The Big Picture - The ‘Oppenheimer’ Deep Dive

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to discuss Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ in granular detail, including its script, cinematography, extensive cast, big ideas, and ultimate success. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salek, and I'm the host of Bandsplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer Podcast Network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to power pop pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more.

Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about good old Oppie. Chris Ryan is here. He's joining us for a very special episode, a deep dive on one of the great movies of 2023, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Hello, Chris.

Hey, what's up, guys? Thanks for having me, as always. Chris, for those of us who are seeing you in person, we're experiencing a new Chris. Those of us who are watching video of this episode, they'll see. Yeah, Dr. Teller Chris. You're wearing sunglasses. I am just because we have the overheads on and I thought it would be a good bit to do the sunglasses. I don't have any suntan lotion with me, so I couldn't slather it all over my face a la Benny Safdie. Not a reflection of the atomic nature of Amanda's takes on Oppenheimer.

We'll see. We shall see. I left my sunglasses in the car and I'm regretting it. Would you have rocked them through the entirety of this conversation? Possibly. As Chris said, it is quite bright, but also possibly like thematically on point. Maybe what you should do is lie down facing that way on your stomach and only have like a little mirror to see shots. I have some questions about that that we can get into.

I don't know if I can brand it my own science corner because I only have questions. It would be pretty big of you to be like science corner against J. Robert Oppenheimer and collected physicists of the Los Alamos. But I do. I have an anecdote featuring Chris Ryan about watching an eclipse and also some questions about the mechanics when we get to it. We will carve out Amanda's just Asking Questions corner for this episode. How does that sound? JAQ is like kind of a sideshow from JMO. We've discussed.

We've discussed a spinoff project in the wider JMO network. I think JMO fans might appreciate this episode. Did I get cc'd on that? Well, I've been developing additional IP. It's sort of my Mattel. Speaking of Mattel, I think before we talk about Oppenheimer, and we will talk about it in full

with full spoilers throughout this entire episode, but we have to talk about Barbenheimer, which is just about one of the craziest things that's happened to movies in the last five years, 10 years, an extraordinary box office performance, $511 million worldwide, both Oppenheimer and Barbie grossed, $235 million domestic. There is just a heap of records that

were shattered when these two movies were released. $155 million for Barbie, stateside, $182 million abroad, $80 million for Oppenheimer this weekend in America. We were just very wrong you and I we did our best I thought I think overshoot and we still got it way we both guessed about 140 I think for Barbie and so we were not too far off we only guessed it 47 and 52 I think yeah we were just wrong it's important to say we were wrong there's been a lot of uh writing and analysis about the incredible performance of these two movies they obviously I think helped each other. I think creating a movie

event that was driven by social media, by studio marketing, by the let's go back to the movies. I saw people at the movies this weekend. I saw both films again

and there were so many people at the movies. It was extraordinary. Did people come up to you with tears in their eyes and say, see you here? I did have a man,

this is a true story, whisper into my ear, love the pods while I was urinating. And that was not a good situation for me personally. Not one of the best moments of my weekend. Was he also urinating? I think he was, he had finished, he had completed and he was exiting the urinal and he caught my profile. So that wasn't great. Patron at the Universal City Walk. Nevertheless, we persist. I just, I have a tremendous number of follow-up questions about urinal culture. And so what was this like individual urinals?

Because sometimes there's like- It was not a trough. Like- No, it's not a trough. There were partitions between each urinal. One time you guys told me about the trough and that's really all I- At a ball game, you'll have a trough from time to time. Not a fan of the trough, but you know, it is what it is.

You need individual time. No, I think we've been trained that we're expected to have some privacy, so it's unusual. You stare at the wall. Okay. You stare bullets through the wall, and you do your business. That's right. You think about who's playing second base for the Dodgers right now. Yeah.

It's not Los Alamos. We're not working together on this we need some separate time I need my own office okay and so just like walking behind you

so like what's the exit strategy is it like you have to do a direct back reverse I was worried to turn around I didn't even see the man's face like I was worried

if I turned there could be a tremendous accident you don't want that to happen we don't want we don't want if you happen. We don't want... Right, sure. I love the pod and you just whipped around. Sprayed all over him.

Yeah, just kissed him on the mouth immediately. Okay. No, I never saw his face. I was deeply disturbed. Okay. Nevertheless, appreciate his fandom. Come to find out that man was Christopher Nolan. Amanda, what did you think of the Barbenheimer performance this weekend

it was delightful I went back to the movies on Friday afternoon and it was just absolutely packed I watched a lot of young people engage with the

Barbie box station and then go into Barbenheimer a lot of young guys actually but no there were a lot of people in pink as well

it just it was good vibes and very fun to be there and it felt of people in pink as well. It was good vibes and very fun to be there. And it felt like being part of an experience. So that was lovely. And then it seemed like everyone I know either went to the movies or in the case of Chris Ryan, couldn't get a ticket. I tried to go to see Oppenheimer for a second time on Sunday night. I went and saw Barbie on Friday night, similar to Amanda. it was just a banging night out at the AMC in Glendale. And people wearing pink, people staggering out of Oppenheimer,

people getting dinner afterwards to talk about the movies. All the restaurants around the movie theater were pretty packed. But that's the kind of knock-on effect is if movies are doing well, the things that are around movies do well. There's our beloved Arclight, which closed on Sunset years ago. Arclight would have been rocking. But all of the businesses around Arclight are closing too.

You know, I mean, it's just, there is like an actual connective tissue between movie theaters and pedestrian kind of community and excitement and commerce and all that stuff. That's another podcast. That's when I go on Plain English

and I tell Derek all about it. I think Derek would love to have you. I went to try to go see Oppenheimer this weekend, and I have never seen this since I started buying tickets online for movies. This website is broken because of too much volume, too much traffic. Please come back in five minutes. Wow. For the Regal in Alhambra. That's where I went on Friday afternoon. I know.

I couldn't even view the idea of seeing Oppenheimer there. So it was just like staggering. I could not find an Oppenheimer ticket in Los Angeles on Sunday. It's funny. I anticipated this somewhat. I think I was one, a little concerned that I wasn't going to be able to, the movies weren't going to be screened for us. I don't know why I was anxious about that. Let's let's it's it's on theme to say that you were slightly paranoid and concerned that possibly you were blacklisted. I was I was but I was not. You were not. And I was invited to a preview screening.

But because of that, I bought both tickets for the Thursday night true Barbenheimer double feature, which I didn't actually follow through on. I only saw Barbie. And I also bought follow up tickets for Oppenheimer over the weekend. But this was at least two weeks in advance. And when I went back and looked for tickets on Saturday, just to see what things were like, sold out across the board. Trying to see it in 70 millimeter or 70 millimeter IMAX, forget it. There was no chance you could do that in all of Los Angeles. I imagine that was true in New York, in Chicago, and the other places where you could see those formats. Interesting to see which cities these films did

so well in. Los Angeles, New York, obviously. Dallas, I think, was the third biggest selling city, which I find is notable for Barbie's purposes. And, I mean, this is just incredible stuff. $300 million US box office

across the board for all films this weekend, including Sound of Freedom, Mission Impossible 7, a number of other releases. This is the largest, I think, since Spider-Man No Way Home. And I think the last time it was this high was Avengers Endgame Weekend, which was $350 million, which was really the before times.

That was when it felt like the box office was still skyrocketing every day. It turns out, if you tell moviegoers, we've got something really amazing to show you, they do get excited. And it can be something more than in the post-credits sequence. We will tease what's coming out in two more years. I wanted to ask you both about that. I think there will be a desperation

to have takeaways from why these two films were so successful, and in all likelihood, will continue to be successful for the next month because the release calendar is not the most thrilling. The Meg 2 notwithstanding. Shout out Garbage Fish coming soon. What do you think? Is the takeaway here that new is what has gotten people excited? Is it that original is exciting in a kind of redefined way? Is it just as Matt Bellany suggested, just the fluke? I'm half with Matt Bellamy.

And I don't want to say fluke because I think that undercuts like the tremendous amount of work and success that both filmmaking teams and then also both marketing teams did. And actually, as Chris said, telling people, hey, if we have something new, but also like really telling people. They sold the shit out of this. And there isn't an event element to this. I saw someone on Twitter, I wish I could remember who, compare it also to the success of the Taylor Swift tour and Beyonce's Reputation. No, Renaissance tour. Reputation is an old Taylor Swift album. Anyway, that there is also just like a real sense of

fanfare and a little bit of scarcity built into all of this and a little bit of scarcity built into this weekend. Like it was both movies at once. It's the fact that, you know, I understand that Christopher Nolan and or Universal were a little miffed at the idea of Warner Brothers taking his special weekend for Barbie, but I think that played in both of their favors. No doubt. And so I think that that is hard to replicate. I don't think you can replicate this whole fanfare every weekend, both because you can't make two movies like this. I don't think that anyone has the budget and the time to market like this. And also at some point, if you do it every weekend, then there isn't that specialness, that scarcity element. I do think the other thing is

that at least in the case of Barbies, Barbie, the movies served audiences that aren't typically served at the movies. And they served them like very smartly and with a lot of capitalism behind it. But, you know, it's like a lot of my friends, many of whom are women who don't typically go to the movies, went to the movies this weekend. I think that's true across the board. So maybe there's a lesson in that. I hope there's a lesson in it. I don't think they'll be able to replicate it, but I don't know. Maybe if you make movies for people, they will go. Just an idea. The comparison I've seen most often made in terms of release weekends was when The Dark Knight was released.

And it was the same weekend that Mamma Mia was released. And that was a time when it felt as though both of those audiences that you're describing were being served. And both of those films performed very well. Now, The Dark Knight obviously had very long legs. But Mamma Mia got a sequel as well. You know, I mean, that is, in a way, a franchise unto itself. And I'm not sure if after

Dark Knight and Mamma Mia, anybody in the C-suite of the major studios was like, what did we do right here? Well, I do think that there is... When did you put the hat back on? Well, it is really bright, so I just wanted to... But there is a really special thing that happens that's kind of gotten lost in summer blockbusters over the last few years where most of the time especially for the superhero movies that come out and the comic book movies that come out there's usually a fan enthusiasm and a critical eye rolling but when you get the two going rowing in the same direction and i'm going back as far as like the fugitive the matrix jurassic park where people are like critics being like like, I cannot believe how good this is. This is so amazing. The medium has been pushed forward. And fans who were in the initial word of mouth camp coming out and being like, it's better than I could have possibly imagined. That truly does spark the, we have to go see this this weekend. We can't be left behind when we want to go out to a bar and talk about stuff and we haven't seen Barbie or we haven't seen Oppenheimer

to have an opinion. I think that they worked in each other's favor in that respect too. Yeah. Because if just Barbie had been released, I think there might have been

more angst about some of the inherent IP-ness of the film. And if it had been just Oppenheimer, there would have been more Nolan criticisms and more like, are we sure this was a good idea? And there was plenty of that to go around.

