Do not watch Oppenheimer on IMAX

if you think it deserves that much of your money, just pay to watch it twice on a smaller screen

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Nothing against IMAX—it's still the best place to view space or to fall into the Grand Canyon—but Oppenheimer is mostly talking heads and it's just not necessary. In fact, it gets in the way of the story because there are times where it is difficult to see all the conversation that is being show as it is being shown. Plus, if you're going to shoot that big, you might want to consider a faster frame rate. I know that this film has maxed out what is possible in terms of the amount of film an IMAX projector can hold, but when the camera panned over Los Alamos it just fuzzed away. That might not have happened on a smaller screen.

Plus—and keep in mind I haven't watched a film on IMAX since The Dark Knight—the sound was awful. It's not supposed to be, right? IMAX is also supposed to have great sound? But this film is mostly talking and yet maybe 30% of the dialogue was unintelligible. I think that was a problem with the way the sound was being played by the theater. I have an email into IMAX's how'd-it-go line. If they respond with useful info, I'll throw it in a comment.

Also, I seem to remember this happening on IMAX before but perhaps I'm wrong, the lint on the projector lens! So much lint! Moving around, causing problems. A couple of them might have been actual moths!

Look: I liked the movie. You can read about what I think about the movie itself when the month ends. But I think Chris Nolan is wrong—this is not best seen on IMAX. Get a nice big screen. But not that big.