Seen Oppenheimer... pretty good

[Andrew Reid]

Here are my thoughts

https://www.eoshd.com/news/oppenheimer-review-70mm-imax-screening/

[ND64]

Nolan ows us nothing. Movie making is not a moral obligation. If he's interested to use his talent to work more on world war II, there are many subjects that doesn't receive the cinematic attention they deserve, like Japanese atrocious actions in east asia.

[ntblowz]

I do notice some shot is not focused on the face.

After watching Barbie and Oppenhimer i prefer Oppenhimer much more I guess it is my kind of film? I am also keen on Napolean too.

 

[Elias]

I saw the movie on a "normal" theater as we don't have an IMAX nearby, and the experience was amazing.

About the only criticism I have for the movie is that the dialog is constant. There is rarely a moment we get to rest. It feels like those songs where the artist wants to attach lyrics to every single note of the song from beginning to end.

However, besides that, the movie is well worth seeing, and I'm pretty sure it will get at least 6 or 7 Oscar nominations and probably will end up winning most (if not all) of those.

Without a doubt one of the best of Nolan's movies (and definitely way better than Tenet).

[Robert Collins]

I was somewhat disappointed (probably because I went into it with too high expectations).

Cillian Murphy's performance is epic but the film not so much. The scene cuts made a complicated story, overly complicated. Film seemed overly long, I just didnt care that much for any of the characters.

My guess is that 'Oppenheimer' will go down as a 'Gandhi'. Widely praised at the time, wins a bunch of oscars but largely forgotten afterwards (especially compared to ET (basically the same story, came out in the same year.)

[Ilkka Nissila]

3 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

I was somewhat disappointed (probably because I went into it with too high expectations).

Cillian Murphy's performance is epic but the film not so much. The scene cuts made a complicated story, overly complicated. Film seemed overly long, I just didnt care that much for any of the characters.

My guess is that 'Oppenheimer' will go down as a 'Gandhi'. Widely praised at the time, wins a bunch of oscars but largely forgotten afterwards (especially compared to ET (basically the same story, came out in the same year.)

It's easier to follow when one knows the story pretty well from books etc. I guess the different timelines are there to keep it a mystery, who was behind Oppenheimer's loss of reputation and security clearance after he opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb and wanted that there should be disarmament and  international oversight over nuclear weapons. That is revealed towards the end (at least one version). If the film had progressed in a linear time it would not be possible to make the story as exciting I guess, as they'd have to show the behind-the-scenes as the time went by.

 

[Andrew Reid]

 

[mkabi]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:01 PM, Andrew Reid said:

 

lol - I have a feeling that Nolan thinks that he is smarter than he really is by targetting the mensa crowd. When in fact he is just alienating the many by tickling the few.

I learned a lesson in grade 12/13 physics... you are not smart if you are trying to explain something complicated in the most complicated way. My physics teacher told us this -> Who is more famous? Issac Newton or Galileo? Did you know that Galileo explained Gravity way before Newton did??? 100 years before...
You know why Newton won over everyone, he explained it so everyone understood it.

You are smart if you can take something complicated and explain it in a simple way.

[Django]

Yeah Tenet was confusing to the point where it became annoying. Other non-linear films of his like Memento or Inception weren't that dense. Oppenheimer being a historical biopic doesn't get near such complexity imo, yet of course Nolan tries to put his spin on the narrative. I wasn't familiar with the Lewis Strauss affair but knew a twist was coming and put it together rather quickly so that was a fail for me personally. Structure wise it reaches a good balance with the flashback (or rather flash-forward) scenes being shot in B&W to guide the viewer. I also noticed the out of focus shots and also quite a few blown highlights in those B&W scenes. Surely the result of using never shot before film stock. I found such technical errors a little distracting in such a hyper stylised film but in the end I kinda like that they left them in. While we're here in these forums critising X camera for its poor dynamic range, here is a 100 million summer blockbuster by a revered cinematographer that shoots in 70mm IMAX.. that includes blown highlights lol! Gotta laugh at the irony.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, Django said:

Yeah Tenet was confusing to the point where it became annoying. Other non-linear films of his like Memento or Inception weren't that dense.

Yes indeed. I think he's reached that point now where he doesn't know where to stop and each new film has to be that bit more convoluted than the last.

Many will nod their heads and say, "yeah yeah yeah, I understood it all", but can never quite explain it, whilst a growing number of us more honest (with ourselves folks) will state we kinda got it, but not all of it.

Same with Oppenheimer, - just maybe one layer too many which did make it a harder watch than it might have been.

Still enjoyed it and would have enjoyed it more but for one even more important factor and that is we had been to BK prior and I should have taken a bottle of water in with me as dying of thirst by the halfway point. But that was on me, not Nolan.

[Yannick Willox]

I saw Oppenheimer (and Barbie !) and did find Oppenheimer really good.

I was not bothered by the complex timeline. I read beforehand this was an issue, but fail to see the problem.