I'm not personally as interested in that, but I think both films being critically acclaimed and successful drives that exact feeling that you're saying. It kind of feeds on each other. Just really exciting. I mean, it's impossible to know what films will be developed because of the success of these two movies. I was less surprised by the Barbie success just because we've been told for the last month or so that it was trending in this direction. You really can't overstate how crazy $80 million is for a three-hour biopic

in the middle of summer. There's really just no precedent for it. It's never happened. You honestly can't get into because if you want to see it the way you're supposed to see it, it's like so scarce.

Yeah. And because it's three hours, like you said, I was telling you last night where I was like, I can't get in to Oppenheimer Day and you were like, that's probably like a screen issue. That's probably like they can't turn it over that many times. Yeah. said, I was telling you last night where I was like, I can't get in to Oppenheimer Day. And you were like, that's probably like a screen issue. That's probably

like they can't turn it over that many times. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Barbie's on over 4,000 screens and American is playing nonstop. Plus, you know, if Oppenheimer is getting on those screens. Yeah. I had no problem getting into Barbie on Friday night, which is obvious. You won on Thursday night. No problem getting in on Thursday night, which is even more. Opening night. Yeah. Opening yeah opening night yeah we'll talk more about our our barbie experiences and our second viewing experiences uh later this week on the show which i'm very excited about but we should talk about oppenheimer so here we are

you know chris we shared non-spoiler thoughts about the film i yeah i love that pod you listen to it thanks chris yeah um thanks for listening, as always. Appreciate your support. I listened to you guys talk about Hijack on The Watch recently. Never seen that show, but listened to the whole pod. I'm going to watch it. Do you think you will check it out? You're going to check it out? Oh, I definitely am.

You love Idris? I love Idris. I mean, Chris sold it as just like a British thriller on a plane. So I'm in. I had to watch all these Christopher Nolan movies first. Do you think you'll like it more than Oppie? I don't know. I think it'll be a different experience.

It's cool. Okay. All right. Okay. You know, I'm just trying to keep my heart open. Chris, I did note on our first conversation about these films that you and I saw Oppenheimer together. And then went to Bargaritaville.

We did. We did. We went, we saw it on 70mm IMAX. And I'd like to know what was your reaction to the film? I think I'll remember seeing this movie where I saw it for the rest of my life. And I think I'll remember how it felt to watch Trinity Test, the way it feels when Neo first starts training

and all the kind of iconic movie moments that are in my mind. But I realized at some point during the countdown that I i had been like pressing down into my my forearm with my hand like my fingers i was like oh i should probably breathe you know uh and that combination of his his ability to both be a viscerally arresting filmmaker and put together these things that make you feel and also do things that make you think and tell stories and make you think is, is pretty special. He's, he may be unrivaled when it comes to that right now.

You saw it a second time. I did. Crucially. I saw it in, in IMAX this time because I only saw it in 70 millimeter because that's what you guys led me to believe before you switched screenings and attend Margaritaville without me. This is a mortal wound that she suffered, not going to Margaritaville for one and a

half Modellos at 9.30 p.m. I just really would like to go to Margaritaville with you guys. Okay, we can definitely just do that. Just text me. When I saw Oppenheimer by myself, Bubba Gump's Shrimp House was just like really packed. And I was curious about that. You know, I really like a mall dining experience. And I feel that I could have guided Chris's ordering as well.

No, I'm sorry for sounding like a huge nerd. IMAX made a really big difference for me. Yeah. So I saw the film in just 70 millimeter as you did last night on Sunday night. And it was different. It was a different experience. Obviously, the screen size is significantly different. And what you can see.

The screen is smaller. Well, it's wide as opposed to tall. And that verticality that the film is captured in, that verticality is significant. Now, obviously, there is a kind of like almost literal vertical experience happening in the Trinity test of this film. The explosion and the sort of like sense of up is a big part of what is happening in the second act of the movie. But even in scenes that featured men in rooms, there is just a different emotional dynamic that you're feeling as you're seeing the movie this way. Now, obviously, it's expensive to shoot in IMAX format. It's expensive to shoot on film.

Very few filmmakers are afforded this opportunity. Nolan has kind of granted himself this opportunity because of the success in his career. But if you can get to one of the IMAX 70mm screenings of this movie, I would recommend it because the immensity of the storytelling and of the visual filmmaking really is conveyed much better in that format. I completely agree. There was just a dynamic quality to even the talking scenes on IMAX that I didn't quite get in 70 millimeter. And that led me at some point during seven millimeter feeling,

huh, this is, this is interesting that this is what you're doing and it is it's again like just very wonky to say that there is something about the IMAX format that is actually just like lending life and action to it but it is and I think especially in a Christopher Nolan movie where he is a filmmaker who is using all of the his technical abilities to convey his ideas that it makes a huge difference. I still, I think this is a great movie with major flaws.

And that's where I am with it. We will talk through some of those flaws. But I think it's a great movie. And I do think the IMAX was part of it. I was officially, this was a confirmation

for me seeing it a second time. Second time I was like, this is a masterpiece. This is like, there's a no... Are there flaws? I guess so. But I think what has been cited as flaws, I felt I could understand intention.

Sure. Interesting, because it's like, what are we talking about? We're talking about like scales and like one thing outweighs another. It's like, in some ways, some of the things that he accomplishes in this movie are so far and away above lots of stuff that I've ever seen before like most stuff that I've ever seen before that the flaws almost feel diminished or smaller you know what I mean even though the flaws are significant like in terms of

like oh well that character's not fleshed out or this doesn't make any sense or the way that you switch to here is like kind of jarring i don't know like there's the the things that it made me think about and feel and especially in that experience where you're in imax and you're kind of not only immersed in the moment the historical moment but immersed in the subjective experience of the characters in a lot of ways especially since that's the the framing device he uses i just couldn't help but think about like this idea that he's like, it may not be even 100% historically accurate. Like I know I saw this weekend that in the gym scene when he's giving the speech, like the flags are wrong and stuff like that, like little things can happen.

Yeah. There's one true invention in the film, which we can talk about one sequence. Apple watch that he has? No. Well, there's a meeting with Einstein that was not actually with Einstein. That was sort of recontextualized, I think,

to create more dramatic intensity, I guess. Okay. It was held with a different scientist. But we can get to that. But it actually just makes you feel like you

are, it's not historically accurate, but it's historically immersive. You know what I mean? Like, it makes you feel like when I was watching them assemble the sort of containment

device for the bomb and it has like scratches and it has like this you know it needs to be like kind of smoothed down or buffed or whatever I was like that looks like it's it.

You know what I mean? Like that doesn't look like they're that looks like they're actually doing this and I feel that the nervousness of what they must have felt assembling this thing. And that's such a special feeling, man. Well, I think this is actually also true of Barbie and one of the things I liked about Barbie.

But both of those movies, there is a particular attention paid to, like, constructed realities that are not digitally animated or like or there is digital animation but that's not their primary construction and it really works in this movie in particular because you're spending so much time in the desert and you have to go to the desert to make the desert like if you try to make the desert in cgi yeah it's not or if you made the desert like here's albuquerque and then we'll just like fill it in in the background you know like right yeah and and this movie doesn't that. I think it is a very historically accurate film as far as I can tell, at least based on the text, we mentioned that Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin wrote this book, this Pulitzer prize winning book, American Prometheus,

of which huge chunks of the book, I mean, vast chapters are captured and kind of like shrunk down, but not necessarily redefined with a couple of exceptions. And so in that way, when you think of, when I've been thinking about it, synthesizing this text, then taking his themes that matter to him as a filmmaker,

then taking what I think is sort of like a culmination of craft for him and putting all that stuff together is why I think seeing it a second time, I was like, there's just, I don't't there's not another person who could have done this this is a filmmaker who's obsessed by kubrick who is trying to make his kind of kubrickian epic where he's using a kind of a real world story with a extraordinary circumstance and trying to show the life of the mind for lack of a better word. And I just thought, I thought he nailed it. I was so bowled over. But it's a hard movie to talk about

because while it does have memorable sequences and amazing performances, which I think we'll go through in detail, the way that it's cut is not necessarily confusing, but it's... It's relentless. It moves very fast.

It's the kind of thing that if we were doing most rewatchable soon, we'd be like, is it the first two hours? You know? Yeah. Yeah. And I think the first hour is very focused on,

even though, because it's subjectively told, what's going on inside Oppenheimer's mind. And there was actually an interesting moment where he, when he first meets Florence Pugh's character, Jean Tatlock, he explains that he has been in therapy for a couple of years. And it almost feels like the film is showing him exiting therapy and coping with his own mind. And then the movie in the second hour becomes much more of a kind of adventure movie. That was just an incredible, you just yada yada'd so much,

but there's an interesting scene where he talks about how he's being in therapy. I would like to share Chris Ryan and my husband Zach's recap of that scene, which was, did you realize that Jean was a psychiatrist? I didn't. And then I was like, yes, she says it while naked in the middle of a sex scene. And they were like, oh, missed that. Yeah. You were distracted? Well, I was reading the Sanskrit. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, oh yeah, that's, that's, I become deaf. Yeah. So you got ahead of that yeah it's nice well done like let me see if he gets the uh yeah um pronunciation right you know we were kind of skirting around what does this movie mean when we when we last discussed it and you know i've written down here is this a cautionary tale is it hagiography it's not a traditional biopic obviously because of the way that it's structured. I'm curious from both of you guys. Can I throw something out there? Yeah, of course.

I brought a little piece of a quote from Don DeLillo that I'd like to share with you. Wonderful. I think I may have done this bit about different movies before, so forgive me if I'm plagiarizing myself. But it is a quote from Libra, which is the book that DeLillo wrote about Harvey Oswald. I finished the JFK rewatch bowls yesterday. Just tremendous stuff from you guys. Once again. Thank you. I really... Not the last time we will discuss.

