My summer of Oppenheimer.
So, summer’s over. Sort of. LA will probably be really hot this weekend and New York is super hot. But kids are back in school and I got my work jacket out and I’m ready to layer.
This summer was good. I saw lots of friends, went to a wedding (my first since before the pandemic), and spent two weeks in sweaty New York city. While there, I had coffee with Bilge Ebiri, film critic at Vulture. Bilge’s one of my favorite people to talk to about movies (and life and kids and fatherhood, often through the lens of movies). When I met Bilge in early July, he was about to see OPPENHEIMER, Christopher Nolan’s new film, for the fourth time. Considering it wasn’t released, and was weeks away, I was impressed. To be clear, it was because he was about to write about it. A lot.
I was already pretty excited for OPPENHEIMER, and had begun my prep a fews before by buying multiple sets of tickets, selling one, and buying more. By the time the dust has settled, I had tickets to see the film in 70mm opening night and iMax 70mm a week later. I was also reading Tom Shone’s wonderful book THE NOLAN VARIATIONS, which is a revealing look into how Nolan became Nolan.
A brief digression. Nolan means a lot to me. His career as a filmmaker coincides closely with my burgeoning cinephilia. I was entering college when MEMENTO came out, and it blew my mind. I saw a sneak peek of INSOMNIA at my school, and went back two more times. I caught all the Batman movies at midnight the day they opened. INCEPTION, too. PRESTIGE, INTERSTELLAR, DUNKIRK. They all mean a lot to me. And TENET. My beloved TENET. TENET is just the fucking best. I saw it in a drive-in during the pandemic and felt confused and in love. I think it’s amazing. It, and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES are the two I revisit the most. They aren’t perfect, but they’re perfect for me.
In addition to reading the Nolan book, I revisited INTERSTELLAR on my flight to New York (I sobbed while handing my 5 year a constant stream snacks so I could keep watching), and DUNKIRK at a rented host when I arrived. Bilge had told me that TENET and OPPENHEIMER had a lot in common, so I watched that again, too (not a chore for me. I watch it every 3 months. I love TENET).
Opening night of OPPENHEIMER came, and I was pretty floored. My screening was at 930 in 70mm, so I was tired but managed to stay awake. It was a powerful experience. I wasn’t sure what I thought, but I was happy I saw it.
I walked away from my second screening pretty sure I had seen an indisputable masterpiece. The 70mm iMAX was astonishing. It looked great. It sounded great. I was in awe. The slightly long third hour really worked, and I found myself convinced it was a great bildungsroman, heist film, and courtroom drama. Was this Nolan’s best film? Shit, it might be.
After this second screening, Bilge and I got on the mics to talk TENET, and how it might be sequel to OPPENHEIMER. We had a long, digressive, and really fun talk about TENET that gets into Oppy, and I may end up doing more episodes about it. You can hear that here. I’m really proud of the convo, which is sort of the pilot of a series about TENET called Posterity. I have some other ideas for episodes. We’ll see!
I also talked about OPPENHEIMER on a podcast I produced called LIT UP. It’s about books, but every so often the host (and my dear friend) Angela Ledgerwood asks me to turn my mic on and we talk culture. On this recent episode, we covered OPPENHEIMER, the series FULL CIRCLE, and some other stuff.
So, as you can imagine, OPPENHEIMER consumed a lot of my brain in July and August, and I like it that way. As I get older, I’ve started to use the term ‘art hangover’ to describe when a movie or book or some piece of art lingers in me for a while. With OPPENHEIMER, I really wanted to hang on to it for as long as possible. I did that by going back, talking to people, thinking, logging on Letterboxed, and just trying to live my life in the shadow of something I cared about a lot. It’s not everyday a giant, 3 hour historical drama comes out and examines, among other things, materialism, Judaism, marriage, the birth of the military industrial complex, the consequences of science, and much more while also being entertaining and, at times, deeply experimental in its approach. The opening hour, in particular, is extremely my jam. The way Nolan depicts his maturation is incredible. It is, at least in my mind, astonishingly cinematic, in that it depicts thought on screen. It’s incredible.
Last Thursday, I went back to the 70mm iMAX. I drove to the same theater, at almost the same time. This time, I saw closer to the screen. I waited with anticipation.
The film played. I was, once again, completely floored by the first and second hour. This screening confirmed some things that been bouncing around in my head.
1)Branagh walks away with this movie. He’s incredible. A wonderful counterpoint to TENET (did I mention TENET?)
2)Damon almost walks away with it. I hope this is indicative of where he’s going as an actor: playing a blowhard who is the smartest person in the room.
3)I could think about the rally in the gym all day. The first two times I was completely disturbed by it. This time, I couldn’t shake the brilliant choice to feature no previously seen members of the cast, and so the scene plays as a metaphor for a bloodthirsty, naive American public celebrating something that very few people, and Oppenheimer most of all, understand: that a terrible power has been unleashed on the world, and there’s no going back.
I am not sure the whole film works. The last scene is upstaged by the rally I just mentioned, and is overwrought in a movie that threatens to be so often. The last hour is slow, and while Downey is particularly great in the first hour, I did feel him almost twirling his mustache in the final hour. We know what’s coming, even if we don’t.
But these are, for me, quibbles. This is a great movie, and even more so, really made my summer great. I had a two month art hangover. I can’t ask for anything better.
A few other things I encountered this summer that I loved.
BOOKS:
Nick De Semlyan’s Last Action Heroes.
MOVIES:
Cobra with Sylvester Stallone. How glorious.
The Pope’s Exorcist. I wanted 100 sequels.
R.M.N.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.
YOUTUBE:
Getting Stoned with Caveh Zaheidi: Matt Healy.
Matty Matheson. All of it. Whatever I can find.
Podcasts:
Hang Up
Floodlines
50MPH (It’s about Speed and it’s incredible).
Bye bye.