Oppenheimer was Pretentiously Tedious

It's long, OP, very, very long. Therefore, it must be a masterpiece.

I was expecting a biopic like Gandhi, The Pianist, or 12 Years a Slave.

R1 I disagree. A long masterpiece, to me, consists of Lawrence of Arabia, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and the Soviet film War and Peace. Even Oliver Stone's Nixon biopic plays like a Shakespearean Opera.

Those work because they take time to build a cohesive plot and characters. Oppenheimer jumps and cuts and jumps back without making you feel anything but the time.

2001 built a cohesive plot? I must have fallen asleep during that part.

Perfectly put r3. The movie felt like a 3-hour long supercut of hyperdramatic, portentous moments. And you couldn’t hear 1/2 the dialogue.

But how will the Broadway musical version be?

[quote] But how will the Broadway musical version be?

It will be da bomb.

2001 is one of my favorite films but I'd be hard pressed to come up with a plot.

Youtube has plenty of docs on Oppenheimer but no bare female breasts which I know is what gets DLers into the theaters.

I'm seeing chorus girls wearing...

The nudity felt forced, awkward, and unnecessary.

R5 I had to cover my ears a few times because it was SO LOUD.

Everyone calls it this stunningly sophisticated work of art. Bullshit. Life is Beautiful it ain't.

[quote]But how will the Broadway musical version be?

Boppenheimer.

Springtime for Oppenheimer!

I was liking it until they transformed the Strauss character (Robert Downey Jr.) from an interesting 3-dimensional portrait to a boring 2-dimensional villain - lime someone you'd find in a Batman movie.

Maybe I should read the book

I liked it. It really was too long: the final third, which is largely about D.C. infighting, is a letdown, although Robert Downey Jr. works very hard as Oppenheimer’s nemesis, Lewis Strauss. But way too much lecturing.

The first two hours, though, are worth it. Yes, it’s arty—it’s about theoretical physics, about things not being what they seem, so it is, ahem, “nonlinear.” Time doesn’t stay nice and organized; there are flashbacks and flash forwards. Plus, we’re warned from the very beginning that Oppenheimer is incredibly neurotic and suffers from hallucinations. He’s portrayed, really, as much as a tormented artist as a scientist.

[quote]it’s about theoretical physics, about things not being what they seem, so it is, ahem, “nonlinear.”

OMG - HARD pass.

r11 Life is Beautiful was pretentious bullshit. If the Nazis found an unaccounted for kid in a concentration camp barracks they would have slaughtered everyone in the barracks. As horrible as it sounds Benigni was wrong to put the life of his child above the live of the hundreds of others living in his barracks.

No

[quote] Oppenheimer jumps and cuts and jumps back without making you feel anything but the time.

Sounds like Nolan. Never understood his appeal.

[ R19 ] I agree that "Life Is Beautiful" was pretentious bullshit.

I liked "Oppenheimer". I'm not a Nolan fan whatsoever but I thought he was the perfect filmmaker to make a film about this moment in time when the scientific elite got so mesmerized by technology and the excitement of creating technology that it could be difficult to to navigate through this hypnotic excitement with a rudder of morality. His films are like ticking time bombs, sometimes so over constructed that all the life juices are squeezed out of them. Not so this time. I thought this film had much grandeur and it was accurate with the real events of Oppenheimer's life. It also illustrates what was at stake in this frantic moment of time. Great work by the ensemble. Nice to see so many actors doing interesting work. The standouts for me being Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt. I thought Nolan could have fleshed out the Jean Tatlock and Chevalier stories a bit more but at 3 hours, one has to make these choices and I don't think the film suffers from it.

[quote]But how will the Broadway musical version be?

For starters, Lucy will be singing "You Dropped a Bomb on Me!"

one agonizing note at a time...

All the actors sucked but the ones from the British Isles!

To truly appreciate Oppenheimer, you should watch the Barbie movie. That will help clear up. some confusing points.

R16 and R21, you're both such great writers that you make me want to see the film even more. I'm not a huge Nolan fan but do respect him as a serious filmmaker.

I enjoyed it but I think I just didn't mind the jumping because it can't be avoided to be somewhat familiar with Oppenheimer's life and the historic events that led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't know ... if Nolan wanted to show some quantum themes or duality or whatever physics-related idea, he could have done so more elegantly, but maybe it would have made it more confusing and demanded more from the viewer. As it was, it was instantly clear which time-strand was which by the aesthetics and also color/black and white/60's aesthetic with Oppenheimer as an old man.

