Oppenheimer Review

0:01 You get more out of life when you go out to a movie. I know. I'm with Patrol. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the box office. I'm Jeff Johnson. David Burns is on assignment joining me in his place. Dayton Johnson from the Docking Base seventy seven podcast. Hello and hello in that thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, man, absolutely, Man, it is the biggest box office weekend we've had, probably since the last Avengers movie. Talking about the probably talking about the Barbenheimer event and Dayton, let's uh, if you're ready, I don't think we need to countdown. Let's discuss Oppenheimer, the atomic bomb. We can end this war.

1:00 To my start a chain reaction. It's full ignite atmosphere from Christopher Nolan everything. There's a chance that when we push that button we destroy the world. Blot Robert Downey, Junior, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and Phillian Murphy is open Nheimer in theaters July twenty first, Ready to r Okay, let's get into this. We just heard that that promo mentioned just several names of this all star cast. Let's talk. Let's talk about this cast a little bit, Dadon, sure. I mean, you know with in the movies like this, with the cast, I mean, you have so many big names you have you know, Matt Damon, of course, you have Killian Murphy, Emily Blunt, and it's a massive cast.

1:55 It's huge, I mean, and it's not just a bunch of extras. There's a lot of speaking parts and you know it, and there's some surprises, especially towards the end. I won't I won't drop the name because you know, I mean, they can find out IMDb. But it was we had to see it, and I'm for us, right, Yeah, it was a nice surprise. Yeah, I'll tell you what. Let's we know. Let let's talk about Killey Murphy for a second. Yes, hauntingly similar in appearance to the actual Jay Robert Oppenheimer. Would you not? Would you not agree? Yeah, they did a really good job making him, you know, doing They didn't have to do a lot because he does have some similar features. But yeah, he really uh not only looks apart, but embraced that part and it comes across very well on the screen. He looks amazing and he does a fantastic job. Yeah. Oh yeah, and I believe he lost a significant amount of weight to play the role. Right.

2:52 I heard Emily Blunt on an interview saying that he lived off of cigarettes and almonds for a couple couple of months. But that doesn't sound healthy to me. No, but hey, you know, you suffer for your work, right. Uh, He's he's amazing in this movie. I mean, every time he speaks, you can't take your eyes off him. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, I mean and then, uh, you know, we have a private Ryan is now a colonel. You know, Matt Damon shows up, you know, looking looking a little older, but definitely looking the part of aging colonel for sure. But yeah, he was great too. He definitely brought it. I gotta tell you. I don't know if you've seen it. Nineteen eighty nine, a movie called Fat Man and Little Boy.

3:37 No, it's basically so basically, Oppenheimer is like the expanded director's a cut edition of that movie. It's it's a fantastic movie. It's all about making it's all about the Manhattan Project. Paul Newman plays the role that Matt Damon plays in this in this movie, and I love Matt Damon in it. I mean, I couldn't get it off of his character, and maybe that's I went into I watched Fatman a Little Boy for the first time a couple couple a couple weeks ago, so that character is like, oh, I can't wait to see that character in Christopher Nolan's movie. And uh, yeah, loved him, loved him. He brought some a little bit of comedic levity here and there, which I wouldn't say Paul Newman does but probably not. Probably not. Yeah, and well, this is a kind of topic you definitely need a little bit of levity, you know. And yeah, sometimes because it's a it's such a serious subject and when you're looking at I mean, you know, Christopher Nolan's always known for his casts. I mean, he's a fantastic film filmmaker, but he always seems to get some great people in the movie and gets great performances out of all of them. You know, it's not like just you know, a couple of standouts, but man, you know, Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh showing up, uh you know, And it took me until the credits I realized that was Tom Conti playing Albert Einstein. Though every time you's gonna wait, I know, that face. Who the hell is that Emily Blunt? I gotta be honest, And this is not a This is nothing against her performance, because her performance is incredible. Her care there, you know, you know, she plays Kitty Oppenheimer, his wife, highly unlikable for I would say a majority of

