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I'm Sean Fennese. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is 25 for 25, a big picture special conversation show about Oppenheimer, and now I am become death destroyer of worlds. Okay, Amanda.
Here we are. Oppenheimer. This is the 12th feature film from Christopher Nolan. Now, Christopher Nolan, some would say.
I'm not sure if I would say, maybe I would say, is the 21st century filmmaker, the most successful and significant maker of movies in this century. Do you agree with that suggestion? Certainly of movie culture, as we know it now, and as we have been marveling that it has died many deaths this century, and then seems to be back. And he's played a big part in bringing it back and advancing it and I guess preserving it if you, you know, depending it's honor.
Sure, at least it, you know, for him, for can for canisters everywhere. So I think he's absent, he's representative if he is not like the, so maybe signature is the right way. It's interesting, you know, this show or intention with this show, not just the series, but the show is to kind of represent modern movies and modern movie culture. We talk about every new movie that comes out.
And yet, you know, over the years have had complicated relationships to various Christopher Nolan movies. I did not think we could do this list without finding a way to acknowledge Christopher Nolan. Well, actually, at first you did because as listeners, no, I didn't. I didn't.
So here's here's a while. Did I? Did I not put the Dark Knight on the original list? I put it on.
Yes, but I went with it. Yes. And then when we were going to this show, I took it off. You did.
And I was going to replace it with a film. I won't reveal that film, but one film came off of our list that was on is recently a month ago and we have replaced it because I ultimately just didn't feel like we could do this activity without acknowledging Nolan. Now, I thought that Dark Knight was right. Yeah.
And I thought that Dark Knight won. So did I. I suggested the Dark Knight. So why are we doing the Dark Knight right now?
That's really what it comes down to. I think that both movies have incredibly high highs. You can argue which movie has lower lows. The Dark Knight made sense to me as a representative of superhero culture.
Yeah. I can say now there are no superhero movies on our list. Don't once again, don't look at me. It's, you know, you wanted Iron Man to and I said, no, I said, I would not.
Maybe that's a Mickey Rookland. That's a Mickey Rookland. Okay. I've seen it.
I think Nolan's contributions and his individual films are incredibly meaningful, influential, powerful. Oppenheimer to me is the culmination of everything that he's been working towards. It feels right to me. Now this movie is also for me.
Your favorite Nolan. I'm Masterpiece. Yeah. It's maybe a little bit less fun to talk about this one because we just talked about it two years ago.
It came out almost exactly two years ago. For like seven months because it was the best picture front runner. For the entirety of its run. And then just and cleaned up.
It is one of the great bulldozers in modern awards history and it was also a massive success in the box office. And that's when I say culmination, I think creatively, it's fully realized that also it did everything in a way that I'm not sure if I could think of a single comp for how big and I guess Titanic is really the only comparison in the history of movies really. You know, you could say, oh, like the Ten Commandments or something. You know, there's occasional examples of these massively scaled movies, but you know, we have like affection and appreciation for a lot of movies in the 2000s from Nolan.
He's made 11 movies this century. Do you want to talk about those 11 movies before we dig in Oppenheimer? Yeah. Do you want to like go through and should we talk about why it's not these movies and why it is?
Yeah. I think so. Because that was sort of the, I agreed with you ultimately. Like we closed that list.
There was no Nolan on it. For me, that was kind of a fun month talking to people about it and like talking to a lot of people who were like, oh, you know, I wonder which Nolan you'll have and I wonder which whatever and I chuckled to myself like, aha, the answer is no Nolan, but you're right. I didn't want to troll people though. You feel like a troll.
Well, it's me. It felt fun, but I. Because you are a troll. No, I'm not, but I, you know, and I liked the pure, that's not fair because the original version of this list had the dark night on it.
So and I, and I still am kind of like, I don't know why it's not that one, but we spend a lot of time trying to figure out which Nolan it should be. And we basically like couldn't agree. And we have finally agreed on this one because I do think that two thirds of this movie are like truly sublime. And I guess I sort of feel that way about the dark night.
