MOVIE: Oppenheimer (2023)

by benmweilertNo Comments
OppenheimerYear: 2023Rating: RLength: 180 minutes / 3.00 hours Christopher Nolan's filmography has been building to this movie. Over decades, Nolan has had gimmicks in his films that make them stand out. Oppenheimer (2023) uses many of them to create a compelling story that's half scientific discovery and half political drama. That a movie like this—about unleashing the Pandora's box of nuclear weapons—hadn't been made like this before is perhaps the more impressive feat. The way Nolan weaves the two halves of the story together is masterful. However, the actors definitely do a lot of heavy lifting here. It took me a second viewing to piece together that the black-and-white segments followed Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) while the color segments focused on J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). This visual stylization hearkened back to the way Nolan made Memento (2000) unique. The shifted timelines between the black-and-white/color segments evoked Dunkirk (2017)., I'm just glad that I could actually understand what everyone was saying,...
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MOVIE: Belfast (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Belfast Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours It seems a little odd to me that there are so many films that focus on historic events, but this is the first one I've seen about "The Troubles" in Ireland. I was loosely aware of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in late-1960s Ireland, but Belfast (2021) felt like the first time anyone brought this topic to the big screen. It's clearly a personal story for director Kenneth Branagh, which is likely how it gained its notoriety in the lead-up to awards season. The problem with Belfast, though, lies in some of its inconsistencies. I understand that Schindler's List (1993) can get away with incorporating moments of color in an otherwise black-and-white film. However, when it happened in Belfast, it completely pulled me out of the story. It would have been much better to just keep the monochromatic aesthetic throughout instead of trying to be artistically edgy. I don't consider 1969 as a...
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MOVIE: Tenet (2020)

by benmweilert1 Comment
TenetYear: 2020Rating: PG-13Length: 150 minutes / 2.50 hours I'll admit: I probably have to watch this movie again. I'm usually pretty good at unraveling a Christopher Nolan movie when I watch it for the first time. Not since Memento (2000), have I had such a difficult time piecing together the intertwining timelines. At least with Memento, I was aided by the black-and-white sections. In Tenet (2020), time moves in both directions in the same scene. Sure, this is a visually-stunning feat, but it's often a slap in the face of the Grandfather Paradox, which Tenet simply waves away with a shrug and a "don't worry about it." What's interesting is how moments of foreshadowing in this film triggered my "lightbulb reflex" each time the corresponding portion of the plot came into focus and gave me the "aha moment." I'm sure I'll pick up more of these when I watch it a second time. As it stands after a single viewing, my mind...
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