The Telluride Film Festival is in the best position of all the early fall film festivals as it has no red carpet or paparazzi presence, and so the SAG/AFTRA strike won’t be as much of a hindrance as it will be for the Venice and Toronto festivals.
I’m not 100% certain what this Duncan Crabtree-Ireland statement (from Sean McNulty’s7.24Anklercolumn) means but it seems to indicate that there might be a little leeway in the matter of actors promoting product at fall festivals, at least as far as “independent” films (like Woody Allen’s CoupdeChance?) are concerned.
Jordan Ruimy informs that Telluride had been planning a special Annette Bening career tribute, which would have included a special screening of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin‘s Nyad, a “you go, girl!” drama about 60ish long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, which Netflix will distribute. Nyad will apparently debut at Telluride, but no Bening tribute unless the strike is settled. Jodie Foster (as Nyad’s partner Bonnie Stoll) and Rhys Ifans costar.
As HE commenter Kristi Coulter noted a few hours ago, Chris Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been, in fact, dishonestly sold and promoted. Because it’s basically a bait-and-switcher.
It’s not some kind of awesome, slam-bam-whammo atomic bomb film. It’s not a tale of acute scientific obsession or about a fine, fevered, steadily building madness. And it’s not a WWII horror film about the becoming of death and the destroying of worlds or even cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Instead it’s a dialogue-driven saga of a blindingly brilliant but conflicted and finally self-crippling Jewish physicist who oversaw and guided the building of the world’s first atomic bombs (FatMan and LittleBoy) but was mainly out to punish Nazi Germany…his European kin will have vengeance!
But when that quest ended and Japan became the target the physicist didn’t feel the fire as much, and then, in the wake of the deaths of tens of thousands, he turned into a “crybaby” (Harry Truman’s term) and a kind of squishy, under-motivated turncoat in the matter of the H-bomb’s development, and as a result he wound up being persecuted and devoured by Robert Downey, Jr. and the D.C. wolves in 1954 and thereby lost his “security clearance.”
That’s it — that’s what the movie is. The saga of a slender, pipe-smoking, genius-level candy-ass with cold blue eyes. A guy who built the bomb but didn’t want to know or even think about it after the task was completed. Treated unfairly and with cruelty, for sure, but who would argue he didn’t make his own bed?
And who believes that Cillian Murphy’s Oppie was able to feel sexual desire, or was even capable of attaining stiffie-hood? I didn’t buy it for a second, especially in the company of the stocky, short-statured, moon-faced and rather morose Florence Pugh.
On top of which my trapped legs were killing me in that third-row-center seat.
During her 7.18 Oppenheimer screening in Burbank Sasha Stone was hugely bothered by a pair of 20something women who took out their phones around the half-hour mark and were pretty much texting all through it. They didn’t even turn down the brightness levels on their screens.
The first thing I texted Sasha when my Oppie screening ended last night at 10:20 pm was “as much as I condemn phone-surfing during a film and especially during a major blue-chip immersion like Oppenheimer, I understand why those women were texting.”
An unmistakably grade–Aexperience, Oppenheimer could be re-titled Oppenheimer: Interiors as it’s almost all super-smart dialogue, super-smart dialogue and more super-smart dialogue inside rooms (university classrooms, Los Alamos conference rooms, hallways, hotel rooms, dining rooms, the Oval Office).
Okay, the historic New Mexico test explosion of the first atom bomb (7.16.45. 5:29am) happens under an open-air nightscape and there are several other moments that happen outdoors, but still…
The likely truth is that if you’re not at least half in love with the Oppie legend going in — if you haven’t done your homework by having seen TheDayAfterTrinity (free on YouTube) and if you haven’t read “AmericanPrometheus” — your Oppenheimer experience may (emphasis on this word) feel like a big fat Alaskan grizzly bear sitting in your lap, or certainly right next to you.
It feels (and is) long and demanding, and at three hours is certainly a proverbial tough sit. And yet it’s undeniablyafirst–rate, grand–vision, smart–personmovie that absolutely surges with the spirit of semi-tortured genius (I was reminded of similar-toned portions of ABeautifulMind) and is highlychargedineveryrespect and is evenemotionallyengrossing during the persecution-of-Oppie finale (kudos to the “junior Senator from Massachusetts” for voting against the venal Robert Downey Jr.!!).
And I adored viewing this ChristopherNolan film on that tall-as-an-apartment-building, super-sized IMAX screen (I was sitting third-row center), but I’m afraid I’ll need to re-watch it at home with subtitles as I fully understood roughly half of the dialogue, certainly no more than two-thirds. That or I’m simply too fucking dumb to keep up with all the density and complexity.
Not to mention the fact that my poor right knee was aching and moaning in pain as I had no place to shift or maneuver within that tight IMAX seating area, and my knee massages began around the 45-minute mark and never stopped…one of the most challenging IMAX screenings I’ve ever endured.
At the one-hour mark I looked at my watch and said to myself, “oh, dear Lord, this is sobrilliant and dense and tightlywoven and sharplyfocused to a fare-thee-well, and God help me but there’s another two hours to go!”
And man, the Ludwig Goransson score is reallyloud in portions, and certainly during the final act. It throttles and hammers you into submission.
HEtofriendo: “You didn’t feel a tiny little ‘yay!’ surge when it’s mentioned that JFK voted against Downey? I did.”
FriendotoHE: “Naah, that was just a little fun grace note of JFK nostalgia.”
I’ve written respectful, approvingthings about SoundofFreedom, and I strongly disapprove of all the lefty (or woke Stalinist) critics who’ve either panned or refused to review it because of the QAnon nutbag associations.
But I’m off the bus now.
Reason: Last night’s special Donald TrumpscreeningattheBedminster Golf Club, which was also attended by Freedom star JimCaviezel. It’s a very decent film, and it’s just crested $100 million domestic, and theycouldn’tleavewellenoughalone — they had to invite The Beast onto the bus.
I’m not saying “fuck this movie,” but I almost am. As far as I’m concerned Caveizel and associates have poisoned the well.
I happened upon these snaps (actually captures from a briefvideo) on Instagram…@alix_brown via keithmcnallynyc. Right away I was wondering if it’s from a ‘70s French film of some distinction. In and of itself the cigarette is unfortunate, but whattheguydoeswithit is very Alain Delon in La Piscine or…I don’t know, Jean Pierre Leaud in BedandBoard. Back in the day I used to be that guy.