When you're great, I really respect you. When I'm great, thanks. Maybe what has to happen is that the individual must allow himself to be swept along, must find himself in the stream of no choice, the single direction. This is what makes things inevitable. You use the restrictions and penalties they invent to make yourself stronger. History

means to merge. The purpose of history is to climb out of your own skin. And I was just thinking about that so much with him because this is a guy who obviously has this longing to be a part of history, like the Spanish Civil War, the leftist community, like all of the explosion of modernism and cubism and all the shit in the beginning that's so incredible with him looking at Picasso and you're just like, God damn it, Nolan, you are the fucking man. And then he sort of rises up out of his own skin

to be the person who shapes history. And then the second sort of rises up out of his own skin to be the person who shapes history. And then the second half of this movie, which I think has been much maligned, but to me is him trying to like claw back his individualism. And he's like letting these forces that are larger than him define him, right? He's letting stress or he's letting the government or he's letting the military industrial complex decide

what he did and what it means and what they should do going forward with it. But he wants like finally at the end to kind of like repossess himself. I thought that was, I mean, that was my read on it. That was what it made me think. Obviously, I don't know if that was, I mean, there's also a world in which this movie is about David Zaslav and it's about like a studio executive taking away something from a movie director but yeah I mean

I do think it operates as a neat allegory for the struggles of being a truly creative mind having to work inside of systems and that last hour

of course is like it's a pretty virulent indictment of bureaucracy and the people in power who don't understand what someone's trying to accomplish in the shadows and yeah but's like real power stays in the shadows.

Yes. But I think that there's one other layer to that because I don't think he actually gets what you say his character wants. He doesn't actually get

control of himself again. No, he doesn't. He lives with regret and it seems confused. And one of the most interesting parts of the movie to me is the relationship between him and the character that Benny Safdie plays, Teller, who is the scientist who developed

the H-bomb and who is a significant scientific figure in American history. And that character, it says to him on more than one occasion, I don't know what you think and I don't think you know what you think. I don't think you really understand what you've done here and what the right decisions were in terms of how to move forward in the world. And I do think that that is a big part of the movie that sometimes great people, great minds, don't really have control over what they put on the world. Now, my favorite reading of this movie, extra textually, which is not my original concept, I saw someone else share this, is that this is Nolan in the aftermath of the superhero explosion regretting making the Batman movies.

Making Dark Knight. Which is really funny and very clever and there might be a little bit of it in there but it's obviously quite bigger than that too. That artists,

scientists, people who have a lot of power. I like that too because it's like he makes Tony Stark into an absolute fucking weasel.

That's exactly right. I wonder if like some of the things like that, because you were saying you felt like the kind of persecution of how hard it is to be a great man.

It's not the great man's fault. It's the two second, you know? And you took this creation away from the great man and you took his individualism away from himself and it's really,

and then, you know, the great man just wants to be great and himself again. I find that exasperating. Yeah. and i think i think that that this movie's idea um and its argument and its view of history and its view of uh what one what it costs all men but one great man is is possibly part of my problem with it i think not my problem

with it but my it's limitations to me i don't think i buy nolan's big idea it was interesting i read several nolan interviews this weekend but one he did with the new york times he's he's very direct about his idea that oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. And then if you see the movie again, people say some version of that to him several times. They're like, this is the most important thing that ever happened. You're the most important person. You have all the,

like, you know, and even this movie is wrestling with Oppenheimer's very real documented, you know, struggle of, I, you know, I made this thing and then I lost control of it.

And how much is my responsibility and how much is the responsibility of other people? I just, I think he was very important. I don't think that the film and the ideas make the case that this is like the most important person who ever lived. And it was all his fault or not. Should we do a most important person who ever lived draft? Yeah, that's good but you know what i mean it's just like there there is something i i don't think within the text of the movie it makes that case to me yeah and so i feel i just i get a little it goes on and on and especially

that third hour which is all about oh but we had this important person and he you know he gave us everything and you know there's there's like a jesus element to it that starts at the well there are biblical elements to it that starts at the beginning of the film but i think that's part of the reason the third hour doesn't work for me is i'm like well i know this is all historically based and this person seems like a real dipshit but you know i like lewis straws you've just called a dipshit interesting among i'm sure we're gonna get a lewis straws like reclamation actually well actually i don't know the history and i haven't read american prometheus but i think it was just sort of really fixating on a point that I just, I didn't quite buy. I think you're right that Nolan is in thrall to the idea of the man who is burdened by his own

skills and greatness. That's a theme throughout his films. One of the few Nolan movies I revisited this weekend, which was really interesting to look at that I don't know if I had seen since I saw it in theaters was Insomnia, which was a remake of a Swedish film starring Al Pacino as a detective who was investigating a murder in Alaska while being investigated by the Internal Affairs Department of the LAPD. It's kind of like a soft sequel to Heat in some ways. It's kind of like if Vincent Hanna

got a little older and broke some more rules. But there are story choices and like a portrayal of that character that seem to kind of set the template in a way even more so than memento for the struggle of being great at something you know like the the detective he plays is a great detective but he makes a lot of mistakes and in fact is a deeply flawed and maybe even a criminal person and a lot of same stuff you see in in in oppenheimer these incredible vistas, these extraordinary overhead shots showing what the natural world looks like and how we mess with the natural world.

And then this portrayal of the Pacino character in close-up looking agonized because he can't sleep. Because in this city in Alaska, the sun doesn't go down or never goes down. So they're an interesting pairing. I'm not sure that this movie is necessarily fully arguing what you were saying because there is one particular thing that jumped out to me the second time watching it, which is obviously Albert Einstein is featured prominently in this movie. And early in the film, it's made clear that Albert Einstein's sort of, you know, his prime, his apex mountain, so to speak. The greatest scientist of his era.

Is his era. And he's like, in his 30s. It was 40 years ago. They kind of farmed me out to Princeton where I look at ponds and now you're the man now, dog. And that his mortality, he has to live with

people coming after him thinking that they are better than him because they are using what he developed to go forward in terms of progress or regress, I guess, depending on how you see

the development of the bomb. And then Oppenheimer's character arrives at that moment. Now, I don't know. I think that certainly the burden of genius in part is that like having to live with it. But it's also that like time doesn't care, you know, that time doesn't care about these men. And I think Nolan knows that.

I think he's like acknowledging that. Now, I feel like his commentary is like, this is the most important person of all time. Feels like marketing to me. Yeah, sure. More than like an argument. Sure. But I also,

I frankly don't know enough about the history of human civilization to know who is the most important human who has ever lived. You know, if you believe in the mythologies, Prometheus might be the most important human that ever lived.

There's definitely also some like, why does Bane wear the mask writing in this movie where like I think they actually do literally say you're Prometheus you gave them fire you're not just self-important you're actually important which is a great moment delivered by the great Josh Hartnett

but is you know it's stylized writing there are some stylized writing moments in the movie I guess what I've been trying to think through seeing the movie a couple of times I've been trying to think through, seeing the movie a couple of times, is is there actually an argument being put forth here? There are obviously ideas,

but JFK, for example, the movie that this has been compared to quite a bit, there's a strong argument that is being made there, that there was a vast conspiracy to murder not just John F. Kennedy, but progress within the centers of power inside the United States. And continue the Vietnam War. Yes, and continue the Vietnam War and continue the military-industrial complex.

And that there is a kind of swarming paranoia that defines the tone and approach of that movie. This isn't, I'm not sure when you get to the end of this, did I feel like I had been lawyered. I felt like the intent was to kind of overwhelm with history, which is slightly different. You disagree? No, I agree. Chris said that this is like not a biopic at all, but it kind of is. It's like really a biopic and he's playing with form as he does so well. And I think all of the formal innovations with the exception of the Strauss plot line, which doesn't work for me, but at least that he's trying to tell the story,

um, chronologically or in different chronological ways. Um, the way that he's editing, just the ad, the pacing, God love him. It moves.

So like in an exhilarating way with like which most biopics do not um but it it is a historical story about one man and his like and and how will how does he feel at the end of it i think it's in naman's piece that he wrote about it for the ringer terrific piece that he compared it to social network yeah many people have and i and i do think that those are... That unlocked something for me because it made me start thinking about it as the story of a business

rather than the story of a man. And the story of an idea, right? It's this idea that gets brought into the world because of circumstance, because they are like, we need to do whatever we need to do to stop this war, right? And then that idea,

once you like let it out there, different forces grab it and change it and once you like let it out there different forces grab it and change it and say well it's a deterrent well maybe it's a first strike or maybe it's just a power that we have you know and now no one will dare threaten the United States of America then you know even the way that it's told in the second half with these like multiple kind of hearings that are both you know narrative engines to be like telling stories but also like their reputation but when I started thinking about it more of like it as the history of an idea that this man was obviously a major part of rather than this guy who had visions in bed one day in Europe came back to America and

made a bomb you know and that's what an amazing dude for doing that. I, you know, I think that that helped me kind of like get around some of the more naughty parts. Well, I guess I should also say that I like biopics when they're done well. So I didn't mean that as a pejorative. I just meant that as a descriptor. I know most people don't feel the same way. But, you know, you both, well, you didn't give me a hard time, but you knew I was going for some podcast voice when I was like I too like the work of Aaron Sorkin but like I do really like the work that's why I was saying the social network is part of that and it is super yeah well yeah I mean but it's super layered and I

think that Aaron Sorkin what he does is also you know obviously like quite manipulative and also like very hard and I think some of like the dialogue and structural stuff that Nolan is doing here that is outside his usual experience is kind of what sticks out to me because it's hard to execute those things. Yeah. Well, I mean, a couple of things. One, I think he's well served by having a source text here. And I think that the source text adaptation works really well. I don't, part of the reason that I don't feel that it's Sorkin-esque, even though there is a lot of walking and talking

in Men in Rooms, is because there's not this kind of like, you know, boyish idealism that comes with the Sorkin work. Like the Sorkin work is about the greatness of great people achieving at great moments. The Social Network actually is kind of an outlier

in his filmography and in his career. It's one of the few movies that he made that has this kind of acid burn. I mean, he even found the upside in Molly's Game. You know what I mean? He's always looking for a kind of sunniness at the end of dark times. This is a really dark movie about a guy

who dies in old age and doesn't know if he destroyed the world or not. at the end of Dark Times, this is a really dark movie about a guy who like dies in old age and doesn't know if he destroyed the world or not. And that final conversation between him and Albert Einstein is certainly portentous and maybe pretentious,

but it's not positive. You know, it is not a rosy depiction of the future that we now live in. So, the being the Ricardos thing, it's like, you just can't make that comparison.

It's just like, that's a badly made movie. It was a joke. The Social Network is a fun way to talk through it though, because that's a Fincher movie, right? So that's another filmmaker with incredible control. And I think that's another, one of the many amazing things about Social Network is that Fincher and Sorkin

are like honestly playing against each other and some of their impulses and the marriage is fascinating. And you do, this is being the Ricardo's is not a good movie. Um, I still, I thought about it watching the second time. Um,

but that's all Sorkin and this is all Nolan, you know? So I, it always helps to have someone else just kind of pushing at your instincts as a creator, as an artist. Yeah. Sorkin's an interesting comp too, because he also has a real musicality in his writing that I don't think Nolan has a handle on.

He does not. I think in fact, the musicality of Oppenheimer literally comes from its score and its editing, because I have found in the past for as much as I love him, like when Nolan is just like, here's a four minuteminute scene of people talking about how dreams work or whatever, you're like, definitely time to get popcorn. My primary criticism of his work till this point. He doesn't have to do that in this movie because he has science to do it for him.

