Fun fact: the girl with the melting face is Nolan actual daughter. He said having her made that scene that much more emotional resonant for him that the film already was.
That does make a lot of sense. Some people have compared this to Nolan's first horror movie, and I know that he takes the seriousness of atomic warfare very seriously. So seeing his daughter be a hypothetical victim would be something he worries about.
I saw this movie in theaters and it was a magical experience. The room was full, not a single seat was empty. The Trinity test scene was incredible, the entire room went silent, there was no sound of people chewing, drinking, breathing, coughing, nothing, pure silence and it stayed that way throughout the entire scene. The movie didn't feel like 3 hours at all. Loved your reaction
I do love a good blockbuster, but to be in the middle of a cinema full of grown ups who were just absorbed in what was on screen was such a pleasurable experience.
I like how they trick us into thinking Strauss is a friend at the beginning of the movie. Then, by the time the movie progresses, you realize he's the villain pulling all the strings.
Los Alamos is actually still a working community. I live near the area, and pass through regularly, and it's a huge deal. It's actually the inspiration for Black Mesa from half life, and is similarly a giant underground facility full of weird shit that's very very classified 😂 You can actually, technically, drive through the area, because it has a road that passes through it, but there are quite a few people with large weaponry to make sure you're not tempted to stop.
It is very much still an active national lab. One of my friends just went to work there to do weapons development...He graduated from TX A&M in nuke engineering, apparently working there is every aggies' dream
They will let people pass through when they are going to the campgrounds at Bandelier National Monument or to the ski hill, there's no other reliable way to get to those spots in a vehicle. But yes, they will make sure people actually pass through and don't make any turns onto the lab grounds. The movie brought a lot more tourists up there, when they show up at the lab, they are directed to the town site where they can go to the museum and walk around to see some of the original houses that are still there.
I have been to Los Alamos, which is a working laboratory. You can visit the Atomic Museum there, and they have the original gadget construction cabins and other areas you can drive to. The Trinity Test Site is normally off-limits, but it is open to the public the first week of October and the first week of April every year.
All the walls are covered in asbestos by the way....keeps out the rats. Let us know if you develop a large dry cough, headache or your heart stopping. Because that's not part of the test. That's asbestos.
As far as I'm aware "Break a leg" started in show business, and was usually said to someone going for an audition where it meant "I hope to see you in a cast soon", but as it effectively means "good luck", that is what it's meaning has morphed into.
In the old days of theater (late 1800s/early 1900s), if you were not acting, you had to stay behind "the leg line" and not get paid. Telling someone to break a leg is letting them know you want them to not only act, but also get paid for doing so. It was only later used instead of "good luck" since saying so would "jinx" the performance!
I know of two ideas, one is that you'd have to do so many curtain calls after your performance you'd break the "leg" curtains, the other is that you'd break a leg from the bowing.
Watching this on IMAX was insane. It was louder than life, the tension before the explosion was one of the most intense things I've experienced in a movie theater ever
@@caifothiazz Okay I'm not gonna lie, some time has passed now and I've seen other stuff and...man Oppenheimer was awesome, sure, but if I could choose I actually would have prefered to watch Godzilla Minus One on IMAX. I always hated giant monster movies but Minus One is an extremely rare exception. 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, check it out
Simone & George - No apologies are necessary for the quiet you displayed in this reaction. From the immeasurable weight of the subject itself, to the amazingly crafted script, to the undaunted and unflinching delivery of the actors; this movie was an experience to behold in nothing less than stunned silence. Theaters should have had ushers outside to help people pick up their dropped jaws as they exited. Great reaction, you two!
@@MerelvanHouten - Same. I mean the acting and cinematography were top notch. But Nolan’s typical time jumping got old very fast. The pacing was all over the place. And the last hour was boring as shit (should have been 20 mins tops). I thought The Imitation Game was a much better movie, fwiw.
the most haunting line is when the military officer says to Oppenheimer, "we'll take it from here!" Military drops the bomb, wins the war, scientists get crucified, tale as old as time.
It's such a perfect movie. I went to see it 2 and wanna see it even more. I also predicted it that it would won a lot of Oscars (11 in my case) but 7 is more than enough. 10/10 movie
The explosion was silent because the speed of light through air is MUCH faster than the speed of sound. A few movies have shown explosions and delayed sound properly (Tenet and The Hurt Locker come to mind) on far distant chemical explosions, but for an atomic explosion, its so big, you are VERY VERY far away when viewing, and can still see it very well, hence the sound comes several seconds later.
The real shockwave of that test explosion on July 16, 1945 reached the scientists after 44 seconds. It's possible that the shockwave in the film also comes in after 44 seconds, but I do not own it to confirm.
When George mentioned the fence story I thought "that sounds like something Richard Feynman would do", and sure enough when I looked it up it was a story told by Feynman himself. About the only difference is the direction he was going... Feynman said he would go out through the gate and back in through the fence hole 😂
The Trinity test using silence was genius, not just because it was effectively dramatic. From the moment of the on screen explosion until the shockwave hits, is the actual amount of time it took to reach the scientists at the real Trinity test. Nolan incorporated that moment of silence to give us the feeling that the scientists and other observers would have felt. As much of that feeling as you can put into a movie, anyway. That quiet moment of just taking it in, and realizing you succeeded, and experiencing the visuals of the strangely beautiful explosion you spent months trying to create. Then BAM oh yeah it's violent and terrifying as fuck. I saw that in theaters and it made me jump harder than any horror movie I've ever watched. Nolan is all timer of a filmmaker. Absolutely perfect creative decisions for that scene alone
Nolan should've pulled his head out of his butt and allowed the use of CGI for that explosion. I know Trinity wasn't _that_ big of an explosion in real life, but using a little gasoline fire to pretend to be Trinity was very weak stuff.
It was so effective because, in the theater, the rest of the movie was incredibly loud, louder than any movie I'd seen before, so that sudden silence felt like the end of everything that preceded it
@@fakecubed the movie is not about the bomb itself so literally who cares. i dont understand why people care so much. the bomb looked fine considering it is not the key focus of the movie. a whole extra hour of film afterwards but wahh wahh bomb thats on-screen for 2 minutes not big enough
Seems almost symbolic of their success. The quiet before the storm. They succeeded at their jobs, and got to bask in the silence of it for just a brief moment before the reality sets in.
This movie was one of the most jaw dropping experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theatre. I don’t think I’ve ever left a screening before where the audience was in absolute stunned silence.
I've seen three theories on the origin of 'break a leg', the first by far the most likely. Theatrical folk were superstitious, and it was thought that wishing someone 'good luck' on their upcoming performance would actually bring bad luck. So bidding a person to break a leg, a bad outcome, would be a 'safe' way to wish them good luck, while presumably appeasing the gods of perversity. The second possible origin of the phrase dates back to Elizabethan times, when audiences reportedly showed their appreciation by banging their chairs on the floor. The greater the appreciation, the harder the banging. Any broken chair legs would therefore signify a real _tour de force._ The third theory is that the phrase refers to the leg line on a stage, a line on the floor in the wings, beyond which the person is considered to be on stage and visible to the audience. Performers who made it on stage, i.e., 'broke' the leg line, would actually get paid, while those who remained in the wings and behind the leg line would not.
Don't be sorry for a quiet reaction. My reaction in the theatre was exactly the same as so was everyone else's. My theatre was dead silent throughout the entire movie. The only noise I heard was a few people at the end of the movie who said "wow". The ending left me in silence for a solid 20 minutes after it ended. The sheer weight and gravity that we could feel through the screen is just a testament to Cillian's amazing performance and Nolan's elite filmmaking
This movie utilized sound in ways I'd never experienced before. In the ARQ theater, it was absolutely incredible. The other thing that got me was we all know the test succeeded - but the tension they were able to build prior to the bomb going off was... amazing. EDIT: I'm also wondering if the drowning of her, that the hands are Oppenheimer's signifying he feels responsible for her death. That he killed her.
Seeing this in IMAX three times, I was mesmerized every single time. This movie literally made me go home and start to study physics. Life changing experience.
I saw it twice in IMAX. During the lead up to the bomb being detonated. My heart was beating out of my chest. Also, I knew Gary Oldman was in the movie. But I didn't know who he was playing, so when I saw him as President Truman. My face lit up!
As a lover of history, the fact that movie still made me incredibly nervous during the Trinity Test scene, despite already knowing what happened, says so much about Nolan's talent as a film maker. This is by far the best movie of the year, if not decade.
I just found out a while back from my Dad, that my Grandfather's unit was doing some work about 50 miles from the test area at Los Alamos. They didn't know the test was happening. He said it looked like the sun was starting rise, then it immediately set. Didn't find out until much later what it was. Pretty cool thing for him to have witnessed.
I saw this in 70mm IMAX twice and it was possibly the best movie-going experience I've ever had. The opening scene with the fireball sent chills through my body. Incredible filmmaking.
@@zhen3142 you're very wrong my friend seeing it in IMAX 70mm was incredible. Its about he immersion. Seeing the whole movie in that format was great. But especially the opening montage, the explosion scene and the final few minutes was overwhelming. Seeing the whole image they captured on a 60ft tall screen blew my mind. watching it at home isn't as fun
One of the two movies in my life so far that I've gone to the cinema 4 times for. Even just to experience the audio of it on big speakers makes it worth it every time.
Just wanted to say, I'm a therapist watching this on my lunch break and Simone's "Sit down for a session with Cinebinge" made me laugh. Well done, lads!
