Irving Cowboy
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We just saw it this afternoon. I agree, it was really good.
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Chocolate Lab
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What's it even like? I went through a huge nuke war fascination phase about 12 years ago so I know all about him, but I haven't read anything about the movie.
Genghis Khan
The worst version of myself
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I have my doubts that Hollywood would treat that subject with anything other than woke revisionist history.
Chocolate Lab
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Exactly.
Irving Cowboy
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Saw Oppenheimer on Friday night... it was good, but too long. Could have been condensed to just under 2 hours.
Other than that, I liked it.
When it was over, we walked into a parking lot full of police. Some dude was shot dead in his car while we were in the theater.
Other than that, I liked it.
When it was over, we walked into a parking lot full of police. Some dude was shot dead in his car while we were in the theater.
shoop
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I am over the trend of 2.5+ hour movies.
Before avatar and LOTR most movies contained them selves to 1.5-2 hours. Succinct and to the point. Now we have tv series that episode run times go over an hour at points. I don’t mind the change in tv so much as they manage the story lines and it is enough to keep you intrigued.
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No damn way am I watching that movie. The inaccuracies would just piss me off.
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Irving Cowboy
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Man found shot to death in vehicle behind shut down Ruby Tuesday in Hampton: Police
The call for the incident came in around 6:34 p.m., where police say a man was shot to death in the 1st block of Towne Center Way.
www.wtkr.com
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Holy shit.Man found shot to death in vehicle behind shut down Ruby Tuesday in Hampton: Police
The call for the incident came in around 6:34 p.m., where police say a man was shot to death in the 1st block of Towne Center Way.
Smitty
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So regarding Oppenheimer, no, it was not “too woke.” I think Nolan is too artistically puritan to resort to propaganda, which there is no other word for what most of Hollywood has now become.
It did specifically reference, and make into a significant plot point, how Oppenheimer spent his life brushing up against the Communist party (though he never joined, but his brother, wife and girlfriend and many associates were all communists at one time or another), but that’s just historical reality regarding Oppenheimer, I don’t think it was heavy handed or tried to make a modern day leftist equivalence.
My main problem was mostly that it was boring. There was no real central antagonist. The development of the bomb and the Manhattan project didn’t even have, like, a real significant “uh oh they’ve hit a wall, can they overcome this math or physics obstacle?” Forget about a real main antagonist.
They tried to make the Robert Downey Jr character that antagonist, but ironically (because the rest of the movie is too much ‘just history and not drama’) I feel like we are left not know who the hell RDJ’s character is and why he is against Oppenheimer. It doesn’t help that the reality of his character is that he is a politician who opposed the renewal of Oppenheimer’s national security clearance for political reasons…. like ten years after the bomb was made and there was no more drama as to “will it work or not???”
I even thought the detonation of the Trinity test wasn’t very dramatically depicted. I wish they had attempted to kinda depict it like newsreel footage, a replication of what it really, actually would have looked like. Instead we got close ups of billowing flames that were intended to inspire awe of “look how massive the explosion was” while not looking particularly like what the scientists really would have witnessed from their vantage points twenty miles away.
They never applied any pressure on the viewer like “omg the Germans are on the cusp, we have to do this.” No real race or pressure from higher ups. It all just kinda… happened. It felt like it was a well acted documentary biography about Robert Oppenheimer.
It did specifically reference, and make into a significant plot point, how Oppenheimer spent his life brushing up against the Communist party (though he never joined, but his brother, wife and girlfriend and many associates were all communists at one time or another), but that’s just historical reality regarding Oppenheimer, I don’t think it was heavy handed or tried to make a modern day leftist equivalence.
My main problem was mostly that it was boring. There was no real central antagonist. The development of the bomb and the Manhattan project didn’t even have, like, a real significant “uh oh they’ve hit a wall, can they overcome this math or physics obstacle?” Forget about a real main antagonist.
They tried to make the Robert Downey Jr character that antagonist, but ironically (because the rest of the movie is too much ‘just history and not drama’) I feel like we are left not know who the hell RDJ’s character is and why he is against Oppenheimer. It doesn’t help that the reality of his character is that he is a politician who opposed the renewal of Oppenheimer’s national security clearance for political reasons…. like ten years after the bomb was made and there was no more drama as to “will it work or not???”
I even thought the detonation of the Trinity test wasn’t very dramatically depicted. I wish they had attempted to kinda depict it like newsreel footage, a replication of what it really, actually would have looked like. Instead we got close ups of billowing flames that were intended to inspire awe of “look how massive the explosion was” while not looking particularly like what the scientists really would have witnessed from their vantage points twenty miles away.
They never applied any pressure on the viewer like “omg the Germans are on the cusp, we have to do this.” No real race or pressure from higher ups. It all just kinda… happened. It felt like it was a well acted documentary biography about Robert Oppenheimer.
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So, it's a terrible movie with woke overtones. No thanks.
Smitty
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No, again, I would not say it has woke overtones. Robert Oppenheimer was for all intents and purposes a communist and if you are going to make a movie about him, that angle has to be discussed. That doesn’t mean that there can’t be an entertaining film about a person who did something amazing and who also happened to have communist leanings.
You guys know me, I wouldn’t stand for any preachy garbage. This was not preachy.
Like I said, its main sin was just that it was boring.
Like, how come we didn’t have scenes where him and a rival screamed at each other about the underlying math or physics?
They make court room shows interesting all the time on the back of otherwise dry legal material. There had to be a way to write a gripping drama about this project. They just didn’t.
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Okay, fine, it was boring and 3 hours long. No thanks.
Chocolate Lab
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Smitty
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They got into the moral dilemma a little; but a lot of that was even done in the context of his security revocation hearing - “Why did you say you wish we dropped the bomb on the Germans but now say you oppose the hydrogen bomb development on moral grounds?”
I wouldn’t say it was overly preachy. It more acknowledges the debate. I was not offended by the movie referencing the debate’s existence. I did not come out of the movie feeling like it was designed to influence me to believe that it was indefensible that we dropped the bomb. There is a scene that depicts Truman as a real asshole where he basically calls him a crybaby for bringing up the moral dilemma. As I understand it such a confrontation actually occurred, but that scene is the one in which I really feel they paint Oppenheimer as a reasonable person and Truman as a cartoon baddie almost. But the scene was brief.
And Fuchs giving secrets to the Russians was mentioned, but almost in passing later, and in context of Oppenheimer’s security hearing. they could have made “find the spy” a real dramatic part of the movie but they just didn’t.
There was this back and forth between the 40s and the 50s, where in the 50s they were conducting the hearings, and they’d ask him at the hearing “Why did you tell Groves such and such about there being no leaks at Los Alamos when there in actuality was!” But while Fuchs was in the film briefly he wasn’t outed as the spy except for offscreen and near the end. And it wasn’t like there was some huge plot point of making it a mole hunt where his reveal would have been shocking. It was all just matter of fact, like, oh yeah, and how can we trust you now? Remember you said no one was leaking to the Soviets? Well, Fuchs did and you were wrong!”