5:10 the movie for me. But man, does she have She's got a moment where she shines and just oh yeah, you just cheer for her, you love it. Yeah, I don't know. Um, I also kind of feel like, I mean, I know the movie is not really obviously it's not about her, but it is about his family, and I don't I don't think we got enough for her. You know, she makes the most of her of her scenes, but yeah, I kind of feel like a little bit more, you know, a little bit more would have been nice. I mean, look, you know, more of Emily Blunt is always nice. More of Florence Pugh, especially in this movie, would have been would have been really nice. Yeah, she's one of the hottest young actors out there right now, does a fantastic job. But man, at what three hours and fifteen minutes, I don't know how much more you can you can fit in this movie? Yeah, and and yeah there was. Like I said, it's a huge cast. I mean, and as we're watching it, people are popping on the screen. I'm like, wait, I know who that is. I mean first, you know, when Josh Hartneck come on the screen, I was like, um, wait, is that who I think that is. I'm thinking, I haven't seen this guy in like what feels like twenty years Hardness, Hardness back Man. And he looks he looks fantastic. Yeah he does. I mean he read had a great job. You know, he's not really known for being a strong actor, but he did a great job. You think back to like the late nineties when the rumors, you know, there's like he was gonna be our next Superman Man. You could have had ten Superman movies at this point with him because he still looks incredible. Yeah, yeah, moving, I don't know, there's so many people, like you said, they keep popping up the screen. Matthew Modine, Kenneth Brandon, everyone is in this movie. It's

6:44 it's a you know, Alden, Aaron Reich. You know, we didn't even talk about Ardie j I mean playing Lewis Strass. Yes, Like I said, so many big names and then the ones I like I enjoyed were the names the little people in like, wait a minute, I know who that is, so I would just want to call it a couple of them because they're because of the magnitude of the of the cast. It was fun to see some of these people in here, because you have Alex Wolfe, known very well for Hereditary, who was also recently an old and of course got it started in The Naked Brothers Band on Nickelodeon, which is just hilarious. Olivia Thurbley from Juno and of course one of my favorite comic book adaptations, Dread. She was in that Michael I always messed up his name, Michael and Gerano from Sky High, he played young William and almost famous.

7:31 He plays Jackson and will and Grace. And he's also in Kevin Smith's a very dark movie Red State. So you got you know, some not so big names but faces you kind of recognize. And of course Josh Peck shows up, you know, best known for playing Josh and Drake and Josh from Nickelodeon. It was just kind of like, hey, wait, I know that a lot of people pop up in this movie that you're their faces are familiar, and they all do a great job. You know. No, there's no lines wasted, there's no you know, there's no timewast in this movie. It's fantastic. Not a bad performance. And I'll cut us both off right there, because if we continue to talk about this cast, this this quick review will turn into a right an an hour long thing. So h not a bad performance in the bunch though, but the film itself, I daton. I feel like everyone you're going to this movie, you're expecting this big epic action event. This is a very slow paced, hard boiled drama. You know, almost like a mystery, you know, kind of reminded me of like if you if you like um, if you like Stone, Oliver Stone's JFK, something along those lines where it's it just really it's like an onion, just you're peeling back layers and you're learning more and more.

8:43 It feels more like that, what do you think? I think you're right. But what I noticed very much so was that you have a very dry topic. It's a historical film. You're talking about time in our country, and the subject matter isn't exactly quote unquote exciting. But how Nolan shoots it and how he paces the editing. It's almost like he put together an action movie style into a drama. The camera's always moving, whether it's just a little subtle thing here or there. There's no stagnant shots. The editing is very quick, quick you move from a scene to scene, and there's some sections just where they use the sound to set the moment and really punctuate so and sometimes lack of sound does the same thing. This movie, for as long as it is, never feels that long, and he just he puts together. It's just it moves so well. And it's not an action movie. It's not a it's not a thriller so to speak. It's not a science fiction epic. It's not you know, we're not in Gotham City.

9:50 We're talking about an historical you know, time in this country and the people around it. But it moves. It's fun, fun to watch, it's beautiful to watch, and it's interesting and he keeps it moving so you're never bored. And I think that's incredibly impressive considering the subject matter. It was great, so well put together. I agree, And this is a this is I feel this is a fresh step for Christopher Nolan because we're so used to these big epic event films for him where he kind of pulls the rug from under your feet at the end. You know, he's got like a Shamalan thing happening. This is this is more like you said, it's a biography. It's it's a it's a slow burn, it's it's very informative.