I saw this opening weekend in IMAX at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood at a 7am screening. The IMAX film reel was so big - 11 miles long and 600 pounds - that the theatre, along with many others, had to build an extension to the projection booth to have room for it. The sound was insanely great and those amazing IMAX shots made it well worth getting up early for. Beautiful film and performances. Cillian and RDJ damn well deserve nominations at all the awards coming up.
@@Hexon66 - My only issue with the sound is what seems to be a regular complaint with Nolan's sound mixing wherein the dialogue - which there's a LOT of - is often hard to hear. The boom of the shockwave after that long space of silence when the Trinity test went off scared the shit out of a lot of people in the theatre, myself included.
40:57 Speaking of that name-drop, another epic historical drama w/ a stacked cast and masterful editing is Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) starring Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jack Lemmon, etc...
The first time I watched "Oppenheimer" in theaters I had to take a quick bathroom break, but knew enough about the history of it to know where to break from. I also knew I would see it in the theater again anyway because the writing is so intricate and cohesive that you really can't miss a second of it or it feels like you've missed a quarter of a standard feature-length movie. It is like a feat of engineering where damn near every performance, major or supporting, were integral and/or significant.
12:09 Did Someone Says "TH-cam"? 19:22 "What The Hell Are You Doing In Chicago." 23:56 "On A Hydrogen Bomb You're Not Even A Building." 34:13 "You Think Anyone Give A [__] Who Build The Bomb." 37:58 "Oppenheimer Is An Agent Of The Soviet Union." 38:39 "I Would Have Split In His Face." 39:47 "He Talks About The Nuclear Genie Back In The Bottle."
I was mainly excited to see Richard Feynman. They did show him not using the welding glass to view the explosion, as he knew glass blocks the harmful UV light from the blast. But there were other stories of him breaking into safes using logic and making people think he was a genius locksmith. He was a joker and pretty unique. Not a saint by any means but listening to his lectures are always entertaining and help you think differently about the world around you. The man won 2 Noble Prizes in Physics and neither were related to his relatively small work on the Manhattan Project. And yes he loved playing the bongos.
Gosh, me too. Honestly, the whole Manhattan project thing I familiar with it because of his book Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! So I really appreciate that they included him in movie
I'm an actor and as far as I know the phrase "Break a leg" has a number of possible origins but all of them stem from the superstition you shouldn't wish someone good luck in the theatre. "The leg" can refer to the lever that opened an closed the curtains at the front of the stage, it can also refer to the side of a stage and in both cases back in the days of vaudeville you'd only get paid if you actually appeared on stage. So by wishing someone "Break a leg" you are wishing them success and that they get paid because they've actually appeared and done the work.
12:12 "Everybody Out, NOW!" 15:45 "Goes This [__] This Head." 18:06 "Jacket" Or "Gadjet"? 24:50 "Germany Is About To Surrender." 24:53 "With The Japanese Fightart." 30:01 "These Things Are Hard In Your Heart." 39:24 "I Left My Country That Never Return." 40:57 "Kennedy, Jonh F. Kennedy."
I cannot recommend rewatching this enough, now that you know what to be on the lookout for and who everyone is and how they all fit together it flows even better
There's a lot of symbolism (Shoutout to Just Trust Ash) in this film. One of my favourite is the first scene with Einstein and Oppenheimer we get one short cut to Albert throwing one stone in the pond, creating a single ripple symbolising the atomic bomb as a unique single theory. In their last scene it shows the light rain creating multiple ripples now that the entire world has been introduced to it while he points out we destroyed the world. Truly a great film!
It's honestly really hard to describe how it felt watching the Trinity test for the first time. It's a masterclass in building and releasing tension. Even though I'm not as big a fan of the movie as others, that 5-6 minutes is just undeniable.
27:41 The idea break a leg came from the early days of theatre, it was a way of saying "I hope you make the cast," because if you break a leg you get a cast, but also if you get the part you are made a part of the cast. So by telling them to break a leg you're telling them you hope they get cast
My favourite scene is where Oppenheimer jumps on the table and screams "Its Oppen time!" and then the nuke goes off. In all seriousness, its a fantastic movie, Cillian Murphy deserves an Oscar.
“Break a leg” is theatre term. A lot of people think it means “good luck,” but that’s actually wrong. What it actually means is: “earn your pay.” Back in the day; actors only got paid for the time they spent on stage performing. If you’re not performing; you’re backstage. Well, in an amphitheater performance; there usually isn’t much of a backstage. Actors typically stand off to the side; past the stage area. The point where the stage and the side meet is known as a Leg-line. So; in order to earn your pay; you had to step across that line; or “Break the leg,” and start performing.
Nicely edited! Actually appreciated you left longer parts without comment - seen it twice in the cinema myself, and yeah, you can’t help but just sit there. Some notes 3:14 Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and “father” of quantum mechanics. Mentor of Werner Heisenberg, among many others (Bohr’s son won a Nobel prize too). The play “Copenhagen”, which I highly recommend, is a great companion piece to this movie, as it deals with Heisenberg - Germany’s Oppenheimer - and his visit to Bohr in 1942, during the occupation. Bohr was in a precarious situation then, being Jewish in Nazi-occupied Denmark, but was smuggled out (along with the vast majority Danish Jews, incredibly enough) and made it to neutral Sweden, and then, as we see, to the US. Bohr is played here by Kenneth Branagh who does a _terrible_ job at a Danish accent :D 8:28 George: yeah, using that quote in that context is a bit much, even for Nolan. Sex and death, la petite mort and all that but still. 9:15 Simone: Yup, black holes are a relatively new discovery. Heck, the fact that there are other galaxies - let alone billions of them - is relatively recent. 11:42 Applause for Emily Blunt’s accent. 12:16 Mentioned in passing here is perhaps Einstein’s most direct contribution to the bomb: the letter that he and Szilard wrote to the president, warning him that the Nazis might be working on it or, at any rate, that the US should be. 12:56 George: Please watch “Good Night, and Good Luck” (David Straithairn, George Clooney - Clooney also directed) for another look at the McCarthy era. Incredible movie! 16:09 Teller, introduced here, did end up becoming the inventor of the hydrogen bomb (along with Stanislav Ulam), but besides his contribution to human precarity, he was also just a truly unlikable piece of crap his whole life. Unlike Oppenheimer’s mixed feelongs about his creation, Teller was just “how can we make make boom big enough to destroy all of communism?!” 16:23 Not in the edit, and barely in the movie, but Einstein is having a stroll with Kurt freakin Gödel - the man who, in a sense, broke mathematics. Look him up. 17:22 The film’s in color when it’s from Oppenheimer’s perspective. It’s black and white when it’s not. … thats probably enough notes :)
28:50 /// The atomic bomb was not the most expensive project the Americans developed during World War II. More expensive was the aircraft to carry it over the target. It cost $3 billion to develop the B-29. So the entire cost of dropping the atomic bomb was more than $5 billion, or nearly $86 billion today.
An equally sizeable project were the proximity fuzzed AA shells, primarily used by naval vessels. Millions upon Millions of shells manufactured, each with a tiny radar in each shell. Even though made by over 100 manufacturing companies, its secrecy was guarded at the same levels of the Manhattan project and D-Day invasions. Known by few, this is the primary reason Japanese Kamikazes were so unsuccessful. It could have been disastrous.
I was in Phoenix, AZ for a week and was able to see this film in one of 19 US theaters that offered a showing in IMAX 70 mm print and it was glorious! This is definitely a film that benefits from a second or even third viewing.
This was a surreal experience to watch this in an imax theater, especially the trinity tests. The vibrations could be felt for minutes after the explosion
The bespectacled and handsome actor is Josh Harnett, star of Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor. About 20 years ago he didn't appear in major studio films because he wanted to lower his profile, so he turned to independent films and television.
A pretty good anecdote is one I've seen posted around. Someone in the theater asking out loud, if there was any post-credits scenes. Someone else simply replying, "Yeah. You're living in it."
Two interesting trivia bits: 1. For Olivia Newton-John fans: When Oppenheimer went to study in Germany, the teacher he studied under was Max Born, also known as Olivia Newton-John's grandfather. 2. For Leave It To Beaver fans: Before she became an actress, Madge Blake (a.k.a. Mrs. Mondello - - she also played Aunt Harriet on the original Batman series) - and her husband worked on the Manhattan Project, specifically in the testing department.
If you want to watch a pretty good flick about the McCarthy era, and various other important topics that still resonate today, check out 'Good Night, and Good Luck'.
"Break a leg" comes from ye olde English theatre tradition / superstition. Wishing someone good luck before going on stage was considered bad luck, so naturally it became custom to wish *bad* luck on someone in order to bring them good. There were all sorts of inventive things you could ask to befall someone, but being short and simple, "break a leg" is what's stuck around into everyday use.
One of the best movies and reactions you've done on the channel, your absorption into it reflects what happened to the theatre audience and is a perfect testament to the gravity and drama of this moment in history. I think you two handled it well and I would be interested in seeing other reactions to movies with this kind of dynamic, awe inspiring story and portrayal. At this moment I'm drawing blanks on any that are comparable but perhaps the comments section will help out with that. Regardless very well done with both your words and silences!
