The Barbenheimer Swirl(tm)
publish #needswork - unwall the garden and explain what it is, that’s all Did this madness 2023-07-30.
The highest praise I can give this experience is calling it type 2 fun. My brain melted from the aggressive context switching.
Some high-level takeaways:
- Oppenheimer’s opening montage of Cillian Murphy looking at art and sweating awake in bed thinking about physics was pretty pretentious
- I appreciated this throwaway dialogue between Oppenheimer and Strauss as Strauss’ character was introduced:
- “I’m a self-made man.”
- “I can relate. So was my father.”
- Barbie was more politically charged than Oppenheimer.
- Oppenheimer’s sentiment boils down to “bomb bad. Oppenheimer is right” whereas Barbie is on a totally different level of feminist agenda. I remember reading online the word “patriarchy” was delivered 10+ times.
- Not that it’s a bad thing lol. But ironically I could understand Oppenheimer’s moral direction easier than Barbie’s.
- Oppenheimer’s sentiment boils down to “bomb bad. Oppenheimer is right” whereas Barbie is on a totally different level of feminist agenda. I remember reading online the word “patriarchy” was delivered 10+ times.
- The subplot about Strauss’ sabotaged run for Secretary of Commerce and Oppenheimer’s rigged hearings to renew his security clearance totally aligns with the ending symbolism of mutually assured destruction.
- I actually missed who Strauss was because of the swirl; Grant explained afterwards that he was the first senator in 20-30 years to be voted down from a nomination, making what happened all the more significant.