Oppenheimer
"Amateurs seek the sun, get eaten. Power stays in the shadows."
Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' is a genre defining biopic that depicts one of the most conflicted and misunderstood figures in recent history. This film is stunning with an all-star cast that all deliver career high performances. The highlightable examples include RDJ, Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy. RDJ gives his greatest ever performance in Oppenheimer really encapsulating the inferiority complex of Lewis Strauss and his unending righteous crusade against Cillian Murphy. His facial expressions and line delivery are the clear highs. He does such a wonderful job as the films antagonist. Emily Blunt is truly wonderful, my favourite scene is when she refuses Teller's handshake in the courtroom, and the sucking of her tongue really brings out the disgust she feels towards that man, as she stands alongside her husband. Cillian Murphy does a really great job as the tortured Oppenheimer, his early scenes at university with Niels Bohr are some of my favourites because of the visual extravaganza Nolan puts on. I remember watching this in cinema's back on July 23rd 2023 and have my eyes and ears assaulted by the brilliance of the Trinity Test scene and while this scene is still wonderful at home, it does lack some of the oomph present in theatres and really represents the damage to this film from the theatre to home transition. In the context of the home silver screen experience a scene that has driven itself to the forefront of my experience was Oppenheimer's visceral victory speech in Los Alamos is some of the most terrifying footage in Nolan's filmography and has you both leaning in for more and reeling away from the terror of what is shown. Its brutality and deafening sound design showed us Nolan's penchant for the horrifying well before The Odyssey. This film deserved every single award it won and it is still probably Nolan's magnum opus despite Inception being held closer to my heart due to my experience with that film. This is probably Nolan's best film, despite it not being my personal favourite. A landmark film of numerous landmark films this maniac has given us.