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Oppenheimer (2023)
A potentially good drama ruined by a catastrophic edit
This review contains some minor spoilers.
I'll start this review by saying that I have been a huge Nolan fan for over a decade now and that every new movie of his I consider as The Movie Event of the year. However, after Chris' last picture "Tenet", which turned out to be a smaller letdown due to obvious signs of repeating of motives used in previous of his films, I lowered my expectations for "Oppenheimer" also because it is a very challenging theme to be turned into a three hour long summer blockbuster film.
But even with all that in mind, "Oppenheimer" was a disappointing, and at certain points of the movie timeline even painful experience for me. The main cause for this is the catastrophic editing of Jennifer Lame who started her collaboration with Nolan on "Tenet" and actually did a decent job there. In "Oppenheimer", on the other side, the scenes and shots are exchanging so quickly you get to think the movie has only one hour to tell the story rather than three. This especially comes to expression within the first forty minutes or so of the film where we don't even get a brake to think and relax for a second, the movie just keeps changing and going from scene to scene with each scene lasting approximately five to ten seconds (and that is not an exaggeration). Nolan never really used to implement long shots or scenes in his movies, but this was just another level of short shots intertwined with each other.
Another problem is the poor use of soundtrack. This movie has no action at all, it is a drama that could well be performed on an actual stage, so having loud music in the background during scenes in which two characters have a tense, long dialog in order to emphasize that tension, really brings these same scenes to the level of ridicule. Speaking of soundtrack, Ludwig Göransson did a fine job here, but he tries way too much to be Hans Zimmer.
I also have a problem with the script itself. Like, why do we have two narration lines in this film? One line is Oppenheimer hearing intended to remove his security clearance, shot in color, and the other is Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr) to become Secretary of Commerce, shot in black and white. At the end of the movie they come together and the black and white line transfers to color, which seems to be an hommage to Nolan's second film "Memento", but other than that I don't see any purpose in having those two hearings tell us the story in parallel.
There are things that save the film from being a complete catastrophe, first and foremost the performances. I mean, when you have an ensemble cast of over twenty known actors, five of which who are Oscar winners, than you don't expect anything less. There are also some scenes that are very well made. The famous Trinity test scene where they set the bomb for the first time is well delivered, but I would also advise not to expect too much because it's not all that impressive. The ending is also neat, and there are a few more scenes that save the experience and are well made mostly thanks to the cinematography of Hoyte van Hoytema, which, again, is decent but not all that impressive like in "Dunkirk" for example.
All things considered, "Oppenheimer" is nowhere near bad as it is disappointing, but Nolan has accustomed us to a higher standard, a that's why a 6/10 is a very low rating for a director and writer of his caliber. I can see that the audience and the critics went crazy about this film, given the fact that its metascore is at 89/100 (highest ever for a Nolan film after Dunkirk) and IMDB rating 8.8 at the time I'm writing this review, and it wouldn't even surprise me him finally winning an Oscar for this. How ironic would that be? He didn't get one for "Memento", as he should, for the "Prestige" and "The Dark Knight" he wasn't even nominated, and yet something tells me he will finally get one for "Oppenheimer", possibly the worst movie he ever made.
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Yep! It blows, what a surprise...
**THE REVIEW CONTAINS SOME MINOR SPOILERS, BUT READING IT PROBABLY WON'T CHANGE YOUR EXPERIENCE WHETHER YOU'RE A FAN OF THE GITS FRANCHISE OR NOT**
So I just came from watching the live motion picture of a franchise I've been a passionate fan of for the last six or seven years, even though I knew the script was rewritten several times by five (according to William Wheeler six or seven) writers. Even though premises were changed from the "Laughing Man" saga (from the TV series GITS:SAC) to just recreate Mamoru Oshii's animated adaptation from 1995. Even though young and not very competent Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman 2012.) was hired as director, and even though the female version of Keanu Reeves was cast for the not very, at first glance, demanding leading role. To put it up shortly, even though I knew it would suck.
And just as you already concluded, the movie turned out to be as bad as everyone expected, looking at it as an adaptation.
As a plain movie, it succeeds to transfer a gravely anti- technological message, to some extent, and it has some nice but not overly good cinematography, as every now and then it borrows the shots from Mamoru Oshii's movies just to remind you what you're not watching. And that's about it for the good things.
After the opening sequence "Making of Cyborg", which for some reason does not contain the brilliant song of the same name by Kenji Kawai, we see a close-up of lovely Scareltt Johannson's face groaning and panting for the next ten seconds after she just woke up in her new cyborg- body. It is after this laughable scene that I realized all hopes for this adaptation to be at least descent are in vain. Now, to be fair, Scarlett is actually the least problem, although someone could have told her that the character she's portraying is not sad all the time and does not make up stupid face expressions in the manner of a Kristen Stewart and beat up potential witnesses with unreasonable rage, but rather has a calm attitude where emotions are brought up in certain situations which makes them effective and believable. This can be seen best in the TV series or in the later chapters of Masamune Shirow's 1989. manga.