Yes. And his history. He has, instead of it being Dom Cobb, you know, standing in anonymous Pittsburgh, but not city or whatever, he's got Oppenheimer looking at a Picasso and thinking about

new ways of seeing the world. Right. That's powerful. To me. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I wanted to talk about individual scenes as much as we possibly can.

You know, there is a trilogy of linearity in the movie, which makes it difficult to talk through. And then there is a fourth strain that you mentioned when we talked about it last week. I do think that there are some overt and maybe some might think heavy-handed imagery. You know, particularly the film opens and closes on this idea of raindrops and the idea of something falling from the sky. And that quickly leads to a poisoned apple. Which when I first watched it, I was like confused because the first time you see something,

you're like, why would he put cyanide in his professor's apple? Obviously he wants to injure him or kill him, but I don't know enough about this circumstance to fully understand the direction he's going. And having read Adam Neiman's piece, obviously I think his observation that Oppenheimer is Adam, Eve, and the snake was very wise. And that's obviously what Nolan intends. Things like that in the wrong hands, I think, are quite awful.

And frankly, there have been moments like that in Nolan films that have not worked for me. I found in this movie that the anxiety of capturing Cillian Murphy's performance, whose name we, I don't know if we've said yet, makes a lot of these decisions work, that there are some individual, you mentioned the music, mentioned the cutting style. There's also having the right actors in the right place to do some of these things that were amazing. Um, and then that allows for, Hey, he'll, here's meals for, you know, here's, um, let's go to Germany and meet Heisenberg. Let's let's here's I, I Robbie, you know here's um let's go to Germany and meet Heisenberg let's let's here's I I Robbie you know this incredible scientist who becomes his friend the convergences that start happening in the movie right right out of the shoot are kind of amazing there's no hand-holding there's no like um you

made no real sport from such songs as exactly it is relentless party in the USA yeah um when you were revisiting it did you feel like you were more at ease with the speed with which he was introducing the world of Oppenheimer

for sure though there were still things that I missed I think partially because let me start by saying I think that

the score and also the sound and the sound editing not to sound like Sean in this film is remarkable. But I didn't know what the marbles were after two times because the way the levels were set, I missed the thing where it's like, this is what we made in Tennessee.

Uranium and plutonium. You know what, Sean? You're the 15th person to tell me that because everyone else heard it. Shout out to Cormac McCarthy. Much of the passenger involves the Tennessee plant oh interesting yeah I still have to read that RIP RIP anyway you know that it moves very quickly yes they don't for the most part do that like really expen like expositional here is the thing about the dialogue which is great i love it but i you know i you you can miss something here and there which is okay i think that just makes this like a richer

text to revisit at home and you can like learn about fusion or whatever but it it worked for me because i think also at some point you don't actually need to be able to build a bomb um so it's not how to manual did you find yourself getting confused at all by some of the not just the science but the introduction of this massive world of science uh no i mean i was i was confused but i love being confused you know what i mean i also don't know anything about like how to rob banks in las vegas and like cr nice try no like i think that like i like getting like thrown into some place in the deep end

and be like, you're an adult. You can figure this out. And there was also definitely a couple of times where I was like, well, of course, it's Heisenberg.

And I was like, what did he do? For Breaking Bad? Yeah. There were a couple of people where I was just like, oh, Nils Bohr. Obviously.

But I was surprised by he really had the fucking, the super team before the Heetals there, man. He got all the homies together. Did you, was science a strong subject for you? You gotta, I gotta tell you,

it was not. Okay. What about for you? You were a strong student. Physics is not how my brain works. Literally my worst subject. Yeah. I just,

and specifically the theoretical stuff where the math isn't there. So it's like all Oppenheimer, like just thinking about the idea. Yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. I love the,

I think it's cool. Don't get it. What was it like? Can you read music or can you hear music thing from? Oh, the sheet music? Yeah. That was good.

Yeah. Can you, yeah. Can you hear it? Do you hear it? It was really good. The thing is, is that this script, the script actually does have a lot of those lines, and most of them are pretty good.

The ones that don't land really stick out. I liked most of them. I liked most of them, too. I'm pretty critical of Nolan doing that stuff. The, like, you know, my name is Robin at the end of Dark Knight Rises. You know, I'm like, wah-wah. But in this case, I kind of enjoyed it. Because I think historical text and science needs a little pizzazz.

Yes. To make it work, you know, theatrically. Can I ask you a question about the Apple scene? Do you think that there's an argument to be made that Oppenheimer is doing that to his professor because he was publicly embarrassed by him when the professor is like, everybody can go hear Nils Bohr speak except for you because you fucked up, right? I do. professor is like everybody can go hear nils boar speak except for you because you fucked up right i do and then that there are parallels between that and the stress character being embarrassed by oppenheimer in congress and being like well now i'll destroy you i do yeah there is a lot of double helix storytelling throughout this movie i mentioned the raindrops this is another example this sort of like but i think one of the reasons we're meant to be on his side is because he is angst riddled by his decision to drop the cyanide into the apple and rushes in the next day to retrieve the apple to make sure that nothing terrible happens. I was going to say, I can't believe it's still there.

That does then lead to this furious race across Europe where we see in a very short period of time, I guess Oppenheimer effectively becoming one of the leading voices in theoretical physics and atomic energy. And learning Dutch really fast. And learning Dutch very quickly. That does introduce us to David Krumholtz, who is just magnificent in this movie. And I'm team Krummy, always been team Krummy. He's done great work over the years in projects small and big, you know, I'm team crummy, always been team crummy. You know, he's done great work

over the years in projects small and big and light and dark. But he was really the heart and soul of the movie in a lot of ways because of the humanity that he grants

and otherwise kind of inhumane character in Oppenheimer. You know, a cold intellectual who's thinking about theory and Izzy is the person who is feeding him who is asking him to open himself up to communicate about why he cares and why things matter to him

um and that's another there's another mirroring where he his character sort of disappears for a long stretch of the movie and then makes his way back near the end i love the train scene where he's like you got to eat something and then they start talking about being the you know different kind of jews from like what side of the park are you from but the way that even like that scene communicates the anxiety about like the developing situation in europe for jews at the time and like without you don't have to do nazis match march on pole i mean i know eventually they get that with the newspaper but like you don't have to do a big, you can show how it affects individuals

rather than affects like a huge group of people. And it communicates the same thing. I think of you as the person who wants to bring me oranges in a handkerchief, but you don't actually bring them. You know, you will scold me about not eating, but you don't come prepared with snacks for me to get through the day. I just get the impression that you never want to eat anything

that has been touched by anyone else other than a professional server. That's a fair point. Can I tell you of my viewing, my eating experience? I actually saw Amanda yesterday afternoon. We were in a park with our children, and then I left the park, dropped my family off, and then I drove to see Oppenheimer for a second time. I had not eaten a meal, of course, as I am wont to do. I did have a lovely conversation with a friend of mine over the

weekend who was relating to my experience of not eating dinner. And he said, popcorn dinner is a thing. Don't be ashamed. That's guy dinner. Yeah, here we go. That is boy dinner. My version of it was I ordered the Bavarian Legend at AMC. Are you guys familiar with the Bavarian Legend? No, but I'm guessing it involves a pretzel and a beer. It's a soft pretzel the size of my head. It is one of the biggest soft pretzels I've ever seen in my entire life. Ate the whole thing. That's great.

And felt very ill. I finished it by the time we got on the train. Do we have a second? Do you think it's annoying if we go away from Oppenheimer for a second? You've already done it. I had girl dinner last night. Yeah, no, I know. Mini quiches.

When do you stop eating with girl dinner? Because that's the problem. It's just like I have this entire bag of tortilla chips, three dips, mini quiches, a really lovely cheese that is like a caramel cheese that pairs really well with a salty thing. I'd like to know more about this cheese. Yeah, and sake.

And I was just like, when? Wait a second. I'd like to know more about this cheese. Yeah. And sake. And I was just like, the wind. Wait a second. I don't think sake is. Is that on the girl dinner menu? Yeah, because it's like anything.

You can just grab all this stuff at your fridge. But what happens if you grab everything out of your fridge and then keep eating it? I think sake, well.

How did the sake come into the equation? My wife Phoebe discovered, I think via Milk Farm, a caramel cheese and Sockie pairing. Oh, so they upsold. I love Milk Farm. Yeah, but they upsold.

They like to throw some things in there. Well, she is a mark. She is susceptible to it. What do you think Oppie dinner is? What do you think? Martini and cigarettes. He doesn't eat. That's sick.

And the martini is in lemon juice and honey. No wonder you like this movie, Dodo. Okay. I don't want to go scene by scene through the movie, but I do think creating a sense of recognition, remembrance, if you've seen it before, is helpful. It's worth mentioning that we fist bumped during the Matt Damon recruits the team sequence.

I just want to mention very quickly before that, the teaching at Berkeley, which I think is because that is the introduction of the sort of communist community that he enters into. And then we meet a series of characters who will form kind of the spine of the early stages of the team. Yes, we meet Chevalier, his friend, who, of course, is someone who will damage Oppenheimer's reputation. And also raise his child for him. Harrowing sequence. Really, just really tough

both times not in a judgment way it's very hard to have a kid and a kid that's crying but just like the actual sound of the child crying i still have that physical reaction well before we get to the point where um you know kitty and oppie get together and have a child we do we of course meet florence pew gene tatlock a a local commie and psychiatrist um and they sort of fall in lust but not quite love and start an affair they have this extraordinarily funny sex scene in which they read this is the one that i would like to fact check with kai bird in of historical accuracy, which is mid fuck. Florence Pugh hops off, goes over to the books shelf,

checks out all of the, the, the shelves and you know, the offerings. This isn't something you guys do. Me? Yeah. Mid coitus. Yeah.

But I usually do the, you cut these guys loose. And when it went bad... She pulls a book off the shelf. Sure. Happens to be the book I beat her.

Yeah. Written in Sanskrit. Oppie can read it. She mounts him again. Mm-hmm. And he says, what, Chris? Well, Charlie Rose.

He says, I have become Death Destroyer of Worlds. Or says I am become death destroyer of worlds or now I am become death destroyer of worlds right which is a you know

a phrase that Oppenheimer famously did in tone at a certain point when he realized the power of the bomb yeah when he did the test yes

and you know it was a choice it was a choice that Christopher Nolan made about the collision between sex and death in our culture. And I enjoyed it.

Huge fan of Florence Pugh. Was it a bit absurd? Of course it was. Did I laugh a little bit while watching it? I was sitting next to Andy Greenwald. He gave me a big old elbow right in the chest when this scene happened. I think that, like... I'll never get over that scene.

