#this is MY Barbenheimer duo

[chloesimaginationthings]

Okay now Noir and Barbie match

[aot-apricity]

I wish I had the artistic ability to properly pull this off but given I nearly gave up after spending ~4 hours messing around with Hange's hair and visor it could have gone a lot worse! (Still want to attempt a part 2 with Barbie Levi and Oppenheimer Hange, we'll see how that goes).

[yours-etc]

just finished my barbie/oppenheimer double feature. both movies were so incredible i’m going to need like 5-7 business days to emotionally recover.

[paramouradrift]

Nine People You'd Like To Get To Know Better

I was tagged by @transboyzuko, and it's been a minute since I've done anything like this so here goes:

Three Ships: RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic, HMHS Britannic. The only three Olympic-class ocean liners ever built by Harland & Wolff for the White Star Line. Titanic's story is well-known, of course. Britannic was a hospital ship in World War I until she hit a mine in the Aegean and sank. Olympic's career lasted 24 years before she was retired and sold for scrap. Why do I know this? Because I have a morbid fascination with maritime disasters.

First Ever Ship: Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell. I grew up watching Mobile Suit Gundam Wing on Toonami, and these boys were my bias. I still hold this fic up as one of the best I've ever read. Although, thinking about it, my first actual ship was probably Sirius Black/Remus Lupin via The Shoebox Project by dorkorific and ladyjaida, which I first read on Livejournal. But that was less something I actively shipped and more a ship I actively enjoyed.

Last Song: Hypomania, by Coping Method. My music taste currently vacillates between dance pop/electronica and heavy metal.

Last Film: Uh. Fuck, I dunno. I don't watch a lot of movies anymore. I did do a double Barbenheimer over the summer, though.

Currently Reading: So This Is Ever After by F. T. Lukens and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, but progress has been slow. Just prior to starting them both I devoured the Simon Snow trilogy, though, so maybe I just have poor time management skills.

Currently Watching: myself age by steady increments. I also don't watch a lot of TV or streaming series, although that's less from lack of desire to watch and more from being busy with other things. Well, I have been watching Money, Explained, but that's for work and does not therefore count.

Currently Consuming: I'm between hyperfixations at the moment. I have been working my way through Bret Devereaux's collected blog posts on the Battle of Helm's Deep to cope.

Currently Craving: rice. And the next part of Dog's In Love 2. But I can get rice.

I guess I'll tag some folks. Do I even interact with you people enough for this? I'unno. Let's go with: @chiptrillino, @lizardlicks, @three-lesbians-of-the-apocalypse, @schrodingers-bisexual, @deliciousstrawberrythings, @portraitoftheoddity, @sixseisliu, @persnickety-peahen, and @astrababyy

[paperjamdipper]

Now that I’ve finally seen Oppenheimer I can definitively say (in my opinion) which of the Barbenheimer duo the doctors I know would watch:

One: Oppenheimer

Nine: Oppenheimer (but Rose would drag him to see Barbie)

Ten: ✨Barbie✨

Fourteen: Barbie - not for the glam, but because he, like Barbie, must learn how to be a human being

Fifteen: ✨Barbie✨

[cinemagooey]

FEMME FILM

In Celebration of Women Filmmakers

Greta Gerwig as Francis Ha!

Remember when that thing happened called the pandemic?

HAHA! Jk...of course we do. We're still living in a mad, disjointed post-pandemic world, four years later. The pandemic pummeled humanity and just about everything else - Hollywood included.

Covid re-wrote the Hollywood playbook. Theater attendance stopped cold. At-home streaming became standard entertainment practice. The last movie I went to see at the theater before the virus invaded was a little-known 2019 horror flick called The Lodge. I don't remember much about the movie, but, looking back, I feel bittersweet about the experience. How was I to know that would be my last, innocent foray before society unraveled in a such way that going to the movies would never be the same?

So what's the connection between the pandemic and female filmmakers, you might ask? Well, just when the Hollywood studios were on their covid-masked knees begging for something to save the theater experience (and their financial lives), along came:

BARBENHEIMER!

Some say it was Top Gun Maverick/Tom Cruse that saved Hollywood after the virus, but I'm sticking to my pink atomic guns that it was the daring duo of Barbie/Oppenheimer.

WHAT A SUMMER! Those two films energized the movie-going experience like no other and Hollywood was as pumped as tween on Twizzlers and RedBulls.

