Nolan's Oppenheimer
- Thread starter dahliaclone
- Start date
Went to GotG 3 yesterday and this was one of the previews. Looks awesome!
Cast is an all-timer that's for sure.
Cillian Murphy
Emily Blunt
Matt Damon
Robert Downey, Jr.
Florence Pugh
Kenneth Branaugh
Gary Oldman
Jack Quaid
Josh Hartnett
Alden Ehrenreich
Rami Malek
Tony Goldwyn
Casey Affleck
Michael Angarano
Alex Wolff
Matthew Modine
James Remar
James D'Arcy
Jason Clarke
Cillian Murphy
Emily Blunt
Matt Damon
Robert Downey, Jr.
Florence Pugh
Kenneth Branaugh
Gary Oldman
Jack Quaid
Josh Hartnett
Alden Ehrenreich
Rami Malek
Tony Goldwyn
Casey Affleck
Michael Angarano
Alex Wolff
Matthew Modine
James Remar
James D'Arcy
Jason Clarke
There was a really good show on WGN about 10 years ago on this, it's available on Amazon Prime for free right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_(TV_series)
He's putting together quite the career as an actor.
Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting
Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan
Linus Caldwell in Ocean's Eleven
Jason Bourne across that series
Bryan Woodman in Syriana
LaBoeuf in the True Grit remake alongside Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld
Dr. Mann in Interstellar
Carroll Shelby in Ford v. Ferrari
Jean in The Last Duel
I know I am missing a few well-known ones, but those were just some favorites of mine.
Mark Watney in The Martian
I'm excited to watch this movie, and it's coming at a very interesting time since this is similar to where we currently stand with Artificial General Intelligence.
Many folks who've spent their careers in the field are seriously concerned about existential risk once humans are no longer the most intelligent things on Earth. Some are calling for a 6-month pause (which has no chance of happening, in my opinion). This has over 1,000 signatories including people like Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology.
If you're OpenAI, you'd never agree to giving up your lead. Even if they did, that would just give bad actors 6 months to close the gap. Not sure we have much choice other than hope OpenAI handles it better than the alternatives. As an engineer in an R&D environment, I must admit we are not equipped to make decisions for the good of humanity by ourselves.
Those are all good additions.
I don't know how many active, in their "prime" actors would have a more impressive list.
Leo?
Denzel?
Brad Pitt?
RDJ?
Hugh Jackman?
Samuel L.?
Gary Oldman?
Bale?
Tom Hardy?
Cumberbatch?
McConaughey?
Joaquin Phoenix?
There's guys who have made more money (all the MCU guys) but not a lot who have Damon's combination of films that made a lot of money, won a lot of awards, and made a cultural impact.
what Damon has going for him is charm. he's the same as Pitt and Clooney and Washington. Everyone loves them. everyone loves working with them.
Damon also takes little cameo roles for the fun of it. He's appeared in the MCU before. I really like him as an actor because he definitely doesn't take himself too seriously. When you really break down his roles, like you did, it's very impressive.
Was he a member or was his brother (or both)? I know his brother (also a physicist) lost tenure at the University of Minnesota due to Communist Party ties. (Fricking Gophers)
It’s been so long since I read “American Prometheus” which is an excellent biography on Oppenheimer that I cannot remember.
If anyone likes biographies, it’s a phenomenal read.
He had several romantic/sexual connections with women who were or were formerly members of the Communist Party, as well. No investigation ever found he did anything the least bit disloyal (which is not something one can say about all people attached to the Manhattan Project). For all his flaws and regrets, Oppenheimer wasn't one of the rats. It wasn't hard to find connections to the Community Party for anybody who was on college campuses in the 1930s given their intellectual climate at the time. The full atrocities of Stalinism were not yet known nor was it known there was going to be a civilizational-level struggle with the Communists and the West pointing nukes at each other starting in the late 1940s and into the following decades and heck still going today.
Yes, all true, but the author of the biography I mentioned really leaned heavily into the idea that Oppenheimer regretted what he created, let top levels know, and got himself crosswise with Truman. It was probably a mix of a lot of things.
From the perspective described in American Prometheus, Truman does not come out looking good with his handling of nuclear power or weapons post WW2.
"All right. I'll say it. 'Cause Truman was too much of a ***** wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards"
- Thornton Melon
So is Iowa State mentioned in the film? Small part but isolated, in secret, and disconnected, was the way the whole Manhattan Project was devised:
Ames Project: https://www.research.iastate.edu/timeline_entries/ames-project-created/
Ames Project: https://www.research.iastate.edu/timeline_entries/ames-project-created/
Iowa State saved the ******* world from Nazi oppression and then feeds the entire planet all while handing humanity the first goddam computer.
So ******* forgive us if the football team had an off 100 years or so.