Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie

Me until now: "Okay, interesting casting, those stills of people in costume kinda cool, whatever happens happens."

Me upon seeing this: "Wait, a half year wait still? WANT NOW."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zIf0XvoL9Y

HELL YES IN GRETA WE TRUST GIVE IT TO ME

Between this and Mario 2023 is going to be the year of me being embarrassingly enthusiastic about brand cash in flicks

in Greta we trust = absolute truth

I laughed harder at this trailer than I have at any other trailer

I can't wait

Great trailer.

I’m sold.

I am worried by the involvement of Baumbach.

Baumbach is often pretty full of himself, but he did co-write "Life Aquatic" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" with Wes Anderson, and those were good. So ... fingers crossed!

that trailer is amazing lmao

Trailer's very funny. No interest in the actual movie, but it's a really good one-off gag.

the gag is funny but also the clips of the DANCING and the COLORS and the JACKETS

i'm also a big fan of the comedy acting of Margot Robbie so i'm v optimistic for this

The trailer was a clever and cute teaser. The few flashes of (mostly dance) footage at the end itself seemed less than compelling. That cotton candy color scheme, if it pervades the entire film, would be extremely painful to sit through.

Baumbach/Gerwig movies are probably better than Baumbach movies, I have no objection to a Gerwig/Baumbach movie

yeah i don't thing Greta has written or directed a bad movie

frances ha and mistress america are def a cut above in the baumbach filmography

he did co-write "Life Aquatic" … good.

LIES

i love Life Aquatic!

Gerwig has made two perfect films. I trust her.

I'm hyped for this.

meanwhile Baumbach just made...White Noise.

oh shit the Delillo book? i didn't know about that

it seems like a thoroughly bad idea if so

that's about right

ok one to avoid

Miyazaki, Mario, and Barbie - 2023 is looking pretty fun

Ain’t it fun?

Also impressed that they did something funny with the ten-millionth reference to the Dawn of Man scene

not to be a jerk but is there some non-fandom reason to anticipate the Mario movie?

Idk it’ll probably be gently funny and the music sounds great, probably won’t have any piss jokes like all the other kids’ movies seem to these days

I'm with Milo Z on Life Aquatic, which singlehandedly killed my vague Anderson interest. This on the other hand looks perfectly entertaining.

Honestly, I didn't like it, either. But the fact that the Baumbach co-write "Mr. Fox" is one of my fave Wes Andersons, and was what brought me back as a fan after "Darjeeling," leads me to believe Baumbach wasn't necessarily the problem with "Life Aquatic."

"Mr. Fox" is, well, fantastic.

Miyazaki, Mario, and Barbie - 2023 is looking pretty fun

Had not heard that How Do You Live? is coming out!

Mr. Fox and His Friends?

maybe this will be the trigger we need to get a Josie & The Pussycats Criterion blu ray

Had not heard that How Do You Live? is coming out!

Yeah, I can't wait. Just got the book from the library.

Idk it’ll probably be gently funny and the music sounds great, probably won’t have any piss jokes like all the other kids’ movies seem to these days

Lolling that the movie about the plumber running around in sewers probably won’t have any piss jokes

Oh no

Just had a weird flashback to Ice Cube drinking piss in the kids movie "Are We There Yet", glad to see piss jokes still a thing two decades on

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/mario-too/

Oh my

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRyt3Ov4zz0

my hot take is when the target of your satire is vacuity, the zings are going to cluster in a very small range

Trailer I saw before (haven't clicked yet on this one) was interesting, but yeah.

Something of a pivot for Ari Aster, then

Okay, now I see

That cast!

just going by that newest trailer wow this thing (visually) looks like total digital shit and not in a cool hyperpop 100gecs way

ugh yeah

This and the new Wes Anderson would be an overwhelming double feature on the eyes.

Lol watched trailer on YouTube and immediately played the trailer for‘Asteroid City’. Overdosed on teal and orange.

in the end when everyone says "I'm gonna beach you off", it sounds a lot like "beat off"

Can't beat off without genitalia

yeah that's what confused me about it

Greta Hedwig

that doesn't seem like a coincidence esp bc "beach you off" isn't something people say?

this movie looks enjoyable imo, from the trailer

They're saying they're going to beach each other off because they don't want each other on the beach. So they would be off beach if the characters follow through on their threats.

I presume because they are being jerks? So why don't they say "Jerk, off!!" ??

sorry i have never heard of this term before
when you want someone off the beach you say "i will beach you off"? no
it's clearly a joke?

Joey Ramone and his brother Mikey Leigh to thread!

in the end when everyone says "I'm gonna beach you off", it sounds a lot like "beat off"

― frogbs, Tuesday, April 4, 2023 4:48 PM (forty-four minutes ago)

I...think that's the joke!

this looks awful but I stan for greta so I will withhold judgment

Greta hasn't stepped a foot wrong this decade.

So this is going to be a Barbie escaping her fantasy world and entering the real world sort of thing, right? Like those Smurfs movies?

hmm, what if it takes place in the extended Smurf universe?

I...think that's the joke!

― k3vin k., Tuesday, April 4, 2023 4:34 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

but the thing is none of them have genitals, so none of them would think "I'm gonna beach you off" is a suggestive thing to say, except for Michael Cera's character whose reaction implies he's the only one with a dick?

Last dozen posts are giving me "Sleep, that's where I'm a Viking" deja vu.

Gonna unbookmark if you all keep this up

-_-

Maybe you should beach out of this thread

Maybe they grew genitals when they appeared in the material world

And the movie is about trying to figure out wtf they are

"What do these do ... ?"

