Reply With QuoteAnd made with practical effects and shot on 70mm film with zero CGI, can’t wait to see it.
Premiere-day here and we (my science & maths loving youngest and I) sat in the local cinema at
9 am sharp.
Not spoilering here. But this an impressive movie. 180mins well-spent.
And made with practical effects and shot on 70mm film with zero CGI, can’t wait to see it.
I had tickets booked for weeks to see this on the biggest local screen. Subsequently cancelled by Cineworld, who in an act of cinematic philistinism I can scarcely believe, have bumped it down to their smaller screens to make way for Barbie, FFS.
Combined with the dismal behaviour of the cinema-going public, I think my days of being a Cineworld Unlimited member are rapidly drawing to a close.
At 3hrs long, I’m waiting to watch this at home.
Good call to watch it on the biggest (widest) possible screen.Originally Posted by MrSmith
I'll keep away from spoilers, but Robert Downey Jr is fantastic. And the way the story is told, is pretty intelligent (as to be expected from this director).
If my girls want to go see Barbie I'll happily take them to see Margot Robbie at IMAX scale.
I wouldn't have booked weeks in advance with Cineworld though, they filed for Administration last month, at any moment they could go under. Hopefully with Oppenheimer, Barbie and another Mission Impossible out for the Summer Holidays they'll survive.
They've had the sword of Damocles over them since before Tom Cruise started borrowing McCartney's hair dye.
I don’t spend money on Scientology.
I'm sure Tom Cruise spends enough for all of us...
So no to Pulp Fiction then? That would have been a tough call.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
This is such a bugbear of mine. No film needs to be that long, it's self-indulgent and verging on rude to expect folk to sit on their arses for that long! If you can't get the story across in an hour and a half or two hours max. then don't do it at all!
Sorry, ranting again....
Yeah, Travolta…
I must admit that I became aware about their ‘model’ 5 yrs ago when my wife -as a part of her study at Harvard- did a course about cults.
As Hitchcock counselled, "the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder".
I first watched Schindler's List in a movie theatre in the US. The fellow in front of me settled down with a large selection of snacks and drinks so I moved to a quieter section of the auditorium more conducive to appreciating the harrowing narrative. I noticed that halfway through the same gentleman had to nip out to grab a hotdog top-up.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Truer words have never been spoken!
There is nothing wrong with a longer film if it’s well made. Of the top of my head, Something like the more recent Dune remake (part 1) or The Martian couldn’t have been made within 2 hours without losing something. Shorter is not always the best option. That said I agree that some films are over long.
Or bring back intermissions.
I'd like to be proved wrong but I doubt it will be as good as the TV series of 1980.
Hear hear. The little privately owned cinema in my parents town (average age deceased) has an intermission in every showing of every movie. Sometimes the movie grinds to a halt at amusingly inappropriate moments.
I remember there being an intermission in the middle of JFK (3hrs 9mins according to IMDB) about 30yrs ago.
Last edited by gunner; 21st July 2023 at 08:59.
180 minutes though, that's a bum nummer.
Well, perhaps the reviews on IMDB tell you more about that. (I cannot remember that TV series).
Intermission or ‘pauze’ as it’s called in the Netherlands. Yes, we have them in most cinemas. Good for the sales of snacks, coffee and tea. Eyewatering prices I may add…
3 hours… I paid 8 euros per ticket (2). That’s not bad! We wen by bike and parked in a free & guarded bike ‘parking’. Parking my car would have been more expensive than the ticket for the cinema!
The Kinema in the Woods at Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire still does intermissions, complete with an organist raising from the pit to play some merry tunes.
Excellent place, and probably one I’ll choose for Oppenheimer at 3 hrs!
Last one I can recall was Licence To Kill (a brisk 2h13m) at the Odeon in St Helier in '89.
I've always wanted to see Demons (1985) the way it was originally shown in Rome in a packed cinema with its intermission intact. I wonder how many viewers took the opportunity to run to the exits. The brilliantly self-aware intertitle "Fine primo tempo” has been reinstated in some of the blu-ray restos.
