In Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a fair amount is made of Klaus Fuchs, the German theoretical physicist who passed secrets from Los Alamos to the Soviet Union. But nowhere in this substantive blockbuster do we hear about Theodore Hall. A wunderkind physicist from Far Rockaway, New York City, recruited to the …
Read More »The 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' Double Feature Left Me Questioning Reality Itself
The double feature is something of a bygone pleasure. Sure, repertory theaters will curate stacked showings of classic fare or art house favorites for the cultured cinephile in us, but the first-run double — one you might randomly drop into knowing little about either movie — seems the relic of …
Read More »'Barbenheimer' Asks: Who Ruin the World? Men.
This weekend, legions of movie lovers will descend upon theaters, popcorn in hand and catheter in place, girding themselves for the single most unlikely double feature ever conceived by the internet. When it was announced that Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan‘s big-budget, bigger-canvas biopic about the man dubbed “the father of the …
Read More »We Need to Talk About Those 'Oppenheimer' Sex Scenes
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and two films explore that abiding Robert Burns proverb this week: Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s IMAX-sized three-hour biopic of the “father of the atomic bomb,” and Barbie, a Mattel-sanctioned deconstruction of the patriarchy from the fertile mind of Greta Gerwig. Only …
Read More »Composer: 'Oppenheimer' Score Goes Beyond What's 'Humanly Possible'
What are the hallmarks of a Christopher Nolan film? Immense IMAX imagery. Starry ensembles. Long takes. Tight, geometric compositions. Nonlinear story. And, of course, a booming score. For the music to Oppenheimer, a sprawling epic about how J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) became the so-called “father of the atomic bomb” …
Read More »The Young Women Who Unknowingly Helped Create the Atomic Bomb
Rosemary Lane’s boss summoned her to his office. It was important, the doctor told her, and the young nurse followed without question. There, a small group of hospital staff gathered around a radio to listen to President Truman address the nation. There was a remarkable new development in the ongoing …
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