"Oppenheimer"

I had five hours to kill Friday evening, so I saw “Oppenheimer” (3 hours for the movie, and the rest for previews, advertising, and a mysterious traffic jam). Magnificent movie! Five stars! It’s a very verbal movie, though, and it helps to be right on top of your nuclear history. A parade of giants: Einstein, Szilard, Rabi, Lawrence, Teller, Bohr, Heisenberg, Fermi, etc. Even a very young Lomanitz is there (who was a professor at NM Tech in Socorro when I attended there in the mid-70s). It's actually surprising how Lomanitz gets so much attention. The movie doesn’t get preachy and the motivations of all the actors are clear and sincere. 

In the 90s, a great deal of Manhattan Project material was declassified, and some of those special moments make it into the film, such as shortly before the Trinity test, when General Groves tells the meteorologist that he will be hung if it doesn’t stop raining. 

Cillian Murphy is great, Edward Downey Jr. Is great. Matt Damon plays General Groves. Groves was known by contemporaries as the most humorless man who ever lived, so when Damon’s Groves smiles once, I knew he was too affable for the role. I’ve had a grudge against Emily Blunt for her Sicario movies, but she does well here. I thought the portrayal of President Truman was all wrong (played by the best actor ever, Gary Oldman). Some kind of writing failure there. 

And seeing NM on film was great too! 

Go see it!