A friend of mine compared it to the Munich sex scene. And I thought that was apt. It's a choice. It's memorable. To quote my husband, movies. And it is very movies. It's the only place you can do something like that. Don't do it in real life.

He doubles down. Yeah. He doubles down. He brings it back. There is another sex scene later in the film in which Gene Tatlock is astride him whilst being interrogated by Jason Clarke's character. It's a vision.

Sure. But it's a vision that involves her just showing up in a conference room. They're both naked. But the camera shows more of her nakedness. Yeah. And then she locks eyes with with emily blunt obviously uh i'm almost at oppenheimer's portrayal of women but that actually is a part of what i was

going to say no one has come under fire over the years for his portrayal of women including by me um i think he's got a wife problem i've said that before um this movie very well could be clarified as having a wife problem in fact fact, you actually mentioned that, Chris, right after we saw the film, you were like, man, he's going to get killed for this again. Seeing it a second time, I'll give you my interpretation of this. The decision to make this a subjective point of view film

from Oppenheimer's perspective, when we see the movie in color, it is through Oppenheimer's eyes largely, that's what we're meant to believe. It's just a communication of how he views women, which is that he does not view them seriously and he discards them. And Gene Tatlock, and not just Gene Tatlock,

but there's a critical sequence early on where he goes to a communist gathering with his brother and his brother's girlfriend and he treats his brother's girlfriend like shit. And the camera lingers on his brother's girlfriend a couple of times to show the contempt that she has for Oppenheimer because of his disrespect for her and his interest in men and big ideas. And I don't know if that necessarily completely eliminates the Nolan criticisms, but it's a pretty purposeful choice here, which is that even later in the film, we learn that he's been having an affair with Ruth Tolman, the wife of scientist and academic and I mean at some he's just discarded her as well and this is who this

person is gross calls him a womanizer at some point yes and I'm like it did it doesn't seem that I mean like it seems like he's got like a kind of 1950s batting average of like women it's like two you know would you say that was a simpler time no but I just mean like I don't know that the movie does a good job depicting him being a womanizer though i take the character's word for it um my response to you in the subjective you know the i i don't think that kitty is served well by the pace of the movie because i think that that's a character that changes drastically over the course of time and is not that's not like really served well like for for better or for worse and i also think probably you could make the argument that like josh hartnett's character has more complexity

on screen and articulates more you know has like a fuller character in some ways than his wife than than kitty does in some ways i think Kitty seems like a very complicated and interesting person. Wound up later in life marrying Robbie after Oppenheimer died. Really? Yes.

But, I don't know. What the movie doesn't really do a very good job of communicating to you is that she was a scientist. She was a biologist. She was a botanist. She was an incredibly

intelligent person who ultimately found herself confined to a domesticated 1950s American lifestyle. It's just one line. She says, I'm a biologist. I got upgraded to housewife. And then they get swept along. She gets pregnant very quickly.

They get married. I mean, it could be subjective. I get it. But it's plainly a bummer to watch Emily Blunt one of the best actresses working right now in my opinion just not get to do anything you know

it's not even like I don't care about Nolan's other movies I mean I do but we don't need to do Nolan problem and it can be subjective but it just what a waste I mean that's kind of what it is, and great, he was a womanizer, but, you know, I don't, that's fine.

I think it's up for debate whether or not she gets to have a kind of pride of place in the final act, which you didn't like as much. You know, she obviously is interrogated at the end of the film and has, she's the only character who effectively stands up to Roger Robb in the movie and then

right but she's correcting his grammar yeah well I mean it is a kangaroo court then the one old guy is like great job

like okay and then she also obviously gets to reject Teller when eventually Oppenheimer is awarded something by

Lyndon B. Johnson and she you know it's one of the final shots of the film is her rejecting those who undermined her life partner. Which, is that enough? I don't know. Was it enough for any woman

in 1950 to be forced into this lifestyle because of our expectations around gender? I think it's debatable. It feels very different to me than, say, the portrayal of Dom Cobb's dead wife in Inception well she yeah we don't have to get into an Inception conversation but yes we've gone to the end of the film before getting into the middle of the film you did mention Josh Hartnett's character Lawrence a Nobel Prize winning

scientist who welcomes Oppie into Berkeley and then shortly thereafter we are developing theoretical physics in the United States, thanks to Oppenheimer bringing in more and more students. We are also developing unionization

amongst the lab engineers at Berkeley, which is then standing in the way of Oppenheimer becoming a significant figure in the development of the bomb. This is all happening amidst World War II. Soon after Oppenheimer agrees to put the unionization issues, I guess, in the shadows. I think he's like, I'll step back from all my leftist politics if I can get it on the Manab project. Which is an interesting thing.

I mean, I think in the past, Nolan has come under fire for a kind of clouded political point of view. We joked a lot about Dark Knight Rises and what it was actually trying to say about, you know, the wealth gap and, you know, how to take power in this country. And, you know, there's some questions about the conservatism of Bruce Wayne's approach to monitoring the entire city of Gotham at the end of Dark Knight. This is a film that has a lot of time for leftist ideas, and you don't usually see them communicated, say, you know, property is theft.

Like, that is uttered in this movie. What's the, like, the line in the Dunkirk trailer where it's like, hope is a weapon or something like that? I was like, is this, like, really the accumulation of what you have to say about this? And, you know, Dunkirk's a masterpiece in its own right, but it's like,

I didn't go into this thinking I was going to get the education that I got. Right. But it's funny that as soon as he subsumes the communist ideas in the movie, a colonel walks in and is like, you're the man for the job, you know? And that says a lot, I think, about how people navigate politics and power, you know?

It's like, you actually have to push down your ideas if you want to get opportunity to do great things. I feel like that's, again, Nolan kind of arriving at a conclusion that perhaps is meaningful to him as a filmmaker, too. Yeah, I guess so. All of that moves so quickly. It does. And particularly, I don't know, I don't think it's the performance. I think it's the actual dialogue that Cillian Murphy gets. Like you quoted property is a crime.

Is that property is theft? Property is theft. And Oppenheimer immediately corrects the woman. It's like, oh yeah, ownership. No, it's ownership. I read it in the original language. But then he has to do some more expository stuff

and he's just like, I mean, I have like deep held ideals. You know, I believe this, that, and the other. And there's something about any time that Oppenheimer is trying to express those particular politics in the first half

that feels a little forced to me. And maybe that's intentional yeah i think you're supposed to be dilettante sure that's exactly what growth says to him but then yeah but then i do think that that undercuts perhaps like this you know this metaphor for someone like giving up their like deeply held beliefs in order to do something i think it might just be that someone's shopping around i i I think that that is actually the purpose is that just because you were interested in an idea doesn't make you a religious fanatic to the idea and that ultimately guys like Oppenheimer are about the ideas in their head. They're not about the ideas in the world. And as soon as something impacts the world outside, you know, as soon as he sees that communism is not just American communism or not just, you know, dinner party communism, it's Soviet communism.

And then he kind of like backs away. And we hear Kitty say the same thing when she's under. I stopped being a communist. Yeah. And that he's interested in helping a refugee, but he's not interested in necessarily changing the system. And as soon as we get into those places, he shows discomfort. I do love that first sit down, with Damon as Groves. And he shares all of the criticisms that he's heard of Oppenheimer. This is a kind of expositional storytelling to be like, here's everything I

know about you. And here's why I don't like you. It's the classic, like, I do know you, Sean, fantasy, born Long Island. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of the rare times where in the movie, this really popped out to me the second time, Oppenheimer is on the front foot, and he's aggressive, and he's clear why he's the man for the job. He's like, I'm smarter than everybody else at this. I'm the number one choice, despite the complications of my background. And Cillian Murphy smiles in this scene.

Yeah. He's willing to joust with Groves. They're a natural fit. They have amazing chemistry. It pops up throughout, and especially the scene that's featured in the trailer, which is like, I was like, a zero would be good. You know, there's a non-zero chance, etc. And, you know, some of that is, I think, a testament to Damon's performance,

who is in, like, I think purposefully in a slightly different movie than everybody else because he is, he's representing the military and... He's in The Great Escape. Yeah. He's like, I'm going to fucking entertain people while you guys are all talking about

nuclear physics. Right, but also like he does and he sells all of the expositional stuff that you need that not everyone else is capable of doing in the way that Matt Damon can.

You know, once again, movie stars, we love you. No, he's delightful. He's essential to the movie. He gets three or four huge laugh lines. He's the good guy and Downey's the bad guy so that Killian can be Killian. It's actually like a pretty ingenious way of setting up supporting characters to do all the work so that this very complicated performance

with a very complicated person can be at the center of it. I thought it was extraordinary like that. It's funny because, you know, this is the character that Paul Newman played in Fat Man and Little Boy, which is another representation of this story that sort of the Trinity project. And he was about 65 when he made that movie. And Damon's only 52. And Damon pretty credibly plays an old bastard, bastard you know like a guy who's been around the

block and who's been in charge and who built the pentagon and you can almost feel him doing a little bit of like I'm in my Newman phase I'm in my Newman 80s phase you know like a very like uh Robert Duvall performance yeah yeah you know like here I am I'm getting into late 50s it's time to it's time to start playing old guys and tell young guys what to do. Yeah, and doing his wiliness as a benefit of being older as opposed to being like Linus in Oceans and being like the scamp.

Like he's past that now. He's more experienced. Really fun performance from him. And then they start building the team and the bulk of the film starts orienting around Los Alamos. You know, we've learned earlier in the movie that Los Alamos and New Mexico in particular is an emotional place for Oppenheimer.

It's where he went when he was sick with dysentery as a kid. And so he has this connection to it. And so they insist on building the Manhattan project out there while making it sort of the center of this quadrant of railway travel amongst the four other places, Tennessee, Chicago, California. And I can't remember where the fourth other places, Tennessee, Chicago, California, and I can't remember where the fourth place is, maybe somewhere in the East Coast. And so this

is the center of the operation. And all of a sudden we just get introduced to this like overwhelming number of scientists who joined the project very quickly in a hard cutting fashion, real like putting the team together stuff. Some of the scientists that are recruited are like among the most important minds of the 20th century and they get like one line. It's pretty wild. Anybody jump out to you that you guys are like, great to see that guy doing that thing. Is it time to talk about Josh Hartnett? Yeah. Did you sell? Did you sell the stock? Yet? No, because we're not to award season yet.