I worked at White Sands Missile Range up north at Stallion Range Camp and nearby is the test site and the McDonald ranch house & buildings, confiscated from them and other ranches during the war, and never returned to them. Tours are made twice yearly or by special arrangement, but we were able to drive over every so often since we already had access on the range. The site is behind a fence but the house is accessible. They’ve kept it up and even have markings such as “Clean Room - keep door shut” where final assembly was done. Amazingly, the house and outbuildings are just a couple miles from ground zero but had no damage. I do have some great pictures of both sites though. It’s crazy that the trigger mechanism parts were driven down the mountain from the lab the 210 miles in a sedan over some bad roads for final assembly. Los Alamos was so secret it had no mail service. A box in Santa Fe was the address and someone had to carry the mail up and back daily. And now Los Alamos and the National Laboratory is a very well-kept and nice “government” town. I love it and its’ beauty but would rather live down the hill in Santa Fe. And Groves built the Pentagon in 16 months, not the 48 the planners insisted it would take. He was a #%$& but it got results. The project included far-flung locations at Oak Ridge, Hanford as well as Los Alamos. All heavily compartmentalization and Top Secret.
Usually imax theaters in my country was either half filled or just almost empty because most movies wasnt really worth the money or effort to go to an imax theater. But oh boy was it full when this movie was screened. All imax theaters in my city was FILLED. I couldnt watch it in imax for the first month of the release. It was always full. When i finally got to see it, it was an experience. The sounds, the clarity, and the explosion shockwave felt real. The theater was rumbling and you feel it through your whole body.
Oppie was (also) the guy who intuited that the dual answers produced by Dirac's equations, one positive and one negative, implied the existence of antimatter.
Your reaction was perfect - it's an overwhelming character and subject. I worked with Los Alamos (LANL) for a year around the turn of the century and was fascinated by the cognitive dissonance exhibited by the scientists there. I think it was showcased in the (then) Atomic Museum, now named the Bradbury Museum. At the beginning of the exhibits is the famous letter from Einstein to Pres. Roosevelt about the possibility of creating an atomic bomb. At the end of the exhibits is a lesser known letter from Einstein to Pres. Truman begging him to stop Hydrogen bomb research and testing. LANL is still responsible for ensuring that our nuclear arsenal is working properly yet the scientists there never want to see it used.
Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors working today who can make a three-hour biopic largely comprised of people talking in hushed tones and make it so absolutely riveting. But he's able to convey the grave stakes and consequences of these hushed conversations. These were serious people talking seriously, and their choices changed the course of human history. Some complained that they never showed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the movie seems to intentionally choose not to, not just because Oppie was the focus of the film, but because we all have seen the cataclysmic damage they caused. The real footage is out there for any of us to find. Nolan simply chooses to imply the damage and the aftermath. We see Oppie's anguished reaction to the news reel. He's so distracted by what he caused that he doesn't even hear the cheers during his speech in the barn. He sees a woman's face peeling off and the burned-out husk of a human body at his feet. The man is clearly haunted, and we are haunted through him. The stomping in the barn is also some great sound design. It's the horrible sound of a raucous crowd applauding mass destruction, but it also sounds like the engine of a steam train as it rolls into motion. Like Oppenheimer's atomic research and everything it wrought, it's an unstoppable train chugging forward faster and faster, at risk of getting so out of control that it will annihilate everything in its path.
We see what is happening in Japan through Oppenheimer's eyes as he is seeing burning faces and is practically having a panic attack during this speech! Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolan, sound and editing are brilliant ‼️
I saw this at the IMAX (proper 15perf 70mm film projection) and it was just an otherworldly experience. Some parts of the film felt like a fever dream. The closeups of Cillian (pronounced Killian, not Sillian) Murphy when the world was shaking around him were stunning. Learning they were done fully in camera was just icing on the Nolan cake. Nolan has made some seriously good films before, but this is his masterpiece - his career peak to date. I expect/demand nominations all around, and I'll be quite upset if Nolan, Murphy and Downey don't win at least a few statues for this.
I was lucky enough to live 20 minutes from 1 of 5 theaters in my country playing it in 70mm IMAX...ya it has literally ruined any future movies i watch in that theater cause they will not give me any feeling similar to how i felt when i went to that screening
This film was such a bore, they hyped up the nuclear explosion scene so much in the previews and it became such a letdown. I couldn’t find a single memorable scene worth remembering in this movie. This is Nolan’s worse film ever made in my opinion.
I actually loved the beginning "visualizations" that they put in as what Oppenheimer sees. I've taken a lot of courses in highschool and further reading just out of personal interest and you can name them all in regards to what it's referencing. Visualizations of string theory, black holes, the chain reaction of the bomb (but not contextualized yet in terms of destruction), the double slit experiment etc... Just a cool and fun way for people who know about this stuff to see so bombastically displayed on screen. Also Casey Affleck is so damn creepy in this and it's literally just a boardroom talk.
Wow, you really upped your game with this one. In my country, this film is not even on streaming yet 😄 I know it's long, but i think this is the kind of film you have to watch more than once to truly appreciate it. In my second viewing i caught a lot of things that flew over my head the first time, specially Emily Blunt's role which is far more than just an angry wife. Anyway, this is a great film, love your reactions 💟
Good analysis by you guys. I've only seen this movie halfway through so far and I already know I'm going to have to watch this movie a few times over. Just to pickup on the things that I missed the first time around. With good movies I usually end up doing this anyway.
Here in NM this is in our DNA. I live about 50 miles from Las Alamos and about the same distance from Trinity Site. Visiting the Trinity is a very solemn, eerie occasion. The tape was to cover where the electrical leads connected, the storm actually came up by coincidence so Nolan left it in. A single electrical discharge could have set the whole thing off. Towns as far away as 60 miles lite up with light. No one knew what was going on, end of the world? As a side, my dad chauffeured Oppenheimer to Las Alamos once.
The only issue with the movie is that so many people are getting from it the impression that there would be no bomb without Oppenheimer, and that is just not true. If he had not been involved, it would likely have taken longer, but it was always going to happen.
people resist that narrative because they just want to clutch their pearls and act morally superior. they want to act like america is evil and did this evil thing and if it didnt do this evil thing then the world would be awesome right now. this movie definitely capitlizes on the current "america bad" narrative that everyone is into. What Truman said in this movie is absolutely correct imo, its all on the politicians not the scientists.
Yes, but it would have taken decades if not for the Manhattan project - just like the Apollo Program vs Artemis - when not a national priority, government is slooooooooooooooow.
@@dansiegel995 Quite true...the money would have to be spent, but Oppenheimer did not need to be involved. Without him, it would have taken longer and thus cost more, but the Manhattan Project did not need Oppenheimer to succeed, and would have happened regardless of his involvement.
@@iKvetch558The Manhattan project absolutely would not have been completed prior to the end of WW2 without Oppenheimer. That is a fact. In fact, it could have been delayed so much without him, that at the war's conclusion, it's absurd funding and national priority could have been eliminated, as the Soviets were NO where near obtaining the bomb. I agree it was inevitable that it was developed, but I propose it could have been DECADES without a rival, in wartime, pushing for its completion. In that time, a non-atomic WW3 could have easily broken out between the West and the Soviets, costing perhaps even more than the horrific losses of WW2.
I have full confidence that Christopher Nolan will win the Oscar for "Best Director" next year. It's the right film at the right time in his career. Essentially, it's Nolan's "Schindler's List". I'd like to recommend that you see "Thirteen Days" starring Kevin Costner. It's about the Cuban missile crisis.
It may be a tough year and could be a dead heat between Nolan and Scorcese, but advance word on "Maestro" is fantastic, so Bradley Cooper might be in the running, as well.
Im predicting Scorsese gets it. Flower Moon feels like the film his career has been building towards much in the same way Nolans has with Oppenheimer, but I hate to say it also has the right politics behind it and matches up more with the Academy voting style. Its got the prestige vote. Cillian will 100% get Best Actor though and IMO his performance is the real triumph of this film.
I'm just grateful for this year. That the films that mattered this year and that will be remembered from this year aren't big budget franchise films. After the past decade of films, this year feels like a miracle (however inevitable it may have been)
@@sergeantbigmac Cillian was serviceable in the film, but he was totally overshadowed by RDJ. I rate Scorsese over Nolan because it's a better film, not because of the "politics". Not sure why you'd bring politics into it... oh right, yes I do.
@@Hexon66 I felt like RDJ was great but his role couldve been played by another actor, Cillian's performance was nuanced and haunting and unforgettable. Far beyond 'serviceable' but this is a simple agree to disagree situation I think. I agree Flowers Moon was probably the better film overall with the added benefit of also being campaigned by Academy members more right now. So I brought politics into it because its a simple fact the Academy voting IS politics. I wish it wasnt and when I was younger and more naive I thought it was truly about elevating all art equally and fairly choosing the best. You might be misinterpreting what kindve politics I mean here. I forget which Hollywood exec said this years ago but basically he didnt care about the Oscars because they are created by rival studios and not truly voted for. From campaigning and finding sponsors to promoting your film as a nominee, its about who has the most money behind them. When I learned about all this it was eye-opening to me. Its a political game and Flowers Moon more easily wins that game this year.
27:40 "break a leg" is most likely an imported saying from Germany: "Hals- und Beinbruch". That originates in the yiddish "Hasloche un broche", a good wish and blessing especially in business context that originates in Hebrew and means "Success and blessings". It was adapted this way in Germany as a malapropism and stayed because people thought this to be a good wish as to not challenge the forces of fate with it. It became a staple especially with hunters and adapted by other professions such as sailors who put their own spin on it ("Mast- und Schotbruch" literally translated "Break mast and sheet rope").