I enjoyed the nude scenes too because they made sense. (He has also been nude on screen before, it's not that he's showing anything we haven't seen already.) What definitely was over the top was the circumstance in which he reads the very famous quote from the Bhagavad Gita (no spoilers). Do we know how much weight Murphy lost for the role? (He was slim already but I think he lost at least 20 pounds fat and muscle.)

Wait for it to stream. Watch it over several days. Used the CC because my friends said they couldn't hear a damn thing.

I saw an excellent 2 hr documentary on the Manhattan Project on Channel Thirteen (PBS) around 1980. It was heavy Oppenheimer themed; I still remember it vividly. No need to see some clap trap dramatization. I believe it's streaming somewhere.

Lol, I have friends who also complained about the sound. The sound is certainly going to blast in an IMAX theater. Don't recommend that eldergays sit directly under the speakers. Close the seats wisely.

If you subscribe to Criterion Channel, there is a documentary currently showing this month about Oppenheimer and the Trinity Project that makes a good companion piece if one is interested. Also showing "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "Godzilla" for the whole Atomic bomb grand tour experience!

[quote] Oppenheimer was Pretentiously Tedious

Go back and watch Barbie for the 100th time, you brain-dead bottom bitch CUNT op.

Oppenheimer is beyond your limited mental capability.

You need something easy to comprehend, like Barbie and Ken.

I thought Downey was great.

......

The PBS film on the Oppenheimer kangaroo court featured in the film

OP?

Go shove a Barbie up your stupid twat!

Sam Waterston played Oppenheimer in a very good BBC production (miniseries) that aired on PBS in 1980. Pat Hingle played Gen. Groves. Both performances were excellent.

Were Casey Affleck and Gary Oldman really necessary in this movie? Or does Nolan just support abusive men as a hobby?

Was the dialogue too soft or too loud? Don’t sit too close to the speakers or use CC?

R36 I thought Gary Oldman was horrendous as Harry Truman

At 1:16 in the doc r33 posted we see clearly why Strauss hated Oppenheimer. Nolan doesnt really make this clear. This Doc also makes clear that Oppenheimer was cruel and could be an asshole. It doesnt mean that Oppenheimer was a terrible person but Nolan sugarcoats some of his faults.

r36 Oldman played Truman exactly like the historical Truman who thought Oppenheimer was a crybaby.

[quote] Used the CC because my friends said they couldn't hear a damn thing.

R26 I watched it in a small cinema (in total, it fits 40 people) and I heard the dialogue just fine, every line of it. Maybe it just sucks in large cinemas where they go for maximum sound effects over clarity of speech. Aren't all these cinemas THX calibrated though?

R30 using “bottom” as a slur? You’re truly showing your (drab) colours there.

Generally like his films but think they could all be half an hour shorter.

We saw it in IMAX yesterday and much of the dialogue was unintelligible. I don’t know whether that was intentional, a bad mix at the theatre, or our eldergay ears.

I had no trouble.

Nolan does not believe in re-recording dialogue. What is recorded in the performance is what is used.

R40 That’s playing it as written, doesn’t mean he was believable impersonating Truman.

r46 How could he have done it better if I may ask?

I’m guessing that having read the book before seeing the movie helps enormously. If you don’t know already and in detail that Oppenheimer was preternaturally brilliant and don’t have a feel for the vast isolation of both the Alamogordo Trinity site and Los Alamos itself, getting the mood and feel of the Manhattan Project onto film is really hard to accomplish.

Oppenheimer was a complex and charismatic person and the persecution to which he was subjected was, or should have been, a national disgrace. Murphy did a great job with what he had to work with, I thought, and the quality of the sound was really surprisingly bad.

It would always be hard to convey how truly monumental development of those two bombs really was but especially hard now, after we’ve all seen too many cheap and flimsy superheroes bounding around in their underwear. I liked it.

R47 Ask R38, he’s the one who said Oldman was horrendous.

Guess it was a widdle wong for some of the kiddies on this thready-weady…

Oldman was hamming it up. He looked and sounded very little Harry Truman and Truman wasn't as theatrical as Oldman was acting.

Oldman's role is literally a cameo. He was ok. He was definitely a hamfest in Mank.

Saw it today. I REALLY liked it. Didn't drag for me at all even though it's LONG. Though, it would be tough rewatch. Not the type of movie I'd watch over and over. Maybe again in a couple of years, but nothing to continually revisit.

Downy should be on Oscar non and/or winner. Murphy was great. I think nearly everyone was very good. Loved the script. A lot to digest and a lot of time shifting - yet I still found it easy to follow and understandable.