That sort of happened in Pleasantville, from a certain point of view

its a "haha it sounds like men are going to jack each other off" joke you dinks. but its about having a "beach off" which must be a common thing in this stupid universe. its a very bad joke. its to signify that THIS AINT YO GRANDMAS BARBIE MOVIE BABY!

rip frogbs death by obvious joke

Beach, please.


(is an easy joke that is surely in this move)

The beach is back.

I feel like frogbs was being droll as fuck here

beaching a dead horse

is also an obvious dumb pun

to beach their own?

itt people who've never been involved in a beach off

Beach/Off is my second favorite Nic Cage movie.

The vibe reminds me a lot of the '90s Brady Bunch (and other '90s post-mod reboots of beloved pop-culture properties).

Big ol' feature. Still convinced this is going to be a musical.

https://www.vogue.com/article/margot-robbie-barbie-summer-cover-2023-interview

Uh, yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBk4NYhWNMM

HELL YES IN GRETA WE TRUST GIVE IT TO ME

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby)

barbie driving singing along to the indigo girls >>>>>>>>>>

I'm in

I don’t really want to see this, but I love gerwig enough that I probably will anyway

^^^ where I am basically

That cotton candy color scheme, if it pervades the entire film, would be extremely painful to sit through.

That god The Real World in this movie is simply technicolor, not universal fluorescence.

Can't wait for the discourse on this one tbh

I don’t really want to see this, but I love gerwig enough that I probably will anyway

― k3vin k., Thursday, May 25, 2023 7:33 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

for real

It's easy to see how the premise of the film and the constraints of completing its narrative in two hours would require that its version of The Real World become a series of hugely simplified billboards you can see coming from a long way off. Much harder to see how Gerwig can avoid duplicating the Disney feature-length cartoon formula, but from a slightly side-angle view.

But Disney-formula films are usually very satisfactory pieces of storytelling, so this one could also be a pretty entertaining two hours, too. Makes no sense to anticipate some kind of intellectual and emotional masterpiece.

Yeah, I dunno, I like Gerwig a lot, and I'm sure that this movie will feature a few surprises, but isn't it kind of a familiar conceit? Lego Movie, Toy Story, Cool World, etc. Bad sign that Will Ferrell is holding drumsticks, because that means they will have him play drums (again), which is kind of a lazy gag. Also, advertising this as a movie for people who love Barbie seems like a self-limitation. I thought it was going to add something like "or even if you don't!"

Uh...the trailer specifically indicates it's also for people who don't!

Some soundtrack details

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/barbie-soundtrack-announced-dua-lipa-lizzo-more-1234741923/

I thought it was going to add something like "or even if you don't!"

it did

oops ned said that already

Josh you really need to start asking yourself if you were mostly looking at the screen or mostly not looking at the screen before posting these criticisms. Even for trailers apparently!

Ha, I think I was looking at lots of things at once, my bad. I must have gotten extra distracted at just the wrong spot. I was right that Will Ferrell had drumsticks, though, right? Or did I make that up?

I hardly ever watch movies and I never had a Barbie but between the trailer and Margot Robbie's Vogue interview I am actually looking forward to this!

i was very much that child who preferred Lego to Barbies, but I'm excited for this. it's basically The Matrix - just gimme the pink pill!

feel like every hollywood movie now is just doing this thing where it takes an old/established property and writes a meta script around it that treats the existence of the property itself as a monument, detached semi-ironic pop culture tributes that are all too scared to ask audiences to at least engage their nostalgia with a shred of sincerity. i guess that's smart as there's clearly an audience for one and not the other.

but this does look cute and i'd like to see it, amazed it managed to somehow not cast chris pratt as ken

I've only seen Gosling in Blade Runner and Drive, so watching his Ken character in the trailer is guffaw funny to me.

feel like every hollywood movie now is just doing this thing where it takes an old/established property and writes a meta script around it that treats the existence of the property itself as a monument, detached semi-ironic pop culture tributes that are all too scared to ask audiences to at least engage their nostalgia with a shred of sincerity. i guess that's smart as there's clearly an audience for one and not the other.

I'm probably missing something, but how would that (engage their nostalgia with a shred of sincerity) look different from the trailer I just watched?

I think the obvious comparison is probably The Lego Movie - Ferrell is basically replaying President Business for a start (except President Business isn't the actual head of The Lego Group) - but Lego is universally loved in a way that Barbie isn't.

(I also think there's no way Chris Pratt would've been in this film without it becoming The Ken Movie With Barbie)

feel like every hollywood movie now is just doing this thing where it takes an old/established property and writes a meta script around it that treats the existence of the property itself as a monument, detached semi-ironic pop culture tributes that are all too scared to ask audiences to at least engage their nostalgia with a shred of sincerity.

idk i think the lego movie did manage to do both? meta-commentary with detached semi-ironic pop culture tributes, but also sincerely celebrating lego? but lego is both beloved & enough of a blank slate to have been able to thread that needle

so far this is just shaping up to be pretty similar to the lego movie in tone, which is such an obvious move (though not really a bad one - i think you can only expect so much from a barbie movie even if gerwig was given a lot of freedom with it), which makes me wonder how it will actually try to subvert expectations?

i can't imagine pratt working as ken at all. the wrong sort of normal, not camp

don’t really want to see this, but I love gerwig enough that I probably will anyway

― k3vin k., Thursday, May 25, 2023 2:33 PM

Did anyone else see Toy Story 3?

i wonder if it can actually manage to thread the needle of making a feminist barbie movie? is it just going to fall flat in the end there because well, it's barbie. some did describe the lego movie as anti-capitalist but i'd only agree with that in a a pretty vague sense.

i wonder what 5 year olds are going to think of it

I have a suspicion there is more to it than the trailers have let on, but they can't show that stuff because it would ruin the surprise (which has got to be more than "Lego Movie" redux, given all the chatter about the brilliant script, not that "Lego Movie" was at all bad). "Threading the needle" is kind of what seems to be going on, since the trailers have been big and bright and loud, with lots of yelling and stuff, which, clever gags aside, seems pretty standard, but in this case may be some weird misdirection.