I've got tickets booked for tomorrow, going with my son too.
I also agree that 3hrs is too long for a movie, I booked the tickets from a spot where I can leave easily if I need to...
I pretty much agree with this.
Similar happening in novels too. I like around 300 pages not some giant thing that resembles an old phone book!
Cheers,
Neil.
Watched it last night, agree its a bit long! Stellar cost who really deliver. Brilliant score and cinematography as well.
Want to see it with my son, who is a massive Christopher Nolan fan - but can't any decent seats at the local IMAX till next weekend. Looking forward to it!
I don't have a dislike for long films as long they justify (and don't feel) their length.
My son and I went to see Mission Impossible a couple of days ago (we've seen all of them at the cinema since he was old enough to go, it's a father-son thing we do and I don't care if a tiny fraction of my tenner went to whatever Tom Cruise wants to spend his money on) and it's nearly 3 hours long, but it didn't seem it and I didn't need to get up and take a 'comfort break' halfway through.
90 minute films tend to feel too short, but again, if the story is told well in that time, who cares?
I'd rather watch 90 minutes or 180 minutes of a good film than 2 hours of Fast & Furious 98.
All that said, since The Prestige, I've found Nolan's films getting increasingly self-indulgent.
I will, undoubtedly, see Oppenheimer, but almost certainly at home - I'm not sure the subject lends itself to IMAX sized screens or entry prices.
I agree, with the same proviso as above. You get the feeling that some authors get too big to be told their book is full of waffle by editors.
Same with film directors, it seems.
M
Last edited by snowman; 22nd July 2023 at 11:50.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
I'll be taking this in tomorrow evening. Thank heavens for the Errol Flynn.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
The score... I forgot to mention that. With the erratically ticking of a Geiger counter-ish musical instrument as a rhythm. Brilliant.
Last edited by thieuster; 22nd July 2023 at 12:08.
Went today. Great cast and acting. I have no qualms watching long movies if warranted but to be honest I don’t think this story warranted 3 hours. Too much time spent on the hearing(s).
Overall I rate it good, and am relieved Mrs H didn’t join me as she would have hated it.
Strange really, but having spent the 80’s as a teenager convinced we were about to be nuked at any second, and having a relative alive at that time bearing tattoos from Auschwitz, I’ve never watched Schindlers List and I don’t have any intention of seeing Oppenheimer. Too damned depressing and not something in either case I think I’d find entertaining (I say strange as I’m a fan of Nolan and Spielberg, love cinema and I’m not in the habit of closing my eyes to the dark reality of the world - I just don’t fancy being reminded!)
My local Empire Cinema has already closed, a fortnight ago. Guess I'll have to wait a week or two before I can stream it.
In the meantime, as (shorter) alternatives, may I heartily recommend these 2 documentaries:
Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995)
To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb (2023)
Last edited by Seiko7A38; 23rd July 2023 at 12:42.
Just seen on IMAX. and loved it. It’s dialogue heavy (particularly on the trials part as other poster has said) very similar to JFK but with spectacular set pieces like the Trinity test. I didn’t find it overlong, but my teenage kids did. As a massive Nolan fan, for me it’s a return to form after Tenet which was up its own a**e IMHO.
It was nice to see Feynman's bongos make an appearance.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
I went last night. My review (with very slight spoilers):
This movie, about one of the most significant events in the history of humanity effectively boils the entire story down to a very drawn out HR meeting to decide whether J. Robert gets his security clearance revoked or not many years after the event.
Er... who cares?
I understand that Nolan chose to focus on the man rather than the event, but I think this was a mistake. Three hour biopics can work (rarely), but this is no Schindler's List. It is more a kitchen sink drama where the majority of the characters are one dimensional (Downey Junior gives it his best shot though as always), and the eponymous central character is not particularly compelling. He's interesting in a clinical kind of way but emotionally engaging, no. Despite a strong performance from Murphy, I simply didn't care much about the man.