The term "black hole" was used much after the discovery of "dark stars". Dark star was the term used since it was the corpse (usually) of a dying star that gave rise to the intense gravitational well that swallowed everything - including light.
Tom Conti as Einstein is one of those underrated performances that will probably go unnoticed in the award season. He makes the man work as a character instead of becoming a carricature. His underlying sadness on what his work has done and produced over the years is so believable.
"Break a leg" is a typical English idiom used in the context of theatre or other performing arts to wish a performer "good luck". An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin (a dead metaphor),[1] "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform or before an audition. Though the term likely originates in German, the English expression is first attributed in the 1930s or possibly 1920s,[2] originally documented without specifically theatrical associations. Among professional dancers, the traditional saying is not "break a leg", but the French word merde.[3] The aforementioned theory regarding Hals- und Beinbruch, a German saying via Yiddish origins, suggests that the term transferred from German aviation to German society at large and then, as early as the 1920s, into the American (or British and then American) theatre.[4] The English translation of the term is probably explained by German-speaking Jewish immigrants entering the American entertainment industry after the First World War.[14][2] The alternative theory that the term reflects an ironic superstition would date the term as originating around the same time. The earliest published example in writing specifically within a theatre context comes from American writer Edna Ferber's 1939 autobiography A Peculiar Treasure, in which she writes about the fascination in the theatre of "all the understudies sitting in the back row politely wishing the various principals would break a leg".[15] American playwright Bernard Sobel's 1948 The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays describes theatrical superstitions: "before a performance actors never wish each other good luck, but say 'I hope you break a leg.'"[16] There is some anecdotal evidence from theatrical memoirs and personal letters as early as the 1920s.[2][17]
Several theories about where 27:50 comes from: - There's a good chance it comes from German, in which case it could simply just be a pun that doesn't translate to English well. - In the early 1900s there was this superstitious idea that if you say something the opposite would happen, so wishing someone good luck may bring them bad luck, so instead you wished they would break a leg... - There's also two great ways it relates to theatre, where it's used most. Firstly, that if you are not a payed actor you had to stay behind the "leg line" (so breaking the leg would make you successful), and that also if you break a leg you would be in a cast, or THE cast.
I live in Los Alamos proper, the lab became LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory. Most of the Approximately 12,00 residents work at the lab here on the hill. Btw, the lab employs ~16,00 people in cutting edge research. 1 in 5 people here are Ph.D’s. I actually saw this movie opening weekend at the SALA events center here in Los Alamos. Much of the filming took place at Fuller lodge here. LA sits over 7,000 feet in elevation on the top rim of a volcano and is fairly dense pine forest and not as barren as in the movie.
Los Alamos is still a functioning city. It’s now home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In fact, many of the locations mentioned throughout the film are now the locations of US’s Natl labs. - Berkeley where Oppenheimer was teaching is now home to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (named after Lawrence from the movie). - The Oak Ridge Facility that produced the Uranium for nukes still exists but it also has its own National Laboratory called the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. - Princeton which is referred to a few times throughout the film is now the location of the Princeton Particle Physics Laboratory. - Hanford which made the Plutonium still exists as a nuclear reservation and is home to the Northwest Pacific National Laboratory. Understanding this is important because you begin to realize that the nationwide network of federal laboratories are in large part the result of the Manhattan Project. Hope this helps
The Robert Batinbatinson thing is from The Weekly Planet Podcast and Mr. Sunday Movies TH-cam channel one of the best movie/comic podcasts/pages out there! It’s what James and Mason started calling Robert Pattinson after they learned he was playing Batman for some reason and thats just now his name to them lol
"Break a leg" is from the theatre world where a performance was no just simply say good luck but also when the performance was so good the audience would slam their chairs often breaking a leg off
31:31 The story about the fence at Los Alamos was told by Richard Feynman, played by Jack Quaid in the movie (he's the one who just used the windshield of a truck to block the UV, and otherwise watched the blast with the unaided eye, and we see him just after the explosion, waving a set of bongo drums in the air). Richard already has his own biopics, including Infinity, directed by and starring Matthew Broderick.
27:46 In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were queued to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn't get paid. If you were to tell the actor to “break a leg,” you were wishing them the opportunity to perform and get paid.
I still remember when the credits rolled and I all I felt was this impending doom......a kind of fear that Oppie must have felt back then. I kept seated for a while, I let Ludwig Gorranson make my skin crawl with that closing music. Only Chris Nolan can make a movie of a real life account feel so thrilling.
@17:50 Los Alamos is today a normal small town (with industry other than the lab) and is still home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory which is still very much involved in nuclear research and nuclear weapons. While the town and the laboratory complex are no longer secret, there are quite large and very highly restricted areas around the laboratory facility. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California also does a lot. I have no idea which dominates weapon technology and maintenance between the two.
That physicist guy with the familiar face that you don’t remember where he’s from. That’s Josh Harnett from Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor. He was a heartthrob back in the early 2000s then totally disappeared and popped up again on the silver screen in Oppenheimer. Looking like just an aged Josh Harnett. His voice even grew deeper.
Highly recommend the book American Prometheus, which was Nolan’s primary source of information when making the film. The reality of Oppenheimer’s life is even more complex and astounding than the movie conveys.
"Break a leg," if it hasn't already been covered, is a term of encouragement that is a clever variation of telling someone, "Good luck! I hope you get in the cast."
My Dad was WW II veteran, and as horrible as the atomic bomb was to be dropped on Japanese cities, the Japanese killed a 100, 000 Chinese by an old technic by the sword, so the Japanese Empire had to be stopped, the Japanese had the same mindset as the Germans in that they believed they were superior to other people. Their Empire had not been invaded in 1,000 years, it was not possible to lose the war, they would have fought to the last, man, woman and child.
Los Alamos is worth the visit. I went there about three years ago after having only previously been there around 1980. There is still creepy secret stuff going on there, but it is finally beginning to tell its story - even the National Park Service is involved.
"Break a leg" is a term from the stage. Legend claims it originated with Shakespeare's plays being so well-liked that the audience instead of clapping banged their chars onto the floor of the theater, to the point of them breaking a leg on said chair. Or, it may simply refer to the "leg line" of the stage where the curtain hangs, meaning that the actor manages to carry the performance out to his or her audience. The expression can't be confirmed older than 19th century vaudeville.
Fun fact: the girl with the melting face is Nolan actual daughter. He said having her made that scene that much more emotional resonant for him that the film already was.
They even actually melted her face off for realism, crazy
@@tear728 hahahaha
That does make a lot of sense. Some people have compared this to Nolan's first horror movie, and I know that he takes the seriousness of atomic warfare very seriously. So seeing his daughter be a hypothetical victim would be something he worries about.
@@tear728 Bravo Nolan!!!! 😂😂😂
@@tear728 She actually improvised that and Nolan liked it so much that he decided to keep it in.
I saw this movie in theaters and it was a magical experience. The room was full, not a single seat was empty.
The Trinity test scene was incredible, the entire room went silent, there was no sound of people chewing, drinking, breathing, coughing, nothing, pure silence and it stayed that way throughout the entire scene.
The movie didn't feel like 3 hours at all. Loved your reaction
I do love a good blockbuster, but to be in the middle of a cinema full of grown ups who were just absorbed in what was on screen was such a pleasurable experience.
Same. Unforgettable cinematic experience.
On the two occasions I saw it. It was completely full. Which was brilliant to see.
I also saw it in cinema in Sweden and the trinity test scene the whole room just went silent...it was a little bit spooky....
Totally different from when I saw it. There was only like 4 people max. I also saw it right after Barbie
I like how they trick us into thinking Strauss is a friend at the beginning of the movie. Then, by the time the movie progresses, you realize he's the villain pulling all the strings.
I thought he was a villain at the beginning
@@nightfall902That’s a tall ask for many people. The movie should provide a gateway for people to explore the subject more.
Wait what? He was the villain from pretty early on
Too many characters and too much talking, had no idea what was going on by the end
@@user-yc3mq2wm3vI always find it funny how Americans think simply knowing communists is "breaking the rules."
Los Alamos is actually still a working community. I live near the area, and pass through regularly, and it's a huge deal. It's actually the inspiration for Black Mesa from half life, and is similarly a giant underground facility full of weird shit that's very very classified 😂
You can actually, technically, drive through the area, because it has a road that passes through it, but there are quite a few people with large weaponry to make sure you're not tempted to stop.
It is very much still an active national lab. One of my friends just went to work there to do weapons development...He graduated from TX A&M in nuke engineering, apparently working there is every aggies' dream
They will let people pass through when they are going to the campgrounds at Bandelier National Monument or to the ski hill, there's no other reliable way to get to those spots in a vehicle. But yes, they will make sure people actually pass through and don't make any turns onto the lab grounds. The movie brought a lot more tourists up there, when they show up at the lab, they are directed to the town site where they can go to the museum and walk around to see some of the original houses that are still there.
oh... so G-Man is a reference to Oppenheimer here.
...neat!
I have been to Los Alamos, which is a working laboratory. You can visit the Atomic Museum there, and they have the original gadget construction cabins and other areas you can drive to. The Trinity Test Site is normally off-limits, but it is open to the public the first week of October and the first week of April every year.
All the walls are covered in asbestos by the way....keeps out the rats. Let us know if you develop a large dry cough, headache or your heart stopping. Because that's not part of the test.
That's asbestos.