Nolan's Oppenheimer is epic. It is historical. It is emotional. It is long. It is a history lesson about the annihilating evil that man created and that the world can (literally) be relegated to stardust with the push of a button. Applause, applause! Kudos, Christopher Nolan! Your Academy Awards and other trophies were well deserved!

But Barbie? Greta Gerwig's Barbie is communal. It brought people together for a joyous theatrical excursion. Groups gathered at theaters all over the world, dressed in pink, creating bubble-gum colored watch parties, drunk on the female power the film reminded us we have, and sobered at the admonition that the patriarchy is very real. It was also the highest grossing film of 2023, gracing Hollywood with a 1.4 billion box office gift. Applause, applause! Kudos, Greta Gerwig! Your Academy Awar...

Oh. Wait.

The Academy Awards didn't happen for Barbie, other than best song, which is nice, but...

And them's the brakes (and I do mean brakes as well as breaks) for women in Hollywood. The good old boy network rules in LALA land just like it does everywhere else (click here to see the factual, if not depressing, data).

In this post Cinemagooey raises it's fist in solidarity to women filmmakers everywhere, those heroes of feminine empowerment who buck patriarchal odds to bring their creative vision to life and share it with the world, come hell or highwater.

Highlighted below are just some of the women filmmakers who serve as shining stars and beacons of hope for other film warriors who are following in their path:

ELAINE MAY

Elaine May and Walter Matthau in A New Leaf (1971)

Elaine May is a gift to humanity. A true genius, she's been a Broadway star, film star, playwright, screenwriter and director in her long, illustrious career. If you want to introduce yourself to her prodigious talent, I recommend starting with A New Leaf, in which she performed the Hollywood trifecta: writing, directing and starring in this hilarious black comedy. Other writing/directing credits include: The Heartbreak Kid, Mike and Nickey, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Tootsie, The Birdcage and, famously Ishtar, the film that effectively ended her movie career (here's a little link to that fascinating story). May boasts even more directorial and writing credits, but there's too many to list here. Look her up and prepare to be amazed.

I could go on and on about Elaine May, but I'll save it for a post dedicated exclusively to her and her shining accomplishments. She was one of the early greats who painstakingly forged a path for others in the field.

Today's women filmmakers stand on May's shoulders and owe her a debt of gratitude. Cinemagooey salutes this original, one of a kind bad ass.

With Charles Grodin, directing The Heartbreak Kid

Directing A New Leaf

Schmoozing with the big boys, circa 1980s

NANCY MEYERS

Nancy Meyers is the queen of the cozy romcom. When it comes to LOL-witty love stories that make us swoon, she slays. Meyers is renowned for directing comfy, side-splitting hits such as The Parent Trap (1998), Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Holiday (2006) and It's Complicated (2009), to name a few. She also wrote or co-wrote a number of smash hit screenplays, starting with my favorite, Private Benjamin (1980) but also crafting Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Baby Boom (1987) and the Father of the Bride franchise (1991, 1995 and 2020), just to name a few.

Directing Something's Gotta Give

Meyers is not only famous for her filmmaking acumen, her loyal Instagram fans are obsessed with the houses in her movies, homes that imbue a rich, intimate, put-your-feet-up-by-the-fire-and-let's-have-some-wine kind of coastal vibe. Follow her on Insta. You won't regret it. And watch her movies. You're welcome.

Above: Father of the Bride, starring this house

And the stunning beach home in Something's Gotta Give

PENNY MARSHALL

Penny Marshall Directing Big (1989)

Penny Marshall was a staple in my household in 1976 when she starred as Laverne DeFazio on the television sitcom Laverne and Shirley, about two working class gals sharing an apartment and comedic hijinks in Milwaukee. I loved that show. My sixth grade BFF and I conspired to live just such a life after high school (but with better jobs in a warmer climate). Life can upend the best of plans, howeve - that BFF and I never became Laverne and Shirley and when the show ended, Penny Marshall moved from comedic acting to cinematic directing - lucky for us.

Marshall directed a slew of hits in the 80's and 90s: Jumpin' Jack Flash, Big, Awakenings and The Preacher's Wife. But my all-time favorite is A League of Their Own, starring Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell, Madonna and Tom Hanks.

A League of Their Own (1992) (turn up the volume and watch this buddy moment between Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell)

The film is a Rosie-the-Riveter-meets-the-MLB story of the The All American Girls Professional Baseball League, an organization started during WWII when it was feared that men's baseball would die off as a casualty of war. The movie recounts an age when men marched off to the trenches and women were suddenly valued for more than their domestic talents, challenging patriarchal traditions and set-in-stone cultural beliefs. It's all heart and Madonna's moving "This Used To Be My Playground" theme song, as well as the reunion of the real life women who were in the league at the end of the film, poignantly encapsulate a brief, shining moment for women in sports.

