Says Robert Downey Jr., after the NYT interviewer asks if he's able to "make sense of the business right now."
His new movie is "Oppenheimer," directed by Christopher Nolan, 3-hour "thriller" about J. Robert Oppenheimer. I don't know how that can be thrilling, and I'm reflexively annoyed by the idea that some movie folk are proposing to "thrill" me about Oppenheimer. Find another word. "Thriller" is so off-putting. Do some people see it and think Great, I'll be thrilled?
I'm skeptical about the movie "Oppenheimer," but I do like that quote up there. Downey has a distinctive way of speaking. Even reduced to text, it's alive and funny and multifaceted. But it's close to nonsense. And he's mixing up No. 1 and No. 2! Or did the meanings transpose over the years? He's got a mixed metaphor there in that sentence the NYT saw fit to print. Maybe he did that on purpose intending a scatological joke in "you look at the numbers" and that's what he thinks of the movie business: It's gone to shit.
CORRECTION: All my analysis is affected and ruined by my failure to see the first "r" in "streamer." I apologize... and laugh at myself. Downey was only ever talking about urine. There was no excrement, no innumeracy, no mixed metaphor.
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36 comments:
There are good movies as recently as 2015, when they ended the casting couch.
"Streamer" - company that broadcasts shows and movies over the Internet.
But "stream" is also used in the phrase "stream of piss".
So "Major Streamer" sounds like Valley Girl phrase shortening slang for a giant piss.
Thank you. I finally understand the reference to Barbenheimer. It’s Barbie versus Oppenheimer at the box office. I’m betting on Barbie.
Stream = No 1. No switcheroo.
I’ve always liked him too.
Have you seen the trailer?
Joke's on me as well even though I saw the "r" and thought the word "streamer" referred to a movie making it big on Netflix.
The beatification of Saint Oppenheimer is misplaced, but the Left does love its saints, almost as much as it lives its martyrs. The Rosenbergs come to mind.
I'll see the movie, on a 70mm IMAX screen, because that is how it was made to be experienced. The thriller aspect is seeing the best nukular kabooms ever put on screen. And that includes the stock film of real ones at the end of Dr. Strangelove.
".., 3-hour "thriller" about J. Robert Oppenheimer.." Spoiler Alert: The bomb goes off
Fat Man and Little Boy
Sorry for the confusion. Somehow, I managed to read "steamer" (the slang term meaning turd).
I read the post above first and decided to see if anyone wants one of the dozen old steamer trunks and eleven newer metal filing cabinets I'm about to inherit. Number 2 never crossed my mind, but they probably smell like mouse & squirrel pee.
What are they doing, a mashup of Captain America before his hibernation? Is this going to be made into some kind of Marvel adventure? Ugh.
Robert Downey Jr. is a reasonably-talented clever guy that thinks he's smarter and wittier than we really think he is. It was the same with Jack Nicholson's Bad Boy behavior.
Looking forward to "Oppenheimer" more than any movie in recent history. I should add an asterisk: I don't watch, or even consider watching movies based on cartoon or comic book characters. So, no- I've not seen a movie called "Iron Man". Why would I do that? So that means that for most of the last 15 years or so, Hollywood has been mostly dead to me.
Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murhpy, a terrific, if yet only mildly known actor. This will be his 'ship coming in' moment.
Do those of us who watched the long BBC series from the 1980s with Sam Waterston as Oppenheimer get absolved from any responsibility to watch this new Oppenheimer thing?
"Have you seen the trailer?"
Now, I have.
Which one is supposed to be Downey? I wasted a lot of my attention trying to find the face that is Downey's and never did.
As for the style of that movie and the tone, I hated it.
Intellectually, it argues against itself. It's bemoaning that people won't understand nuclear weapons simply from hearing them explained or reading about them, then it never explains them but shows scary images, playing into raw emotion (cheesily, like the next sci-fi bullshit to come off the assembly line).
It's a steamer.
First comment to type "Cleveland" wins.
I win!
People are forgetting about the violence and sex going on at Los Alamos.
IRC, Oppie and Edward Teller got in a fight fight over a beautiful secretary. Not to mention Commies and spies.
Its the standard Hollywood formula. Nuclear scientists + Big engineering projects = Nonstop hot babes, thrills and chills.
Ann:
It would be worth seeing just for Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy.
I've got Emily tapped to play the female lead in "Frankenstein, Part II."
Back in the '80s when Memphis had a short-lived pro football team, one of the finalists for a name was Memphis Steamers. (The current failing effort is the Steamboats.)
The Oppenheimer trailer I see on cable looks cheap and cheesy, and frankly I don't think movies ever do a good job when the topic is scientific/historical.
Screenwriters sit around in bars and rehab meetings combining two movies they don't want to see into one they do, as in OPPENHEIMER and BARBIE. "I'd buy that for a dollar!"
"I ... overreacted." -- Bill, "Kill Bill 2"
"Barbenheimer" is not about the competition between the two movies opening on the same weekend. It is a celebration of two movie that have completely different target audiences that people want both to succeed.