Like the first two thirds of that movie are like the most incredible thing you've ever seen and then the movie kind of keeps going. So if I can make space for dark night, like I can agree on I'm Oppenheimer where when it gets it right and it gets it right a lot of time it is breathtaking and exciting and even rewatching it just like the, the pace of it and the editing and the score, the actual like craft decisions plus claim or performance. Like it's really, it is, it's, it's very, very good. I do think there are a few other Nolan movies on this list that that I could have made a pitch for.
I could have too. I know, but they weren't the same ones. I agree. That's part of what makes it fun.
I think let's just start with 2000. I meant it comes out in 2000. But Memento, as I've said many times on the show, a great dawning moment for me. I love, I know if I think it's a five star flawless film, but given the expectation of not knowing anything about the film, like not seeing following when it came out and the intricacy of the design and the execution around the plotting and the way that it looks and feels, it's just a very sophisticated, mature thriller.
Very smart movie, great guy, Pierce performance and center of it. There could have been a case for this. It would have been, that would have felt a little trolley to say like, no, no, no, not necessarily. No, it's like kind of cute.
A little cute. Yeah, a little cute. Yeah, which I rewatched it for because I thought it was eligible for our two thousand draft. So are you watched it.
Great movie. And that real, like just what am I watching sort of in a way that is engrossing rather than off putting? There is like a little bit too much like Jonathan Nolan puzzle, five aspects to it for my personal tastes, but it's arresting for sure. 2002 in Samiya, a remake and kind of an outlier now when we look at his career, a movie that he didn't write that I think has good performances, but is a fairly wrote cat and mouse serial killer thriller.
Yeah. That was not really in consideration. Yeah. Ben begins, I've always thought is a good and not great movie.
I think it sets a new template for a kind of superhero storytelling. I think it is like basically a lead up movie and the way that a lot of 2000 superhero movies were kind of like the first one is just set in the table for the second one, which is going to rock. Sure. That's the Star Wars method.
Yeah, that's true. But you know, without the originality of building the entire world. Spider-Man does a similar thing in 2000s. Including this would have been sort of like the we're not building a Hall of Fame, right?
Yes. You know, you Sean always want to include like the one that's first thing. On this case, we're not doing the one that starts at. No, 2006 the prestige.
Yeah. Unlike the rest of the home being like, what about the prestige? Good. What about the girls?
What about the girls? I'm sorry. I don't mean to exclude them. The Scarlett Johansson character in this movie, you know.
Is it not sophisticated? Is it not a strong woman? The prestige I think is very good. Yeah.
Very good. A more than above average movie. The dark knight. Well, it's quite something.
It's like when it's going, it is rocking. It is. I think I have a hard time not nitpicking Nolan movies from this era to death. Okay.
And that's just a fact about me. Okay. This movie and then inception. Yeah.
And then the dark knight rises. I promise, I promise, I promise, I promise. I won't. Okay, I'll just say the form from 2008 to 2014, I have a hard time not nitpicking those movies.
of mine, fact about me, whatever you want to say. It's something that when I watch these movies, I don't feel this way all the time and I'm usually quite forgiving of this. But when I feel someone getting close to greatness and from my perception missing, I can't help but claw at what's missing to me. And even though the Dark Knight had me vibrating in the theater at times, it's a few decisions I don't love.
And as I thought about this- Are you afraid to speak on them right now for fear that people will start yelling at you again? No, I think it just, I think this maybe kind of concludes awkwardly. And I think once the Heath Ledger is no longer at the center of the story, the air goes out of the balloon in a lot of ways. And I think that characterization is extraordinary.
I think the rendering of Too Faced and Aaron Eckhart is at first intriguing and then kind of goofy. And I don't totally buy his transformation. Him being kind of like red-pilled and being a chaos agent. So there's just a couple things I don't love about it.
That's so funny. You could say all of those things about Oppenheimer. Like, it's kind of like, you paste them. But one could, but one is not apparently being given the opportunity to do that on this podcast.
Anyway, the inception one. This would be your number one deck? Well, I think maybe. I think if we want, the dark night, if we're not gonna do dark night, then inception is I think the signature.
It was like the real, he does dark night. And then he's like, but wait, I got Leo and a top spinning. And people like shooting each other in some snow for a long period of time. And it was that first real like Nolan Reddit, can you believe this man?
