CONTRARY BRIN: Oppenheimer

We just watched Oppenheimer. And sure, I am grateful that Christopher Nolan is making the kind of sprawling, deeply-moving and meaningful delights for mind and senses that David Lean used to do. Like Lean, Nolan simply can’t make films without the Difficulty Multiplier cranked up way past 11 (more like 1100!), which is why his one (so far) perfect film – Inception – should have won Best Picture not just of the year but the decade! And maybe more.

(Again, a near perfect film, Inception also (alas) nearly left me permanently deafened!)

Okay, regarding Oppenheimer, well, the vast cast of characters might have seemed bloated to some – not to me, since I had met several and knew the stories of almost all the rest, and even barely-glimpsed figures were treated with some effort at fairness and accuracy – even Teller. (I suspect that some reviewers didn’t complain about cast-bloat since they didn’t want to look ignorant.) In any event, I enjoyed the completist tour of mid century physicists and have no complaints (of any substance) about that.

Still, despite having my 99% enthusiastic approval, Oppenheimer did have aspects that one could (perhaps) call flaws, or just nitpick a little.  I do wish that there had been more physics! Oh, sure, Nolan brilliantly inserted brief snippets, like Oppie’s and Bethe’s delight when Niels Bohr reported on Heisenberg’s mistakes handling the Nazi atomic program, showing them that the Manhattan Project would likely win the race.