Inception (2010)

I was floored by Oppenheimer.  I left the theater blown away (no pun intended) by what I had just witnessed. The film never felt too long nor boring. Despite not understanding practically pages of dialogue at a time, the movie retained an undeniable gravity (again, no pun intended) and suspense.

I’ve yet to analyze my experience piece by piece because I thought it would ruin the effect. I’ve been surfing this wave of contentment for days without studying the ‘why’ of it all.

What made it great? A few things: the scale, the acting, the technical wizardry involving sound and editing, and a true understanding of an elusive historical figure that starts on the page.  

This wasn’t some sci-fi epic like Interstellar, nor did it have the grit and pedigree of the war film, Dunkirk.  This movie was more subtle. It functions somewhat as a biopic. Starting with his early academic years, Oppenheimer sticks to the story of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and we don’t venture far from him over the course of 3 hours. The sound, realistic visual effects, and editing are all impressively concentrated on the internal struggles of one man, the “founder of the atomic bomb.”

Apart from the fact that they’re both brilliant American screenwriters and directors, Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig don’t have much in common. Their filmographies couldn’t be more different. The Inception director is known for making intellectually intriguing large-scale films which tell expansive stories about enigmatic characters and often present like a puzzle for the viewer to solve. On the other hand, the Little Women director is known for making tender slice-of-life movies focused on one or a few ordinary people which explore the emotional and philosophical implications of patriarchy and the human condition itself. Not just that, their two latest films, Barbie and Oppenheimer are films about the world’s most famous doll and the world’s most famous weapon of mass destruction respectively. So, yes, on the face of it, the entire phenomenon of ‘Barbenheimer’, this joint hype for the two films because they’re releasing on the same day, is just a meme and an example of people getting lost in the sensationalism that comes with the growth of pop culture.

It works brilliantly as a marketing strategy for both films, representing our obsession with paradoxes and filmgoers’ love for claiming favourites amongst films. It also does something which neither film could have hoped to do alone – unite two seemingly disparate groups of filmgoers. A Greta Gerwig film draws a crowd of Indie film lovers and a large percentage of the viewers are women. Similarly, a Christopher Nolan film draws a crowd of people who enjoy large-scale intellectual exercises and is often majority male. Please note that these are gross generalizations and it’s entirely possible that there were theaters packed with men who watched Little Women or women who watched Interstellar. Nonetheless, these are representative statistics, and thanks to ‘Barbenheimer’ the two crowds crossed paths. But instead of waging war over which film is better and jeering at each other, they mostly decided to join hands and go see both!

The Netflix fantasy feature Slumberland (2022) is based on the comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland” which was created by the American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay in 1905. In this exquisitely drawn psychedelia, Nemo is a boy who embarks on fantastic adventures in his dreams. It’s a flow of subconsciousness at its finest, and it contains no moral lesson.

Written by David Guion and Michael Handelman, and directed by Francis Lawrence, Slumberland has a story to tell and a lesson to teach. Nemo is a girl played by a dependable, but uneventful Marlow Barkley. After losing her dad (Kyle Chandler) at sea, Nemo retreats into the dreamworld as a way to process her grief. There, she meets Flip (Jason Momoa), a Satyr-like creature who helps Nemo see her dad one more time. 

***Spoilers Alert***

By abandoning the original surrealism of a dream for a structured narrative, Slumberland subjects itself to an inevitable comparison with Inception (2010), Inside Out (2015), and other films that analyze the inner workings of the mind from a professional standpoint. It stops being the fantasy world of a child and becomes a 150 million USD session with a child psychotherapist. Nemo’s life with her dad is pure saccharine bliss, modeled after an OTC drug commercial. It is a lazy solution that takes away from the authenticity of Nemo’s journey.  

The longer we travel through Slumberland, the more it looks like a story of her uncle Philip and his unfulfilled desires. The all-white male trio at the helm of this mega production clearly relates more to the struggles of a man-child Philip/Flip than those of a token orphaned girl. Slumberland takes a page from Fight Club’s book by making a macho dream-crasher Momoa to be an alter ego for a dull doorknob salesman portrayed by Chris O’Dowd. Whether this casting reflects certain implicit racial bias depends on your perspective. Momoa does his best to act bonkers and eventually succeeds in his Johnny Depp for Tim Burton impersonation. 

Here's how this works, we will rank all the MCU live-action Spider-Man films (excluding Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) only because animation is on a whole other playfield) before Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Each of the films will be ranked based on their most awesome scenes, which means the more not-so-awesome scenes we find in the films, the more likely they will be at the bottom of our list. Let's see if your favorite Spider-Man movie will make it to the top.

7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Awesome Scene: Gwen Stacy’s fall was the most climactic and heartbreaking scene in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This scene was visually stunning and had great VFX that allows viewers to feel suspense as Gwen Stacy is falling to her death. The sequel was not as epic compared to the other Spider-Man films that came before and after. It’s a shame that a scene with tragedy and no dialogue was the most memorable part of this film.

Not-So-Awesome Scene #1: Any scene with Harry Osborn in it, especially his Green Goblin transformation. I get that the character is supposed to resemble a goblin like in the comics, but maybe Sam Raimi was smart to put a Goblin mask on Dafoe instead of an actual makeover. 

Not-So-Awesome Scene #2: Any scene with Electro (I’m narrowing it down because this film has major flaws). Electro’s disappointment has more to do with how he was written and his facial CG than Foxx’s acting. Electro would have been an amazing villain for the film, since he is one of the most notorious villains Spider-Man faced in the comics. Both Green Goblin and Electro would have been worthy opponents for our superheroes, but their story arcs were a letdown and I can’t help but feel they were trying to pull off a trio battle like in Spider-Man 3.