Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Running out of things to do? I’m looking at three good movies this week, both big and small. There’s an historical drama about a scientists confronting the atom bomb he created, a comedy drama set on the Baltic Sea about vacationers facing a potential forest fire, and a comic mockumentary about summer campers whose beloved camp might close down permanently.

Theater Camp

Dir: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman    

It’s July at a theatre camp in the Adirondacks, simply called “Adirond-acts”. It’s where kids, 5-15, come to learnt the craft of acting, dancing and singing. And they put on actual  plays at the end of the summer. The kids love it and so do their counsellors, many of whom used to be campers there.  Glenn (Noah Galvin) is the techie stage manager, while others function as costume, voice, and dance masters as well. Most sought after though are the team of Amos and

Rebecca-Diane (Ben Platt, Molly Gordon), who write and direct an entirely new production each summer. And heading it all is the much beloved Joan (Amy Sedaris) the camp’s founder. But when an unexpected accident leaves Joan in a coma, her dumb-as-a-post son Troy (Jamie Tatro) is forced to take over, thus putting the

The cast of THEATER CAMP. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved.

whole camp at risk. He fires some long-time teachers operating on austerity mode. And when the financial vultures start circling the camp, trying for a cheap buy-out, things look dire. Even Amos and Rebecca-Diane’s show looks like it might not make it through the summer. Is this the end of Theatre Camp?

Theatre Camp is a delightfully squirmy, clever and hilarious mockumentary about acting. It’s suitably diverse, reflecting the actual live New York theatre scene. The fake doc follows the young players through auditions, casting, rehearsals, and behind-the-scenes action, through to the final production. Obviously these kids have talent — and so do the grownup kids. They manage to act as if they are actors who are acting… which isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s full of surprises and unexpected oddities — like, this is a musical where Ben Platt doesn’t sing a note. I was laughing through most of it, and if a moviegoer like me can appreciate it, avid playgoers will go wild. The Toronto cast of HadesTown was sitting in my row at the advanced screening on Monday night, and they were whooping it up the entire time. If you like “Theatre”, you’ll love Theatre Camp.

Afire

Dir:  Christian Petzold

It’s summertime in northern Germany. Felix (Langston Uibel) and Leon (Thomas Schubert) are best friends in their twenties spending a few weeks at Felix’s family’s summer home on the Baltic sea. It’s a beautiful place with a thatched roof, just a quick hike away from a sandy beach. Felix is friendly, fit and personable; he’s working on his photo portfolio to get into an arts program. Leon is a published author, trying to finish his second novel. He’s also a chunky, self loathing schlump, both brooding and frustrated. His inappropriately named novel — Club Sandwich — 

is not coming together. And his publisher, Helmut (Matthias Brandt), is dropping by in a few days — what does Leon have to show him? Things get worse when they realize they’re sharing the house with an unknown visitor. Nadja (Paula Beer) is the daughter of a friend of Felix’s mother. She’s working at the ice cream stand in a nearby quaint village. Leon is smitten by her carefree beauty, but tongue-tied whenever he talks with her. Worse still he is kept awake each night by the sounds of Nadja and Devid (Enno Trebs) — the hunky lifeguard at the nearby beach — having loud sex in the next room. And all of this is taking place as wildfires in the forests that surrounds the beach are igniting all around them, as prop planes futilely drop water bombs on the flames. Will Leon’s love be forever unrequited? Can he survive his wonderfully miserable summer vacation?

Afire is a comic drama about a self-centred writer and the people all around him. Like all of Petzold’s films, Afire is spare, precise and minimalist — he never includes a scene — not even a single line — that’s not crucial to the story he’s telling. I love that about him. He deals with very real issues and their potentially tragic consequences, but told almost like a fable. At the same time, he not afraid to make firm moral judgements but always in a humorous way. The tiny cast is excellent, as is the music and cinematography. I like this one a lot. 

Openheimer

Wri/Dir: Christopher Nolan

It’s the 1930s. J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) known as “Oppie” to his friends, is a researcher and scientist at Berkeley. With a distinguished background — he studied at Harvard, Cambridge and Göttingen — he has published crucial papers on physics and quantum mechanics that have changed scientific practices. He hangs out with activists at the University who are trying to unionize the teachers, and lend support to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil war, as fascism creeps across Europe. He also sympathizes with the plight of Jewish scientists in Nazi Germany (not only because his parents are German-Jewish immigrants). Originally from Manhattan, Oppie much prefers the wide- open spaces of New Mexico where his brother lives. His ultimate dream? To somehow combine his two great loves: science and the American southwest. His dream comes true during WWII when he is approached by Groves, a hard-ass army officer (Matt Damon), who wants to set up a top-secret lab. It’s goal? To create an atomic bomb before Germany does. Where? In Los Alamos, New Mexico. Oppenheimer brings in the top scientists to work on it: Feynman, Teller, Fermi, Bohr and many others, living in a jerry-built town in the middle of the desert. But as the prototype nears completion, theory turns to reality. By 1945, Germany has already surrendered, but the US government needs to drop it somewhere to prove they have the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.  How can Oppenheimer both create an atomic bomb and oppose the enormity its use would bring to the world?

Oppenheimer is an sweeping historical drama about the life of a conflicted scientific genius, his lovers, his accomplishments, and a  government that turns against him. It covers three parts of his life: as a student and academic, at Los Alamos, and in the cold war/ McCarthy era that follows WWII. The first part concentrates on his life and work — the parties he attends, the women he sleeps with (Frances Pugh, Emily Blunt), and the leftist political meetings he goes to not as a communist but as a “fellow traveller”. The second part captures the tension, stress and claustrophobia of the Manhattan Project, culminating in the devastating atomic test at Trinity. The third part concentrates on his rivalry with Lewis Strauss a right- wing bureaucrat on the AEC, the Atomic Energy Commission (Robert Downey Jr) and a series of congressional appearances and secret trials Oppenheimer is subjected to. But as a Christopher Nolan film, it is expertly edited to include all three stages simultaneously, bouncing back and forth, while proceeding chronologically, throughout the picture. And punctuated, from the beginning, with incredible animated images of the devastating fireball an atomic weapon brings. 

I’m not a fan of Christopher Nolan’s movies. They’re often overly complicated for no apparent reason, and clumsily including things like time travel dreams and memory. Dunkirk, another historical drama, was exciting but overly nationalistic in its slant. This one avoids almost all of these potential pitfalls, and manages to tell a three-hour, historical drama about science without boring the hell out of the audience. On the negative side, there are so many characters — 40-50 at my count — it’s hard to keep track of who’s who. These are mainly cameos about famous people (Einstein, Niels Bohr, Truman) played by equally famous actors — Tom Conti, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, to name just a few — who pop up for a few minutes then go away. And aside from the women Oppenheimer sleeps with, virtually everyone else in the movie (much like Dunkirk) is male. Even so, I think Oppenheimer is Nolan’s best film since Memento — it’s exciting, politically intriguing and visually stunning, from the vistas of horseback riding in a western desert, to the terrifying flames of the atomic weapon.  It’s three hours long, but well worth the effort. 

Afire is playing now; check your local listings. And Oppenheimer and Theatre Camp both open this weekend.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.