As far as I'm aware "Break a leg" started in show business, and was usually said to someone going for an audition where it meant "I hope to see you in a cast soon", but as it effectively means "good luck", that is what it's meaning has morphed into.
Same as I heard, "break a leg" wishing to see you in cast!
Also in show biz saying, "good luck" is supposed to be bad luck, so "break a leg".
That makes so much sense!
In the old days of theater (late 1800s/early 1900s), if you were not acting, you had to stay behind "the leg line" and not get paid. Telling someone to break a leg is letting them know you want them to not only act, but also get paid for doing so. It was only later used instead of "good luck" since saying so would "jinx" the performance!
I know of two ideas, one is that you'd have to do so many curtain calls after your performance you'd break the "leg" curtains, the other is that you'd break a leg from the bowing.
Watching this on IMAX was insane. It was louder than life, the tension before the explosion was one of the most intense things I've experienced in a movie theater ever
best movie for IMAX, i think better than Avatar.
@@caifothiazz Okay I'm not gonna lie, some time has passed now and I've seen other stuff and...man Oppenheimer was awesome, sure, but if I could choose I actually would have prefered to watch Godzilla Minus One on IMAX. I always hated giant monster movies but Minus One is an extremely rare exception. 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, check it out
Simone & George - No apologies are necessary for the quiet you displayed in this reaction. From the immeasurable weight of the subject itself, to the amazingly crafted script, to the undaunted and unflinching delivery of the actors; this movie was an experience to behold in nothing less than stunned silence. Theaters should have had ushers outside to help people pick up their dropped jaws as they exited. Great reaction, you two!
I almost fell asleep in the theater.
@@MerelvanHouten Same haha
@@MerelvanHoutenI feel sorry for you. Enjoy your next Transformers movie
Movie was good. But definitely not Nolan’s strongest display
@@MerelvanHouten - Same. I mean the acting and cinematography were top notch. But Nolan’s typical time jumping got old very fast. The pacing was all over the place. And the last hour was boring as shit (should have been 20 mins tops).
I thought The Imitation Game was a much better movie, fwiw.
that "i believe we did.." line at the end is SO haunting. glad i saw this in theaters. absolute master piece. i predict A LOT of Oscars
It's definitely Oscar bait, but I'm not sure if it's "diverse" enough of a film for the modern Oscars.
@@gnffjfuuducnvshbg "anti-white" is crazy.
the most haunting line is when the military officer says to Oppenheimer, "we'll take it from here!" Military drops the bomb, wins the war, scientists get crucified, tale as old as time.
It's such a perfect movie. I went to see it 2 and wanna see it even more. I also predicted it that it would won a lot of Oscars (11 in my case) but 7 is more than enough. 10/10 movie
I saw this in theaters and it melted my mind. The score, the sound design, the visuals…. It did not feel like a 3 hour movie at all!
Agree with the sense of awe. Bladder totally disproved the statement on the time it felt, though! 🙄
Then I saw Killers of the Flower Moon, and that felt like it took a out 8 hours
Felt like a 6 hour movie!
@@highviewbarbell I saw napoleon and swearcit felt like 4 hours my god it felt slow asf
The explosion was silent because the speed of light through air is MUCH faster than the speed of sound. A few movies have shown explosions and delayed sound properly (Tenet and The Hurt Locker come to mind) on far distant chemical explosions, but for an atomic explosion, its so big, you are VERY VERY far away when viewing, and can still see it very well, hence the sound comes several seconds later.
The real shockwave of that test explosion on July 16, 1945 reached the scientists after 44 seconds. It's possible that the shockwave in the film also comes in after 44 seconds, but I do not own it to confirm.
@@pointystories582 it does. Nolan made sure abt sure lil details
@@pointystories582 LOL I never verified it myself, but Nolan is so anal about time in his movies, I'm sure he got it exactly right.
When George mentioned the fence story I thought "that sounds like something Richard Feynman would do", and sure enough when I looked it up it was a story told by Feynman himself. About the only difference is the direction he was going... Feynman said he would go out through the gate and back in through the fence hole 😂
The Trinity test using silence was genius, not just because it was effectively dramatic. From the moment of the on screen explosion until the shockwave hits, is the actual amount of time it took to reach the scientists at the real Trinity test. Nolan incorporated that moment of silence to give us the feeling that the scientists and other observers would have felt. As much of that feeling as you can put into a movie, anyway.
That quiet moment of just taking it in, and realizing you succeeded, and experiencing the visuals of the strangely beautiful explosion you spent months trying to create.
Then BAM oh yeah it's violent and terrifying as fuck. I saw that in theaters and it made me jump harder than any horror movie I've ever watched. Nolan is all timer of a filmmaker. Absolutely perfect creative decisions for that scene alone
Nolan should've pulled his head out of his butt and allowed the use of CGI for that explosion. I know Trinity wasn't _that_ big of an explosion in real life, but using a little gasoline fire to pretend to be Trinity was very weak stuff.
It was so effective because, in the theater, the rest of the movie was incredibly loud, louder than any movie I'd seen before, so that sudden silence felt like the end of everything that preceded it
@@fakecubed the movie is not about the bomb itself so literally who cares. i dont understand why people care so much. the bomb looked fine considering it is not the key focus of the movie. a whole extra hour of film afterwards but wahh wahh bomb thats on-screen for 2 minutes not big enough
@@fakecubed It's looking very much like an actual atomic explosion if you look historic footage of nuclear tests.
Seems almost symbolic of their success. The quiet before the storm. They succeeded at their jobs, and got to bask in the silence of it for just a brief moment before the reality sets in.
This movie was one of the most jaw dropping experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theatre. I don’t think I’ve ever left a screening before where the audience was in absolute stunned silence.
I've seen three theories on the origin of 'break a leg', the first by far the most likely. Theatrical folk were superstitious, and it was thought that wishing someone 'good luck' on their upcoming performance would actually bring bad luck. So bidding a person to break a leg, a bad outcome, would be a 'safe' way to wish them good luck, while presumably appeasing the gods of perversity.
The second possible origin of the phrase dates back to Elizabethan times, when audiences reportedly showed their appreciation by banging their chairs on the floor. The greater the appreciation, the harder the banging. Any broken chair legs would therefore signify a real _tour de force._
The third theory is that the phrase refers to the leg line on a stage, a line on the floor in the wings, beyond which the person is considered to be on stage and visible to the audience. Performers who made it on stage, i.e., 'broke' the leg line, would actually get paid, while those who remained in the wings and behind the leg line would not.
Don't be sorry for a quiet reaction. My reaction in the theatre was exactly the same as so was everyone else's. My theatre was dead silent throughout the entire movie. The only noise I heard was a few people at the end of the movie who said "wow". The ending left me in silence for a solid 20 minutes after it ended. The sheer weight and gravity that we could feel through the screen is just a testament to Cillian's amazing performance and Nolan's elite filmmaking
This movie utilized sound in ways I'd never experienced before. In the ARQ theater, it was absolutely incredible. The other thing that got me was we all know the test succeeded - but the tension they were able to build prior to the bomb going off was... amazing.
EDIT: I'm also wondering if the drowning of her, that the hands are Oppenheimer's signifying he feels responsible for her death. That he killed her.
It's also a plausible, but never proven theory that Jean was murdered by the intelligence community.
The drowning scene was showing two different things because oppie himself wasn’t sure if she actually suicided or was killed.
Seeing this in IMAX three times, I was mesmerized every single time. This movie literally made me go home and start to study physics. Life changing experience.
Only about 2 minutes of the film was worth watching in imax. The rest would’ve been the same on TV at home
Sound system is million times better in imax @@zhen3142
I saw it twice in IMAX. During the lead up to the bomb being detonated. My heart was beating out of my chest. Also, I knew Gary Oldman was in the movie. But I didn't know who he was playing, so when I saw him as President Truman. My face lit up!
The Imax experience of this film was insane. When the test was going on, I felt like it wasn't going to work because of the suspense
As a lover of history, the fact that movie still made me incredibly nervous during the Trinity Test scene, despite already knowing what happened, says so much about Nolan's talent as a film maker.
This is by far the best movie of the year, if not decade.
It was great, but Nolan can’t write a good female character to save his life imho
@@lightup6751 Can you?
I just found out a while back from my Dad, that my Grandfather's unit was doing some work about 50 miles from the test area at Los Alamos. They didn't know the test was happening. He said it looked like the sun was starting rise, then it immediately set. Didn't find out until much later what it was. Pretty cool thing for him to have witnessed.
I saw this in 70mm IMAX twice and it was possibly the best movie-going experience I've ever had. The opening scene with the fireball sent chills through my body. Incredible filmmaking.
Only about 2 minutes of the film was worth watching in imax. The rest would’ve been the same on TV at home
@@zhen3142 you're very wrong my friend seeing it in IMAX 70mm was incredible. Its about he immersion. Seeing the whole movie in that format was great. But especially the opening montage, the explosion scene and the final few minutes was overwhelming. Seeing the whole image they captured on a 60ft tall screen blew my mind. watching it at home isn't as fun
One of the two movies in my life so far that I've gone to the cinema 4 times for.
Even just to experience the audio of it on big speakers makes it worth it every time.
Just wanted to say, I'm a therapist watching this on my lunch break and Simone's "Sit down for a session with Cinebinge" made me laugh. Well done, lads!