As a result of this focus there is little to be seen of the immense scientific endeavour of the Manhattan Project (the biggest ever at that point in history until the Apollo Programme), and there isn't much about the physics either. There could have been some real dramatic tension over the perceived race against the Nazis to develop an atomic weapon, but this is only referred to a couple of times in throwaway lines.
Matt Damon is functional, and we get to learn that Robert himself was a bit of a serial shagger (that was a surprise), but again, so what? Oh, he did shag a lady who was a member of the communist party, so he might be tarred by the same brush. Or he might not. That is not a big enough tension to sustain a three hour movie.
The Trinity test is very well done. I have no quibbles about how that is realised, but again so much of the true story of how a team of four thousand scientists laboured for three years to achieve it is simply ignored.
The pacing is extremely uneven. A caption announces at the beginning '1. Fission'. Aha, I thought, it is in three acts. But there was no caption for 2 or 3. Perhaps the editor just forgot to put them in. May I suggest for a director's cut that these are '2. Boom!' and '3. The HR Panel Interview Concludes'.
Flabby, unfocused and really a bit dull. It could have been so much more, in so much less time.
So clever my foot fell off.
There was a second caption, '2. Fusion'.
There are two timelines, not two acts. 'Fission' is in colour and 'Fusion' in black and white. 'Fission' is Oppenheimer's subjective viewpoint and 'Fusion' follows the more objective viewpoint of Strauss.
I don't think that you can have watched the same movie that I did.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
I missed the 2.Fusion caption then, and so did the friend I was with.
Just different views - there are many rave reviews on IMDB, but there are also quite a few like mine.
I like some of Nolan's work, but I think he is very hit and miss. I thought Interstellar was awful - derivative of Contact but far inferior. Dunkirk was mediocre.
I did like Batman Begins and Insomnia though.
So clever my foot fell off.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Me too. It'll become a mini-series with user-definable episode length. Looking forward to it.
^^^ This ^^^
Of course you can debate the way Nolan has portrayed Oppenheimer, or how the story is told. Or even how long the movie is (which is a non-argument if you ask me). In my view this is the best ant-war movie in years. Certainly relevant in this day and age, now fools' fingers in parts of the world are hovering over the Red Button.
I spotted a b/w video of Oppenheimer in which he repeats the words. Chilling if you ask me.
I might watch it just for that.
Used to love going there. Organist is only on a Saturday night I believe.
Like all Nolan pictures it's technically excellent, but overlong, overwrought and—after a year of that damned trailer week-in, week-out—overhyped.
Some terrific performances (Murphy is stellar) just can't save it from that disastrous third act.
Shorn of forty minutes of empty bombast it could have been a masterpiece.
I actually failed to notice any changes between colour and b&w
Could have been shorter.
2 timelines ribbed it of much of its pace
Shadowmakers (Fat man and little boy) was a technically worse film but far more enjoyable experience that still revealed the politics and pillorying of the man and his colleagues.
Luckily I got a ticket free at the last minute when a mate couldn’t make it so all it cost me was a numb fundament and sprained bladder.
Watched this last night at my local cinema. TFB, you have summed up very well my own thoughts.
I came away massively underwhelmed.
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Totally agree.
Nolan makes films for himself now, not for audiences.
Indulgent, over-padded, under interesting and stodgy.
yes Murphy was good in it, but not that good.
Emperor's New Clothes with Nolan these days.
If he hadn't have made it, ie directed by someone else but identical, it would have been canned as too long, not interesting enough, dialogue to quiet (again, Nolan, why so quiet dialogue !) and too indulgent. Timeline messing was a PITA and reminded me of the steaming pile of crap that is TENET.
We watched Poor Things next and it is on a different plain. Huge fun, unpredictable and novel.
Oppenheimer- Plot spoiler slash time saving precis: they made it and he wasn't a commie. Saved you 179 mins
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