Oppenheimer (2023) Review

rating: *****

the story: The director of the Manhattan Project discovers great achievements don't always have happy endings.

the review: Most of the time, when you see what's going to be your favorite movie of the year, there ought to be no doubt.  Christopher Nolan has been one of my favorite directors since 2001, when Memento was released, and for a few years held the slot of my favorite movie, and in the two decades or so since, he's continued to make movies that I have very enthusiastically received, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar being my favorites from their release years (2008, 2010, 2014).  Although it received a considerable amount of pre-release buzz, in part because it was scheduled to hit theaters the same weekend as Barbie, I had no idea what to expect from Oppenheimer.  I loved his previous attempt at historical, WWII drama, Dunkirk, but it didn't feel like an achievement so much as an experience.  Nolan is very good at experiences, and has at times been on the verge of letting his talents rest of that level alone (here I certainly think of Tenet, which is its own kind of great filmmaking, but not as clear a statement).  Oppenheimer is a complete package.  As social media personality Logan Paul famously lamented, it's pretty much nothing but talking, but it's a tonal masterpiece.  The score certainly helps, but three hours of a perfect score is something even Terrence Malick can't necessarily reliably pull off.  Eventually there needs to be some concrete substance, and that can be found in spades throughout Oppenheimer.

It certainly doesn't hurt the sheer embarrassment of talent, and this is something even I can sometimes get carried away being dazzled by, but Oppenheimer's cast is stuffed to the rafters, and most of its actors are in relatively small roles while the bulk of the film rests on Cillian Murphy (long looking for that one great role, which this is) and a little on Robert Downey Jr. finally proving, once again, he's not just a superhero great at making quips, very deliberately changing his look and most of the time sounding nothing at all like Tony Stark (though happily our Iron Man comes out of his shell now and then), and Emily Blunt resting comfortably in the background until she commands the screen, and Rami Malik echoing that, and Matt Damon playing first supporting role (the man is as near a genius at selecting material as modern cinema has ever found, so often willing to play whatever role he wants it's astonishing that he's also remained a reliable leading actor the whole time), and then there's also Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman and Kenneth Branagh, Jason Clarke...A pair of would-be next generation lead actors, Dane DeHaan and Josh Hartnett, they're here.

Tom Conti, a respected actor from a previous generation, turns in a chameleon role as Einstein, a pivotal if minor one in the movie.  Einstein's role itself in the movie is genius, stepping away from the theatrics of The Prestige's Tesla though hinging on the same basic story structure, of a crucial moment between two characters that must be examined either by the audience or by the story itself to be understood as so crucial, the kind of storytelling Nolan employed in his first movie, Following, that had one of those twist endings that originally made Nolan himself seem as if he might after all be dismissed as a gimmick, as M. Night Shyamalan was for so long (and so many still believe so today), a fad.  

Oppenheimer is the definitive proof that Christopher Nolan is no such thing.  When Spielberg delivered Schindler's List and then Saving Private Ryan, his own one-two WWII punch, it opened new avenues of appreciation for his talent, and depth of talent.  Nolan, even in his superhero movies, never went broad.  He sought audience approval in scale of spectacle, the way Spielberg did it in the '70s, and never in mere thrills or childlike awe.  For too long Nolan was easy to dismiss because he didn't pursue the "truly adult," the straightforward drama.  Even Dunkirk relies on a series of timelines that robs it of a center beyond the central event.  Oppenheimer is classic Hollywood, a biopic.  Except no one's done it like this before.  

In most of his films, Nolan studied the concept of not just identity but self-identity, and while his characters often find themselves misunderstood, he's never really allowed them to suffer for it, never quite left the impression of an unhappy ending, and yet that's exactly what he does with Oppenheimer, and is thus the answer to why Einstein's brief role in the film is so crucial, why the story keeps circling back to it.  In criticizing the past, Nolan is of course giving us a damning metaphor about the present, since sometimes when you can't state things outright, you have to elucidate another way.  

I've long since stopped worrying about what Christopher Nolan can possibly do next.  Anything he wants.  It's all possible.  Of course he could never make another film, and his work will have already towered over his contemporaries, and the whole history of the medium.  

Interstellar (2014) Review

rating: *****

the story: An astronaut goes on an epic journey.

review: Outside of Memento and The Dark Knight, my favorite Christopher Nolan film has long been Interstellar. That seems like weird wording, but they are three distinct achievements, and so at least for me it makes sense. The conventional logic always picks Inception as Nolan’s best high concept, but for me Interstellar is infinitely better. It’s not just a piece of clever filmmaking. It may be Nolan’s best emotional investment.