Like what happened in this movie? We were all in it together way. And it really did work for me. I just, I bought into to the absurdity of it.
And I don't know why Michael came, couldn't just bring the kids to France, but like also I didn't care, you know? Yeah, just a really good. I'm going to the US from France. Yeah, just like a movie that just did not stand up to like any examination from me personally.
And I know that giving yourself over to movies is a big part of enjoying movies. Again, for whatever reason, I really like this movie. People think I hate it. I don't hate it.
I like it. And there are moments the hallway in particular where I'm like, I've not seen anything like this before. And I think that because of the way that he was kind of narrativized as Spielberg meets Kubrick, you know, that is who this guy is. It's like a magic Kubrick directed in Indiana Jones movie.
I just don't see it that way. And I think I've actually come to understand better like who he is and what he represents in movie culture. Because he's not like either of those guys. And it's useful to be removed from that period in time and look back at the movies.
In fairness to these movies that we're talking about right now, I have revisited all of them, at least once and usually twice since kind of like arriving at my annoying guy attitude about them. And I kind of still feel the same way about the Dark Knight Rises, which we- Listen, the Dark Knight Rises was not on any of our list. Very silly movie. A lot of fun.
I think it's actually easier to enjoy that for me because I'm like, nobody is trying to tell me this is the greatest movie I've ever made. It's definitely like this rock kind of movie. But it's very silly. And it kind of reveals, I think a lot of the silliness and a lot of Christopher Nolan's movies.
His conception of good versus evil and what man is battling, it's certainly their deep themes. But they're rendered strangely at times, I would say. His relationship to female characters is pretty complicated and maybe not the most acutely understood. Yeah, he's a man on an island who is literal or figurative, who's just trying to, he sees the way, but he can't get there.
But he really is probably the only person who could get there if anyone could. But no one can because life is terrible. So now we just have to use a lot of guns. The generation directly beneath us is the one who believes that Interstellar is the one.
And if this were a podcast hosted by 32-year-olds. Right. I think there are many of those out there. And go check out that show.
And there's a pick up podcast or 12 that you can find outside many of the Interstellar ref screenings. So listen, find your people. If that is what you want. I think to me, Shao-mei is very good in this.
That's your first note on Interstellar? I don't know what's going on in this movie. I mean, I do, but I think I might be a makanah thing for me. Oh, wow.
This only really falls apart from me at the end. I think that it kind of is an indulgence of explanation. And one thing that I have appreciated about the way that his filmmaking style has changed since this movie in Dunkirk, Tenet, and Oppenheimer, which is the era I have enjoyed the most, is that he has gotten less self-conscious about making us feel comfortable in his heady ideas, that he is comfortable letting us sort through it, which is the thing I was always banging my gavel out with him, which is like, stop telling me how every single thing works. I find it obnoxious.
And in this movie, the collision of that, the sort of like, I have read all the science plus, love is actually the answer, which is the most saccharin lame conclusion to an otherwise quite fascinating and sophisticated examination of like the distance between us, the distance across the world, the inability for people to connect really. Like I think that's what ultimately interstellar is about, that what we put between us and why we can't stay together and say what we really need to say to each other. That's a great and deep idea, and the way that he concludes those things never really makes sense to me. So I was never really gonna seriously put interstellar on it, even though I do think it's a great achievement.
An interstellar interception being original movies at a grand scale from one of our best directors should be applauded, just not in this countdown. Okay. Dunkirk, should we have more strongly considered this? Yes, you wanna do it?
You wanna throw it on? But we did, I threw the ball at you. What did I say? And you said no.
That was all I said, I had no other responses. It was on text messages, and you were basically like that. I think that's literally what happened. I like Dunkirk, I think it's quite good.
It's really, really good. I think it's quite good. I think maybe it doesn't get me emotionally the same way it does you or Chris or Quentin Tarantino. Clearly it has an effect on people.
The whole way through. My trinity, yeah. My team, I think Dunkirk is very, very good. I thought it was very good when it was released.
I think it's very good now. It's not my favorite. I think it's clever. And I do feel like he had, like I said, I think he unlocked something.