Apart from many other unnecessary problems like Daisuke Aramaki having no personality what so ever, the rest of the section 9 been represented as a bunch of retards, losing screen time by unnecessary and no way philosophical dialog between Major and Batou like explaining to the audience they have the radio-communication mode (because the audience is to stupid to figure that out by just seeing them communicate that way, I guess), the movie's real problem is it does not know what it's trying to be. Is it already mentioned anti-technological manifest? The action-cgi-drama with not very impressive action sequences? Or a quasi-origin story of Motoko Kusanagi which succeeds at adding no depth to the character?
But the cherry on top is the soundtrack. Not that it's awful or anything, but to not include any of the tracks from six Yoko Kanno's albums or Kenji Kawai's original score and to put the intro song of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence as background of boring end credits is the very top of the insolence.
I would say don't go to the cinema, wait for the director's cut, although I doubt it would improve much, but judging from the ending they obviously intend to make a sequel, and it would be best if you as an audience would not help them doing so by giving them your money.
Kidô senshi Gandamu (1979)
Interesting, Intelligent, Impressive
I was quite surprised after watching this cartoon. This is not a usual 20 minutes long toy commercial. In fact, the gundam itself doesn't appear too much in every episode. The plot is more focused on the characters. It's not repetitive, there are no reused animations for battle scenes or any scenes and the place actions are constantly changing from space to Earth, from air to water, and of course, orbital stations. Hell, it even has a side-story! In other words, this anime is way before its time.
It's a story about war and how cruel and pointless one can get. People are dying all the time. Every now and then we get to know some new characters and at the exactly same point we start to like them they get killed. This anime is not for kids. It's for all ages. Its influence on some other cartoons is huge (Transformers, Macross, Neon Genesis Evangellion,...). You should definitely check this one out.
Kôkaku kidôtai: Stand Alone Complex (2002)
Average at the beginning, brilliant at the end
I was very skeptic about this show. Like most of the people I already watched and was a huge fan of the movies and its philosophical themes, so all the talking about this show being a CSI-like anime didn't give me a good felling. The different look and outfit of Major Motoko Kusanagi didn't help too much either.
And indeed, the first three episodes were pretty boring and they have increased my fears about this show, mostly because the creators tried to put too much in a runtime of only twenty minutes. Fortunately, when the main plot was introduced everything changed and started to become better and better. After a seven episodes long ending of the first season my mind was blown, and the second season was even better because it has almost none standalone episodes. All standalone episodes are nothing special except the ones who are about the past of some characters, and the 18th episode of the second season which is a undisputed master-piece.
The animation is amazing. Along with Cowboy Bebop, this show is one of the best animated ones ever, and even now after more than ten years it still looks like it was released today.
I also recommend this show in English dub, although the Japanese dub is way better. The thing is this show is mostly "talk" than action. If you choose Japanese dub you will find yourself reading subtitles all the time and that can affect your personal enjoyment.
Stand Alone Complex is definitely not for little kids, not because it's violent or contains nudity, but because it's very intelligent and complicated and requires some knowledge of history and culture in general to be fully understand. This is not your usual police-detective show. This is something much much more.
Erufen rîto (2004)
An Anime Without Too Much Sense
"Elfen Lied" definitely is an anime worth watching and I can understand why so many people liked it, but calling it a "master-piece" and "the best anime ever" is a little bit too excessive.
I noticed that the fan base of this show consists of two groups: the ones who are praising it for its extreme violence and the ones who think this is a great and beautiful love story. Well, the gore scenes are indeed really impressive within the first 2-3 episodes, but as the show progresses the same recipe is repeated way too often and the first impression soon becomes very pale. The love story is rather dull than "great and beautiful". There is this boy Kouta and diclonius-girl Lucy who killed his father and sister, and yet Kouta still manages to say to her something like this: "You killed my father and sister and I won't forgive you... But I love you". Makes sense, right? But those are not the reasons why I don't like "Elfen Lied" as much as everyone else. The reason why I couldn't enjoy watching this show is because it doesn't give us neither explanation nor clues to find out what diclonius are (it rather makes you state they are the next step of evolution) and it has a lot of scenes that will make you go "WTF?" but not in the way like some other animes like "Neon Gensesis Evangelion". Here are some examples: In the first episode Lucy killed every person who stood in her way but she left Kurama alive. Apparently she has a split personality because of the bullet that hit her in the first episode, but later on we find out that she already had a split personality as a child. Why do the diclonius-people kill their parents at the age of 3? Why do they have pink hair? What is that killer guy had to be castrated for after Lucy cut off his arms and blinded him? and so on...
Not to mention, this is a 13-episode anime and yet in so limited time they still put a lot of "nyuu-nyuu" moments with unnecessary nudity. The only thing I liked about this anime are the back-stories of Lucy and Mayu which manage to make you feel sorry for them.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, is perfect. If only the show was at least as half as good as the song "Lilium".