Oh, wow. You think we're going there no I don't think with him but I'm so proud of him I'm so proud of what he's done electric yeah he's really great

he's wonderful what a 23 for him who's doing better it's really wild that they that someone's let him act that's the thing in the sequence

like he really has scenes where he's toe to toe with Killian Murphy and he wins the scenes I mean he really wins that scene where he convinces him to step back and it's just really exciting to see him allowed to do that he's got a little weight on him yeah a little older and he's just like that character is so interesting the idea of keeping politics out of the classroom and keeping ideology

out of science which is obviously like a you know a conflict that we're dealing with now and whether or not that guy has more conservative leanings or not, I haven't looked up anything about Lawrence from biographical information. But yeah, just like the idea of populating this movie with these recognizable faces, with every single scene is like, oh, it's him, it's him, it's him, it's him. I think in some ways it distracts a little bit from like

i'll have to write that person's name down and google them when i get home because i want to know more about what they contributed to this but i i yeah i thought that the the collection of scientists was a wonderful wonderful bit of casting he also gets the pretty essential theory only gets you so far line and idea, which is, you know, I, I think one of the best features of Nolan pushing back against like his own project in this movie.

And that, and that resonates for me pretty well. It echoes because he is the creator of the cyclotron and he won the Nobel prize for that development. And that development is essential to the development of the bomb. And that's one of the reasons why he's a great counterpoint because he's like, I built something.

I actually have experience being world-renowned for putting something together and not just talking about an idea. And that's essential to basically what transpires over the next 40 minutes

of the movie, which is these men constantly challenging each other and one woman, played by Olivia Thirlby, quite good, love Olivia Thirlby,

challenging each other in these rooms in New Mexico, in this city that they've built for $2 billion across years. And some of it is riveting. And some of it is a little bit like we're, you know, we're ready to get to the point here.

I love the fact that the, it's, it's a non-military higher hierarchy. So even once they're doing it, like one of the great, like subtle scenes is Oppenheimer in the rain on the fucking horse like the horseman of the apocalypse coming upon the flyer about like let's all get together and talk about what we're really doing here and he goes in

not as their boss but as like somebody to go listen and they don't stop talking when he walks in he goes in as their boss it's a very interesting scene but he doesn't go there to shut it down he doesn't go there to be like you guys can't talk about this no but he gives like his like moses on the mount or you know his jesus speech of being but like here is what we are here's why we need to do it and here's what our limitations are it's sort of it's like the clearest distillation of what Nolan thinks Oppenheimer is thinking and feeling in that moment. And sort of like the most you get into his head.

It's his justification for the development of the bomb and the use of the bomb. I mean, because at that moment, we learned that Germany has surrendered, that Hitler is dead. He says those words to the people in the crowd. They think Japan is going to give up soon.

They think Japan will give up. He says no. We learn, we were told later no in a meeting with Henry L. Stimson, that they won't. Whether or not that's true is debated then in the future. But that scene, I agree with you exactly how you described it, Amanda. And I think it's also the last time we see Oppenheimer, maybe the second to last time other than the Trinity test, we see him with confidence. Every other moment in the aftermath of the film, in the aftermath of those film in the aftermath of

those events we see killian murphy haunted confused frustrated maybe there are some flashbacks to his moments you know working with the aec baptized in the trinidad test he's a totally different person with one exception which is which is right before kitty testifies and he's in the hallway we're adults we've walked through fire together like she'll she'll figure it out which is just strange

just that you know you don't like when your husband supports you no but I mean it's just it's a notable shift in tone and where he is

and you know and maybe that's supposed to tell you something about the kitty character and what Nolan understands about marriage or whatever shift in tone and where he is. And, you know, and maybe that's supposed to tell you something about the Kitty character and what Nolan understands about marriage or whatever. I think you're right.

In the world of the movie, Oppenheimer is going out on a limb because you're watching Kitty and you're like, I don't know if she's going to come in in a clutch here. It's funny because it's,

I mean, to me, that's a construct. Like, what, was she going to blow it for him? He was already going to get rejected. They knew it. They were appealing the rejection.

So the weight was not there. It was just an opportunity, I think, to give Emily Blunt, one of the best actresses working right now, a platform to have a moment. But it's still, I thought, you know, theatrically it worked for me. that you're referring to, Chris, does ultimately lead to the Trinity test, which is this compacted about 17 or 18 minute sequence of scouting when his brother comes back to determine what is the right space for the test.

And then a series of pre-tests that are happening as they think about the timing. And then this pressure that is coming down on them about we'll have it by September and Groves says, we want it by July.

And he's like, how about August? And he's like, July. July is the time when you have to make this happen he's got to go to Potsdam or he's got to call Potsdam Truman and Potsdam Truman is going to Potsdam for the conference to discuss the future of the war with Stalin so there is this ticking clock quality that hits the movie pretty hard and then it just leads to as I said last week like only Nolan can do the Trinity test you something where you know exactly what's going to happen it's in books it's uh as i said last week like only nolan can do the trinity test you something where you know exactly what's going to happen it's in books it's in documentaries it's well it's why you went to see the movie yes in a lot of ways i had the test well but i had a feeling as it as it started

ramping up and you know like oh this is a moment similar to when bobby and i went to see mission impossible and like cruz starts like backing up the motorcycle you know on the cliff and I was like oh we're here like it's really happening uh and it's very exciting and the movie also is like propulsive to that moment which comes about two hours into it and you're like okay like here we are this is what all of these pieces and all of this anxiety and everyone's been talking about like here we go and i mean the filmmaking like the filmmaking before you actually get to the countdown and zero is extraordinary in terms of just like pushing you towards that holy shit we're about to jump off a cliff moment it's pouring rain and all the scientists are in a tent together sitting with military men then Then Oppenheimer moves out

to the test room where he is effectively sitting with Groves and they're talking through what could be the end of their careers and a massive waste of two billion dollars.

The scientists are also betting on what's going to happen. Yes. Sort of like when we take bets before we record the rewatchables. It's just like,

what do you think is going to happen here? It will be recast. And then they set off to blow that fucker up. Yeah. Thought it lived up. Thought the decision

to just completely remove the sound is an amazing choice. I also just like the fact that every character's reaction to the bomb tells you something about their character.

Like every character's reaction to the bomb tells you something about their character. Like every character's reaction to the test, it tells you something about like what no one wants to say about this person or that person. And, you know, obviously like I think Benny Safdie slathered in suntan lotion and wearing sunglasses is going to be a thing, you know, for a while. Thanks to your replication of it here on this podcast. That's why I'm wearing shades today. But I just think that the banter like you know

the Jack Quaid being like I'm cool I got this windshield and it's like what happens when the glass explodes then Hartnett gets in the car with him

and Hartnett he and Hartnett just like share a look for a second which is like the most romantic thing I've seen in movies I was just like

I know who would have thought nuts must be so exciting for them. There's so many people who must have been like, this is sick that we're here together. Josh Beck gets to press that button

and he's just like, are you fucking kidding me? It's a really great sequence. It's a really great moment. And there's a moment of exultation in the aftermath. Oppenheimer is championed and treated as a conquering hero.

He's seen as the flag waves aggressively behind him. And we're at the two hour mark. And in many movies, that would have been the end of the movie. And then the final hour of the movie is... You just went right past Jack Quaid and the bongos. I forgot about the bongos. I did not forget about the bongos. Is that supposed to be like the burgeoning beat culture or something? Like I thought the beats didn't come along for a few more years. I just think that Jack Quaid did a lot of work on the side developing his own character, you know?

And the guy had bongos. And then it was great cinema. He just knew he needed to stand out from all the other 28 to 45-year-old white men who were cast in this film. You know, that does lead to this conversation with the Secretary of War and generals. And they discuss the targets james reymar um very memorably playing stimson and delivering the most um stomach turning laugh line in the movie about vacationing in kyoto or honeymooning in kyoto and that not being on the list of potential targets and then ultimately the decision to land on um hiroshima and nagasaki when the bomb is going to be dropped and then

you know the that feeling of exultation that we felt when the test happened is kind of removed entirely when the bomb is dropped and Oppenheimer doesn't even get a call before it happens. Which is, again, a strong choice and a choice that has obviously been made

because of the subjectivity of the character that we're meant to believe. And that is, as far as I understand it, to the moment, the way that Oppenheimer experienced this moment in history. Some conversation about whether or not the destruction should have been shown on screen. I understand why it wasn't. I understand why Nolan made the choice to keep it subjective.

I totally understand why it wasn't. I think it would have been a mistake. I did not like the one woman with the face peeling. The white woman who is shown several times. And I thought that was distasteful, frankly. Like, if you're going to do it, which I understand why he didn't. But it's just, there's some transference and some grossness. It didn't work for me.

If you start unpacking it and you could be like, that's the... Because it's before he's seen the images, right? So it's like, are you supposed to think that that's the extent of his imagination of what it could have been?

Right? I think there was... That was what... But that's like... You're asking the audience to do a lot of work. Yeah. Well, we keep going through

a lot of this conversation is like but that's like the subjective view of what works i don't know that this is oppenheimer's subjective view like holds the whole way through the movie like i i understand what certainly stops right here yeah right it stops at this point but i just like you know maybe maybe what you're saying is true and maybe that is what nolan is trying at this point and throughout the whole movie but like at some point sorry like it's a movie like it isn't it's a it's a third person retelling of what's going on though with them all the characters for the most part are not characters we had seen before right like in the gym the people who are listening to

his speech are like this weird new crowd that's there. And they're so fervently patriotic and like screaming. I almost feel like it's like a dream sequence. You know, it's specific. No, it totally is. It borders on that. There's no way to know if Oppenheimer specifically had that exact dream vision in his mind. Right. So that's what you're suggesting is sort of like it's subjectivity of Oppenheimer as told through Chris Nolan's interpretation of that subjectivity.

That sequence in particular, I think, is attempting to do what he has said in interviews, which is that he was making a horror film. And this is as close as he gets to a horror sequence, not just because of the woman whose skin is being peeled off as a bomb seemingly drops in front of her. But the sort of harrowing sound design that happens where everything is blocked out except for this banging and churning and stomping feeling and this sense of disassociation that Oppenheimer is experiencing in the aftermath of the bombs dropping, it's hard to know what is dream and what is not at this point. I think even as we get into the um aec uh clearance

trial or the trial um the sort of you know kangaroo court with jason clark at times it feels almost like um he's disoriented from what's happening the way that the characters are shot in that tiny little room it's not quite the same outsized expansive well when he when jason clark is like when did you exactly develop moral quandaries about what you were doing the and it starts to shake and the yeah the fifth dimension library of love bookshelf comes back that's right interstellar and starts like shaking behind him um and so he's taking some liberties i think with oppenheimer psychology i I totally respect that take that it's not in great taste. That scene itself probably was the most I've been taken out of this movie scene

in the film for me, for the most part. Shortly after that, we see that we start to get the Louis Strauss storyline more aggressively interwoven. We've been seeing Robert Downey Jr.'s character throughout the movie. We see him bring in Oppenheimer to this institute that sort of provokes ideas within the community and then eventually into the Atomic Energy Commission.