Or, who knows, maybe it's just a marketing rope-a-dope and it will be just like "The Lego Movie". This is Hollywood, after all.

Yeah Barbie is capitalism pink in tooth and claw but nonetheless I want to see it

The trailer came across a bit like Barbie (The Malibu Stacy years)

Sorry I meant Lisa Lionheart

True, and the movie's going to have to work pretty hard to top this dubbed moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCu2mgoCP4

sweating now that the barbie movie might not end capitalism fuck lads what will we do in that hellosh scenario

buy more shit?

"Threading the needle" is kind of what seems to be going on

oh yeah it's definitely trying that, i just wonder if it's even possible for it to succeed there, given that it's barbie. according to interviews it's going for barbie entering the real world as an allegory for girls encountering gendered pressures as they grow up, which does come through in the trailer

even if it just ends up as a live action lego movie with some feminist commentary, that's probably a pretty good outcome for what a barbie movie could be, but it feels like they're hyping it up to be more than that? which is a fairly absurd proposition to begin with, it feels a little silly to even entertain it - it seems like it'll be fun either way

Ugh, I just realized that this movie is going to get conscripted into the culture wars, isn't it? I know it wouldn't take much these days for semi-organized assholes to target movie theaters for "grooming" and issue threats unless the "Barbie" movie is pulled. I mean, weren't people making a stink about M&Ms for a minute or something?

and… let’s not even start with one of the chief criticisms of gerwig’s work - that her brand of feminism is white/cis/straight

Ugh, I just realized that this movie is going to get conscripted into the culture wars, isn't it?

What movie that isn't yet another comic book action/sci-fi gun porn wargame rehash doesn't these days?

Barbie has been rebranded as a feminist symbol for pretty much the entirety of my adult life. Whether she actually IS a feminist symbol is something I agree is debatable but it seems very odd to me to wonder if this is going to try to be a feminist Barbie movie given then past 35+ years of Barbie marketing; it would be much weirder if it wasn’t!

Before Barbie wasn’t it mainly baby dolls for little girls? I may have already drunk the barbie kool-aid, but I thought there was something progressive about it right off the bat. And the different body types and whatnot that they come in now are also great, as far as selling plastic to kids goes.

i'm not wondering if it'll try (it very obviously is), i'm wondering if it will succeed, or if it's even possible for it to truly succeed at that goal given barbie's messy relationship to feminism?

i don't think barbie is a feminist symbol or that she's really tried to be? there's been an effort to make her more diverse and feminist-friendly (although in a fairly shallow girlboss sort of way) for sure, but is she really seen as a feminist symbol by anyone? i don't think many people would really say she's the worst thing ever these days, but i also don't think many would argue that she's the most progressive there is wrt gender? the broader issue is just how heavily gendered children's toys are, of course

I'm not expecting Barbie to be any kind of statement movie by Gerwig, just like The Lego Movie wasn't one by Lord & Miller. We know they're capable of more, but here they're just elevating mainstream properties.

idk i think the lego movie did manage to do both? meta-commentary with detached semi-ironic pop culture tributes, but also sincerely celebrating lego? but lego is both beloved & enough of a blank slate to have been able to thread that needle

so far this is just shaping up to be pretty similar to the lego movie in tone, which is such an obvious move (though not really a bad one - i think you can only expect so much from a barbie movie even if gerwig was given a lot of freedom with it), which makes me wonder how it will actually try to subvert expectations?

i can't imagine pratt working as ken at all. the wrong sort of normal, not camp

― ufo, Friday, May 26, 2023 8:40 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i haven't seen lego movie so i can't really compare (i haven't seen most movies, my opinions can be ignored) but i don't necessarily think that the script itself offering a 'sincere' celebration of the property is on the opposite end of what i'm talking about. that's part of "treating it like a monument." the most obvious offender i can think of is this horrible trailer for the recent ghostbusters reboot that had the kids from stranger things sifting through a Planet Hollywood prop display curated to increasingly tickle the nostalgia center of nerd brains until they explode. the celebration is certainly there but it's sort of presented through a hall of mirrors, right? and that approach to the property had to be (at least in part) a reaction to the culture war surrounding the previous all-female reboot - a movie i'd argue actually did engage the property with sincerity simply by casting comedians and striving to hit (a modernized version of) the same tone as the originals, rather than building it around third-person property worship.

no comparison there really to the barbie movie, but i'm not sure there is really a way to create a barbie movie on the opposite end of the pole aside from the ones they've been making for years, marketed towards children (though i'm sure some of them include a lot of adult-facing meta humor in their own right, because everything does)

i don't mean to turn this into a crappy culture thinkpiece, would really just prefer if hollywood wasn't built around leveraging established IPs but whatever!!

sweating now that the barbie movie might not end capitalism fuck lads what will we do in that hellosh scenario

― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Friday, 26 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

You joke but by Barbie thinking thoughts about "dying" it will lead to much harm. This stuff is powerful.

i’m encouraged by how thoughtful and pretentious (good) gerwig’s comments in that interview are

Robbie reveals the biggest reason this movie was made:

"The word {Barbie} itself is more globally recognized than practically everything else other than Coca-Cola."