Penny Marshall died in 2018. But her cinematic legacy and comedic versatility lives on in her extraordinary films, as well as the dozens of comedic roles she inhabited on t.v. (The Odd Couple, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Frasier, Portlandia and Hocus Pocus, to name but a few). It's well worth your time to dig into her films to appreciate this one of a kind female director.

Directing Tom Hanks in Big (1988)

Awakenings, starring Robin Williams (1990). Pass the kleenex

GRETA GERWIG

With Ben Stiller in Greenburg (2010)

Before Barbie and Lady Bird - two films that placed Greta Gerwig squarely on the Hollywood writing and directing map, she was the darling of a lesser known indie-film movement called Mumblecore. This cinematic genre peaked in the mid-aughts and is best described as movies with impromptu dialogue, realistic settings and low-budget markings. This is where Gerwig got her start in movies as an actress/sometimes screenwriter.

After mumbling her way through a myriad of films, Gerwig teamed up with her (now) real-life partner, Noah Baumbaugh and co-wrote and starred in a sweet little movie called Francis Ha!.

Gerwig, dancing through the streets of Manhattan in Francis Ha!

I fell, and am still, in love with Francis Ha!, a comedy about a dreamer living in NYC whose life is derailed when she loses her roommate and best friend, as well as her position in a dance company, rendering her an unemployed, aimless nomad. Francis Ha! became an indie smash, nominated for several awards (Golden Globe, Independent Spirit, London Film Critics Circle Film Awards, to name a few), and cementing Gerwig as a force in film.

Bouyed by this success, Gerwig wrote and directed Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019, an adaptation from the Louise May Alcott novel) and of course Barbie (2023). I can't wait to see what Hollywood's new femme-fab director brings to the table next. If it's an original movie that resonates with millions and draws in big crowds and big bucks, like Barbie did, maybe the Academy will finally give this remarkable talent the recognition she more than deserves.

Gerwig, directing Ryan Gosling in Barbie

And there are more, but not enough...

Despite the fierce odds against them, women have been fighting to share their celluloid visions with audiences since the advent of film (the first: Alice Guy-Blanché made her first movie in 1896). Hats off to the past pioneers and present day warriors who continue to fight the good fight and inspire future femme filmmakers everywhere. I wish I could write a tribute to them all, but here are a few of the greats and one film that I recommend from each, in no particular order:

Jane Campion The Piano (1993), Sophia Coppola, Lost In Translation (2003), Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker (2008), Ava DuVernay, Selma (2014), Nora Ephron, Julie and Julia (2009), Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women (2016), Debra Granik, Winter's Bone (2010), Lana Wachowski and Lilli Wachowski, The Matrix (1999), Jennifer Kent, The Babadook (2014), Charlotte Wells, Aftersun (2022).

Kathryn Bigelow, making history as the first woman to receive the Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.

[fans4wga]

"Are Influencers On Strike Too?" from the New York Times

By Madison Malone Kircher

"Hollywood’s actors are on strike. Many social media influencers have joined them. So what happens now?

SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, has allowed select content creators to join since 2021 under its influencer program. And many influencers work directly with movie studios and other Hollywood entities, who pay them to promote shows and movies, whether it’s on TikTok, YouTube or the red carpet.

Well, not anymore.

This week, SAG-AFTRA announced specific guidelines for influencers during the strike. The rules are broad. Influencers are advised to “not accept any new work for promotion of struck companies or their content.” That means no TikToks about Barbenheimer or red carpet walks for “Meg 2: The Trench.”

And SAG doesn’t care if influencers are being paid for those posts or not. Any posts about struck work are considered to be crossing the picket line. An influencer who films a “Get Ready With Me” video by putting on a pink dress and heading out to the theater to see “Barbie” could be in violation — and anyone deemed to have crossed the picket line will be barred from joining SAG in the future.

A number of creators I talked to this week see joining the union as a goal, one they don’t want to jeopardize.

Creators are divided. Some have gone full Norma Rae, vocally turning down lucrative deals and encouraging their viewers to support the strike. Others have no interest in joining SAG and will probably be continuing business as usual, or they are dubious that the consequences will ever arrive.

“I just think that’s an empty threat,” Jessy Grossman, founder of the networking group Women in Influencer Marketing, told me. “Enforcement of that is going to be impossible.”