And his willingness to take chances with that triple time structure that he's doing to unfold that story that is tremendously complicated. If you try to unpack it. It doesn't feel that way when you're watching it. I didn't feel confused watching that movie.
No, not at all. And I think he also does figure something out emotionally in all three stories without having to really, without hammering home that this is about your feelings over time and space. And love is the answer. They are more character based, grounded in the moments.
But the Barakiga character, the Tom Hardy character, it's all really heart running. Even Kenneth Branagh just standing on a dock, using Kenneth Branagh voice. He hits the tonal frequency. I do also think that this is a movie about a really important and serious stuff.
And it is like a war movie. But it is an on a grand scale or even on three grand scales because it has three timelines. But it is not saying this is about the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. So the gravity of the situation and the gravity of the motion that's communicated through the film itself as opposed to the dialogue, which I think is something that speaks in its favor.
I agree. I don't have very many bad things to say about the movie. It just doesn't hit me the same way that honestly the next two do. Well, I made a push for Tenet, too.
Tenet would have been interesting and also would have felt like a troll. That's why you said that. We love Tenet on this show. I think Tenet.
I don't understand it. And every time we talk about it, I understand it less. But I love it. It's a lot of fun.
Yeah. I don't know if it's really very thematically deep at all. Like at all. What is it about?
The immutability of friendship. Buds? Yeah. Bros.
Hangin'. But that's not something that occurs to you until you get to the very end of the movie. You know? Like it's not clear.
Is Elizabeth's Bikki's son Robert Pattinson? No, I believe that was debunked. Oh, that's sad. But so then why?
They're Bros because John David Washington just knows that he's going to find Robert Pattinson again in some timeline. Correct. And then are they going to have to save the world again? Probably.
And they're just going to do the Opera House forever. I think so. But it's cool because you got a pal. This is like me and your husband.
We don't have to talk. We can go two months and not talk. And we'll just pick right up. Why Elizabeth's Bikki in that situation?
In so far as we're going to have Kenneth Brown on a murder, yeah. Thank you. Tenet is a ton of fun. I was so...
Free ports. I forgot about that. I was very happy to have that movie in that time in history. Yeah.
I really, really like that movie. It's not... It's just not as good as Oppenheimer. Yeah.
And that brings us to this moment. OK. Now, your notes on Oppenheimer have been acknowledged in time. There was an entire episode of this podcast that you shared those notes.
There are multiple. Let's talk about what's good about it. Yeah. And why it's here.
I mean, here's... I've made a couple of notes. I feel like these are important things to state around the one. One is this is like an operatic humanist.
This is the person who really believes in the theory of the great man. And it's a synthesis of a lot of those ideas. And a little bit of a self-recrimination. Like the movie is very meta-textual because it's about like what happens when someone with good ideas gets to follow through on those ideas.
I've always enjoyed the reading of Christopher Nolan watching the Marvel industrial complex rise after math of his Batman movies and him thinking like, oh my God, what have I done to the thing I love? That may be a little too... It's actually like a little offensive when then you... Like, it's probably not fair to Christopher Nolan to be like, he looked at Marvel and then was like, well, I must tell my story.
It was to be Robert Oppenheimer. But it's not my responsibility to be fair to him. It's my responsibility to read movies and movie culture. And it is undeniable that obviously this world is a story significant event that has like, speaks to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives over time.
And also just to like a complete realignment of how we live and the fear and anxiety and like, mortal nature that the entire world is now in. But this is something that I think it's fair to say like artists do. You know, like they take the world's events, they take our experiences and they think about how they're filtered through themselves. Like that is...
I think that's ultimately okay. It doesn't have to be as glib as superhero movie bad. But the thing that I think makes him kind of the air to Spielberg, the air to James Cameron, the air to these handful of filmmakers that get you, no matter what they're doing, to just be like, I gotta see it. I gotta see what he's gonna do with this.
I'm moving about Jay Robert Oppenheimer. Could have been really boring. In fact, like if you've ever seen, what's the Paul Newman movie? I fat man and little boy.