I for one can't wait for an unironically titled The Coke Movie.

I assume it will be the sequel to Scarface

the barbie movie looks fun and cute! (crowd cheers) but it's based on intellectual property (crowd boos) but it might be feminist! (crowd cheers) but it is a movie based on toys (crowd boos) but there might be queer subtext! (crowd cheers) but dolls are for children (crowd boos)

— lauren (@NotABigJerk) May 26, 2023

Does it come with frozen yogurt

yes but

not directed at anyone specific
but can i just say it drives me fucking nuts the way ~the culture in general~ gets so insanely granular over **a goddamn trailer**

my thoughts:
it looks like it might be fun!
i might see this movie!
THE END

^^^

also I keep cracking up at the exchange in the earlier trailer where Ken says he wants to come over and Barbie says "and do what?" and he says "I'm... not exactly sure"

I think an obvious comparison would be to GI Joe, which started as an action figure toy and then led to 3 feature films.

Having a thread for a movie before we have a movie to discuss naturally leads to discussions not informed by watching the movie. A long series of posts all saying "looks fun, might see" would be not much fun. At least this way we'll remember where to discuss the movie when it's released.

xpost I will see your GI Joe and raise you a Transformers (with 7+ feature films).

Good one, I'm out. I probably won't "see" any of those but the Barbie movie ;)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_toys#Live-action_films_based_on_toys

damn is really this mattel’s first live action feature film since masters of the universe bombed

Would take you a while to get back in the game after a failure like that.

theres a reason theyre not called mattew

also I keep cracking up at the exchange in the earlier trailer where Ken says he wants to come over and Barbie says "and do what?" and he says "I'm... not exactly sure"

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2023 3:58 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This moment in the trailer was the moment when I was sure I need to watch the movie, tbrr

for real

indigo girls did it for me

damn is really this mattel’s first live action feature film since masters of the universe bombed

can't believe you're forgetting max steel

The bit I laughed at most is Ken mugging behind his mug shot (and his mug shot saying 'AND KEN'), but I really have some hopes for Kate McKinnon as weird Barbie with the pen marks and the chopped hair.

feel like i've seen more references to this movie, which is not out yet, than any in years and years

i mean i'm not gonna go see it, but the marketing, even accidentally, has been impressive

really hope it's awful

"Why do people say they like things? We may never know."

Allegedly Barbie's advanced ticket sales signal an $80-100M opening weekend, compared to $50M for Oppenheimer

First reactions?

...would be expect in about a week, when it opens

*expected

we call barbs from mookie "barbies"

The usual dubiously ott reactions are out. Lotta talk of costumes, sets and Gosling.

when will they issue their warning about the onscreen colors and dance scenes being so flashy that people prone to seizures should be cautious about attending?

Initially I couldn't really give two shits about this movie, but after seeing how big mad it makes some people I hope this makes a gazillion dollars.

I hope it makes 100x as much money as Oppenheimer

otm

lol both screenings are on the same night

how big mad it makes some people

Barbie purists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahNWoa0f9x0

i had one of the cassettes! and the Barbie & The Rockers Barbie!

:D

I'm a Barbie girl
In a Barbie world
Report your last known
You're in the blast zone

You have to see Oppenheimer first. This is because Barbie lives in the world that Oppenheimer built.

— Lynda Carter (@RealLyndaCarter) July 10, 2023

It's a good line and I hope her social media manager gets a bonus

The second season of the L.A. Made podcast is about the history of Barbie, as told by those who were there. It's fascinating.

https://letterboxd.com/journal/the-official-barbie-watchlist-greta-gerwig/

She has great taste!

Well, screening's on Monday. Good luck, America.

My sister im law the other day was talking about all the great things she's heard about it, and I let her know that functionally no one has seen it yet, so three cheers for marketing.

https://time.com/6294427/barbenheimer-future-of-movies-barbie-oppenheimer/

Thanks. I don’t know what I.P. means in this context.

Not a long time ago these movies would have opnened on the July 4th weekend. Late July was always the dumping ground for bombs and quickie comedies for bored teenagers.

xp Freely

The Russos do the same namedropping shit with their Marvel movies. Thus, a Captain America movie becomes The Parallax View.

ok but greta gerwig has made two excellent movies

Yeah, also it's just a very different thing: conspiracy films depend on a certain amount of political sophistication that The Winter Soldier clearly does not have, Gerwig is for the most part listing a bunch of great frothy spectacles as inspiration for her own big frothy spectacle. It might very well turn out to not be very good but the references are coherent.

https://i.imgur.com/aN8HYb5.gif

https://i.imgur.com/Frn8rdm.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyfQVZHmArA

apparently gerwig's next project as writer/director after this is 'at least two' narnia films, which seems like an incredibly bizarre move - why would anyone want gerwig to do that? why would she want to do that? how could she possibly make that actually compelling?

*raises hand*

I can imagine a good Narnia series directed by Gerwig but I confess I can also imagine her getting swallowed up by franchise considerations. Anyway I'm guessing Barbie box office might determine if this becomes anything more than a vague project.

I will happily see Barbie, but confess that Gerwig getting tied up in Narnia bums me out.

they don't tie people up in Narnia, their punishments are far weirder

has a good director ever truly elevated one of these franchise movies? maybe Cuaron's Potter entry, though I'll never rewatch it to check. I'm probably forgetting something obvious though. Agree with the general ugh at this idea, though I'm not a gerwig stan

Not a long time ago these movies would have opnened on the July 4th weekend. Late July was always the dumping ground for bombs and quickie comedies for bored teenagers.

