After the success of the Latest Book You’ve Read thread, I thought I’d start one for movies.
Similar guidelines as the book thread. Name the movie, and provide your own review for it. What did you like, what didn’t you like, etc. Would you recommend it to others?
I’ll start.
Movie: Oppenheimer
Would I recommend it to others? Absolutely. Can’t wait for it to come to streaming to watch it again to see what I missed
What I liked
Casting was brilliant. On top of the typical stars you see, there were a ton of actors which I’ve seen in a bunch of tv series (Numbers, White Collar, etc). Actors in roles which were a pretty dramatic shift from what they typically play. I’d forgotten how well Robert Downey Jr can act after his Marvel movies and some of the other dross he’s played recently.
The scene where they did the test detonation was BRILLIANT. While I first saw that type of scene in The Last Jedi, the complete silence, then the heavy breathing added in then the soundtrack and the build up was phenomenal. Add in the sonic boom late and just wow…
I also found the theme of the project members being the ultimate purveyors of the concept of FAFO very well handled. From the “can we do this” to the joy of the test fire to the trying to talk the military into just using the threat of it instead of using it to the realization of what they did. Just spectacular.
What I didn’t care for
I thought the movie was about a half hour too long. It just seemed to drag. I thought the nude scenes with Florence Pugh were unnecessary. She’s attractive and all, but the scenes didn’t add much other than the titillation factor. A scene at a coffee shop would have worked as well as the hotel room scene.
The three timelines concept was interesting but it was hard to follow at times. Took me about 1/2 an hour to get into the timelines to settle into what was going on. Not sure how that could have been improved but it was cludgy at times.
And with the three timelines, it seems like they dropped the ball a bit on Oppenheimer’s ending. You see the medal ceremony, but that was about it. You got closure on Strauss but not on Oppenheimer.