Erin Orsi, a self-described “tiny content creator,” went a little bit viral on TikTok after announcing she had turned down a potential $5,000 sponsored partnership from a company working with a major superhero franchise. For Orsi, who has just under 20,000 followers, that’s a lot more money than she usually gets paid to post. Still, she took a pass.

“I’m trying to push this to be my full-time thing,” Orsi said. “I don’t know what the future holds. I would not want to close the door on an opportunity like joining the guild.”

Darcy Michael, one half of the comedy duo Darcy and Jer, told me a network offered him a $25,000 sponsored deal in the days leading up to the strike. He was initially interested, particularly given that the rate was higher than usual for such work, but he ultimately declined to pursue it further after realizing the impending strike was probably what was driving up the rate. (Michael lives in Vancouver and is in ACTRA, the Canadian equivalent of SAG-AFTRA.)

“I told my team, I was like, ‘in no uncertain terms until the strike is over. We’re not crossing picket lines,’” Michael said.

“I also just feel like this strike in particular is monumental for all industries,” he added. “I think we’re leading the pack in making sure that workers are protected, especially from A.I. intervention. If it means that we’re going to pinch our pennies for a few months, we’re going to pinch our pennies.”

Influencers who indicated in videos that they planned to ignore the guidelines have found the online reaction to be swift and sharp. At least two entertainment creators, including @collinnurrmom and @straw_hat_goofy, have already deleted such videos. The latter now has a “SAG-AFTRA Strong” image as his TikTok profile picture.

“I spoke way too soon on my page and upset a lot of people,” Collin Everett, a.k.a. @collinnurrmom, wrote in an email when I asked about the now-deleted videos. “I do not believe that I am scabbing,” he added.

Some small creators are just plain confused. Rosa Romero runs a TikTok page of memes about TV shows including “The Bear” and “Succession.” “It’s really hard for me to categorize myself as an influencer in this sphere,” Romero said. “It’s really just my personal page that accidentally ended up having 11,000 followers.”

Romero sent SAG-AFTRA an email asking whether it was still OK to post about movies produced before the strike went into effect (specifically, “Barbie”). Still, Romero worries that doing so might generate backlash online. “Any questions or clarification is treated like someone’s trying to cross the picket line,” Romero said. “It’s just unfortunate.”

John Monterubio, a senior counsel at Loeb & Loeb LLP who advises influencers and advertisers, said the firm had fielded questions from influencers and brands about how the strike would affect them.

People who are not in the union and don’t have their hearts set on joining have a decision to make, Monterubio said. “They’re not legally bound one way or another,” he said, “but they have to think about how their decision will impact them in the future.”

Influencers are not the only ones confused, he added: "The different agreements are quite complicated, even for attorneys to figure out.'"

[aceredshirt13]

so I experienced my own version of Barbenheimer on my flight back to America from Japan that my boyfriend has dubbed Barbenteen. because I replaced Oppenheimer with 1917. I currently have a pet interest in World War I fiction that discusses the hopeless brutality of war as compared and contrasted with the humanity within it, and also I just really wanted to watch the Barbie movie, so it seemed like a good choice of duo.

anyway the Barbie movie did a better job of humanizing the Kens who redeemed themselves after the failure of their radical conservative takeover than the movie about war’s senseless violence and futility did of humanizing… literally any of the German soldiers, at all, whatsoever. which is Sure Not Something I Thought I’d Be Saying But Here We Are

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

'23 SKIDOO

Before rattling off a list of my top ten movies for the year, I should offer a disclaimer. As with most years, it's based on incomplete information. There are still quite a few significant movies I haven't yet seen. But here, based on what I've seen and how I'm feeling at this writing, is my Top Ten List for 2023.

Killers of the Flower Moon--Martin Scorsese's epic yet intimate nightmare about the Osage murders in Oklahoma in the 1920s is a masterpiece; one of his best works and probably the best movie of the year.

Oppenheimer--Half of the midyear smash duo, this chronicle of the atom smasher of White Sands is a dazzling directorial performance by Christopher Nolan, fracturing his narrative yet keeping us focused. Possibly a hair overlong and anticlimactic, it's riveting at its best.

Barbie--The other half of "Barbenheimer." Greta Gerwig's brightly-colored take on the Mattel icon is crazy, imaginative and deeply goofy, yet in its own way no less serious in its ambitions. Margot Robbie is improbably touching in the title role.