― Gerard Grisey Funk (Boring, Maryland), Friday, July 14, 2023 10:17 AM (yesterday)

I can't tell if this post was joking or not (Oppenheimer = bombs; Barbie = the rest)

no, I was being serious. "Big" films opened before July 4, or even Memorial Day.

That still happens. This year the Little Mermaid opened on Memorial Day weekend and Indiana Jones opened the weekend before July 4.

my vague memory is the cuaron potter was the best one, certainly elevated beyond the others, but i have no desire to revisit it even ignoring rowling's descent into reaction, and was it really something that anyone wanted or needed anyway?

The Raimi Spider-Mans certainly benefit from his direction, though I guess jury's out on whether "a Sam Raimi film" is something more elevated than "a Spider-Man film". They also already seem to hail from a very different era in terms of the creative control a director gets when doing a franchise film, but otoh Narnia ain't exactly the hottest property and I could imagine Gerwig getting some leeway.

xp
yeah, that's a good point. even though it was better than the rest, I would much rather have had AC try his own take on english fantasy. it's been said before, but it is depressing contemplating a good director getting sucked into these big-budget studio production, they can't help but be compromised imo (as Daniel just said)

Raimi an interesting case. Young me would probably want to mention Burton's Batman films, but I don't actually think he's a good director now lol

batman returns is still great

willing to see what gerwig would do with narnia but who knows, doesn’t feel like it’s on the same level as her doing a mcu movie (where even raimi’s style got consistently derailed by the stupid and boring continuing storyline)

The first two Burton Batman flicks rule.

I'm here for a Gerwig-directed Narnia film that's just Puddleglum (Dean Wareham), Eustace (Timothy Chalamet), and Jill (Florence Pugh) talking in a Lower Manhattan studio.

Fwiw, the movies that Raimi made immediately before Spider-Man were The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, For Love of the Game, and The Gift. Quality aside, I don't think you could look at those four films and think they're the work of someone with an uncompromising artistic vision. He was already enmeshed in the studio system.

counterpoint: for the love of the game is the only one of those that doesn’t feel like a sam raimi movie to me

i don't really get the impression that barbie will be particularly compromised - the unusual thing is that mattel have (correctly) surmised that it was better to give gerwig creative freedom and get something potentially interesting out of it that would make a cultural splash instead of producing something bland and micromanaged (which is apparently part of why previous attempts at making a barbie film fell through)

but with narnia i feel like there'd only be so much room to work with (though certainly far more than anyone gets with the mcu these days) and even if gerwig makes a tltw&tw adaptation that's as good as it could possibly be it'd still be a bit of a waste. i don't know how she could possibly make prince caspian worthwhile

Xp Wasn’t that also right around the time Wes Craven made Music of the Heart?

his style is undeniable in his spider-man films, whereas non-raimi spider-man films i would struggle to say have a style

Wasn’t that also right around the time Wes Craven made Music of the Heart?

― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.),

I'm glad someone mentioned this. I'd argue pairing Estefan + N Sync was as terrifying as Freddy's first appearance in 1984.

mattel have said they aim to take the same approach as barbie to the 16+ other films they have in development but i really don't know how they'll manage a 'thoughtful' take on hot wheels, or rock em sock em robots, or uno (which inexplicably is supposedly going to be a comedy-heist starring lil yachty?)

my last post was p unclear:

I agree with Ivy and Alfred on the Batmans. I meant Burton's 21st c. filmography has been so very bad I don't think he belongs to the category we're talking about

I don't think Barbie is a studio-compromise film (I mean, we'll see, but it does look too strange for that so far). I only meant these hypothetical Narnia movies seem destined to be that, esp if they really are investing in two at once

16+ Mattel films is end times shit, jesus christ

has a good director ever truly elevated one of these franchise movies?

― rob, Saturday, 15 July 2023 14:38

Let's see how Ben Wheatley's 'Meg 2: The Trench' turns out.

i don't think we will get 16+ mattel films despite their ambitions, a bunch will get made but i doubt they'll all be hits. hopefully we at least get some confused adaptations of obscure mattel lines to completely flop before they scale back the ambitions though

Waiting for Wes Anderson’s He-Man

has a good director ever truly elevated one of these franchise movies?

i know few people agree with me about the second but: first two m:i movies are really successful examples of throwing established auteurs at existing IP

Fan or not, the LOTR trilogy is a good example of how to get a director to bring his or hers qualities to a blockbuster IP. Jackson coming from horror and genre filmmaking is key to the successes of those movies, the odd visual flourishes, camera movement, direction of actors, interesting visual storytelling in general. It spawned a whole lot of movies that don't have that quality and so it's easy to compare - MCU is an example of hiring distinct i (often smaller scale) talent and not giving them the framework or resources to apply their style to the movies. But the LOTR tv show is also probably a good example: Lots of writing talent, but a lack of individual character. Jackson managed to get his whole crew on those movies - from editors to writers to effects and camera people - and doing it in his backyard, which probably explains a lot of it. That's unthinkable for many studios and franchise owners. I don't know what Gerwig needs to imbue her own character on a project, but hopefully she's given it. Narnia doesn't sound like a great prospect to me, but there are ways to make franchises work better than they generally do.

has a good director ever truly elevated one of these franchise movies?

Cuaron Harry Potter?

counterpoint: Chloé Zhao and the Eternals

deathly hallows 1 > cuaron potter, and no i have no idea how this is possible but david yates made the most meditative and best harry potter film

cuaron’s entry is still pretty wonderful and idiosyncratic, and the time travel stuff at the end is beautifully rendered

sorry i feel like this is yet another ilx thread where i am unloading my franchise opinions lol

I agree with you about the second MI! Saw it last week for the first time in over two decades (ugh) and it’s a blast.

