Film: Oppenheimer

Today, it was film - but a couple of big releases were not yet rated when I wrote this preview the other night. Failing those, what was coming up was Squaring the Circle, a documentary about Hipgnosis, which handled the artwork for many iconic albums.. Can't say I've ever heard of them, but it sure does have famous contributors! Showing in the Curzon Bloomsbury - so not a hardship.

But now that those major releases are rated.. it came out to be Oppenheimer, which has an unusually high rating for a mainstream film! Directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, it has Cillian Murphy in the title role, with Emily Blunt as his wife, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, the general and engineer who oversaw the Manhattan Project, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, the politician involved, Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, who was part of the British mission to the Manhattan Project, having fled to Britain by that stage, Tom Conti as Einstein, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, who initiated and initially led the Manhattan Project, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, who was having an affair with Oppenheimer, Rami Malek as David Hill, a physicist on the Manhattan Project, Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, the military intelligence officer who investigated leaks on the Manhattan Project, and also looked into Nazi Germany's atomic capability, and Gary Oldman as Truman! Crikey, were they all there to walk out of the film premiere recently..? Anyway, the trailer looks absolutely awesome. Also showing in the same cinema.

As it happened, with one thing and another, of all the showings today, the only one convenient for me was the 5.30pm - the last one was a bit late, at 8.20, considering it's three hours long! and it would have been a rush to get to the 5pm - the earlier ones just weren't an option. I am so glad I just thought to check, at about 4.33, whether the 5.30 was selling out - there was precisely one seat left! on the aisle, as I like, but in the very front row. Ah well.. the next problem was trying to remember my password! On my last attempt before being locked out, I managed it and booked that seat.

I got there a little early, to find the lady in the next seat had left her bag on mine. I had to ask her to move it - as I said, I wouldn't mind, but the showing seemed to be completely sold out.. it is a small screen.

Trailers started with, of all things, the full-length version of that damned Estrella Damm ad that I keep getting while I'm playing phone games - the one with Bad Gyal. At least now I know the full story - it isn't clear from the abbreviated version. But I still hate it - I know she's entitled to wear what she likes, and appear as she likes, but those ridiculously long nails! My enduring memory of it is her lifting a bottle of the beer to her lips at the end, and you can see these talons sticking out over the bottle - yuck. Same with the longer version of the ad.

Happily, the actual film started 20 minutes in. Now, this - at, as mentioned, three hours, is a marathon. You could divide it into thirds - the actual creation and deployment of the bomb is in the middle third. It's apparently based on a Pulitzer-prize-winning book, which I haven't read, but which might be where this structure comes from. The first third focuses more on his academic career, and is where we initially meet many of the more famous scientists. I loved all the talk about quantum mechanics, actually - when I studied it, I remember thinking it was the most counter-intuitive thing ever. Throughout, however, as if to remind us why we're there, the scenes keep being punctuated by scenes and sounds reminiscent of explosions.

By the middle third, he's an established academic, and something of a ladies' man - expect plenty of nudity from Florence Pugh. And this third is, of course, what everyone's been waiting for. Christopher Nolan doesn't disappoint, teasing us and leading us to a phenomenal conclusion.

Of course, once the bomb - his baby, really - is built, nobody wants to listen to him. He's one of the many scientists conscientiously objecting to its actual use, or at least to the use of anything more powerful (like the H-bomb) - not popular to hear, at the start of the Cold War. The final third of the film depicts his victimisation in a Machiavellian plot - interestingly, JFK is called out, near the end of the film, as someone leading the condemnation of what has been done to Oppenheimer. A fascinating display of ruthlessness, and the victims' reaction to it, is depicted in this third.

In summary - don't go just expecting to see an explosion. You do get that, but there's an awful lot of his life story to wade through as well. As I say, it's something of a marathon - but Cillian Murphy has described this as Christopher Nolan's Magnum Opus: Robert Downey Jr. says it's Christopher Nolan's best work ever. And they could well be right. Certainly, it's a wonderful exploration of the man that built the bomb.

Afterwards, I was just nicely in time to eat in GBK - I checked, and they close at 10. Mind you, they stopped eat-in service for new customers by 9.30, switching to takeaway only. For the first time ever, they got my order wrong - she apologised profusely, saying they'd hit the wrong button! I also heard her apologising to the chef. She offered me another glass of wine to compensate for me having to wait, but I passed - it'd have been too much of a rush. I held onto the fries she brought, which staved off my hunger for the 10 minutes or so it took to redo my order. Finished at about 9.50. All worked out well, I could even shop afterwards!

Tomorrow, booked with TAC to see The Pioneers in The Forge. Last I heard, it was closing down - I guess it's under new management.

On Wednesday, with Up in the Cheap Seats for an opera at the Arcola, as part of Grimeborn - this is No for an Answer.

On Thursday, it's also looking like film - what was coming up was a documentary, again in the Curzon Bloomsbury, called Iraq's Invisible Beauty. Ah, but.. Squaring the Circle doesn't seem to be on that day. And guess what? Barbie comes higher-rated than what I'd planned to see! Again, the trailer looks excellent - stars Margot Robbie, with Ryan Gosling as Ken. Lots and lots of pink. Showing in - you guessed it - Curzon Bloomsbury - at lots of times, which should work well with my removal to my new flat that day.

Then I'm back to Ireland for the weekend again. Film is looking like Talk to Me - now, this is curious, because the trailer looks really familiar, but when I watch it, I don't remember watching the film - fair enough, but does that mean it's a re-release? The release date is last year, so it'd have to be recent. Anyway, it involves a group of friends conjuring spirits by means of an embalmed hand. Produced by A24, the SFX were apparently done by a couple of brothers famous on YouTube! Showing at a decent time in Limerick Odeon - no word yet about Limerick Omniplex's listings. And ironically, The Hideout / London Movie Club are seeing the same film in London that day! Pity I can't join them.

Next Monday, as I won't have started a job by then, even if I have secured one, I've signed up for A Summer's Day in Hyde Park, with Paul and Tim's Greater London Talks and Walks. Hope the weather is kind..

On the 1st, back with TAC for a play called The Grain Store, set in Stalinist Russia, and showing in the Mack@Mountview - yay, for once, something closer to my new place!

And on the 2nd, back at last with The Horror Book Club. It's been a while since they were doing anything I was interested in - but I can hardly miss this, a meeting about The Fog by James Herbert. He remains my favourite horror writer overall, and the best descriptive writer I've ever read - to the extent that he literally changed the way I look at the world. And would you believe it, the club has, apparently, never done anything by him! This is, actually, the book that got me back into horror after an absence of years, during which I was traumatised by my reading of another of his, The Rats.. So, well, I can't miss this, can I? And I've just come across a reading of The Fog by Christopher Lee..