Oppie sucked. The 1st half of the film up until the Trinity Test was alright, but the 2nd half was a boring courtroom drama that made me almost fall asleep.
Only normies think it's unironically deserving of the best picture of the year.
The movie was Oppenheimer, not The Manhattan Project.
This is true, but The Manhattan Project would have made a better movie.
I really liked the political dispute angle. Lots of people seemed to find it boring but I didn’t. I just don’t think the movie is for those people and that’s okay. If you need action, maybe the new Deadpool will entertain you
you've probably never served in the military or held a TS-SCI clearance which is why you found the political discourse so fascinating and novel. the 2nd part of the movie was filled with so much boring melodrama over things as inane as getting a security clearance that my military buddies and I were facepalming pretty much the whole time at how dramatic they made it look.
i can see why it would impress civilians like yourself though. or "normies" as the other poster liked to say
Security clearance was really to important to Oppenheimer to have the political career and influence he desired. Revoking a renowned public figure’s security clearance is used to humiliate and shame. It’s used to remove someone from the conversation and lessen their power. It’s kinda cute though that you think you can relate.
Oppenheimer is your standard big budget biopic that studios push out every now and then. These films usually focus on a newsworthy or pivotal historical event. They are fairly benign, non-polarizing, and unlikely to offend audiences or motion picture award voters.
Personally, I found Oppenheimer unexceptional and not worthy of my time. The film's arc follows the familiar formulaic pattern of a biopic. It starts off with young Oppenheimer's college days and then flows from there. A cliché romance is thrown in as a bone to female audiences.
Some would argue that Oppenheimer highlights an important moment in history. I don't disagree. But I rather absorb history through books and essays, not from Hollywood. When I watch a film I want to be entertained and stimulated. Nolan is at his best when he has room for creativity and ambiguity. When he's not constricted to rendering an already fossilized timeline of historical events. Nolan's best films are Interstellar, Inception, Tenet, and the Dark Night where Sci-fi and fantasy provide more latitude for artistic creativity.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
FYI, Oppenheimer is now free on Peacock. If you haven't seen it yet, you can go to Peacock and judge it for yourself.
Oppenheimer was a much better movie than I expected. I expected it to be boring, confusing, far too long, far too much time spent on security hearings, and have a distractingly loud sound track. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not as boring as I feared and I was almost able to watch the whole movie.
The first 90 minutes was confusing, but it kept my attention... admittedly a low bar.
From 1:30 to 1:59 when they actually got into building and testing the bomb, it was a very good movie, although the loud soundtrack was distracting.
From 2:00 to 3:00 was spent on seemingly never ending hearings. Or I should say from 2:00 to 2:45. By 2:45, my wife and I agreed it was too frustrating to watch so we turned it off.
Did I mention the soundtrack was DISTRACTING? IT WAS LIKE THE BACKGROUND MUSIC WAS IN ALL CAPS.
On the bright side, Robert Downey Jr was outstanding and deserved an Oscar. I thought he stole every scene when he and Murphy were going back and forth.
Cillian Murphy had seemingly had one emotion... pensive... and we got to see it for three excruciatingly long hours. My wife noticed it as well and mentioned it first.
My wife's review was much shorter. "What did you think of the movie?" I asked. "It was boring as h*ll," she replied.
Oppie sucked. The 1st half of the film up until the Trinity Test was alright, but the 2nd half was a boring courtroom drama that made me almost fall asleep.
Only normies think it's unironically deserving of the best picture of the year.
I tried watching it -- made about 45 minutes and gave up.
Killer of the Flower Moon was over 3 hours but flew by
Some would argue that Oppenheimer highlights an important moment in history. I don't disagree. But I rather absorb history through books and essays, not from Hollywood. When I watch a film I want to be entertained and stimulated. Nolan is at his best when he has room for creativity and ambiguity. When he's not constricted to rendering an already fossilized timeline of historical events. Nolan's best films are Interstellar, Inception, Tenet, and the Dark Night where Sci-fi and fantasy provide more latitude for artistic creativity.
You nailed it. I found Dunkirk and Oppenheimer to be average. OTOH, Inception and Interstellar were incredible.
Oppie sucked. The 1st half of the film up until the Trinity Test was alright, but the 2nd half was a boring courtroom drama that made me almost fall asleep.