American Fiction--Jeffrey Wright is quietly marvelous as an African-American novelist who so resents being expected to pander to white ideas about the black experience that he does so with a vengeance and becomes a smash. Cord Jefferson's adaptation of the Percival Everett novel Erasure is both rueful and hilarious, often at the same time, and beautifully acted by Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross, Leslie Uggams, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Issa Rae, Miriam Shor and the criminally underutilized Erika Alexander.

Maestro--It's not so much a biopic in the usual sense as a portrait of the marriage of Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre. Bradley Cooper is luminous as Bernstein, and his reserved directorial style balances Bernstein's grand self-dramatizing manner beautifully. Yet it's Carey Mulligan's Felicia who emerges as the movie's guiding spirit.

Godzilla Minus One--The Lizard King stands in for postwar despondency in this one-off, one-of-a-kind monster spectacle that's also a surprisingly moving portrait of a nation coming to terms with utter defeat, and gradually starting to rise from its own ruins.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret--Judy Blume's classic for adolescent girls was a long time coming to the screen, but under the direction of Kathleen Fremon Craig it struck just the right note; sweet and lighthearted.

Air--Sneakers have become such a cultural touchstone that it's probably inevitable that we'd get an origin story for athletic footwear. Ben Affleck's account of the development of the Air Jordan line and the issues around it is absorbing and amusing.

The Holdovers--Alexander Payne's '70s-period comedy, set at a private school in Massachusetts, is essentially a vehicle for the performances of Paul Giamatti as a splenetic ancient history teacher, Da'Vine Joy Randolph as a bereaved cafeteria manager and Dominic Sessa as the kid they're stuck with for the holidays. But what performances they are.

Saltburn--After her stunning debut with Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennel's second feature, a neo-gothic take on class, is by comparison a little overwrought and sour. But it's no less brilliant, and it comes together joltingly at the end.

A few others that I found to be worth my time: The Blackening, A Haunting in Venice, Dumb Money, Jules, Theater Camp, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Thanksgiving, Somewhere in Queens, Cocaine Bear, Renfield, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Napoleon and The Boys in the Boat.

A superb 2024 to us all!

[denimbex1986]

'When asked how I wanted to spend my twenty-third birthday this summer; I only had one word in my mind: “Barbenheimer,” a social media and cultural phenomenon that is bringing people back to the theater...

...I was also able see the film, “Oppenheimer” on my actual twenty-third birthday. Now, I must admit that I was a lot more excited to see “Oppenheimer” than “Barbie” when the duo came out on the same day. As a person who likes to watch biopics and historical dramas, I couldn’t wait to walk into that theater and see this movie.

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” tells the story of American physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his role as not only the “Father of the Atomic Bomb” but also his time as the sheriff and leader of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

As a unique way to illustrate two different points in time, Nolan uses black and white to illustrate what Americans would have seen in during the actual hearings, while he also used color to illustrate his life and the development of the atomic bomb.

One of the things that makes this film phenomenal is the fact that the atomic bomb isn’t just a prop used to illustrate what happened in American history, but it acts to bring the audience into history through its science, sound, and light exposure to show the lasting effects the atomic bomb worldwide. While sitting in the dark theatre and waiting for the bomb to go off, I jumped in my chair at the sounds that shook the entire theatre room.

Both “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” have A-list and scripts, which has produced a great summer of movies and time for movie enthusiasts everywhere. Over the past decade, the movie industry had been trampled by a pandemic, a move to online streaming, and a WGA Strike that has caused the culture of sitting in a movie theater to go nearly extinct. Even though the movie industry has a long way to go to return to the record-breaking high of Barbenheimer weekend, the world can safely say that cinema is safe for the time being.'

[denimbex1986]

'This past July, I had the pleasure of seeing two fantastic movies back-to-back not once, but twice. Those movies — of course — were Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”

My first viewing was at the AMC Aventura in Miami, where I watched “Oppenheimer” then “Barbie” — a combination called “Oppenbarbie.” When I got home, I saw the reverse (‘Barbenheimer’) at the local Carlisle R/C.

Both films were great. I would suggest seeing Oppenheimer in IMAX if possible. Regardless of your opinion on whether “Oppenbarbie” or “Barbenheimer” is the correct order, I enjoyed both and can highly recommend both movies.

Barbie

“Barbie,” which recently overtook “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to become 2023’s highest grossing film, is a fun and engaging summer blockbuster. Gerwig’s creative freedom allows her to make some choices like poking fun at Mattel’s less-than inclusive history that elevate this film.