I saw this opening weekend in IMAX at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood at a 7am screening. The IMAX film reel was so big - 11 miles long and 600 pounds - that the theatre, along with many others, had to build an extension to the projection booth to have room for it. The sound was insanely great and those amazing IMAX shots made it well worth getting up early for. Beautiful film and performances. Cillian and RDJ damn well deserve nominations at all the awards coming up.
Are you a bot too?
@@Ulexcool - Um ... nope. I'm a lot, sometimes, but never a bot. Not that I know of anyway.
I also watch in IMAX, and I found the sound to be particularly cloying and ultimately too distracting to fully enjoy the film.
@@Hexon66 - My only issue with the sound is what seems to be a regular complaint with Nolan's sound mixing wherein the dialogue - which there's a LOT of - is often hard to hear. The boom of the shockwave after that long space of silence when the Trinity test went off scared the shit out of a lot of people in the theatre, myself included.
Only about 2 minutes of the film was worth watching in imax. The rest would’ve been the same on TV at home
One thing I've noticed about Nolan is how well he can make a sequence tense, even kind of horrifying.
Yeah, Oppenheimer has been described as Nolan's first horror movie.
well "horrifying" is fitting as its not just a movie about that part of history, its also a wakeup call
40:57 Speaking of that name-drop, another epic historical drama w/ a stacked cast and masterful editing is Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) starring Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jack Lemmon, etc...
Ya you guy's gotta do JFK, I love that movie.
Nolan said that JFK was one of the films he looked at for Oppenheimer
The first time I watched "Oppenheimer" in theaters I had to take a quick bathroom break, but knew enough about the history of it to know where to break from. I also knew I would see it in the theater again anyway because the writing is so intricate and cohesive that you really can't miss a second of it or it feels like you've missed a quarter of a standard feature-length movie. It is like a feat of engineering where damn near every performance, major or supporting, were integral and/or significant.
12:09 Did Someone Says "TH-cam"?
19:22 "What The Hell Are You Doing In Chicago."
23:56 "On A Hydrogen Bomb You're Not Even A Building."
34:13 "You Think Anyone Give A [__] Who Build The Bomb."
37:58 "Oppenheimer Is An Agent Of The Soviet Union."
38:39 "I Would Have Split In His Face."
39:47 "He Talks About The Nuclear Genie Back In The Bottle."
I was mainly excited to see Richard Feynman. They did show him not using the welding glass to view the explosion, as he knew glass blocks the harmful UV light from the blast. But there were other stories of him breaking into safes using logic and making people think he was a genius locksmith. He was a joker and pretty unique. Not a saint by any means but listening to his lectures are always entertaining and help you think differently about the world around you. The man won 2 Noble Prizes in Physics and neither were related to his relatively small work on the Manhattan Project. And yes he loved playing the bongos.
Gosh, me too. Honestly, the whole Manhattan project thing I familiar with it because of his book Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! So I really appreciate that they included him in movie
This gotta be a bot comment.
@@Ulexcool No that's the title of the book, "Surely You're Joking , Mr. Feynman!". He was a funny and great educator.
@@UlexcoolThat's the most self-referential comment I've ever read.
AND he was the scientist that George mentioned going through the hole in the fence and then back through security again and again. He was a jokester.
I'm an actor and as far as I know the phrase "Break a leg" has a number of possible origins but all of them stem from the superstition you shouldn't wish someone good luck in the theatre. "The leg" can refer to the lever that opened an closed the curtains at the front of the stage, it can also refer to the side of a stage and in both cases back in the days of vaudeville you'd only get paid if you actually appeared on stage. So by wishing someone "Break a leg" you are wishing them success and that they get paid because they've actually appeared and done the work.
12:12 "Everybody Out, NOW!"
15:45 "Goes This [__] This Head."
18:06 "Jacket" Or "Gadjet"?
24:50 "Germany Is About To Surrender."
24:53 "With The Japanese Fightart."
30:01 "These Things Are Hard In Your Heart."
39:24 "I Left My Country That Never Return."
40:57 "Kennedy, Jonh F. Kennedy."
I cannot recommend rewatching this enough, now that you know what to be on the lookout for and who everyone is and how they all fit together it flows even better
The film is amazing, but the soundtrack truly pushes it into epic territory.
There's a lot of symbolism (Shoutout to Just Trust Ash) in this film. One of my favourite is the first scene with Einstein and Oppenheimer we get one short cut to Albert throwing one stone in the pond, creating a single ripple symbolising the atomic bomb as a unique single theory. In their last scene it shows the light rain creating multiple ripples now that the entire world has been introduced to it while he points out we destroyed the world. Truly a great film!
It's honestly really hard to describe how it felt watching the Trinity test for the first time. It's a masterclass in building and releasing tension. Even though I'm not as big a fan of the movie as others, that 5-6 minutes is just undeniable.
The color/B&W switch indicates who is telling the story. Full color is Oppenheimer telling his story, B&W is Strauss telling his side of it.
27:41 The idea break a leg came from the early days of theatre, it was a way of saying "I hope you make the cast," because if you break a leg you get a cast, but also if you get the part you are made a part of the cast. So by telling them to break a leg you're telling them you hope they get cast
My favourite scene is where Oppenheimer jumps on the table and screams "Its Oppen time!" and then the nuke goes off.
In all seriousness, its a fantastic movie, Cillian Murphy deserves an Oscar.
As does Robert Downey Jr for best supporting actor.
“Break a leg” is theatre term. A lot of people think it means “good luck,” but that’s actually wrong. What it actually means is: “earn your pay.”
Back in the day; actors only got paid for the time they spent on stage performing. If you’re not performing; you’re backstage. Well, in an amphitheater performance; there usually isn’t much of a backstage. Actors typically stand off to the side; past the stage area. The point where the stage and the side meet is known as a Leg-line. So; in order to earn your pay; you had to step across that line; or “Break the leg,” and start performing.
Nicely edited! Actually appreciated you left longer parts without comment - seen it twice in the cinema myself, and yeah, you can’t help but just sit there.
Some notes
3:14 Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and “father” of quantum mechanics. Mentor of Werner Heisenberg, among many others (Bohr’s son won a Nobel prize too). The play “Copenhagen”, which I highly recommend, is a great companion piece to this movie, as it deals with Heisenberg - Germany’s Oppenheimer - and his visit to Bohr in 1942, during the occupation. Bohr was in a precarious situation then, being Jewish in Nazi-occupied Denmark, but was smuggled out (along with the vast majority Danish Jews, incredibly enough) and made it to neutral Sweden, and then, as we see, to the US. Bohr is played here by Kenneth Branagh who does a _terrible_ job at a Danish accent :D
8:28 George: yeah, using that quote in that context is a bit much, even for Nolan. Sex and death, la petite mort and all that but still.
9:15 Simone: Yup, black holes are a relatively new discovery. Heck, the fact that there are other galaxies - let alone billions of them - is relatively recent.
11:42 Applause for Emily Blunt’s accent.
12:16 Mentioned in passing here is perhaps Einstein’s most direct contribution to the bomb: the letter that he and Szilard wrote to the president, warning him that the Nazis might be working on it or, at any rate, that the US should be.
12:56 George: Please watch “Good Night, and Good Luck” (David Straithairn, George Clooney - Clooney also directed) for another look at the McCarthy era. Incredible movie!
16:09 Teller, introduced here, did end up becoming the inventor of the hydrogen bomb (along with Stanislav Ulam), but besides his contribution to human precarity, he was also just a truly unlikable piece of crap his whole life. Unlike Oppenheimer’s mixed feelongs about his creation, Teller was just “how can we make make boom big enough to destroy all of communism?!”
16:23 Not in the edit, and barely in the movie, but Einstein is having a stroll with Kurt freakin Gödel - the man who, in a sense, broke mathematics. Look him up.
17:22 The film’s in color when it’s from Oppenheimer’s perspective. It’s black and white when it’s not.
… thats probably enough notes :)
Just watched it the other day; fantastic film. I was not expecting that final 40 or so minutes to get so particularly intense.
28:50 /// The atomic bomb was not the most expensive project the Americans developed during World War II. More expensive was the aircraft to carry it over the target. It cost $3 billion to develop the B-29. So the entire cost of dropping the atomic bomb was more than $5 billion, or nearly $86 billion today.
An equally sizeable project were the proximity fuzzed AA shells, primarily used by naval vessels. Millions upon Millions of shells manufactured, each with a tiny radar in each shell. Even though made by over 100 manufacturing companies, its secrecy was guarded at the same levels of the Manhattan project and D-Day invasions. Known by few, this is the primary reason Japanese Kamikazes were so unsuccessful. It could have been disastrous.
I was in Phoenix, AZ for a week and was able to see this film in one of 19 US theaters that offered a showing in IMAX 70 mm print and it was glorious! This is definitely a film that benefits from a second or even third viewing.
This was a surreal experience to watch this in an imax theater, especially the trinity tests. The vibrations could be felt for minutes after the explosion
17:22 It's not the future that's in black and white. The black and white scenes are Strauss' point of view.
Great job, guys! In my 61 years of movie watching i don't know if one has ever had a more profound effect on me. It's a true masterpiece.
The bespectacled and handsome actor is Josh Harnett, star of Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor. About 20 years ago he didn't appear in major studio films because he wanted to lower his profile, so he turned to independent films and television.
A pretty good anecdote is one I've seen posted around. Someone in the theater asking out loud, if there was any post-credits scenes.
Someone else simply replying, "Yeah. You're living in it."
Two interesting trivia bits:
1. For Olivia Newton-John fans: When Oppenheimer went to study in Germany, the teacher he studied under was Max Born, also known as Olivia Newton-John's grandfather.
