Oppenheimer (1980)

with Sam Waterston

So, I'm breaking the mold here, this isn't really a movie, actually it's a television show. But I liked it a lot and thought it was worth a mention.

I was going through things that Sam Waterston had done which I could rent on netflix. There are a lot of them, but for whatever reason, I chose this one, probably because of all the rave reviews from geek girls on svelte young men blathering on about nuclear physics. Actually, the people aren't too ostententatiously good looking in this one: Fermi looked like Fermi from pictures I'd seen, and Teller looked like Teller. Nuff said.

This is a cheap television show, so not only do the sets, costumes and direction ressemble that of a soap opera, but a lot of the actors aren't really worth mentioning either. Sam Waterston is by far the best of the lot, although I thought the guy who played Fermi was extremely convincing (it was an extremely small part, but I can imagine, formidable).

The story is pretty decent though, in fact it's more than decent, it was everything I could have wanted and more. I like it when the story matter is something on the dark side, and in the first twenty minutes the main character takes some heavy emotional abuse from his girlfriend, has make-up sex, and lights up a cigarette, lies back on the pillows and takes some more. I think at some point in this scene we're supposed to come to the conclusion that said girlfriend is mentally unstable.

Actually, it's a running theme throughout the miniseries that the main character must deal with somewhat ambiguous moral situations. I suppose you could argue, rightly enough, that creating a weapon of mass destruction is hardly morally ambiguous. I think the counterargument was that they believed at the time that Germany was also developing its own nuclear weapon, but you can watch the miniseries yourself to see how that progresses. But that's one of the more boring ones.

You see, even though Oppenheimer eventually dumps girlfriend number one, gets a new one, then marries her, he still continues his relationship with his former girlfriend. It's unclear if he's doing because he wants to, he feels sorry for her, or because she is blackmailing him into doing so by threatening suicide. More tenuous than his personal relationships is the one he holds with the US government. Oppenheimer, while he is definitely not a communist, has many old friends who are communists. He remains loyal to these friends, despite their putting him in difficult situations with his job as head of Los Alamos.

Edward Teller, creator of the hydrogen bomb,
is played by the inimitble David Suchet

The most outstanding feature of this miniseries was the various displays of vile human behavior. Oppenheimer is finally portrayed as an older man, used and abused by both his friends and his enemies, tortured by his wife, too tired and dispirited to do much but sip coffee and read on the porch of his whitewashed retirement cottage.

Does any of this bear any ressemblence to the truth? I don't know. One of these days I'll buy myself a copy of Oppenheimer's biography from half price books. Until then, well, I was entertained.

The Glass Menagerie (1973)

Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Sam Waterston, Michael Moriarty

Sam Waterston, and the late, great Kate.

I'm not really sure what this is... I think that originally it was a Broadway production, and then they took the cast and filmed it too. Anyway, it's on dvd, and you can rent it, which by my definition, makes it a movie.

Glass Menagerie stars Katharine Hepburn and Sam Waterston in it which is more than reason enough to watch it. Personally, I'm a fan of Tennessee Williams' work, but I would say that even if one were ambivalent towards him, the performances alone are reason enough to give this a view. It was fun to see Hepburn grouped with this younger generation of actors; for some reason it's too easy to dismiss the faces of the Golden Age of Cinema as 'personalities' and not 'artists', and seeing her in the context of some of the better actors of the 70's helps her credibility in my own eyes.  She's actually quite good.

For those of you not forced to read it in high school, the story goes something like this: Tom, the narrator, lives with his mother, Amanda, and his sister, Laura, in a rundown apartment in St. Louis. The entire play takes place in said apartment. Claustrophobic yet? There are only four players in all; the first three I've already mentioned. The last is a suprise, and he comes at the end.

Glass Menagerie is about dysfunctional family relationships -- none of the characters seem to be able to communicate with each other properly. They are stuck in a rut; they live in one enclosed place with each other, do not really interact with the outside world in any meaninful manner, they are dependent on each other for all of their needs, most of which are not being met. Their conflicts take on a repetitive quality; it's the same thing over and over again, and nothing ever gets resolved.

Low production values, but you won't care.  Katherine Hepburn is distracting as the mother because we know her too well.  Sam Waterston is superb.  It seems that when he's cast right and working with a good team, he can be very good indeed.  Michael Moriarty, an actor who I usually like, was creepy-weird, but not in a good way.