Mrs Gimbel larfed non-stop and so did I.

First preview I've ever been to where the assembled reviewers queued round the block in Leicester Square to get in, then applauded at the end.

So still no posted or published reviews? Only the usual weird vague Twitter hack comments floating out there.

Only saw this embargo-skirting almost blurb from a Letterboxd notable: https://letterboxd.com/dillamonster/film/barbie/

Is that true? If you take a shot every time they mention the word patriarchy you will die?

Ken will fart on your face until you asphyxiate.

(Screening in 90 minutes).

There is an A+ Stephen Malkmus joke.

screening what, the movie or Ken's anus?

I hope Barbie wears a "fuck the patriarchy" keychain

I haven't been this excited for a movie in years.

A mixed group of audience and what remains of critics. The response was overwhelming -- applause, daughters and moms crying as we exited. Think of it as a mix of The Truman Show and Gerwig's attitude in Lady Bird and Sirk. Not all of it worked, and I cringed at times at the performative liberalism of a company like Mattel positioning itself as a defender of women's rights; but the actors are so enthusiastic and the story fresh enough that I got caught up.

Of course, Mattel owes its existence to the genius of a woman.

xpost Intriguing! If there is indeed an element of Sirk to it that would be somewhat fitting, given the circuitous route back to Todd Haynes. When is the embargo lifting?

Tonight.

My Letterboxd follows somewhat predictably starting to toss some cold water on the fire this morning

I’ve decided that my new thing is going to be public denials of the existence of this movie while pushing the theory that it is nothing but a never ending marketing campaign that will inundate us with new material over the course of the next 60 years

Meanwhile, Oppenheimer actually came out 15 years ago

XP the Mattell-a Effect

While I’m not so far off Alfred’s level of enthusiasm, or at least engagement, this is also to a degree a victim of what happens when something needs to be everything to everyone, which makes it the perfect movie for our resolutely absolutist times I guess

Weirdly enough, this is the first of GG’s movies that made me question what I regarded previously as her unimpeachable pop instincts. Three consecutive satirical musical numbers?

Have adjusted my expectations to expect this to be a *** film that still exhibits a lot of creativity and intelligence but ultimately is constrained by its blockbuster status, and if that's the case do hope Gerwig opts for a "one for them, one for me" model.

You and PBrad on the same page, Daniel:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/19/barbie-review-greta-gerwig-delirious-bubblegum-fantasy

Probably means this is a 5-star movie in that case.

do you mean Bradshaw is particularly harsh? lots of 4 stars in his recent reviews.

if it's more "if he didn't like it it must be great" I'd say *** still translates to "he liked it".

Lol@

"In interviews about Barbie, Gerwig has referenced Milton and Powell and Pressburger: judging from this, I would say the influences are Toy Story, Pinocchio and Clueless."

Why does Bradshaw have a job for life?

It me.

certified haters seeing a monstrously hyped movie get a mediocre review pic.twitter.com/KacIupgJaF

— Aidan James (@mcandidate) July 19, 2023

"In interviews about Barbie, Gerwig has referenced Milton and Powell and Pressburger: judging from this, I would say the influences are Toy Story, Pinocchio and Clueless."

The influences are generally about as surface as the 2001 opening. Late in the movie, the Kens have a dance number that's on basically the same soundstage as Singin' in the Rain's chiffon ballet

“do you mean Bradshaw is particularly harsh?”

No, I mean BS gives it 5-stars, it’s almost certainly a medicore middlebrow wash, but a lukewarm review normally means he just hasn’t got it, in my experience.

Upon sleeping on it, I am more heartened by its laser-precise decimation of male-centric cinephilia. The joke at Zach Snyder fanboys' expense alone was worth the entire undertaking.

Caspar is hardly a film bro -- though he is mediocre -- and here he is asking the important question:

"does the phrase “selling out” have any meaning any more?"

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/19/barbie-indie-director-film-maker-greta-gerwig

IMO “selling out” never had any meaning beyond “I don’t need to support myself with my artistic endeavor”

To be fair, this is a movie kinda sorta engineered to generate every sort of bad take imaginable

exactly

Can't believe someone is trying to revive "selling out".

Let's do this properly: Haneke to direct he-man or gtfo.

might be an improvement on his last couple films tbh

Greta Gerwig covers the latest issue of ELLE UK. pic.twitter.com/dQHEBDHDRm

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) July 19, 2023

The joke at Zach Snyder fanboys' expense alone was worth the entire undertaking.

I guess death of monoculture means this is different for everyone and obv it's different if you're a film critic but man, it's been years since I've encountered any mention of Zack Snyder fandom that hasn't been at its expense.

Nah, that was a joke by Baumbach aimed squarely at his partner-in-beef Arm0nd

“do you mean Bradshaw is particularly harsh?”

No, I mean BS gives it 5-stars, it’s almost certainly a medicore middlebrow wash, but a lukewarm review normally means he just hasn’t got it, in my experience.

― Chewshabadoo, Wednesday, 19 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/19/oppenheimer-review-nolans-atom-bomb-epic-is-flawed-but-extraordinary

Got our RPX tickets for the Sat late show. I'm kind of excited! I also don't think I've ever seen a movie in RPX and also have no idea what it means.

The first trailer was a bunch of jokes about jacking off and the reviews are all talking about its references to Kubrick and Coppola and Snyder and like... This all sounds really smug and obnoxious for a movie ostensibly made for children?

