Oppenheimer

Almost 200,000 people died in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think Nolan makes the case Robert Oppenheimer felt the weight of his creation and allowed himself to be abused at his security review in 1954. "Oppenheimer" uses the template of "Amadeus." Lewis Strauss ( Robert Downey Jr) is Salieri and J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is Mozart. "Oppenheimer" marks the 12th feature film Christopher Nolan has directed. I'm a Nolan fan, however the director has made a few turkeys, in my opinion; "Tenet" and "Dunkirk". "Oppenheimer" will rank up there as one of his best. It's a good film; solid enough to make a blog entry (as you know, only good stuff goes on the blog). Will it be good enough to make my top ten list of the year? Doubtful. Why? It lacks an emotional element - I felt like I should be feeling more at the end of the film. I didn't. There is a cold precision to Nolan's films which I both admire and detest at the same time (how can something be both a wave and a particle?). So what makes Nolan great is also his demise, fission and fusion. So let's talk about why "Oppenheimer" is great. This is a three hour film and I wasn't bored for a minute; it chugs along at a good clip for a film which is mostly a bunch of men standing around talking. The look of the film is gorgeous. The performances are all fantastic - Matt Damon always brings so much humanity to his roles. And the bomb sequence, well it's a masterpiece. For these reasons alone, "Oppenheimer" is must see cinema. Catch it in theatres now.