I know I should let it go, but I think OP meant “tediously pretentious.” “Pretentiously tedious” doesn’t really mean anything.

I think he meant “tedious and pretentious.’

If the OP thinks the drama surrounding the guy who headed the Manhattan Project is tedious I would love to know what he thinks is exciting and interesting?

Or perhaps “pretentious and tedious.”

R56 A tedious movie can be made about an interesting subject.

OP got to the movie two weeks after everyone else and needs to have a contrarian take. Next.

The movie could've been shortened by an hour if they had edited out all of the actors' long, wistful, lingering looks accompanied by an overwrought score.

R59 Conformist.

I'm sorry, but Cillian Murphy's face and affect were just distracting.

I saw it yesterday. Wait until it is streaming. It is long, there are too many times when the dialogue is simply incomprehensible (the Union Regal had the sound on LOUD so it wasn't a problem hearing the dialogue). When Matt Damon threw his jacket at an underling, I thought he said "here, for a drag queen." I realized a few minutes later he had actually said, "Have it dry cleaned." There are many positives about the essential story, but there are so many characters coming and going with very different agendas, I found it hard to put together a cohesive storyline about the political stuff.

I wondered how much the ardent Communists knew about Stalin, the Holodomor, gulags, poverty, violence and all around horror show the Soviet Union had been since the very beginning. The brutality of communism and Stalin and communists made Hitler and Nazism seem like flash-in-the-pan amateurs. I think some sort of allusion to the truth would have helped.

The framing device overstayed its welcome by about three quarters of an hour by the end. And RDJ will probably get an Oscar for that worst part of the movie as well, eugh.

And the score is so overly propulsive at the start during the most inane scenes, you really feel the lack of energy during the back third of the movie.

I'm relieve to read all these negative comments about the film, because I was beginning to think I was alone in feeling that it's one of the most boring films I've ever seen -- especially the middle two hours or so of it. I also agree about how awful and relentless the score is, and a friend of mine hated that aspect of the film most of all.

Also, can anyone explain exactly why certain scenes were shot in black and white? I've heard one explanation, but it made no sense to me.

[quote]Also, can anyone explain exactly why certain scenes were shot in black and white? I've heard one explanation, but it made no sense to me.

Just to clearly differentiate between the two timelines, I guess.

Yes, I thought it was overwrought too. There were several scenes where I thought, think how much more dramatic and effective this would be if they cut the pounding score and cut the visual effects. But I think a lot of film types really go for that knock-'em-out strategy.

There's no reason why the sound in an IMAX theater should necessarily be "louder" or make it more difficult to understand the dialogue than a standard theater. If anything, the sound should be better overall. The problem with OPPENHEIMER is that, in many scenes, the score was intrusive and was mixed far prominently in relation to the dialogue.

Parenthetically, it amazes me that some people fail to discern a plot in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. But for those who are so stupid that they honestly don't get it even though it's easily discernible, you can find the answer very quickly through Googling, because I'm certainly not going to wast my time explaining the plot to you here.

I appreciated the ambition of the film. And happy a 3 hour bio pic of a scientist is a huge hit. Many characters in the film (the hero and his main nemesis ) were Jewish. That’s also rare in films these days.

R65, Oppenheimer’s scenes, or scenes from his POV, are in color. The black and white scenes are the ones with Robert Downey Jr. What this means, apart from the two of them being in different worlds, I don’t know.

In Memento, Nolan’s best film, the plot alternates between running forward and backwards. The scenes shot in black and white are chronological. The color sequences run in reverse order. It’s an amazing piece of work. So Nolan unlikely to have done the shift between color and black and white simply for aesthetic reasons.

I laughed when he mentioned black holes and Nolan cuts away to a shot of... party sparklers. Why not show a cool CG of a star collapsing instead? Those basic-ass effects really overstayed their welcome.

R69, I hated the pretentiousness of the film. And in my opinion, a bad movie about an interesting subject matter and interesting characters, Jewish or otherwise, is still a bad movie.

I just hope the success of Barbenheimer means the end of superhero movies and sequels. Hollywood needs to make absolutely new films not more of the same old shit.

Movie is at its best when Oppenheimer wrestles with the implications of the bomb, that's where all the humanity is. The RDJ with the whole security clearance crap is so tedious.

What r74? Strauss trying to destroy Oppenheimer because of pettiness and policy differences is all to human. And Strauss being destroyed by his own arrogance is Shakespearean.

