Dogs Bark

The Radiance of a Single Sun - - Oppenheimer (2023, USA, Color, 180 min)

Strongly recommended. Despite never knowing the man - - but having done non-weapons research at three of the nuclear laboratories mentioned in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer - - my credibility to evaluate the political and bureaucratic verisimilitude of the director's vision might be obvious. That said . . . Oppenheimer is also a superb aesthetic symbol for the moral complexity of that world. Nolan (Memento) might be the only working director to represent physics, romance, and idealism with such multiple angles and images. He's helped by brilliant cinematography from long-time partner Hoyte Van Hoytema (Dunkirk), scintillating editing (Jennifer Lame, Tenet) and a subtle, bemused representation by Cillian Murphy (Inception) as the titular figure. Oppenheimer was extraordinarily complex, with talents so diverse that the Gottengen faculty feared the graduate student’s flight to the ateliers of Paris. Work by Emily Blunt (The Adjustment Bureau) as Kitty Oppenheimer, Matt Damon (Intersteller) as Leslie Groves, and a brilliant supporting cast, also shines.

Woke Is Hard! - - Barbie (2023, USA, Pink/White, 114 min) - - 23 July 2023

Strongly recommended. O...M...G! I totally love Barbie! But she had a head start. As a parent - - finding innumerable, semi-naked, dog-chewed, Weird Barbies (Kate McKinnon, Bridesmaids) scattered across the backyard - - I developed a wistful compassion for her. And Margot Robbie (I, Tonya) is quickly becoming my favorite pop-culture personifier. But mostly, Barbie such a uniquely fun movie to watch . . . kidding both patriarchal and feminist iconography in such affectionate ways. The difficult part is Ken (Ryan Gosling, The Ides Of March) - - Barbie’s consort - - but writer/director Geta Gerwig (Little Women) unravels this by showing that Ken (in a bare-chested reminder of an Equestrian Putin doll) is only interested in toxic masculinity as performance art and not - - like Vlad - - true evil. While Barbie kills all the comic-book movies at the box office . . . this is rich. Topping all this off, Gerwig wins the Billy Wilder award for the best, last-line blackout of the year. Wait for it.

A Noir Different - - Ride The Pink Horse (1947, USA, B/W, 101 min) - - 7 July 2023

Strongly recommended.  . . but good luck finding it. Ride The Pink Horse is in the Criterion Collection but it’s otherwise an obscurity. Nevertheless, it’s sterling noir qualities make it an Eddie Muller favorite. The story - - adapted by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer (Kiss Of Death) and based upon fellow Lobo, Dorothy B. Hughes’s (In A Lonely Place) great novel - - is mostly set, on location, in Santa Fe, NM during the three days of the annual fiesta. Robert Montgomery (The Lady In The Lake) plays the brutal, stone-faced, Chicago mobster intent on revenge and blackmail . . . but almost humanized by the gentle kindness of carousel operator Thomas Gomez (Key Largo) in the first Oscar nominated Latino performance. Gomez is assisted by Wanda Hendrix (Sierra), as a caring Native American girl. Zozobra (Old Man Gloom) plays himself. Montgomery also directed this unique movie using the rich black-and-white camera of Russell Metty (Touch of Evil).