Yes, if you've ever seen Fat Man and Little Boy, the 1989 dramatization of the creation of the atomic bomb, which Star Paul Newman has groves, the Matt Damon character and Oppenheimer, and Dwight Schultz as Jay Robert Oppenheimer, you know, like it takes something special to make this truly exciting and make it truly like an event film. And I think he does that. And I was trying to think of in my head, who are the true o' tours that can do spectacle? Like, you know, it's really Francis for Koboa, who is like writer first, then filmmaker.
The same way that Nolan is, where Nolan writes almost everything he does. Sometimes he bases it on material, just like Koboa based the godfather on a best-selling novel. But creating this world kind of by yourself as the author and doing it at that scale. There's not a huge tradition of it in Hollywood, Cameron writes.
Yeah, but he writes in a different way. And with different like visual goals as well as thematic undertakings. Yeah, I think the level of prestige, it's only Titanic where he has attempted something that has that kind of import. He's mostly an entertainer.
And he's sure about the world. He is. Cameron knows what he thinks is what's right. And he thinks, and he knows where he believes he stands in it.
Our timing is really interesting because he's just lodged some complaints against Oppenheimer because he is intending to make a nuclear film, you know, an atomic movie about the power of the bomb. And he was frustrated by what was not in Oppenheimer, which is a complaint that we heard that I never understood and I don't agree with where Cameron comes from on this either. Well, I think that Nolan's response was always that this was like a quote unquote subjective movie. But I think the complaint was this is in many ways a movie about the decision that was made in how it changed our world and the people who were affected by it are not represented in any way in the movie.
And you know, I get it. I think it would have been disastrous if Nolan had tried to bring like that death and destruction. It wouldn't fit with the rest of this movie and it would feel gratuitous. And I think it was smart for him not to do it.
But I understand that this is one side of the story. Very much so. And it's not attempting to be representative of anything other than the perspective specifically of Oppenheimer, but I think mostly the people who are kind of sympathetic to his experience as the leading scientist in America at a certain time in history. But subject matter is really perfect for what he's interested in.
He is interested in formulas and theories and this idea of what if, what would happen if something like this happened, but this is a real historical event that he can use to kind of analyze that context. Conspiracy and paranoia and the idea of loyalty all being kind of frickive points, like it's a big part of inception. It's a big part of the dark night films like this idea that you are bound to these oaths that you've taken, but those taking those oaths then makes you every day think that like something is wrong and amiss. There's a great moment in this movie that is basically where the movie turns.
It might be where you kind of lose a little bit of your tether to it. But the moment itself is so special, which is immediately after the Trinity test. There's a moment when Oppenheimer, the following day it seems or after the order has been made, walks outside of Los Alamos, watches the bomb, leave in trucks. Yeah, no, that's a great moment.
And that moment when he realizes this is essentially no longer under, not only not under my control, but it was never under my control. I am just a tool toward this and Kelly Murphy's performance with no words. Right. And also, I mean, like the shot itself is so beautiful with the mountains in the background and like there, you know, away it goes, it is like a painting.
It's just, it's an amazing act of thematic storytelling. It conveys a ton and it is absent, I think a lot of the political machinations that kind of dominate the final third of the movie, it doesn't have anything to do with this idea that Oppenheimer was a controversial figure in any way. It's like, it's pure human drama. It's a person who thought he was one thing and then realized he was something else.
And I saw that as like a really incredibly mature moment for no one who's been kind of like working towards something and it really, really stuck out to me. And then there's all the other stuff that he likes like conquering the metaphysical world, having an idea of what you could do and then using science to make it real, which is like what Interstellar wants to do, like can't do, like can't ultimately get you to the explanation point. That's the point, yeah, you know, so you don't have to understand, you just have to feel. Do you think love conquers at?
And then it's also kind of a detective story, which is something I like about it. I know you're a little bit more mixed on that. No, listen, so I re-watch it again and everything, the Trinity test is like one of the most extraordinary things that I've ever seen put on screen and what's so amazing about it is that, well, obviously like they don't set off an atomic bomb, but it feels like they do. It does, it feels like they do, but actually what is being filmed is just like dudes looking in wonder somewhere and dudes looking stressed out.