How the tables have turned. When both movies came out, people who hadn’t seen either were saying Oppenheimer was obviously better. Alas, no. Barbie is the better movie and I didn’t even like Barbie that much.

r76 is a blonde obviously.

r76 Same. I thought Barbie was just okay, but I preferred it slightly to this movie.

Celian Murphy is so over-exposed now. He's in literally everything. Needs to go away for a year or two and then come back.

r75 Sorry, but D.C. politicking pales in comparison with the issue of a nuclear holocaust. And it's actually kinda gross and incredibly gringo-centric to give it so much weight when the core subject matter is so heavy.

I don't understand the fraus and gays that gush about Celian being hot af. I mean he's got kind of an interesting look but I don't consider him that hot.

[QUOTE] incredibly gringo-centric

Yes, clearly they should have hired a POC actor to portray Oppenheimer. What on earth were they thinking.

r80 The politicking was all about the issue of nuclear weapons. Strauss wanted the US to push ahead with the construction of more and more powerful bombs while Oppenheimer thought we could negotiate with Stalin. Strauss was right about this as the Soviets were working on thermonukes in the late 40s. Also, the politicking and destruction of his reputation was the key event in the last part of Oppenheimer life.

[quote]Oppenheimer’s scenes, or scenes from his POV, are in color.

That's what I had heard/read, but at the very least, that would mean Oppenheimer would have to be in EVERY scene that was shot in color, and I don't think that's quite true.

Also, it bothers me when I read that a movie, or certain scenes of a movie, are supposed to be from a particular character's "point of view." Almost all films are made from an omniscient point of view. If it's true that some scenes in OPPENHEIMER are meant to be seen from the title character's point of view, then those scenes should have been shot as if the camera were his eyes, and we wouldn't actually see him on screen, except maybe in mirrors -- we would only hear him. Maybe you think I'm being ridiculously literal, but I'm sorry, that's what "point of view" means to me.

Oppenheimer is the kind of film the Academy loves and there are still enough old white guys around to give it Best Picture.

R84, I don't disagree with you. The idea of color=Oppenheimer and black-and-white =Strauss comes from a New York Magazine interview with Nolan. Make of it what you will.

I understand the criticisms, but I liked it overall. It was definitely sprawling and messy, but that's what I liked about it. Though, like I said earlier, it doesn't, IMO, lend itself to any sort of consistent rewatching. Maybe In a few years, but definitely not something to sit through again regularly.

The first two hours are unwatchable. The last hour is more interesting, but by that point who cares.

The Day After Trinity is the documentary some refer to here. It is so much more emotionally engaging, has more interesting and vivid characterizations, and in the end is emotionally devastating.

Nolan wanted to do a great man film so he removed any context to focus on Oppenheimer. But his story has no meaning without the context. The Day After Trinity is more of an ensemble piece. Or would be if it were not a documentary.

In the commentary the director talks about a number of choices he rejected---framing the narrative around the hearings to remove Oppenheimer's security clearance, including material about Oppenheimer's childhood and schooling. He felt they detracted from the main narrative.

Of course, what he rejected, Nolan did.

It is on the Criterion Chanel.

There is a crappy print, on Internet Archive

Richard Brody at the New Yorker really ripped it to shreds, and I agree with everything he said about the film.

That’s what I figured it would be

OP. I disagree. I found it tediously pretentious.

Tediously pretentious is my motto. I see it tomorrow in IMax.

After seeing it yesterday and Barbie today both movies were brilliant. Oppenheimer has so many plot lines and intertwined characters. Brilliant writing and brilliant editing. Emily Blount should win the Oscar for supporting actress for her security clearance interview ALONE.

Barbie on the other hand was a female existential treatise masquerading as light entertainment. It is a brilliant execution of a complicated, abstract concept but it was done within the Barbieverse.

Both movies didn't disappoint. Both were entertaining and both were provocative.

The problem with so-called historical films like Oppenheimer or the excruciatingly terrible JFK is that viewers watch the film and then think they now know a great deal about the subject. They don't. If you read the (huge) Oppenheimer book you'd see enormous variations between the truth of the man and the portrayal in the movie.

There have been few of these "fact-based" films that actually were fact, or even mostly fact. They're whatever the director wants us to think, not what we would think if we actually studied the subject matter.

R94, Tell us Atticus Finch, tell us.

Thanks, R88. You and I are in almost completely agreement, although i would say maybe the first half hour and the last half hour of OPPENHEIMER have some interesting material, while the middle two hours are less entertaining than watching paint dry.