2. For Leave It To Beaver fans: Before she became an actress, Madge Blake (a.k.a. Mrs. Mondello - - she also played Aunt Harriet on the original Batman series) - and her husband worked on the Manhattan Project, specifically in the testing department.
Ok, that was pretty cool.
I just watched it last night on Peacock with my headphones on blast and when it ended, I was gasping for a long time. WHOA!!!
5:31 I’ve been trying to place that actor for weeks, and finally realized it’s “Mr. Universe,” from “Serenity”! 🤗
If you want to watch a pretty good flick about the McCarthy era, and various other important topics that still resonate today, check out 'Good Night, and Good Luck'.
The quietness was appropriate and amazing. A wonderful experience and reaction
The sound for this movie was peak, it made my heart jump up into my throat, like waiting for a jump scare
"Break a leg" comes from ye olde English theatre tradition / superstition. Wishing someone good luck before going on stage was considered bad luck, so naturally it became custom to wish *bad* luck on someone in order to bring them good. There were all sorts of inventive things you could ask to befall someone, but being short and simple, "break a leg" is what's stuck around into everyday use.
1: Ernest Lawrence is played by Josh Hartnett.
2: Los Alamos became an open city in 1957 and has a population of around 13 000 citizens
One of the best movies and reactions you've done on the channel, your absorption into it reflects what happened to the theatre audience and is a perfect testament to the gravity and drama of this moment in history. I think you two handled it well and I would be interested in seeing other reactions to movies with this kind of dynamic, awe inspiring story and portrayal. At this moment I'm drawing blanks on any that are comparable but perhaps the comments section will help out with that. Regardless very well done with both your words and silences!
I worked at White Sands Missile Range up north at Stallion Range Camp and nearby is the test site and the McDonald ranch house & buildings, confiscated from them and other ranches during the war, and never returned to them. Tours are made twice yearly or by special arrangement, but we were able to drive over every so often since we already had access on the range. The site is behind a fence but the house is accessible. They’ve kept it up and even have markings such as “Clean Room - keep door shut” where final assembly was done. Amazingly, the house and outbuildings are just a couple miles from ground zero but had no damage. I do have some great pictures of both sites though. It’s crazy that the trigger mechanism parts were driven down the mountain from the lab the 210 miles in a sedan over some bad roads for final assembly. Los Alamos was so secret it had no mail service. A box in Santa Fe was the address and someone had to carry the mail up and back daily. And now Los Alamos and the National Laboratory is a very well-kept and nice “government” town. I love it and its’ beauty but would rather live down the hill in Santa Fe. And Groves built the Pentagon in 16 months, not the 48 the planners insisted it would take. He was a #%$& but it got results. The project included far-flung locations at Oak Ridge, Hanford as well as Los Alamos. All heavily compartmentalization and Top Secret.
Usually imax theaters in my country was either half filled or just almost empty because most movies wasnt really worth the money or effort to go to an imax theater. But oh boy was it full when this movie was screened. All imax theaters in my city was FILLED. I couldnt watch it in imax for the first month of the release. It was always full. When i finally got to see it, it was an experience. The sounds, the clarity, and the explosion shockwave felt real. The theater was rumbling and you feel it through your whole body.
I haven't seen many movies in theaters, since 2020 but I saw this. It was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time
I saw this in both IMAX and regular cinema. Best movie I've ever watched.
Oppie was (also) the guy who intuited that the dual answers produced by Dirac's equations, one positive and one negative, implied the existence of antimatter.
Your reaction was perfect - it's an overwhelming character and subject. I worked with Los Alamos (LANL) for a year around the turn of the century and was fascinated by the cognitive dissonance exhibited by the scientists there. I think it was showcased in the (then) Atomic Museum, now named the Bradbury Museum. At the beginning of the exhibits is the famous letter from Einstein to Pres. Roosevelt about the possibility of creating an atomic bomb. At the end of the exhibits is a lesser known letter from Einstein to Pres. Truman begging him to stop Hydrogen bomb research and testing. LANL is still responsible for ensuring that our nuclear arsenal is working properly yet the scientists there never want to see it used.
Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors working today who can make a three-hour biopic largely comprised of people talking in hushed tones and make it so absolutely riveting. But he's able to convey the grave stakes and consequences of these hushed conversations. These were serious people talking seriously, and their choices changed the course of human history.
Some complained that they never showed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the movie seems to intentionally choose not to, not just because Oppie was the focus of the film, but because we all have seen the cataclysmic damage they caused. The real footage is out there for any of us to find. Nolan simply chooses to imply the damage and the aftermath. We see Oppie's anguished reaction to the news reel. He's so distracted by what he caused that he doesn't even hear the cheers during his speech in the barn. He sees a woman's face peeling off and the burned-out husk of a human body at his feet. The man is clearly haunted, and we are haunted through him.
The stomping in the barn is also some great sound design. It's the horrible sound of a raucous crowd applauding mass destruction, but it also sounds like the engine of a steam train as it rolls into motion. Like Oppenheimer's atomic research and everything it wrought, it's an unstoppable train chugging forward faster and faster, at risk of getting so out of control that it will annihilate everything in its path.
We see what is happening in Japan through Oppenheimer's eyes as he is seeing burning faces and is practically having a panic attack during this speech! Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolan, sound and editing are brilliant ‼️
I saw this at the IMAX (proper 15perf 70mm film projection) and it was just an otherworldly experience. Some parts of the film felt like a fever dream. The closeups of Cillian (pronounced Killian, not Sillian) Murphy when the world was shaking around him were stunning. Learning they were done fully in camera was just icing on the Nolan cake. Nolan has made some seriously good films before, but this is his masterpiece - his career peak to date. I expect/demand nominations all around, and I'll be quite upset if Nolan, Murphy and Downey don't win at least a few statues for this.
I was lucky enough to live 20 minutes from 1 of 5 theaters in my country playing it in 70mm IMAX...ya it has literally ruined any future movies i watch in that theater cause they will not give me any feeling similar to how i felt when i went to that screening
Are you a bot?
@@Ulexcool no
This film was such a bore, they hyped up the nuclear explosion scene so much in the previews and it became such a letdown. I couldn’t find a single memorable scene worth remembering in this movie. This is Nolan’s worse film ever made in my opinion.
@@magicwv bait lol
I actually loved the beginning "visualizations" that they put in as what Oppenheimer sees. I've taken a lot of courses in highschool and further reading just out of personal interest and you can name them all in regards to what it's referencing. Visualizations of string theory, black holes, the chain reaction of the bomb (but not contextualized yet in terms of destruction), the double slit experiment etc... Just a cool and fun way for people who know about this stuff to see so bombastically displayed on screen.
Also Casey Affleck is so damn creepy in this and it's literally just a boardroom talk.
Wow, you really upped your game with this one.
In my country, this film is not even on streaming yet 😄
I know it's long, but i think this is the kind of film you have to watch more than once to truly appreciate it.
In my second viewing i caught a lot of things that flew over my head the first time, specially Emily Blunt's role which is far more than just an angry wife.
Anyway, this is a great film, love your reactions 💟
Good analysis by you guys. I've only seen this movie halfway through so far and I already know I'm going to have to watch this movie a few times over. Just to pickup on the things that I missed the first time around. With good movies I usually end up doing this anyway.
Here in NM this is in our DNA. I live about 50 miles from Las Alamos and about the same distance from Trinity Site. Visiting the Trinity is a very solemn, eerie occasion. The tape was to cover where the electrical leads connected, the storm actually came up by coincidence so Nolan left it in. A single electrical discharge could have set the whole thing off. Towns as far away as 60 miles lite up with light. No one knew what was going on, end of the world? As a side, my dad chauffeured Oppenheimer to Las Alamos once.
The only issue with the movie is that so many people are getting from it the impression that there would be no bomb without Oppenheimer, and that is just not true. If he had not been involved, it would likely have taken longer, but it was always going to happen.
people resist that narrative because they just want to clutch their pearls and act morally superior. they want to act like america is evil and did this evil thing and if it didnt do this evil thing then the world would be awesome right now. this movie definitely capitlizes on the current "america bad" narrative that everyone is into. What Truman said in this movie is absolutely correct imo, its all on the politicians not the scientists.
Yes, but it would have taken decades if not for the Manhattan project - just like the Apollo Program vs Artemis - when not a national priority, government is slooooooooooooooow.
Indeed, as it was only a matter of time before someone came to the exact same conclusion with the discovery of nuclear fission.
@@dansiegel995 Quite true...the money would have to be spent, but Oppenheimer did not need to be involved. Without him, it would have taken longer and thus cost more, but the Manhattan Project did not need Oppenheimer to succeed, and would have happened regardless of his involvement.
@@iKvetch558The Manhattan project absolutely would not have been completed prior to the end of WW2 without Oppenheimer. That is a fact. In fact, it could have been delayed so much without him, that at the war's conclusion, it's absurd funding and national priority could have been eliminated, as the Soviets were NO where near obtaining the bomb. I agree it was inevitable that it was developed, but I propose it could have been DECADES without a rival, in wartime, pushing for its completion. In that time, a non-atomic WW3 could have easily broken out between the West and the Soviets, costing perhaps even more than the horrific losses of WW2.
I have full confidence that Christopher Nolan will win the Oscar for "Best Director" next year. It's the right film at the right time in his career. Essentially, it's Nolan's "Schindler's List".
