feeling the audience that needs to know about this one does know about this one, but we'll find out Monday or Tuesday.

THE BIG LOSER: Disney will put a furious spin on The Sorcerer's Apprentice topping out at (or a little above) $30 million, but come on. If you're going to wipe out a Times Square Sbarro in the name of blockbuster entertainment, then much bigger things are expected than a third-place finish behind a film that barely anybody had even heard of two weeks ago. Time to regroup, Jerry Bruckheimer.

THE UNDERDOG: I feel like this is turning into my little doc corner, but until narrative drama pulls its head out of its ass and makes something half as entertaining, shocking and riveting as Erik Gandini's blistering Videocracy, then non-fiction is where it's at. The investigation of Italian P.M. Silvio Berlusconi's media-centric rulership is finally landing in L.A. after an East Coast stopover a while back; check out Movieline's review from TIFF '09, then steel your stomach and have a look into tragicomic cultural hell. This is a great film.