There's very little movement in it. I guess there's a lot of cutting, again, the editing in this movie is incredible, don't it for land one and Oscar for it, well deserved, but it's just like images and suspense and an absolutely incredible score, which also one and Oscar for the course. So what he can do, it's intuitive, what counterintuitive, what he does with it, even with the final explosion, it's just like cutting to silence, which is also amazing. So it looks great.
I think also the Killian Murphy performance, you just can't look away from it, but my complaints are mostly with the third hour and more generally with the Robert Downey Jr. plotline with straws, even though I don't love how that's handled. The moment when it comes together from a pure structural perspective and you see how all of these different timelines and things that you've been working on, it clicks together and you're like, aha, and there is that moment of like, we have the solution and it's like this person. So I agree with you at least formally, it's really, really impressive.
I agree with you in favor of publishers, a lot of great screenplays, they published the Nolan's screenplay as they published the West Endian's screenplay as they sent me the last couple of Nolan's screenplay books. So I was going through the Oppenheimer's screenplay as I was revisiting it last night and it is all there. He has conceived of not just the dynamic kind of meeting points of the plotting, but of all of the cuts, of all of the visions that Oppenheimer is having of this filmmaking style. Like in the fact that he has aligned Jennifer Lam, with the Gorrinson, with the Poetima, like all of the craft teams in this movie, if none of them is their first time working with Nolan, they've all kind of figured out what his energies are and what he needs and what he wants.
When you think about the act of making the movie with using these iMacs cameras, shooting in 65, and then that's another thing about the movie is that maybe much to your chagrin, but it did kind of kickstart in a real way. I think a mass cult, yeah, like canister on film, 70 millimeter eventizing of a certain kind of a movie. And this is an R-rated adult three hour drama that made a billion dollars. No, that part is insane.
Like it's basic achievement just in terms of getting people to like turn out and be psyched about a three hour, like almost entirely talking, like I'm beautifully talking and I love it when people talk. But the set pieces in this, though they are incredibly difficult to pull off, like they're not people punching each other. They're not sure that it's just, it's a lot of like technical orchestration of people and timelines and you know, and trying to make something that never happened look like it happened. So as I was watching it last night and thinking about the relationships that the characters have in the movie, I think that the film is very, I think especially for Nolan, very well written.
I think the dialogue is like very sharp. Yes. And it reminded me a lot of Aaron Sorkin. Sure.
Maybe a little bit less saccharin than Sorkin gets at the end of his stories, but because there's a kind of like in bitter quality to where we landed in Oppenheimer's Ark in American history, but the character of Robbie, the David Crumb holds plays and his relationship and his kind of protective quality over in Oppenheimer, the way that there is a kind of a interrogative approach to many of the characters were constantly like confronting each other with their own ideas. And then another person comes back with their ideas. So many great scenes where all the scientists are in Los Alamos and they're pinging back and forth about why something will work or won't work. It does have a frick to quality which we were just talking about with Sorkin where we're like, when he was good, he was so good at this stuff.
Yeah. You can kind of support both positions as you hear people passionately go through their ideas. That doesn't happen to the movies a lot. It's very rare.
No, it's remarkable. And there was something rewatching it even when, you know, it takes on that quality of like this movie has existed forever and I've seen it a thousand times and so I want to start. I'm like, oh, it's this part. I know it's so funny that they did that, which is a relationship you can only build with a movie when it's like, it's fully like realized and designed and intentional and that you can nitpick it, that you can start or even dissect it in the way that you can.
It's just because it is like, it's so fully achieved. It is a remarkable movie. You must turn yourself over to it. I actually, I really love to read this thing last night.
I had a fun with it. It is a three hour movie. It was my fifth time seeing it. I saw it on the big screen three times.
I would happily watch it on the big screen again. I do think it's going to be a movie to your point about it like it had been around forever. It is, I think it's going to have that feeling for a long time. But one of the things I want to talk to you about is the legacy.
So those are all the reasons why this movie made the list. They are myriad. Flaws be damned. There's a ton of incredible things about the movie.
The legacy is interesting because this is, I can say now, the most recent movie on our list. There's nothing from 2024 on our list. Yeah, I tried. You tried?