2001: A Space Odyssey effectively began a whole new genre. It’s often overlooked as such but Star Trek: The Motion Picture pioneered efforts to solidify the astronauts in trouble genre. The Hollywood Solaris remake revived it, and of course in recent years there have been so many that many of the more recent ones, including worthy contenders like Ad Astra and High Life are actually obscure. But the best of them, arguably the best overall, is Interstellar.

This is Nolan reaching as far into the profound as he has so far been willing to go, at least as far as the sweep of history 2001 meant to be, toward Terrence Malick, Tree of Life territory. A lot of Nolan’s movies are allegories for his criticisms of conventional modern thinking, what we keep telling ourselves we shouldn’t be doing, what’s so wrong with the world. Here he aims himself at the abject nihilism of our future prospects, chief among them what happens to a planet pushed to its environmental brink, and whether or not humans are capable of adapting.

He pursues this by telling a story about a man and his daughter, a man who goes on an epic quest, and the daughter who doesn’t want him to go, a man who sees wonders, and a daughter who sees wonders, too. About how these wonders are strangely interconnected. 

Matthew McConaughey had just reached his peak of critical approval. He had a one-two punch with True Detective on TV and Dallas Buyers Club in the movies. Suddenly he had his choice of the best material. His charisma has often been taken for granted, his stereotype seen as a big dumb hunk of beef. Yet the career I see is one filled with fascinating choices, full of unbelievable diversity. That’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say, but out of all that Interstellar, for me, somehow stands heads and shoulders above all of it. And his best scenes are wordless, are McConaughey crying at seeing his children, growing up, on a screen.

The bond he shares with his daughter, in particular, portrayed at three different ages, Jessica Chastain in the middle, is of course the heart of the movie. The message their bond sends is often overlooked. Especially if it’s a Disney movie, we’re often told the younger generation has all the answers, but this is a movie that acknowledges how progress can be made through generational ambition, how the dreams and the bonds forged between a father and daughter can change the world.

The splendor of movie magic finds its poetry in an infinite bookshelf that allows them to communicate through time. It feels like Nolan channeling Shyamalan, and maybe this is the precise moment in which they finally meet. I love them both. They are both treasures of the medium. I don’t mind observing this.

The sheer spectacle of the cast alone is worth noting. There’s McConaughey and Chastain, of course; Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon! Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Timothée Chalamet, David Oyelowo, Wes Bentley...I officially ran out of space in the number of labels Blogger let me add, that’s how rich this cast is. Some roles are larger than others. Every one of them is worth admission.

It is a transcendent experience. For me, that’s the height of cinema, the ability to reach well beyond the normal, not merely some beautifully told tale, but one that’s a truly singular experience, that could not be duplicated in another medium, that uses all the available tools to maximum effect, a convergence of epic talent and vision.

The very strange thing is that Arrival is very much at the same level and tells much the same story and is as tall an achievement, and I don’t much think of them as rivals, and they were in theaters within two years of each other. That’s pretty stellar.

The Old Man & the Gun (2018)

rating: ****

the story: An old bank robber proves charm is his greatest weapon.

review: I've become a huge fan of director David Lowery.  Last year's A Ghost Story was a creative masterpiece and career highlight following previous films promising great potential (Ain't Them Bodies Saints, the live action Pete's Dragon).  However, he's one of the young directors of his generation who's found it tough to find much popular, much less visible critical success.  Scoring what's billed as Robert Redford's final role is probably a good way to get some attention.  The results are once again worthy of the potential.

Redford was at the head of another creative generation, one of the brightest acting talents to come out of the '60s, where he made one of his earliest standout films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where he first teamed up with Paul Newman (they struck again with The Sting), and set the tone for what Lowery evokes with The Old Man & the Gun.  Redford made a career out of his effortless charm. His most recent mainstream role was as a bad guy in the MCU, the Marvel superhero Avengers franchise.  I feared that this was how younger moviegoers were going to end up remembering him, and maybe they still will, but at least now he gets to go out on a high note, one that's all his own.

