'Inception' clip to hit theaters just as Oscar fever peaks

That Inception deserves some Academy Award love is not an idea that needs to be planted into your subconscious, but Warner Bros. is taking no chances. Beginning Dec. 31, a trailer-length behind-the-scenes featurette of director Christopher Nolan’s mind-blowing adventure will be sent to key movie theaters around the country and will also become available online.

It’s smart timing. Many people, including Academy voters, will be at multiplexes that weekend checking out the season’s critical darlings: Black Swan, The King’s Speech, The Fighter. It can’t hurt to remind folks that one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, which has been available on video for three weeks, is every bit the artistic achievement that its rivals are, and that it deserves to be part of the Oscar conversation.

In the clip, embedded below, the surreal images that entranced you all summer come crashing back — the runaway train, the zero-gravity hotel fight, the wobbly totem — heightened by Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score. The actors take turns raving about Nolan’s gifts, and then the director returns the favor for his leading man. Nolan appears to be a shoo-in for a Best Director nomination, but the Inception refresher course can only boost Leonardo DiCaprio’s deserving but long-shot candidacy.

Does the trip back to Inception boost its award prospects in your mind? Do you think DiCaprio can nab one of the five Best Actor slots?