I did. I said no. I said we will not put that on this list. Oh no, I didn't try it.
My pick was from 2022 that I wanted to replace this with. Yes, we did. We can reveal that at a later date. Yeah.
Not over yet. So seven Oscars, 13 nominations, second most nominations of all time. Immediately in Shrinden Film History is a best picture winner. Very rare best actor, screenplay, supporting actor, director, film.
Or did it get screenplay? Maybe it did not win screenplay. No, because it would have been adapted, right? And I think we're Jefferson one.
You're running for fiction. So did not get to screenplay. So here's my question for you. Yeah.
I have two possible roads for this movie historically. One is this is Lawrence of Arabia. Right. This is an all time classic historical drama that should consistently be seen in the format it was intended.
You can watch it on TV at home, but it's never going to work as well as if you get a chance to see it on the big screen. And people will always say that about it. And people will always say when I saw it, it was so majestic. It took my breath away because that's how people 60 years later they still talk about.
Lawrence of Arabia. That's one way to view it. The alternative way, and this is possible, is this how green was my value. Which in 1941, one best picture.
And it was a master in his prime coming off of beloved classics. So John Ford had directed many films in the 1910s and 20s and 30s. But then he goes on this run of stagecoach, young Mr. Lincoln, drums along the Mohawk and grapes of RAF.
And he's sort of getting recognized after all of those movies, which are all canonical greats for sprawling epic in this like he's arrived moment. But he beat Citizen Kane. And Citizen Kane is the more aesthetically and intellectually daring movie. And Citizen Kane is the movie that is remembered and how green is my value is not.
And the comp I will make is the zone of interest, the Citizen Kane in this scenario. And Oppenheimer will be understood as a great movie that people liked. But the zone of interest is the movie that matters more now and forever. I think you know that I lean towards option B.
But that doesn't, another argument of being like, are we sure that Oppenheimer is what we want to pick? As like, in general, are you sure the best picture winner is the one that you want? More often than not, the academy gets it wrong with respect to our tastes and to history. And we don't have that many best picture winners on this list.
So I think I'm just more historically inclined to say, you know, that it's always B. But Lawrence of Arabia was the best picture winner. That's like every generation gets its Titanic did win best picture. Yeah, but like it's not like every one of my valley is like looked down upon.
No, that's my point. Yeah. And I do, I mean, ultimately that really comes that that's a conversation about zone of interest and not Oppenheimer, you know. They are thematically linked in some ways.
And I, but I think zone of interest does have the, like, you know, the structural and just like the filmmaking innovation that citizen came, you know, makes sense as a comp. And it's also, they're all pretty dark looks at the world. But you know, zone of interest. Well, it will be harder to revisit zone of interest from a pure film watching enjoyment perspective.
It has a little bit less of the thrill that sits right in the, like the end of the second activist movie where he gets to the Trinity test and all of the powers of the movie are colliding literally and figuratively. Right. So zone of interest, I've seen it a couple of times now, you know, it's challenging movie. It is.
It's a D movie. It's a powerful movie. It is like amazingly rendered and designed and it is more relevant now than it was when it came out. But I think I think about like something lasting in the culture, you know, it's all subjective, but it's an interesting thing to think about in the context of this.
And the other thing is what about Nolan's future? Will this actually not be the culmination of his career? Is he actually going to do something even greater, even better? Or will he have a precipitous fall and will see what the flow?
So you're just out on the Odyssey. No, I'm merely. Yeah. It's a suffering question.
I'm Shakespeare and now Homer. I never left Shakespeare and I never will. Thank you, Billy. Homer.
I like the Odyssey as a story. It's a good story. Yeah. It's a guy and he's just looking for stuff.
I thought a journey. Yeah. I was going to a journey. What is home and what is home?
Yeah. That's myself that before. Is it possible that he is still going up? Sure.
Anything's possible. What do you think? Well, you know, it's he did kickstart like a pretty interesting moment both in like I'm ax mania and we knew Nolan mania was there, but like the Odyssey is being covered regularly on Doma. Like I don't know what else to say.