But we haven't really, we've just known that he's been at a confirmation hearing of some kind. He's going to be the Secretary of Commerce in Eisenhower's cabinet. But we don't really have a feel for him. He just feels like kind of a bureaucrat who is maybe being used to tell the story of the aftermath of the bomb for Oppenheimer's sake. But all of his stories are told in black and white. And then it becomes clear that he's more sinister. And then, in fact, he is the antagonist of this movie in many ways. And I thought this actually really worked, but it is a different tone of storytelling. And it worked in part because he has chosen to say,

this is black and white. This is my objective take on the way that this played out. This is my third person movie storytelling take on the way all this stuff played out. But in doing so, it just creates this incredible amount of like anxiety on our DJ where we haven't seen him act like this in like 15 years where the camera's like right on his face. And every gesture is meant to indicate this like demon who is like negotiating with himself throughout the remainder of this movie.

And then it's obviously happening in contrast to this kangaroo court that's been transpiring, which he organized five years prior to undermine. Yeah. Now, I've heard a lot of people say the exact same thing, which is that you found it a little dull, that it dragged, that it didn't totally work. I thought it was like the closing of the communication about what happens to men like this, which is that you can get a little bit too big. You can't get bigger than the United States. You can't get bigger than Harry Truman in this confrontation that he has with Truman

and the dropping of the bomb. What a Dion Waiters from Gary Oldham. By the way, Chris has changed from his sunglasses to- Well, we've gotten past the Trinity test. Sure, I know. But I just wanted to let everyone know that Chris is bringing, you know, time stamp appropriate eyewear.

I kept looking up at the camera and being like, I do look a bit silly. Okay. No, I thought you looked great. Thank God we've committed 90 minutes of this to video before I said that. Do you enjoy Oldman or did it take you out of the movie? It took me out of the movie and I enjoyed him. Well, perfect.

Did you like that part? I thought it was funny. It's based on a true event. No, it's not like I just Oldman playing like a parodic version of both Truman and himself playing Winston Churchill and every other character is funny but I cannot wait to use waving the white handkerchief at some point during

Cowboys game but it's just like fucking Dak lying in a heap under for Georgia defensive men. And Mike McCarthy saying, I have blood on my hands. Get that craw baby out of here. Which make of Rami Malek's big moment near the end there. What's going on with this third of the movie? Like, what's going on?

What is going on with this third of the movie? Ta-da! Rami Malik's here and uh i mean obviously he was gonna show up at some point because he's there in the weird chicago basement with a clipboard for two seconds like doing like a snl impersonation of a bond villain i'm just writing things down um so you knew that he was to come back i will say i didn't know that it was going to be in this way because i had forgotten you know by three hours but um lol it's a fun game to go through the movie and the cast and be like who could have played what other part

right like and i don't know that rami malik could play any other part in this movie than weird guy with a clipboard who then has an important speech at the end. One person we didn't mention that we kind of skipped over is Casey Affleck. Oh, my God. Oh, I completely forgot. Because I always forget about it. It just shows up. Which is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, not only because Casey Affleck has now apparently entered the I can identify him by his voice zone. Wow.

Okay. Because I was like, oh, shit, that's Casey Affleck has now apparently entered the I can identify him by his voice zone. Because I was like, oh shit, that's Casey Affleck. It is a masterful bit of casting and a masterful reveal. So great. He's obviously a terrific actor. He's basically doing Mark Wahlberg from The Departed. But more sinister.

I mean, he is evil in the movie. He's really, really scary. And he's really helped by Matt Damon's explicit description of what he does. He's like, you talk to Pash? Like, I talk to Pash. When he's like, Menloitz, is that the

student's name who has been continuing his work with the FAECT, the union, and he says he wants to take him out onto a boat and interrogate him in the Russian style. And then we see this slow pan and reveal of Casey Affleck's face and heate him in the Russian style and then we see this slow pan

and reveal of Casey Affleck's face and he's speaking in a very quiet steady demonic tone that scene is very harrowing

is now the time where I reveal that that's how you hired me to be the producer of the big picture took me out to a boat and interrogated me Russian style

that's how we did things back in 2015 here at the ringer that's how you get fired from the big picture. Speaking of folks we haven't mentioned yet, Alden Ehrenreich,

who is on the comeback trail right now, and he has a big part in this movie. Does he? He certainly does. He does. He plays the classic

Sorkin woman character, so I suppose we should put it in Nolan's, like, posse column. Was Allison Janney not available not available i was gonna say whoever plays donna i can't remember her name janelle maloney oh yeah um so he he plays it's unclear i think he works for eisenhower's administration okay or like maybe he works for the senate committee but But anyway, he's the staffer who is taking Strauss through his Senate confirmation hearing and is just there to say,

wrote expositional dialogue in a like weird deadpan. It's like, what happened next, Admiral? Yeah. Yeah. He's the audience avatar in many ways. Sure. Sort of like we have questions

about who Strauss is. It's him and Scott Grimes, right? Yes. I didn't like this part. I thought this, this is like where it really falls apart is that,

I don't like any part of this storyline. I understand how it looked on paper and I think it maybe works on paper and obviously

it's echoing the, what happened to Oppenheimer in some ways um I mean and there are like specific script callbacks it's you know I'm not here to be they don't have to prove me guilty they just have to I just have to be denied what is that what's that turn of phrase there's no burden of proof there's no burden of proof we're just we're not proving we're just denying or whatever um i also understand it can

you tell we just did courtroom months facility with all those phrases in in terms of you know you need someone to be the villain so that oppenheimer can just exist as yeah as the either the person or the hero depending on your interpretation of of the film and i and i also understand kind of just like structurally timeline wise he's trying to do multiple things so it's like a it's a you know a thing within a thing within a thing i get it that's what nolan likes to do it i mean it does make it more interesting in terms of a biopic i don't think in basic i think the third hour is really boring like i just don't think it works in that structural sense um i don't think the execution works in terms of the dialogue and the that you feel all of the that that to me is the being the

ricardo's part of it and and aaron reich asking all of the obby questions and um and and then getting scandalized by the yeah and it all just being like sort of outragey and then rami malik coming in to like give a speech about scientists being mad or something um all of it just feels executionwise like a little silly to me. And then this idea that the first two hours are subjective and the third hour is like objective. I think it's supposed to be subjective from stress, right? Like that's...

Oh, is that what it is? I think all the black and white... It's not what he said. Okay. I think that that is... You could read it that way. Certainly because of the way that he shot. It's like as the world is closing in

on straws as he gets closer he's made it gets tighter but that's not how he's framed it he's framed a third the fourth storyline you know maybe we're not litigating director bullshit

right here right now but I don't if it didn't work for you it didn't work for you it didn't work for me I think that this movie has an apocalypse now problem

like it's like Coppola always talked about like Flight of the Valkyries happens I can't think of anything to top that so i almost have to go in the entire different direction and have this guy slay an ox while the doors are playing because like i need to go i can't i can't top the set piece you can't top trinity so the movie peaks emotionally and physically and viscerally yeah two hours in and then he has another hour. I think the argument would be he almost went too conventionally with what he decided to make the third hour about. I don't know, though, that I would want to watch an hour of a different way. But I take your point. I mean, like, it's all of a sudden

a much more conventional movie when it's... I don't know. I mean, I feel like we're discounting the entire other part of the final third of the movie,

which is the kangaroo court interrogation about his clearance being revoked. And I feel like that works incredibly well. It does. But then it makes me wonder why that

couldn't have been the framing device and and then it's because I start to think it's because Nolan like me because he would have lost the lily well yeah and because he would have lost and also because it's like that's like private so it's not like quote-unquote historically significant or not for people that I you know I don't know um I mean I I think the reason that that is such an important part of the film is that it's an it's an explication of his contempt for this kind of bureaucracy. That it's like, this is your ultimate fate. If Oppenheimer is destined to live with the anxiety and guilt of what he has done by his own creation, that these fuckers who try to control power do deserve to be punished. Now, whether or not like that is the ultimate fate of the world,

I do think that what he's trying to say is that we need to blot out the straws of the world. These climbers who are not creative people, these lowly shoe salesmen, that they're not worth our time and that we have organized our society in such a silly and stupid way that we find ourselves in these circumstances

that we're in right now, anti-intellectual, letting people run rampant through political systems and then that dictating how people's lives are lived. I think that he is really trying to make a genuine comment about that. So that part of it feels essential to the telling of the story. Now, I can't take issue with you saying, like, it just didn't work for me. Like, of course, if you didn't like how it felt, it took you out of a story that you were otherwise engaged in. I get that.

I don't disagree with everything that you just described to Nolan in terms of intent. Like, it's cosine. I don't know that if I got that from the third part of the film as well. So did you not like Robert Downey Jr.'s performance? I like Robert Downey Jr. No, he's good. Yeah. I just, I don't get this part of the movie. I was like, what's going on? Let's go. Come on. I understand this feels like trying to litigate some other stuff on a different side. And maybe my editor brain turns on too fast. So I like Robert Downey Jr. a lot. And he's certainly selling this movie well, and mean, that's another thing, right? Like you started thinking about, oh, okay, you've written this showboat part because is that the only way you can get Robert Downey Jr. in here? And that's going to, I don't, I don of like it's ideas and conviction to make me look past all the other stuff so then I

just started wandering yeah I think I think you're the biggest Robert Downey Jr. fan I know you've spent time with the man yeah

you have chronicled his work he had a junket yeah this he has said this is the best movie he's ever been in yeah which is a strong comment,

considering we've all seen Avengers Infinity War. Yeah. What did you think of RDJ? Well, I think that he is able to convincingly make the transformation from the gentle narrator of the movie to the villain of the movie, which I don't really know that I've seen that many times. I guess it's like a pretty hard arc for an actor to play. And I think that it really obviously has like these echoes of Tony Stark as the salesman of the military industrial complex and stuff. I don't know if that was conscious. I think it was also like

they wanted to work with each other. But I found him to be so lovely in the early scenes when he's first trying to convince Oppenheimer to join Princeton and he's just like I just love scientists and I like being like on the outside looking in here and oh I'd never been published or anything like that like I think that there's like real depth to the character um and it's so cool I mean like I I know this is a really like kind of 101 thing to say but it's kind of wonderful to watch those two interact in black and white. Like it really is transporting. Um, the turn is really hard.

Like the turn, the final, final, like, and it was you who planted this time magazine story, you know, is, is a little bit Agatha Christie,

but, uh, and, and, Henry Luce is a personal friend. Yeah. Yeah. That's,

that's just how it goes when you're in power. You're a dipshit controlling all the power in the world. What was your favorite performance in the movie? We just went right past, led by a young senator from Massachusetts, Kennedy. John F. Kennedy. Sorry. That's his Robin woman, right? That's his big Shazam reveal.

