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Oppenheimer (2023)
Very Good; Not A Masterpiece
Stripped of all the usual hype that accompanies a new Nolan release and the whole BARBENHEIMER hoopla surrounding it, the film itself is not exactly groundbreaking. Don't get me wrong, I know it's a monumental achievement in terms of box office success, and it's a fine film. But storytelling-wise, there's nothing here that hasn't been done before with less pretension.
I don't think splitting it up in black-and-white and color segments (à la MEMENTO) was really of much help to the audience as much as it was to the filmmakers themselves. And I wish Nolan wasn't so hung-up on packaging it as a thriller. The frenetic editing throughout, the constant droning of violins and electronic beats in the background to make sure the ones with short attention spans never check out of the film, and the sloppy transitions in the moments where Oppie has visions of the world beyond and his past and future fumbles almost took me out of the movie.
But it was a relief to see Robert Downey Jr. Going all-out in flexing his acting chops after playing the same character during the most robust period of his acting career.
Nevertheless, out of the most remarkable battery of cast and crew that worked on this project, if I was given the chance to pick only one name whose work was indelible to the unique set of feelings this film enkindles, it would be the composer Ludwig Göransson. His score is unconventional and welcoming at the same time. It is alienating, yet it guides you through the range of emotions the characters experience, unfailingly.
And those who complained that they didn't understand most of the movie were simply not au fait with the general history of the Manhattan Project and the trials of the central character. You don't need to know EVERYTHING about Oppenheimer (and there's barely 15 minutes of hardcore physics jargon in the entire film) to understand what's going on; watching a decent documentary on the subject before going in should've more than sufficed (I'd suggest the PBS America special "The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer"). Not having English subtitles in theatres didn't help non-native English speakers much either, I guess, which was even compounded by the weird sound-mixing fetishes of Nolan.
But the most obvious deterrent to the enjoyment of this movie is the fact that audiences the world over have probably simply lost the patience to sit through a movie that employs the most basic of cinematic apparatus to tell a story: People talking to each other and sorting stuff out; in other words, unadulterated drama.
It's just sad that a film like this needs promotional gimmicks like "ALL PRACTICAL, NO CGI!" and "WITNESS A SCRIPT WRITTEN IN FIRST PERSON!" to put more butts in theatre seats.
The Wind (1986)
Simon Barrett's Suggestion Didn't Live Up to the Promise
Screenwriter Simon Barrett of two very popular slasher flicks [You're Next and The Guest] suggested this title in his series of obscure movies on social media. But this one wasn't quite my speed. Although it had everything going for it: a famous author of pulp fictions, a European clime in the nighttime, a killer with a scythe a la Italian gialli. But about halfway through it ran out of ideas. Nothing there to complement one of Hans Zimmer's earlier electronic music laden scores, the eerie setting or the performances of the leads.
A Woman, Her Men, and Her Futon (1992)
A Fine Erotic Flick
You gotta take this movie for what it is. I mean, this is the kind of film where two of the main characters engage in a casual conversation about their concurrent lives while the guy gently caresses the naked breasts of the girl "as a friend". Yes, when she tries to resist his cuddles with admonitions, the guy retorts by saying, "But... I just wanna hold you naked."
But the movie does have some neat ideas. It's just that the writer didn't have enough chops to make it a competent one. There's no sense of direction, neither from the director nor within the characters. The role Jennifer Rubin plays is supposed to be the epitome of the independent American woman. She has recently divorced her husband, got out of a relationship where the partner wanted way too much commitment than she was willing to make; and after all that mostly off-screen hoopla, she engages in an exclusively physical relationship with one of her colleagues while trying to work out the friendship with a screenwriter who tries to go over the thresholds of physical intimacy every now and then.
An aspiring screenwriter herself, she has agreed to act in her friend's movie as he tries to corral all the funding he can get from his fellow businessman friend. But he's still struggling with the characters he's writing. So he seeks Rubin's help to write a coherent screenplay by offering her to move in with him.
I think Sibay (the writer-director of this movie) wanted to mirror the volatility of the characters of the story within the story through his own characters too, but his approach was too lax to bridle the narrative as it goes. The movie seems undeniably amateurish with something short of a first draft for a screenplay. The last line uttered by the Rubin character in voice-over was probably the departure point of the whole theme underlying the film, which makes it all the more lugubrious of an experience to know that such an exciting interplay couldn't make it through the creative suffocation of the production team.
Then again, Jennifer Rubin has a wonderful body. Her occasionally bulbous breasts have graced the screen quite a few times-- which is enough in itself, but not enough to hold a viewer for 90 minutes in front of the screen. But I achieved the feat, and so can you.