You know, like it has this Christopher Nolan phase has. He's gone past Reddit and movie lovers. And I think he's been quite kidding about that, right? Like he is just collecting all the movie stars and putting them all in his ensemble.
So I maybe as many people will go see it. That is like hard for me to imagine. You know, like I just can't but we couldn't believe that people would sign up for a three hour epic about Jay Robert Oppenheimer. $975 million.
Oppenheimer made I know the Odyssey has battles in it and monsters. That's true though. The Odyssey like they did try to make people read it or at least read in a British version of it in school once upon a time. You know?
I think you're like homework distaste. Oh, interesting. Yeah. As opposed to all the fun of the atomic bomb.
Well, I don't really like, you know, history classes don't ever get to that point, right? Like all history classes, they just run out of time. It's like May 31 and you like made it to World War II. You did get to World War II in my A.K.
American history. Like I have to tell you like. They like they like they did it and then everything else they got out of there. Like we don't really have time to get into complexities.
Your teachers didn't know how to put together syllabus. They should call me. I haven't mentioned that this movie is based on a book, a very good book called American Permuthius, The Triumph and Trashy of Jay Robert Oppenheimer in like high bird and the late Martin Sherwin. And he did have that to work from, but that's also part of why the movie is so good to me is because that's a dense 600 page book by the man's entire life and he's synthesized that way down.
So a huge achievement. Any final thoughts you want to share about Oppenheimer before we do recommend it if you like? I like this movie. Okay.
You have some misgivings. No, no, no, I don't. I don't. This is so this is a collaborative act.
This is where this is where we met. And I think everything that we talked about that is amazing about this movie is amazing about this movie. And I did Dark Knight thing not having a superhero movie on this list is interesting. I say that to you.
I don't think that there are any five star masterpiece superhero movies. I just don't. I like a lot of them a lot. I mean, I definitely don't, but the Dark Knight is pretty good.
And I think it could serve double as the Nolan entrant and the superhero entrant to me. It could have if you were, you know, if you were a weekly podcast about Batman, which is one of the best shows here at the Ring of Podcast Network, it's called the Dark Knight Test and it's a woman's perspective on Bruce Wayne. And I'm a huge fan of the show. I'm an executive producer on that podcast and I've been happy to help you along the way.
And for your 25 or 25 Batman related media list that you're doing, you can put Dark Knight in number one if you want. Sure. But unfortunately I have to do Ben Affleck's cameo as Batman in the Flash. I see.
And number one, because I really thought he brought some emotional resonance. What about George Clooney's cameo as Batman in the Flash? I honestly, I didn't, I saw the Flash and I don't remember that. Like was I in the bathroom?
We have gone far fields here on this podcast. Recommended if you like, um, citizen game. Yeah. Seems okay.
Great man. Yeah. Not everything was cracked up to be some second thoughts on his life. Um, on the day.
Yeah. But on the day, this was pretty good. The same energy, the same sense of grand drama, scope and big. Yes.
And big. Yes. Um, Lincoln. Yeah.
Sure. Not fair. I don't know whether Lincoln is really taking like, are we sure? Are we sure?
Are we sure? Uh, interstellar or are we sure? Sure. Um, if you like any Christopher Nolan movies, then you will like the film op and I'm or if you haven't seen it.
Steve Jobs. Yeah. This is a good one. I mean, like this.
That's a real sure. Is it good? No, like a suspicious, like this is a great person with great ideas, but is he a great person? Well, but you know, he makes the iPod for his daughter.
So he does. Thank God for that. And then I put the brutalist on here. Yeah, of course.
To the brutalist. Yeah. Very good. Very good film.
Um, any other thoughts? That's really fun to make a, make a show with you and to also to learn about what your definition of compromises. What do you mean? That's not fair.
I've been very generous in this process. What am I just started doing? Like the whole kitty, like, you know, correcting the tense of the interrogators speech right now? Just to close this out.
I wish you luck, but it means I'm going to have you taken the sheets. That's what I'd like you to do. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Not a coincidence.
Happy fourth of July weekend. That's good. I'll tell you something. I got the schedule just so.
Today is our Independence Day. There you go. Good job, John. That's it.
We'll be back next week with part two of our 2025 movie auction. We'll see you then.