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Thoughts on Oppenheimer

Monday 6/24/24

I'm trying to watch Oppenheimer. I find myself actually laughing at how inept it is, how juvenile. How can you make something this bad and be like, "I'm a great artist, here's some great art"? I mean, I know. People will play along with you because of their issues and shortcomings and insecurities. Their gnawing need to have others think of them a certain way based on what they say is great.


You see this all the time in publishing, academia, with wanna-be intellectuals, people who want to pass themselves off as having excellent taste in music and film. But she's riding him, then stops to get a book written in Sanskrit from the shelf, then is like "Read me this Sanskrit" and he's all, "Okay, 'I am death, aren't I scary, I am big bad bad death,' let's have some orgasms," as she slips him back in and she's riding him again and he keeps reading that Sanskrit and it's like come on, what is wrong with you? Can you not see how stupid this is? Who acts like this? Imagine if someone did? You'd fall on the floor laughing. Are you this out of touch? Are you like some melodramatic drama club teen? Are you being deep? This is you being deep, huh? Is this art?


Yeah! It's art time, bitches!


Is that what you think? You're being arty?


Holy shit is that bad. Then later the riding is reprised during whatever that investigation is, and the fantasy version of her is in the room, doing the riding of him in his chair (because jump cut, he's naked!), looking at an actual woman sitting in a chair behind him--wow, that's so psychologically penetrating, as the penetration occurs, no less--in the corner of the room, but it's in his head or whatever, because now we're just dropping in some bad Netflix teen drama fantasy scene only-it's-not-just-a-fantasy-scene in a quasi-biopic.


And I just thought, "You are so bad at this, sir. But you have a certain kind of minion fooled, don't you? And they're just going to lap at your balls, regardless of your twaddle."


Because once you have the brand, you can roll out the shit, and more shit, and it's automatically going to be called whatever people think it's supposed to be called because of the stamp of the brand. Hyped, awarded, all of the shit for the shit. The key: Get the stamp. Once you're stamped, you're all set.


I feel like you need to be simple and unexposed to things in life (or just really wrong this time out; hey, it happens)--like you've partook of so little work of any actual quality--for you to think this is great art and take it seriously.


Or you're up to something. You're being disingenuous. You have a pose you want to strike. A way you wish to come across.


And I get what people do, the "appeal" and what this is really about, what the real value is, if you want to call it value. It's so people can think: This is a movie--no, smart people say "film"--about complex science and deep issues and death itself and I just watched all three hours of it, and I understood it, therefore I am cultured, and sophisticated, an intellectual, and smart!


It's a con. That's how the con works. That's who it works on.


Christopher Nolan is like Salman Rushdie in that he's terrible at what he does and people just say empty words of praise they don't mean because they want to try and pass themselves off as smart. This is much more junior high than it is genius. The AI bubble synopsis type of writing, the total lack of characterization.


You want to have a film about a genius, or whatever along those lines, you can't just tell people he's that. It has to come across. We have to know why he's special that way because we see and experience that genius. We have reason to think it ourselves. Having other characters who are as flat as a postage stamp say it doesn't do it. But when you're not a genius, or even any good at what you're doing, you can't convey genius because you have no clue what being a genius is like. And Matt Damon. That's embarrassing. Barking his simplistic "I'm a hard ass military guy" lines. And take better care of yourself, brother. Run some stairs.



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