Barbenheimer Part 2

Let’s begin by saying how lucky we are here in San Francisco to have a proper IMAX theatre. One of about 40 in the whole world capable of showing Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in the way it was shot: IMAX 70mm film. The image quality is beyond anything digital is currently capable of, and the vastness of the multi-story screen utterly fills the peripheral vision. It is indeed motion picture film at its qualitative zenith. Kudos to Nolan for being just about the only director to fully use this fantastic medium.

This is why whenever there’s a new Nolan release, I make it a point to go see it in IMAX. Sadly, didn’t do that for Tenet, because of the bloody pandemic.

You’re going to be disappointed if you’re coming into Oppenheimer looking for a Michael Bay-style romp about the atomic bomb explosion. This movie is a pure character piece on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer vis a vis the invention of nuclear weaponry. And as a character piece, Oppenheimer is superbly done. The audience is with the titular character practically the entire time. The story structure can be a bit Nolan-esque (read: it jumps around), but the whole story gathers itself nicely once the picture is complete.

Of course, a character piece can only be done with brilliant acting. There’s superb acting talent in Oppenheimer, and superb acting all around. The highlights are, expectedly, Cillian Murphy (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Robert Downey Jr (Lewis Strauss). and Emily Blunt (Kitty Oppenheimer).

I really like this movie, and will definitely see it again - but with captions. There's so much detail in the dialogue, but somehow Nolan refuses to mix the speaking parts louder. It's been an ongoing thing since The Dark Knight Rises. Other than that, the sound design/score is magnificent. Particularly during the trinity test sequence: as the atomic bomb explodes, all manner of sound was cut. After a bit, the loudest bang you can think of pops shockingly in. This perfectly mimicks how physics work: you see before you hear, because light travels faster than sound.

For a film that’s three hours long, there needs to be an intermission in the middle for people to take a breather and a bathroom break. For Oppenheimer, the perfect place to break is exactly where you think it is.

Get your popcorn here!

Dunkirk is a masterpiece

Finally got to see Dunkirk earlier this evening, in IMAX of course, and the film is a cinematic masterpiece. Just the visuals alone is worth the price of admission. Director of Photography Hoyte van Hoytema is an absolute master in framing and light manipulation (handheld IMAX camera shots!). Add that to on-location filming in actual Dunkirk with Hans Zimmer’s heart-thumping score, it was as if I was watching a war documentary in VR, which is to say, utterly immersive. 

And (spoiler) to end the film with a narration of Winston Churchill's famous speech! Ah, so brilliant. As a sort of history-buff, it brought a smile to my face. 

Christopher Nolan does well indeed to interweave a story, hitting specific marks and rhythms to draw the emotion out of the audience. A more linear storyline would not have had the same amounts of gravity and impact. Nolan isn’t performing a show of history lesson per-se, but rather he is placing you in the drama, shaking and shattering your senses. Dunkirk in its entirety is as if the total chaos of Saving Private Ryan’s opening Normandy sequence was the whole of the film. 

You are utterly short-changing yourself if you don't see Dunkirk in proper 70MM IMAX film projection. It's the only medium acceptable for such a spectacle, to see the ideal that Nolan had in mind. People speak of heading to the theatre for the cinematic experience; watching films shot with an IMAX camera in a proper IMAX theatre is that epitome.