Is it favorite performance non-Killian? Well, I mean, I guess there's a little bit of a like. I think we're headed dead set towards best picture, best actor, best supporting actor, maybe best supporting actress for Emily Blunt, depending on how that category shakes out. I think that there are actors who I liked more than the people who are going to be nominated. Killian aside, who I think is doing something that is very rare

in the history of great man Hollywood biopics, which is like, he's the black hole of the movie in many ways

and still is able to communicate something amazing to us. So let's just say non-Killian division. That was a good Interstellar reference was an intentional i watched interstellar on saturday night re-watched it did you like it

the christmas recommendation i'm sorry to say that i'm with you uh on on it and it was really interesting to re-watch interstellar after this movie as like the you know it's not the great man of science and or engineering's fault yeah i saw I saw Wags logged it on Letterboxd and had a similar takeaway too. Yeah. Hi, Bobby. Hi. Hello.

This is not an Interstellar podcast. I don't need to share my Interstellar takes here. Okay. All right. Protect yourself, Bobby. It's a lot of nonsense going on in that film.

Really good movie. Favorite performance? Man, I don't know if this movie feels the way it does without Damon. I was just thinking the same thing. Interesting. That's good. I mean, he is giving

the very different performance, as you said. Yeah. I think it's Krummeltz for me. Krummeltz, and then I just have had a lot of conversations about Josh Hartnett. Yeah, he's doing really well.

That's really fun. I saw some negative opinions of Jason Clarke, who I thought was awesome. Oh, come on. He was going for it. Yeah, he was going for it. It's a very overwritten part. Sure, and he just has to yell a lot. He, come on. He was going for it. He was going for it. I mean,

it's a very overwritten part. And he just has to yell a lot. He's trying to break people. I thought he was really good. What do you think of Tom Conti as Albert Einstein? Tough. Tough to do Einstein.

Like there's really only, like I'm just really glad it wasn't Kenneth Branagh. Yeah. I didn't know you could put Dane DeHaan and Alden Ehrenreich in the same movie. DeHaan was so good.

He was great. As Kenneth Nichols. And I loved the moving the plant out of the way because they couldn't see across and obviously a little bit of our differences. But Jesus, that whole sequence where they're just looking at the maps and the tests in the Pacific and stuff. Oh my God. Matthew Modine? Sure. Yeah. What about Gustav Skarsgård, Alexander Skarsgård's brother, as Hans Bethe?

What did Hans Bethe do? He ran the theoretical division because that was too much. Oh, right. He was the bald Swedish man. Okay. You want to talk about Benny? Yeah, I thought he was good. I think he's got a tough task in this movie

by having to do a Hungarian accent. Yeah. There's been a lot of conversation this movie by having to do a Hungarian accent yeah there's been a lot of conversation about Benny you know he's no longer directing movies with his brother Josh he's pursuing more

of an acting career some transitions in his career he's now worked with Claire Denis Kelly Freeman Craig Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan

and he's in pretty good the Nathan Filder show and he is yes he's in the Nathan Filder show so he's cooking I thought he was good I mean he is like he is the yes, he's in the Nathan Filder show. So he's cooking. I thought he was good.

I mean, he is like, he is the secondary antagonist of the movie in many ways. And it's a hard part because you have to care about the difference between the super bomb and the atomic bomb. You have to understand

his point of view as a scientist who's trying to push forward even in the face of a kind of mission-oriented science project. But I liked him. David Desmalchian,

who has become the, that guy villain. Sure. De rigueur. He plays William Borden, who's the man who brings the sort of charges against him that leads to his, the, he's a big Nolan guy too,

right? He's been a bunch of Nolan movies. Has he? He's the, he's the, the cop who they recruit, who, who is schizophrenic and dark, who assassinates the man.

That's right. That's right. He told the story on the red carpet that he was cast because of his performance in The Suicide Squad. That's a true story. Nolan really enjoyed the film The Suicide Squad, directed by James Gunn. Okay. Is there any movie that Christopher Nolan doesn't like? He loves movies.

I know. But that doesn't mean he can't taste. He offered a no comment on whether he would be seeing Barbie to the New York Times. Did he really? He did. Yeah, they asked him about it and about the order or the release date, anything about Barbenheimer, and it was a no comment. I hope he sees it.

He would enjoy it. A hard no comment, not a like, I wish the movie well or nothing. It was a no comment in the intro. They didn't even print. So who knows what the actual exchange was in the Q&A. Asked for in the aftermath. Yeah. yeah interesting any other performances jump out to you guys tony goldwyn is just embracing his like i'm a handsome republican i'm a guy with a binder yeah i just i don't know you i'm probably not up to good but i i'm not the worst person in this room

uh i did mention last time we spoke ho Hoyte von Hoytema rising the cinematographer power rankings right now. Again, an amazing capturing. Perhaps the last podcast we ever do together should be a Hoyte von Hoytema Hall of Fame. You know, like we'd started with Deacons. Just to close the loop on the Deacons pod. Jennifer Lame, the editor. I think many people are citing that this is amazing.

Incredible. This will definitely be nominated for this. I'm starting to now, I think I need to have like an IMDB alert on her so that I just go see whatever she cuts. Yeah. She's got the juice. Little Big Arnson.

Yeah. Incredible score. I listened to it on the way home last night. Really enjoyed it. As I was driving home, I noticed that in my neighborhood, the power had gone out. And it looked as though

a transformer had been knocked off of a light pole. Oh. And so the entire neighborhood of Glass Hill Park had gone dark. And I felt like it was a

sign as I was listening to the Olympics music. A sign that you should go back to go see Oppenheimer a third time? I'll tell a sign as I was listening to sign that you should go back to go see Oppenheimer a third time I'll tell you what I'm planning to I'm I would I can't wait to see this in the theater again um very few movies that can make me feel this way so it was a very very exciting one for me anything else you want to cite well I feel like we've spent this whole podcast just plot recapping which to me is like the least important part of the movie.

Like it is it is the actual technical expression of the plot that is amazing. You know what I mean? So it's like whatever happens happens. It happens fast. It looks amazing. You like even the cutting actually like expresses the emotion and the anxiety and the music does as well. So I don't know. I feel like I didn't get

to say enough. I think this movie is really good. I think when you boil it down, I don't know if I buy its big ideas, but I think it's incredible. I think you standing on

you can't do what Aaron Sorkin does is a weird hill to die on, honestly. Because Aaron Sorkin is pretty low in the public like celebration sphere these days.

And this is Nolan making I think what a lot of people think could end up being one of his best movies. For me, it's obviously my favorite. public like celebration sphere these days and this is Nolan making I think what a lot of people think could end up being one of his best movies for me it's obviously my favorite many people are saying

many people are saying you know what's interesting about you because we've Sorkin's come up a couple of times and the dialogue is and usually dialogue is the thing that I

remember from movies it's like yeah that it's like the I we joke about the Roger Deakins Hall of Fame but that was really funny when you were like and then the shot

of this guy driving up a hill but I actually will just think about certain images from this movie for a long time I mean like

yes you know Teller and Oppenheimer watching the bombs drive away on the truck on opposite side yeah great

on the opposite I was just like you fucking did it are you John Ford like what are you doing this is such a just like, you fucking did it. You're, are you John Ford? Like, what are you doing? Like, this is such a great,

like everything you need to know about these guys and this moment in history is right there. And I just, I, they, you know, his, the white light hitting his face in the test.

Um, I, gosh, man, like what an, what an achievement. Like, I agree with him.

That's what I'm saying that's the achievement and then also just like fucking Emily Blunt on a horse at dawn in New Mexico I'm just like this is great I don't know if they had a ton of chemistry in that kiss but that's okay that's probably supposed to be the point if people want to see Emily Blunt

riding more horses I really recommend the English which was underrated it came out last year on Amazon Prime. It's a six-hour miniseries and it's phenomenal and she is incredible in it. I haven't seen that. Maybe I'll check it out.

Where does this stand for you in the Nolan rankings? We had this conversation a little bit this weekend with Amanda. I don't think it's my favorite, but I don't really have a great argument

as to why not. What is your favorite right now it's either Dunkirk or Inception Dunkirk is so good I re-watched it last night Dunkirk is another thing where there are like 14 lines of dialogue I was gonna I mean the thing I was thinking a lot about what you said when we talked about this at first yeah it's like Dunkirk was of you know the the summation of what he then went on to break in half in Tenet and this film. Right. But Donner doesn't really have characters.

Of course he does. Not really. I mean, it has stand-ins for concepts. Mark Rylance and Barry Keoghan are about as close as we get to people that we know. That is just an absolute, that's total disrespect to River Cartwright, aka Jack Laudan. You got to watch. The Scottish pilot. Yeah. I guess. And Tom Hardy. I guess. We don't know anything about those guys. does total disrespect to River Cartwright, aka Jack Lowden. You gotta watch...

The Scottish pilot. Yeah. I guess. And Tom Hardy. We don't know anything about those guys. We don't know anything about their motivations.

We know their job. We know what their missions are, but we don't know who they are, like what they think about anything. Like, to me, it's not a criticism of the movie.

It's obviously purposeful that he did that, but it's one of the reasons why it doesn't resonate with me. It could be any English person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And that's part of the concept,

right? Right. It's meant to stand in for an entire nation's, you know, experience, you know, making its way through

this traumatic and awful war. But, I, I, I prefer characters. Yeah. Like, this is something that,

this is a different version of a kind of storytelling. I'm just a really big fan of his, you know? I mean, like, I just really like, basically all this guy's movies,

I think that, to me, I kind of keep the Batman movies a little bit separate from the rest of the filmography in terms of how I think about it. Dark Knight, I think, had been my favorite of his movies. Dark Knight's, to me,

very similar to this movie just structurally, where the first hour and a half of Dark Knight is just... He loves to do this. Unlike anything, and then... Truck flips. Exactly, truck flips.

You see the whole thing, and then we're just driving around with Two-Face for a while. Yeah. Well, thanks for being three-faced on this pod. What's your top three right now of Nolan? Is it this? This, Dark Knight, and probably Memento? Maybe Dunkirk? Dunkirk, Inception, Memento,

I think. Wow, you guys really like Memento. You know, just like a lean, mean... Incredible idea for a movie. Incredible execution on like no budget. Yeah. You don't like it?

I like it. I think that this is... There's other... I think I like the bigger spectacles more. I think that this is the... There's other... I think I like the bigger spectacles more. I love Tenet, too. I love Tenet. Tenet's really good. I still don't understand it.

I totally understand it. Okay. Guys, thanks so much for your thoughts on this film. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Later this week, Joanna Robinson will join us to talk in the exact same fashion,

with the exact same intensity, and the exact same structure about Greta Gerwig's Barbie. We will see you then. you