Only normies think it's unironically deserving of the best picture of the year.
Amen. Oppie was terrible. On top of what you mention they had obnoxious music playing in the background the entire movie which made it difficult to understand the characters. Plus the movie was at least an hour to long.
No one saw? Box office was almost a billion dollars. Only Titanic and Return of the King had bigger box offices as Picture of the Year winners (not adjusting for inflation).
Of the 7 best picture nominees I've seen, I'd have been fine with either Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, or Poor Things winning. (I haven't seen Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall, or American Fiction) These three were clearly superior to The Holdovers, Maestro, Past Lives, and Barbie, IMO.
Of the three I think Killers of the Flower Moon was the finest crafted, and Scorsese would have been my pick for Best Director. Is there anything at all to criticize from a filmmaking perspective? I can't think of any. If best picture meant least flawed, this should win, so I'd have no problem if it did. It was also a shame this move was not nominated for best adapted screenplay, as the screenwriters made a lot more interesting decisions when translating from the source material, compared to Poor Things and Oppenheimer.
Of the three, Poor Things was the most entertaining. It was also the most thought provoking while watching (it felt less rich compared to the others when reflecting on it), had amazing cinematography, best score, best production design. Usually that would mean it's easily the best in my book, but the complaints I've seen written here about Oppenheimer I felt a lot more strongly about Poor Things - to me it felt longer than the others, despite being basically an hour shorter, the 2nd half really drags, and it has a very unsatisfactory final act or conclusion, feeling very cliche, leaving more questions for me about the filmmaker's decisions rather than the questions filmmakers were trying to ask. While the cinematography was amazing, it was also quite distracting at times. Despite that, it succeeds at such a high level in some manners that I'd have no problem it being awarded Best Picture.
Of the three, Oppenheimer felt by far the most ambitious, thematically complex (I wouldn't be surprised if it touches on all the themes of the other two movies as well), and feels like one of the best edited films ever (wouldn't say that about the other two for any aspect). I can't think of any movie edited as well. Definitely the first courtroom movie edited like an action movie? Another poster commented on how mundane things are like security clearances and what not, which is true, but for me this is just one aspect that made the movie so great - the movie elevated something mundane to something feeling wildly entertaining, important, and a better vehicle for delivering its themes than a freaking nuke. Of the three, this is the one I'd get something new out of it every time on rewatch, to much credit of the editing choices. I'd vote for this one for best picture based on how thematically complex/rich it is and ambitious with A+ level craftsmanship. Only thing that bothered me was some of the dialogue seemed a bit silly and unnatural, but never to the point of being totally distracting and taking me out of it.
I'm glad that a few directors still make movies like this despite audiences lacking the attention span and sophistication to appreciate it. It must be tempting to just cash in on Marvel characters with CGI.
People that found the second half of Oppenheimer boring completely missed the message of the film. It says a great deal about them, their politics, and their worldview - none of it good.
The only winner that I think they definitely got wrong was best score. Oppenheimer's score was beautiful and well done, but Poor Things is next level for it's impact and contribution to the movie overall. The score of Poor Things and some of it's sounds elevate so many scenes unlike I can imagine a different score achieving.
Biebert and Dwightarm, Killers of the Flower Moon didn't get one award. I know winning doesn't validate a film's worth but I am surprised it got shut out. I'm not surprised Past Lives didn't win but it was my favorite among the nominated films. I still haven't seen Poor Things.
Not surprised Oppenheimer won as it checked every box - high-grossing WW2 biopic with a tortured protagonist by a superstar director who was “due” for an Oscar.
However, I think there are legitimate criticisms of the film that go beyond “attention span too short”. It’s not Nolan’s best work imo.
The sound editing was bad. We didn’t need the action movie soundtrack blasting over mundane courtroom scenes and overshadowing the dialogue, that detracted from the drama - any other director would have had someone step in and tell them to dial it down.
The classic Nolan time skips were overused and too abrupt.
The underlying plot (Oppenheimer’s security clearance trial) was simply not that interesting and the courtroom scenes could have been 30min shorter. The making of the bomb IS as fascinating story and those scenes were the best part of the movie - though I understand the movie was about the man and not the bomb.
Some of the dialogue and directing with the female characters was laughable - the “I am death” quote during the sex scene was B-tier writing.
Still a good movie but probably not the best of the year.
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