I'd like to recommend that you see "Thirteen Days" starring Kevin Costner. It's about the Cuban missile crisis.
It may be a tough year and could be a dead heat between Nolan and Scorcese, but advance word on "Maestro" is fantastic, so Bradley Cooper might be in the running, as well.
Im predicting Scorsese gets it. Flower Moon feels like the film his career has been building towards much in the same way Nolans has with Oppenheimer, but I hate to say it also has the right politics behind it and matches up more with the Academy voting style. Its got the prestige vote.
Cillian will 100% get Best Actor though and IMO his performance is the real triumph of this film.
I'm just grateful for this year. That the films that mattered this year and that will be remembered from this year aren't big budget franchise films.
After the past decade of films, this year feels like a miracle (however inevitable it may have been)
@@sergeantbigmac Cillian was serviceable in the film, but he was totally overshadowed by RDJ. I rate Scorsese over Nolan because it's a better film, not because of the "politics". Not sure why you'd bring politics into it... oh right, yes I do.
@@Hexon66 I felt like RDJ was great but his role couldve been played by another actor, Cillian's performance was nuanced and haunting and unforgettable. Far beyond 'serviceable' but this is a simple agree to disagree situation I think.
I agree Flowers Moon was probably the better film overall with the added benefit of also being campaigned by Academy members more right now. So I brought politics into it because its a simple fact the Academy voting IS politics. I wish it wasnt and when I was younger and more naive I thought it was truly about elevating all art equally and fairly choosing the best. You might be misinterpreting what kindve politics I mean here. I forget which Hollywood exec said this years ago but basically he didnt care about the Oscars because they are created by rival studios and not truly voted for. From campaigning and finding sponsors to promoting your film as a nominee, its about who has the most money behind them. When I learned about all this it was eye-opening to me. Its a political game and Flowers Moon more easily wins that game this year.
The town is still there, but unincorporated. Apple Maps have Oppenheimer’s house highlighted also. It shows a lot of businesses. 17:48
27:40 "break a leg" is most likely an imported saying from Germany: "Hals- und Beinbruch". That originates in the yiddish "Hasloche un broche", a good wish and blessing especially in business context that originates in Hebrew and means "Success and blessings". It was adapted this way in Germany as a malapropism and stayed because people thought this to be a good wish as to not challenge the forces of fate with it. It became a staple especially with hunters and adapted by other professions such as sailors who put their own spin on it ("Mast- und Schotbruch" literally translated "Break mast and sheet rope").
The term "black hole" was used much after the discovery of "dark stars". Dark star was the term used since it was the corpse (usually) of a dying star that gave rise to the intense gravitational well that swallowed everything - including light.
The black and white isn't for future sequences. It's for anything that was Strauss' pov. Oppie's was full colour.
Tom Conti as Einstein is one of those underrated performances that will probably go unnoticed in the award season. He makes the man work as a character instead of becoming a carricature. His underlying sadness on what his work has done and produced over the years is so believable.
"Break a leg" is a typical English idiom used in the context of theatre or other performing arts to wish a performer "good luck". An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin (a dead metaphor),[1] "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform or before an audition. Though the term likely originates in German, the English expression is first attributed in the 1930s or possibly 1920s,[2] originally documented without specifically theatrical associations. Among professional dancers, the traditional saying is not "break a leg", but the French word merde.[3]
The aforementioned theory regarding Hals- und Beinbruch, a German saying via Yiddish origins, suggests that the term transferred from German aviation to German society at large and then, as early as the 1920s, into the American (or British and then American) theatre.[4] The English translation of the term is probably explained by German-speaking Jewish immigrants entering the American entertainment industry after the First World War.[14][2] The alternative theory that the term reflects an ironic superstition would date the term as originating around the same time.
The earliest published example in writing specifically within a theatre context comes from American writer Edna Ferber's 1939 autobiography A Peculiar Treasure, in which she writes about the fascination in the theatre of "all the understudies sitting in the back row politely wishing the various principals would break a leg".[15] American playwright Bernard Sobel's 1948 The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays describes theatrical superstitions: "before a performance actors never wish each other good luck, but say 'I hope you break a leg.'"[16] There is some anecdotal evidence from theatrical memoirs and personal letters as early as the 1920s.[2][17]
Several theories about where 27:50 comes from:
- There's a good chance it comes from German, in which case it could simply just be a pun that doesn't translate to English well.
- In the early 1900s there was this superstitious idea that if you say something the opposite would happen, so wishing someone good luck may bring them bad luck, so instead you wished they would break a leg...
- There's also two great ways it relates to theatre, where it's used most. Firstly, that if you are not a payed actor you had to stay behind the "leg line" (so breaking the leg would make you successful), and that also if you break a leg you would be in a cast, or THE cast.
08:28 30:47 "& Now, I Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds."
39:55 "In Here That The Bombing Of Hiroshima Was Very Successful."
I live in Los Alamos proper, the lab became LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory. Most of the Approximately 12,00 residents work at the lab here on the hill. Btw, the lab employs ~16,00 people in cutting edge research. 1 in 5 people here are Ph.D’s. I actually saw this movie opening weekend at the SALA events center here in Los Alamos. Much of the filming took place at Fuller lodge here. LA sits over 7,000 feet in elevation on the top rim of a volcano and is fairly dense pine forest and not as barren as in the movie.
Los Alamos is still a functioning city. It’s now home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In fact, many of the locations mentioned throughout the film are now the locations of US’s Natl labs.
- Berkeley where Oppenheimer was teaching is now home to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (named after Lawrence from the movie).
- The Oak Ridge Facility that produced the Uranium for nukes still exists but it also has its own National Laboratory called the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
- Princeton which is referred to a few times throughout the film is now the location of the Princeton Particle Physics Laboratory.
- Hanford which made the Plutonium still exists as a nuclear reservation and is home to the Northwest Pacific National Laboratory.
Understanding this is important because you begin to realize that the nationwide network of federal laboratories are in large part the result of the Manhattan Project.
Hope this helps
The Robert Batinbatinson thing is from The Weekly Planet Podcast and Mr. Sunday Movies TH-cam channel one of the best movie/comic podcasts/pages out there! It’s what James and Mason started calling Robert Pattinson after they learned he was playing Batman for some reason and thats just now his name to them lol
"Break a leg" is from the theatre world where a performance was no just simply say good luck but also when the performance was so good the audience would slam their chairs often breaking a leg off
31:31 The story about the fence at Los Alamos was told by Richard Feynman, played by Jack Quaid in the movie (he's the one who just used the windshield of a truck to block the UV, and otherwise watched the blast with the unaided eye, and we see him just after the explosion, waving a set of bongo drums in the air). Richard already has his own biopics, including Infinity, directed by and starring Matthew Broderick.
27:46 In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were queued to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn't get paid. If you were to tell the actor to “break a leg,” you were wishing them the opportunity to perform and get paid.
Yes, Los Alamos, NM is still a town. Over 13,000 people lived there according to the 2020 Census.
I still remember when the credits rolled and I all I felt was this impending doom......a kind of fear that Oppie must have felt back then. I kept seated for a while, I let Ludwig Gorranson make my skin crawl with that closing music.
Only Chris Nolan can make a movie of a real life account feel so thrilling.
There is a news article about oppenheimer not being blacklisted anymore.
"Maybe they were talking about something more... important" has to be the biggest roast I have ever heard.
Such an elegant way of saying "Arrogant prick"
You guys should definitely watch Chaplin! As well as classic Chaplin films (The Great Dictator). RDJ embodied him so well
@17:50 Los Alamos is today a normal small town (with industry other than the lab) and is still home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory which is still very much involved in nuclear research and nuclear weapons. While the town and the laboratory complex are no longer secret, there are quite large and very highly restricted areas around the laboratory facility. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California also does a lot. I have no idea which dominates weapon technology and maintenance between the two.
That physicist guy with the familiar face that you don’t remember where he’s from. That’s Josh Harnett from Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor. He was a heartthrob back in the early 2000s then totally disappeared and popped up again on the silver screen in Oppenheimer. Looking like just an aged Josh Harnett. His voice even grew deeper.
Highly recommend the book American Prometheus, which was Nolan’s primary source of information when making the film. The reality of Oppenheimer’s life is even more complex and astounding than the movie conveys.
I love the thumbnail. George really is the bomb. 😂
"Break a leg," if it hasn't already been covered, is a term of encouragement that is a clever variation of telling someone, "Good luck! I hope you get in the cast."
My Dad was WW II veteran, and as horrible as the atomic bomb was to be dropped on Japanese cities, the Japanese killed a 100, 000 Chinese by an old technic by the sword, so the Japanese Empire had to be stopped, the Japanese had the same mindset as the Germans in that they believed they were superior to other people. Their Empire had not been invaded in 1,000 years, it was not possible to lose the war, they would have fought to the last, man, woman and child.
Cool reaction as always Simone & George, you both take care and have a great weekend
Los Alamos is worth the visit. I went there about three years ago after having only previously been there around 1980. There is still creepy secret stuff going on there, but it is finally beginning to tell its story - even the National Park Service is involved.
"Break a leg" is a term from the stage. Legend claims it originated with Shakespeare's plays being so well-liked that the audience instead of clapping banged their chars onto the floor of the theater, to the point of them breaking a leg on said chair. Or, it may simply refer to the "leg line" of the stage where the curtain hangs, meaning that the actor manages to carry the performance out to his or her audience. The expression can't be confirmed older than 19th century vaudeville.