The dialogue : indeed, the editing makes for a roller-coaster type of dialogue. I was wondering if I could keep focused the entire length of the film. Actually I think this is the best part (much more than the cinematography) of the movie. When the testbomb goes off the most exciting moment of the movie has gone, halfway through. I thought literally, how are we going to get through the next 1h30 ...

Turned the next half was even more exciting !

Probably it helps if you see this one with a clear head and enough sleep.

[PannySVHS]

Already had my summer blockbuster, "Thelma and Louise" in a cinema rerun. No interest in Greta Nolando and their flix. Marketing made them huge money. They accomplished their business goals and still proceed to do so. More power to them and their benefitors and awesome for pink shirt sales. Nuclear falldown, hope not!

[D4cl00]

Oppenheimer’s attempt portraying the Dutch language horribly fails. It’s some kind of German? 

Not a big Nolan fan myself - at least his later work. Too much exposition, non-lineair story-telling, inaudible dialog, frontal lobe numbing music and heavy-handed dialogue.

[Yannick Willox]

10 hours ago, D4cl00 said:

Oppenheimer’s attempt portraying the Dutch language horribly fails. It’s some kind of German? 

Not a big Nolan fan myself - at least his later work. Too much exposition, non-lineair story-telling, inaudible dialog, frontal lobe numbing music and heavy-handed dialogue.

Oppenheimer speaking Dutch was the absolute low of the entire movie. It was a mistake a low budget, first ever beginner shoot should not make.

Yoe dink wat E sed ouas Dotsh butt sanded Geirmann

[MrSMW]

Yes, that was utterly weird!

 

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

I watched it yesterday with my daughter. The beginning of the film is a kind of a looong trailer, then fortunately it goes a bit slower. Too many jumps, names, etc. But we liked it anyway!

[octoplex]

Nolan's Memento (2000) is an enduring masterpiece, and The Prestige (2006) was Nolan at his absolute creative peak.

What sadly seems to happen with these Hollywood-endorsed directors is they quickly become 'establishment' and cease to create anything of real integrity or interest. Many of these directors reach a point in their careers where it has been so long since they've sat in a room with anyone even vaguely-human that they forget how to tell relevant stories.

They also get (consciously or not) pushed into agenda-based storytelling. Less generously, we might call it 'sophisticated propaganda' funded by established-money.

It's not Nolan's fault. Anyone exposed to the people he has to fraternize with in Hollywood would meet the same fate. The trick is to leave the casino (Hollywood) while you still have your soul. Few directors time this exit correctly.

Stanley Kubrick, of course, exited to a odd English-suburb and refused to return. His work is rare in that it retained a consistently high-quality.

Nolan reminds me of Ridley Scott, who really hasn't made anything of real interest since the masterpieces of Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982). As with Nolan, the puzzling thing about this outcome is just how staggeringly incredible Scott's early work was; and how mediocre most of the later work. What happened? What does Hollywood to do these artists?

I'll leave the reader to decide...

 

[MrSMW]

55 minutes ago, octoplex said:

Ridley Scott, who really hasn't made anything of real interest since the masterpieces of Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982).

Maximus Decimus Maridius, commander of the armies of the North, General of the Felix Legion, loyal servant to the true  Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, husband to a murdered wife, father to a murdered son…enters the chat.

[octoplex]

17 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

Maximus Decimus Maridius…enters the chat.

🙂Ha 🙂

Gladiator was certainly an interesting anomaly in Scott's steady descent. It was undeniably 'good'. As was Ridley Scott's much-overlooked Matchstick Men (2003). But the troubling thing is that Gladiator could have been made by any functional-director with a big-budget. Gladiator was, at heart, a remake of Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). Scott was known for his originality when he first entered the scene. That quickly evaporated.

The Ridley Scott who made Alien and Blade Runner seemed to vanish somewhere in the mid-80s, and has yet to re-appear. It's puzzling. He transitioned from genius to merely functional. As did many others.

Back to Nolan: He seems to have trodden a similar path: Nolan excelled in his craft early on and then had all his originality and talent sucked out of him by vampires at Los Angeles pool parties (merely speculating). Same with Darren Aronofsky...

Someone should make a movie about this phenomena.

[D4cl00]

I had the opportunity to work with Nolan and Zimmer directly (from a game development perspective) on both Interstellar and The Dark Knight Rises. With the former game we also collaborated with Kip Thorne. 
Learned from how these guys work as much as I could, with the short time given.

I think Nolan was tired of Batman when he embarked on the last one (and it shows IMHO). After that film I noticed his movies gradually got a lot more exposition, dialogue got more heavy-handed and the narrative structure in my opinion was over-complex.

Why tell Dunkirk in a non-linear fashion? It’s almost as if he wants to hide a lack of story. At least Memento, which I love, uses this functionally: we as as an audience experience his memory loss. 

I think my favorites are the early ones: Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins. 

Maybe Tarantino is right, and directors have a shelf life, after which they start to smell funny.