10:31 But yet the camera's always moving, so ye can't it can't. Can't disagree with you on that. Um one thing that you get in Nolan's films, you always get amazing You always get amazing music to go along with it. Yes, uh Ludwig Ludwig Gordson's score for this Man. At times it's a lullaby and at times it's scary. Yeah, I looked. I wasn't one hundred percent familiar with with him, so I looked up other uf he's done. Of course he's worked with uh Nolan quite a bit, but of course he's also done uh Black Panther and stuff like that. So I'm like, wow, you know, I could start listening and thinking about that, Like, you know, he did a great job on this one. It definitely it does its job. It doesn't overpower any scenes. It compliments everything that it needs to be. It doesn't tell you what to think, it doesn't tell you how to feel. It just works well with what's going on on the screen. And that's, you know, not always an easy thing to do. You mentioned like the silence, how important to silence is sometimes in this movie. I wouldn't change a thing on that. I love the pacing, love the editing. Um. I think this is a home run for for for Christopher Nolan. Do you absolutely it? I mean, I'm a I'm a Nolan fan. I have not seen Tenant, but that's pretty much the only one of his movies I haven't seen, and I really enjoy the fact that it's it's just a you know, it's just a story.

11:54 There's no spies involved, there's no we're not you know, traveling from other planet to planet. We're not you know, we're not bending people's minds and going through their dreams. This is it's a it's a straightforward story from the most part, you know, Like you mentioned, we're appealing layers were trying to get gather information. But I love the fact that he has said, you know what, I'm just gonna tell a story without all the you know, all without all the tricks and he did a such a great job. If if I would like, I'll bet this movie it's every Oscar nomination that possibly can and I will be It will probably get the most uh this year.

12:35 You know, it'll have the most dominations because everything, there's nothing in this movie that I can complain about. It's amazing. Well i'll tell you, I'll tell you what else is amazing. Get yourself a four K Blu ray copy of Tenant, because you are missing out, my friend, I know, back to back to this film. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't, If we didn't, uh send a thank you to uh the current Batman himself, Robert Pattinson. This movie doesn't even happen. It was. It was kind of put on no one's radar, you know, just based off of the idea that you know, hey, you haven't done a biography of biography before. But uh, it's actually at the rap party for Tenant when Robert Pattinson gives him a book of Oppenheimer quotes and speaks so yeah, so he kind of went down the rabbit hole and said, yep, this is my next this is my next picture. So, uh, Dayton, we saw it in a sold out Imax crowd. Yes, um, I love it. Yeah, all weekend long this movie. Uh so far this weekend we're talking about the the Barbenheimer event. You know, this went head to head with Barbie. Uh, let's just talk about Oppenheimer for a second. It's Nolan's third highest grossing opening weekend ever, the biggest thing for Imax for Nolan that he's ever done. And uh, as of this point, Oppenheimer is headed for just over eighty million dollars domestic ninety three point seven million dollars overseas. It has literally and figuratively exploded that. So I ask

14:11 you, well played, well play it? Yeah, So I ask you, Uh, Dayton, what do you got for our listeners? Do they see it? Do they stream it? Or do they skip it? I could tell it. So. I mean people are flocking to it, and there might be some people to go. I'll I'll wait because of the subject matter. I'll watch it at home. But I think you're doing yourself a terrible injustice. If you sit at home and watch this, it will not look the same, will not feel the same. This is definitely a see it, definitely a see it. My controversial take would be I don't necessarily think you need you need to see it in Imax. No, I don't think you do either. There's one there's one scene, and we all know the scene, the Trinity Test, which looks fantastic on the Imax screen.

14:52 But I feel like, you know, you don't need an Imax screen to tell a very dark, moody, compelling drama. Uh, you know of American history. So I say, I say see it. Dayton says, see it if you can get into the box office. I know we tried several days and you know for sold out shows, and we got lucky on a ten thirty. We didn't even sit together, that's how packed it was, right, But yeah, definitely see this one. Uh. And as always, I'll buy the tickets and if you went, Dayton, he'll buy the popcorn. That's right, We'll see