In the film, Barbie -- Margot Robbie -- and Ken --Ryan Gosling-- embark on an adventure to the “Real World” and leave “Barbie Land” to help straighten out a rift between the two worlds. A stacked supporting cast, including Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, America Ferrerra and Ariana Greenblatt are joined by over a dozen others, most portraying Barbies and Kens.

Margot Robbie is about as perfect casting for “Stereotypical Barbie” as one can get. Robbie’s portrayal of the kids’ doll coming to life is engaging, and it is clear that the actress had fun in this role. Her range is used to great effect when the movie takes the occasional turn from spirited romp to emotional deep-dive.

Ferrera and Greenblatt play a mother and daughter duo who, while at first are at odds, mend their relationship and help Barbie fix things at home with the intervention of Robbie’s Barbie.

Ken is also there. Jokes aside, while the movie and the world tends to ignore Ken in favor of his better half, Gosling’s Ken actually serves as an excellent lens to focus on a core theme of the film: how patriarchy fails both women and men.

Without getting into too many spoilers, for those of you unlucky to have not seen it yet, in the real world, Ken finds a society dominated by men in stark contrast to his own experience playing second-fiddle to the Barbies. When he returns, he overthrows the matriarchal society and institutes a system that is designed to benefit the Kens.

Some, especially on the conservative end, have criticized the film for being “anti-man,” but that claim couldn’t be further from the truth. The film is decidedly anti-patriarchy, but not anti-man. The furnishings of patriarchy that Ken brings from the real world such as horses, trucks and ostentatious clothes do not make the Kens happy, but rather give them a false sense of power.

When that power is stripped away, they’re forced to recognize that their masculinity and sense of self cannot be made up of the things they own or the people they interact with, but developed from their own identity.

While on the surface the film is a fun, comedy-filled summer bash, it also contains some heartfelt and sincerely feminist critiques of patriarchy.

Oppenheimer

“Oppenheimer” serves as the more somber half of this double feature. Writer and Director Christopher Nolan brings his usual magic to this historical drama depicting the eponymous scientist.

Following a trend in Nolan's work, “Oppenheimer” uses time as a plot device. The film shifts between several points in time, using a Senate confirmation hearing and a security clearance hearing as anchors to recount Oppenheimer's story as the creator of the atomic bomb, a project that changed the field of physics and the nature of war.

Cillian Murphy's performance as the Manhattan Project's leading scientist is a chilling portrayal of guilt, anguish and remorse. Murphy is joined in the cast by Robert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon, who respectively portray Lewis Strauss and Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, two colleagues of Oppenheimer. Both deliver award-worthy performances and are responsible for some of the rare comedic moments in an otherwise somber film.

Emily Blunt portrays Kitty Oppenheimer, a biologist and botanist who married Robert Oppenheimer in 1940. Throughout the film, Blunt artfully sells the complicated relationship the two shared. Two scenes stand out: a fight with her husband and later a passionate defense of him. These two scenes exemplify Blunt’s artistic talent, which she certainly brought to this film.

Florence Pugh's performance as Jean Tatlock is also spectacular. Tatlock and Oppenheimer have a passionate relationship, which does not end happily. Tatlock had a powerful impact on Oppenheimer’s life, and Pugh’s performance is as chillingly somber as it is stunning.

Tom Conti’s performance as Albert Einstein was an unexpected highlight. While the eccentric physicist only makes a few appearances during the movie, Conti portrays the man with the weight you would expect for such a famous historical figure.

The movie’s strengths do not end with its cast. Throughout the film, viewers are blasted by the product of both visual and auditory genius that elevates this already stellar film to another level.

The film is chock-full of stunning visualizations of stars, subatomic space, and the inner workings of Oppenheimer’s mind. According to the filmmakers, the bulk of these astonishing sequences were achieved through entirely practical effects.

Genius was not the only part of Oppenheimer’s mind depicted. Throughout the film, we watch his view of the world become warped by hallucinations driven by the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the guilt and anxiety that continues to build. Combined with the sound design and masterful score by Ludwig Göransson, these sequences are hypnotizing. Göransson’s score throughout the film is commanding. In the IMAX showing in Florida, I was physically shaken by the music that never seemed to relent.

The climax of the film — both narratively and in an audio/visual sense — is the Trinity nuclear test. In what is the most suspenseful 15 minutes of this already suspense-filled movie, we watch those who worked on the Manhattan project observe the culmination of their years of work.

The tension, excitement and fear felt by the characters is shared by the audience as the clock counts down to the detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. The anxiety and tension they are feeling is felt equally by those watching and listening. In each of my two viewings, you could hear a pin drop.'