The idea of the "good" rogue is at least as old as Robin Hood, the criminal as likable, even defensible.  Casey Affleck, who also appeared in Ghost Story and Ain't Them Bodies Saint, and as such has easily become a signature Lowery collaborator (he starred with Rooney Mara in them, and I wish she'd appeared in this one, too), plays a cop who eventually sympathizes with Redford's bank robber after spending most off the movie trying to catch him.  Tom Waits (arguably continuing to reap the benefits of being Heath Ledger's purported model for his iconic Joker in The Dark Knight) and Danny Glover play Redford's fellow crooks, while Sissy Spacek plays a woman who falls for his charms in a purely romantic sense.

By the time Lowery allows himself to become showy (the whole thing is actually his filmmaking as more accessible, beyond Redford's appeal, than he's been in the past), playfully chronicling Redford's many jailbreaks, setting up the ending, you can appreciate the subtlety of the storytelling even more.  A lot of other directors would've dwelt on that element a lot longer, and thus lost the point, and taken the focus off of Redford himself.  But we do get a brief look at vintage Redford screen footage during the montage, and that's another great way to help say goodbye.  In an era where we're suddenly resurrecting dead actors via CGI seemingly without batting an eye, remembering we have old footage available, and knowing how to use it, seems a lot more, well, artful.

And "artful" is what The Old Man & the Gun is all about, the art of moviemaking, the old charms, the timeless charms, and adding to them, explaining them, maybe. 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

*****

directed by: Andrew Dominik
starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, Mary-Louise Parker, Zooey Deschanel

Released in 2007.

One of my hallmarks of great storytelling is knowing your characters.  It's not always essential to base the entire story around exploring these characters so much as what happens to them, but it certainly helps.  This is a movie about Robert Ford, not Jesse James.  As the title suggests, Ford killed James, and this is an attempt to explain why.

Actually, that's half the fascination for me about Assassination of Jesse James, that it doesn't feature the more famous of its subjects as the lead.  In this movie, Jesse James is more myth than man.  All his best banditry is in the past.  He's actually just a man, but he's most definitely a myth to Robert Ford, who has grown up reading about Jesse and all but fallen in love with him (although that's more implied than explicit).  The basic plot is Robert signing up to be a part of Jesse's last big job and the gang's efforts to then fade away.

Now, obviously the notoriety of Jesse James works both ways.  He'll have had his admirers.  He'll also have had the authorities gunning for him.  Robert Ford ends up straddling both, once he finally sees behind the curtain he previously held in front of Jesse.  That's how he ends up standing behind the famous outlaw as Jesse stands on a chair to some dusting.  It's a moment that's repeated several times at the back-end of the movie, first as it really happens and later as Robert recreates it for the stage.  Because it's Robert's movie, it continues after the title event, as the so-called coward tries to come to peace with what he's done.

Robert Ford is portrayed by Casey Affleck, the younger brother of Ben Affleck.  Although Casey has cared a pretty respectable career for himself, he's nowhere near the league of his brother.  For one, he has a softer voice that he either can't or won't mask.  It's an ideal feature for a youthful and naive character like Robert Ford, a sycophant who definitely suggests the sickness of such a role.  You have sympathy for him, sometimes, and at others you despise him.

Which is funny, because the man he shoots was not a good man.  Well, maybe some people could construe Jesse James in a positive light.  In this movie he's played by the bigger star, Brad Pitt.  I've long been interested in the career of Pitt.  He's filled it with contradictory roles, mostly because he's terrified of being defined only by his physical appearance.  Jesse James is certainly one of those contradictory roles, and maybe it's exactly right to cast a big star in the role, to signal to the audience in an immediate way that aside from everything else this was a guy who knew how to draw attention to himself.  There would always be a lot more to him than someone like Robert Ford could comprehend, and yet he was also exactly what his historical reputation marks him out to be: a bad apple.

Yet Pitt finds the human in him, enough so that you're forced to remember that in Robert's mind this was a horribly complicated situation.  Jesse was a hero to him, Robert's idol, and yet the man didn't live up to the myth.  Robert quite deliberately shot him in the back.  Pitt doesn't make the role too flashy, which is an underrated specialty of his.  Occasionally he'll take a role like in Twelve Monkeys where he's a spastic attraction, but that speaks more to Pitt's range than any particular style.  In the end he's exactly what he wants to be, and that's not just a pretty face.  Assassination of Jesse James is his best film.

Director Andrew Dominik, who's still only at the start of a brilliant career, hits an unmistakable milestone with this film.  It's divisive, because it's meditative where most viewers prefer action or clever characters, but it's also one of the most gorgeous movies you'll ever see.  It's also got, behind Pitt and Affleck, plenty of supporting actors you'l love to watch navigate the film, including Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, and Zooey Deschanel.