Thanks for comparing this movie to the documentary, which really helps explain clearly some reasons why OPPENHEIMER fails so miserably.

[quote]After seeing it yesterday and Barbie today both movies were brilliant.

That's a new, world-class achievement in bad grammar. Are you trying to say that the movies weren't brilliant until you saw them?

[quote]Emily Blount should win the Oscar for supporting actress for her security clearance interview ALONE.

If you liked her performance that much, you might want to learn to spell her name correctly.

[quote]Both movies didn't disappoint.

Again, grammar....

I would say it was tediously pretentious.

When you walked out of Oppenheimer and Barbie, you had things to think about and discuss. I dread the movie dreck that awaits us. Plus I appreciate what a movie can do. I’m bored with streaming shows that inevitably go on too long and end with a whimper.

R97, I be wounded. You be cunt.

Is Barbie really a brilliant film? Like, Seven Samurai brilliant, or Singin' In The Rain brilliant? Or City Lights Or La Grande Illusion brilliant? I haven't seen it but I find it hard to believe.

Barbie is on the level of the original Willy Wonka. It stands out only because the dearth of great films and great directors in recent years.

R102 Okay, thanks. Actually, I never understood the appeal of that one.

[quote]Is Barbie really a brilliant film? Like, Seven Samurai brilliant, or Singin' In The Rain brilliant? Or City Lights Or La Grande Illusion brilliant?

When people indiscriminately throw around the word "brilliant" (like R93) it's a clue that you don't really need to take them seriously.

As always, Oppenheimer is more about Nolan than it is about its subject. He's a show-off filmmaker at best.

R24, I loved both!

It’s no longer the cinema of the 1970s though the early aughts.

This is the best that Hollywood has to offer us, for now.

View it from this perspective & take it with a grain of salt.

Also? Everything becomes shittier as we age. If you wanna watch truly noteworthy flicks, get into indies and/or go back in time & learn to appreciate what makes/made cinema great.

We’re the equivalent of the old bastards screaming at kids to get off our lawns, when we deny viewing cinema via the lens of current, social context.

I don't enjoy movies on a bell curve, unfortunately. Especially considering what the tickets cost.

R106 I'm in my sixties but I enjoy a lot of culture (music, TV, movies) people a lot younger than me think is great. Because it *is* great, in some cases. I haven't seen either of these movies yet so forgive me for commenting at all, but "the best that Hollywood has to offer us, for now" is not really a ringing endorsement and I'm not sure.

How about seeing both films and then forming an opinion about them? It have mixed feelings about both films but they’re worth the money and time invested in seeing them. With so much absolute garbage released, I don’t get the hate for two films that offer something different at the very least.

nolan is autistic and his movies suck puss

Well I'm just not interested in seeing a film about Barbie. I'm not interested in the subject. Oppenheimer, I've already seem a lot about, but I might give it a try after things calm down.

R104, it is people who do not like the critique who subsequently attack the critic. Gad you are pitiful.

Are you a Republican?

Of course, R100. It's much easier to call me a cunt than admit your inability to write a coherent sentence and your ignorance in not checking the correct spelling of the name of an actress whose performance you loved.

r108 Movies today basically suck in comparison to 20th century film for a couple reasons:

1)Media consolidation drastically reduced the number of studios and the number of films released. The era of great movies being conceived by talented producers/directors but funded and distributed by studios was scrapped in favor of creation by committee trying to appeal to a subset of the audience (young people). Movies aimed at an adult audience became fewer and fewer. Regional studios were absorbed and this minor leagues for filmmakers disappeared.

2)Pandering to the Chinese meant appealing to the lowest common denominator and removing any content that might offend them. Thus lots of expensive popcorn movies and few thoughtful movies.

My opinion.

R113, sarcasm and ridicule are lost on your lofty intelligence. You still be a cunt.

I hated it.

I just saw it today. Absolutely loved it.

[quote]Sarcasm and ridicule are lost on your lofty intelligence.

And even that sentence makes no sense.

And I see that English is not your first language.

I couldn’t help but notice that Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt have the same face.

R118, you are wrong.

I'm halfway through. I have to go to sleep. I am that bored.

Now that this film is about to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, I just wanted to state again FWIW that I hated it because I found it laughably pretentious and incredibly boring.

I liked Maestro more.

I would ditch the Oscar for this film in a heartbeat-

I would much rather see The Zone Of Interest take it. Or Anatomy of a Fall..

It was so tedious that I watched in 3 parts. Like a miniseries.

Solid film, but overrated.