It's not

it doesn't seem like it was made for children

Also, by "the reviews" I mean Armond White's review where he says the adult references aren't for kids (This seems like a valid complaint) and the feminist angle also isn't for kids (This is obv batshit)

I have read that the whole nine-dash line map thing, with which China claims most of the South China sea close to the borders of Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines and surrounding Taiwan, is the reason why Vietnam has banned the film

I haven't seen the film, but the one image I saw from it purporting to represent the offensive scene had a childish map of the whole world upside down and Asia portrayed sideways with some dashes coming out of it in no particular order.

It's surprising to me to see such a strong reaction, I certainly don't think anybody in this country who sees it would possibly make a connection

I wonder what the people who did the art direction for the movie are thinking about that

from what I've seen of the promos, there have to be many more egregiously wrong-footed and outright tacky things about the film, but I'm still really looking forward to it

Let's do this properly: Haneke to direct he-man or gtfo.

In which He-Man beats an unsuspecting family to death with a golf club.

Seriously, man, fuck that guy and his fucking movies, apart from "Caché."

David Cronenberg's He-Man

David Lynch Presents Thundercats

The first trailer was a bunch of jokes about jacking off and the reviews are all talking about its references to Kubrick and Coppola and Snyder and like... This all sounds really smug and obnoxious for a movie ostensibly made for children?

― sean paul akerman (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 20 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

You should review stuff for a living.

I have read that the whole nine-dash line map thing, with which China claims most of the South China sea close to the borders of Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines and surrounding Taiwan, is the reason why Vietnam has banned the film

I haven't seen the film, but the one image I saw from it purporting to represent the offensive scene had a childish map of the whole world upside down and Asia portrayed sideways with some dashes coming out of it in no particular order.

It's surprising to me to see such a strong reaction, I certainly don't think anybody in this country who sees it would possibly make a connection

I agree it's obviously a gag, not a political statement, and not saying Vietnam was right to ban it lol, but I also don't think it's surprising at all - being neighbours with an aggressive global power tends to make you touchy about things like this, even moreso when it's a power US studios have a semi-official policy of pandering to. In the end the movie got lucky with where it squiggled its lines really, imagine the online discourse if they had put Russia over Ukranian territory.

Ok.

surely this––a world in which acclaimed and successful and award-winning auteurs can only rise above the microbudget by directing advertisements for toys––represents capital's final destruction of the concept of human culture https://t.co/Xc0jl1wJdt

— Ben Miller (@benwritesthings) July 20, 2023

Surely

The Uno Movie. Draw 4 - Friend or Foe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_TiaJGjdo

From the New Yorker article:

If some movies are toyetic, many toys are in no way cinematic: there’s precious little human drama to be mined from such games as Flushin’ Frenzy or UNO. “Look, my kids and I played UNO every night during the pandemic. I love it,” Barber said. “Is there an UNO movie? I don’t know!”

When I met Marcy Kelly, a cheerful thirty-eight-year-old who has become Mattel’s de-facto screenwriter and punch-up artist, last November, she recalled the moment when Kevin McKeon asked her if she wanted to pitch a script based on the card game: “My reaction was the reaction that everybody has, which is ‘What?’ ” McKeon, she said, sent her a slide deck that “highlighted how cross-cultural the game is, and funny things about how seriously people take it, and little seeds of ideas for things to work into a movie,” including “a meme of Beyoncé holding UNO cards.” The mandate, inexplicably, was for a heist movie.

Kelly got to work. The script she emerged with wasn’t quite what Mattel had had in mind. She’d set “UNO” in Atlanta’s hip-hop scene. “The first draft that I sent in was ‘fuck’-heavy,” she recalled, sheepishly. An executive flagged every instance of the obscenity in the screenplay. “It was something like fifty pages,” she said. “And then the next draft had one. I got my one, well-placed, PG-13 ‘fuck.’ ”

Kelly stressed that, despite such censorship, Mattel had given her real creative freedom. “They’ve been open to so many kinds of unexpected ideas,” she said. She’d submitted screenplays for four titles, and ran the writers’ room for several others, including one about Bob the Builder. The work had helped her find her footing in the industry; before joining the company, she was best known for her contributions to the mobile game Mean Girls: Senior Year.

If Kelly sometimes struggled to please Mattel, the executives didn’t always seem to know what they wanted, either. Not long after we spoke, her “UNO” script was set aside, and a one-day writers’ room took another run at a concept. A heist, Mattel reasoned, might not be the way forward after all. Some bank vaults can’t be cracked.

Looks like Lil Yachty had been attached at some point.

Look, until we get to the point that Barbie and Capt. Uno are seen asking the Magic 8 Ball questions in the background of a scene from Planet Popple, I'm still less annoyed at this admittedly early point in the cycle than I was approximately three Marvel movies in

How quickly we all forget the "Battleship" movie. Movies based on games, movies based on toys, movies based on theme park rides, live action remakes of animated musicals, movie musicals based on stage musicals based on books inspired by movie musicals ... at least the Marvel movies are based on stories, not objects.

I just found out that Mattel purchased Bluebird toys in the 90s, and I've decided that I'm ok with talented auteurs being forced to waste their talents on toy commercials if it means we get that Manta Force film I've been waiting for since I was 6.

Directed by Celine Song?

"Clue: The Movie" ... was this the first film of this kind, based on a game or toy?

Apparently so, quickly followed by The Garbage Pail Kids Movie and Masters of the Universe

How many millions of dollars have been spent on the Monopoly movie that hasn't even been filmed yet? It's gone from a Ridley Scott comedy, to a Goonies knock-off with no director, to a serious Ridley Scott movie compared to Blade Runner, to a Kevin Hart movie that will probably get cancelled because of the strike.

The Monopoly plot where it last stood...

