Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic offering is now upon us, and the world, or at least the world of cinema, will never be the same. Sadly, most viewers will opt not to witness this masterpiece as it was intended to be shown.
You wouldn’t say you’ve seen the Mona Lisa if you’ve only seen a picture of it on your phone. Why then are so many moviegoers content to say they’ve seen Oppenheimer when they have only streamed it or gone to see it at a movie house? Even an IMAX screen does not give this epic justice. The only way one can truly experience this piece of art is by viewing it in the medium the filmmaker intended it to be shown: Projected onto the hull of the USS. Gerald Ford while being gratified by screen legend Michal Caine.
It is a warm, clear night on the dock of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. I’m standing in a line of fellow cinephiles, each of us clutching the special tickets we bought over a year ago giddy as a kids in a candy store. Before us is the largest, most advanced naval carrier in the world. Over a thousand feet wide, 250 feet high and with a crew of nearly 5000, this is not a ship built for your standard Pixar or Marvel popcorn movie. This is a ship built for real cinema.
Seating for each screening is first come first serve and extremely limited — As per Nolan’s instruction each chair has been crafted from the bones of the original Little Rascals and there are only six. There is no partition between the makeshift theater dock and the line, and you can see and hear the entire film while you wait, but I’m averting my eyes and covering my ears, not wanting to gleam a single frame until conditions are perfect.
After days of waiting and ignoring other screenings, it is my time. From the moment I take to my Rascals chair, I am transfixed. There, on the hull of our nation’s greatest seafaring war machine is what can only be described as a real film.
About an hour into the picture, I am so engrossed in Nolan’s disjointed but captivating story, I hardly notice Michael Caine’s approach. As he unzips my pants and takes my half-erect phallus into his genial old hand, he points to Cillian Murphy on the screen and whispers to me in his trademark Cockney voice, “That’s Oppenheimer and some of this is in the past, and the rest of it is also in the past but later.” It is at that moment I realize that I am experiencing Christopher Nolan’s vision in its purest form.
Most people aren’t even aware that Michael Caine is in this film, because he’s not sitting next to them pleasuring them with his hand the way only a seasoned thespian can.
Caine finishes as quickly and efficiently as you can expect from a man who won an academy award for 1986’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” and moves on to the next patron as I succumb to the most glorious sleep I have ever known. If Nolan intended people to watch his entire film, he wouldn’t have an actor of Caine’s caliber tugging everyone off near a body of water. In my black, dreamless slumber I am still vaguely aware that this is the height of cinema.
If you’re only going to see one movie this summer, see Barbie, but if you’re going to see two movies this summer see Oppenheimer projected onto a large boat while Michael Caine gives you a handjob. 3.5 out of 5 stars.