A massively ripped Robert Oppenheimer, glistening with sweat, the sleeves torn off his lab coat, holds off the Rosenbergs and their henchmen with long bursts from his smoking M-60. He yells over his shoulder at his team of eggheads, "Get to the Chopper!"
Initial PR: "Oppenheimer is a serious film about serious people doing a serious thing. Seriously, go see Oppenheimer!"
Audience survey score: "Crickets"
Next PR: "Oppenheimer is a serious thriller about Robert Oppenheimer, whose life was more like Indiana Jones than that gray-looking gentleman looking thoughtfully at something. Really, go see it!"
Audience survey score and Indy 5 attendance: "Crickets"
Most recent PR: "Come see Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy without their clothes!!!! Please, please, please!!??"
Fat Man and Little Boy, with Paul Newman, was excellent.
Oppenheimer was played by Dwight Schultz (Murdock on The A-Team and Reginald Barclay on Star Trek: The Next Generation).
"Do those of us who watched the long BBC series from the 1980s with Sam Waterston as Oppenheimer get absolved from any responsibility to watch this new Oppenheimer thing?"
Speaking of steamers...
Anyone who's read Richard Rhodes' magisterial The Making of the Atomic Bomb is inevitably going to be disappointed by any cinematic attempt to tell this story. And Hollywood will just as inevitably trash/trivialize an incredible story just to push any Lefty martyrdom angle or shoehorn in some melodramatic crap that never happened.
But, these people were fucking giants from a different age, and there's probably no way to get the average 2023 movie-goer to even begin to understand them.
Cillian Murphy’s the draw for me.
You could make a excellent movie about Los Alamos and the A-bomb and it would be true to life. You'd have Soviet spies, a villianous Oppenheimer, a Nasty german called Fuchs, a Gullible rube USA General called Groves, and a heroic Edward Teller.
But I'm guessing this isn't the movie that got made.
One of the happier expressions for shit that I love is "dropped a deuce."
It's particularly good when you're walking your dog.
"Come on, baby, drop a deuce."
One the biggest problems in doing a movie about a famous novelist/writer is making the writing itself interesting.
IRC, "Julia" solved that problem by showing Fonda (Hellman) at a typewriter, pounding away at the keys, then looking at the paper intensley, then looking disgusted, and crumpling the paper and throwing it in the trash. Then putting in a new page. Of course, she's puffing on a cig, and we can see a little bit of whiskey on the desk too. I think she takes a swig.
Later, she thows the typewriter across the room, although that could've been another Movie about a novelist. Anyway, She quits in frustration. But later talks to gruff ol' Jason Robards (Hammett) who bucks her up, and tells her that writing isn't a bed of roses.
So, maybe we'll see Oppie staring intently at a blackboard full of numbers and symbols and then Eureka, erasing one number/symbol and the writing in another. Hollywood physics at work.
"His new movie is "Oppenheimer," directed by Christopher Nolan, 3-hour "thriller" about J. Robert Oppenheimer. I don't know how that can be thrilling,"
I felt the same way about "Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter" until I actually watched it. To my surprise, I loved it!
I just saw the official trailer for the Scott/Phoenix "Napoleon" and already my teeth are on edge. Beautiful nonsense.
mikee said...
"The beatification of Saint Oppenheimer is misplaced, but the Left does love its saints, almost as much as it lives its martyrs."
It will be interesting to see how they treat Edward Teller.
Based on the trailer, at least they didn't make Matt Damon wear a fat suit to play Leslie Groves. Did give him the mustache, though.
"I'll see the movie, on a 70mm IMAX screen, because that is how it was made to be experienced. The thriller aspect is seeing the best nukular kabooms ever put on screen. And that includes the stock film of real ones at the end of Dr. Strangelove."
Great idea!
As a side note, the biggest and most important nukular kaboom evah has had at least a cameo in just about every movie ever made.
Bob Boyd said...
"A massively ripped Robert Oppenheimer, glistening with sweat, the sleeves torn off his lab coat, holds off the Rosenbergs and their henchmen with long bursts from his smoking M-60. He yells over his shoulder at his team of eggheads, 'Get to the Choppah!'"
With the A-Team theme song playing in the background.
Mark, 12:33:
"Fat Man and Little Boy, with Paul Newman, was excellent."
I'm late to this, but yes, it was. Having only seen Dwight Schultz in a lighthearted role, I was surprised how easy he was to take seriously as Oppenheimer. I was always mildly amused that the commie-adjacent scientist was played by one of the relatively few out-and-proud conservatives in Hollywood. I thought he did a fine job.
Neither Newman nor the director saw General Groves as a good guy – both were dismayed how much audiences liked the SoB – but Newman's fine portrayal captured something admirable about the man. Certainly the physical resemblance was minimal, and he owned the role anyway.
Definitely looking forward to this one. I just wish, Sunday or no, they were releasing it on July 16.
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