Movie Frenzy July

Susie reviews Barbie’s Outlaw Nation, Not-Nolan Oppenheimer, Soderbergh’s Full Circle, and Survival of the Thickest

Notes From the Film Critic’s Desk:

Every once in a while, a critic is enormously relieved to not receive a professional assignment.

For example, if I had been hired by the Chronicle to submit a review of Oppenheimer, I couldn’t have walked out of the theater before it was finished. And walk out I did. I forgot to get my ticket money back, I was so eager to escape.

Whatever else it is, Nolan’s picture is an assault on the ears— the soundtrack and SFX include a continuous wall of sound that I think is suppose to imitate “blood rushing between the ears” — but meanwhile, the dialog is delivered in whispers.

Many a baleful look fills the screen. Moral clarity and consequential characterization is absent. Narcissism is prominent. If you give a damn about: The Bomb, What Happened to the Rest of the Rest of the World, and McCarthyism, you will probably take umbrage with this film.

Perhaps I am Nolan-phobic. Perhaps I will try watching it again when it’s streaming with sub-titles. YMMV. I have …