OPPENHEIMER tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. There is a
lot of substance to the film, but there is a lot of style as well
(it is after all a Christopher Nolan film), and the style sometimes
gets in the way of the substance.

Nolan jumps among three time periods: the 1930s to 1945, 1954, and
1959. (It could be worse; at least they all run forwards in time,
as opposed to the two timelines in TENET.) The last two time
periods are in black and white, reversing the usual practice of
having older periods in black and white. But Nolan wants the
"center" of the film to be Oppenheimer's career up to Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, with his security revocation in 1954, and Lewis Strauss's (non-)confirmation hearing in 1959, more as news reporting of
after-effects than narrative (although they are not actual news
footage, but just more narrative film). This is often
disorienting, and Evelyn said that it took a while for her to
realize that the back-and-white sequences actually represented two
totally different hearings five years apart.

There are a lot of characters, and it is difficult to keep some of
them straight. And often the people you expect to see don't show
up at all, or are merely in the background. The one woman
scientist we see is Lilli Hornig, not Lise Meitner. Richard
Feynman seemed to be a faceless background character in two scenes, identifiable only by his bongo drums, although his position in the
credits indicates he may have appeared in other scenes and we just
didn't notice him.

One question some reviewers ask is why the film was shot in IMAX.
It consists primarily of people talking in rooms. The only
"expansive" scenes would be the exteriors in New Mexico (a rather
small proportion of the film), and the football field and the space
below it in Chicago. the New Mexico scenery would look much better
in IMAX, but to use it for the entire film seems overkill.

Released theatrically 21 July 2023. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4), or
9/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/oppenheimer_2023>

Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2023 Mark R. Leeper

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On Sunday, August 13, 2023 at 10:18:06 AM UTC-5, Mark Leeper wrote:

OPPENHEIMER tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. There is a
lot of substance to the film, but there is a lot of style as well
(it is after all a Christopher Nolan film), and the style sometimes
gets in the way of the substance.

Nolan jumps among three time periods: the 1930s to 1945, 1954, and
1959. (It could be worse; at least they all run forwards in time,
as opposed to the two timelines in TENET.) The last two time
periods are in black and white, reversing the usual practice of
having older periods in black and white. But Nolan wants the
"center" of the film to be Oppenheimer's career up to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with his security revocation in 1954, and Lewis Strauss's (non-)confirmation hearing in 1959, more as news reporting of
after-effects than narrative (although they are not actual news
footage, but just more narrative film). This is often
disorienting, and Evelyn said that it took a while for her to
realize that the back-and-white sequences actually represented two
totally different hearings five years apart.

There are a lot of characters, and it is difficult to keep some of
them straight. And often the people you expect to see don't show
up at all, or are merely in the background. The one woman
scientist we see is Lilli Hornig, not Lise Meitner. Richard
Feynman seemed to be a faceless background character in two scenes, identifiable only by his bongo drums, although his position in the
credits indicates he may have appeared in other scenes and we just
didn't notice him.

One question some reviewers ask is why the film was shot in IMAX.
It consists primarily of people talking in rooms. The only
"expansive" scenes would be the exteriors in New Mexico (a rather
small proportion of the film), and the football field and the space
below it in Chicago. the New Mexico scenery would look much better
in IMAX, but to use it for the entire film seems overkill.

Released theatrically 21 July 2023. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4), or
9/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/oppenheimer_2023>

Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2023 Mark R. Leeper

I enjoyed the A bomb film with Paul Newman, the spaghetti sauce guy. The A-list cast includes John Cusack and Laura Dern, not Fern spelling complete idiot Google.

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