Barbenheimer

BARB/ENHEIMER

Pre-shownotes note: CJ sounds bad because he was recording on his airpods like a complete rube.

Actual shownotes:

• CJ does not complain about the giant corporation he works for

• Why #barbenheimer? (the marketing phenomenon)

• BARB/

  • Disclaimer: we’re dudes, talking about a movie made maybe not for dudes

  • Unsurprisingly, we loved Ryan G

  • Big hits (production design, cast, some humor), big misses (…the rest?)

  • What we should expect from a movie about a Mattel toy sponsored by Mattel

  • You can’t speak truth to power when the power is funding your movie

  • The third act culminates in an unearned sermon

  • A token zoomer in a movie made by and for millennials

  • Absurdism spins out of control without something to consistently ground it

  • CJ mic drops on the haters

• /ENHEIMER

  • On the merits of seeing a Christopher Nolan movie twice

  • Jordan responds to CJ’s response to Jordan’s invitation to go see it with him for the 2nd time

  • Masterclass in filmmaking, but…

  • It’s too long, and too “important,” and not nearly entertaining enough

  • Whole first hour feels like a montage

  • Nolan loves his nonlinear storytelling, but his best films are his most linear

  • What kinds of movies earn rewatches?

  • A discussion of the film’s most unironically important scene

  • The emotional core of the film is Robert Oppenheimer being cursed with existential guilt

  • Special shoutout to Florence Pugh, who accomplishes a lot with a little

  • Also Casey Affleck

  • The visual conceits deployed to keep the audience oriented in space and time

  • Nolan is a great, very fallible director

  • An example of a director who understands how to conjure a truly great script: Denis Villeneuve

  • Where does Oppenheimer fall in the pantheon of Nolan films?

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