The story starts off with a montage of Chuck as a child growing up and how monopoly has always been there for him. The first time he played it with his parents, the first time he bought a property, the first time he landed on a space with a hotel on it and flipped the board, arguing over the real rules of the game v.s. “house rules” that other use, him playing too aggressively while on a first date with a girl thus ruining his chances for a second date. You know, things we have all done. The montage ends with Chuck rolling the dice on himself, after noticing that his childhood neighborhood is taking a dark turn toward the vilest of beasts, gentrification.

Chuck creates a business plan to save his neighborhood, which he is going to propose to his bosses the Alpha Brothers, he calls the plan “Gentrification with a Soul.” His bosses love it, except they hate the soul part, you see, soul affects profit margins. So, now his neighborhood is going to get gentrified worse than New York. For those of you that don’t know, used to have the nickname “Fear City” but that’s all changed now that Harlem is full of kids from LA with rich parents.

His mother, who thinks his proposal went off like a success, surprises him with a gift, a first edition monopoly board. Not wanting to break the bad news to his mother, he does not tell her what happened. Little does Chuck know this board is special, and the next day he is in for a rude awakening when he goes to buy his morning cup of coffee, all he has is Monopoly money, his pockets are overflowing with the colorful cash that looks like Canadian money. The barista happily takes the cash, which is weird, but what’s even weirder is what he sees outside. That’s right, he’s in Monopoly world.

Praying for a Stratego movie.

"Turn around, sir . . . good Lord, you're the Field Marshal!"

Give me Fireball Island or give me the fake jewel

The Stratego film would be funny if some filmmaker signed on just to use it as a chance to make a big-budget Napoleonic Wars film.

Kinda akin to Joe Johnston finally getting his big-budget WWII dieselpunk film (of sorts) by doing the first Captain America.

I don’t really want to see this, but I love gerwig enough that I probably will anyway

― k3vin k., Thursday, May 25, 2023 2:33 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

have to say the new yorker article decreased my interest level even further

him playing [Monopoly] too aggressively while on a first date with a girl thus ruining his chances for a second date

Just make a romantic comedy around this.

This whole thing reminds me of Betty Thomas's The Brady Bunch Movie, in the sense of making it smart/self-conscious playing with nostalgia for something that's burned into our brains but we're not really nostalgic for.

It's actually only that in the first few minutes of the Venice Beach sequence ... it quickly drops that fish-out-of-water angle

Fire the NYT illustrator who made this. The "en" is from Oppenheimer! It's not called "Barben"!

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/07/23/business/0723BIGNUMBER-PRINT/0723BIGNUMBER-PRINT-threeByTwoSmallAt2X.png?quality=75&auto=webp

It's actually called Barbenie

Drew Margary with a double-feature review: https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/barbie-oppenheimer-review-18254213.php

I agree it's obviously a gag, not a political statement, and not saying Vietnam was right to ban it lol, but I also don't think it's surprising at all - being neighbours with an aggressive global power tends to make you touchy about things like this, even moreso when it's a power US studios have a semi-official policy of pandering to.

Uncharted and Abominable for banned for the same reasons in Vietnam. Seem to remember one movie which had to edit out a scene with a map but can't remember which

*were banned

The most positive review I've seen on Barbie - I'm a skeptic and Brody tends to oversell his favored comedies (Trainwreck, The Spy Who Dumped Me), but using references like the classic Warner Bros. cartoons could very well make a plausible case for greatness:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/barbie-is-brilliant-beautiful-and-fun-as-hell

i loved this

going back and reading this thread made me want to slam my head into a wall

i’m going in. everyone is wearing pink.

Just saw it with a group of friends and we had a good time. It was better than I imagined a Barbie movie could be. The very last joke was probably my favorite bit.

it was a total blast, they really emptied the idea board in the best way possible.

this is very very good and completely 100% entertaining. And an all time classic final line.

there is little hope that any further mattel raiding will actually even remotely meet the bar this set, and Gerwig (and Robbie and Gosling) deserves every bit of credit.

My kids (13 & 8) are with my conservative mom and she's going to take them to see this. I'm excited to hear everyone's reaction. I need to call up and talk to the 8 year old and make sure she knows what "patriarchy" and the last word in the movie mean.

Who knew Gosling was this funny!

It‘s the role he was born to play.

im pretty sure most people knew gosling was funny?

He's been funny for a while.

nothing funnier than the time an imposter Ryan Gosling showed up undetected to a European awards show and appeared on stage as him in front of a shocked audience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3dg-vWr3n4

the real Gosling has indeed been funny for a while

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhlJNJopOQ

https://i.ibb.co/QkwzyDk/Screenshot-20230717-233310-Chrome.jpg

guy who has his own name twice in his handle has opinions4u

I’ll see it in a week or three once the various tumults have subsided.

I just went to see a 70mm screening of Oppenheimer. It was insanely packed & I couldn’t understand why there was such a joyous atmosphere. After finding the last seat in the auditorium I looked around and noticed almost everyone was in pink and asked the person next to me what film was showing. Of course i knew the answer before they said it. Barbie! I had got the screening times mixed up and they obviously weren't paying attention when they took my ticket. I was not in the right mood to stay and see it though do intend to. Back to the cinema in an hour for my correct screening!

was the Barbie also a 70 mm

According to my students, many people ARE doing back-to-back screenings of Barbie and Opps.

several friends of mine have done it

uh wow:

“Barbenheimer” is more than just a meme. It’s a full-fledged box office phenomenon.

Over the weekend, moviegoers turned out in force for Greta Gerwig’s neon-coated fantasy comedy “Barbie,” which smashed expectations with $155 million to land the biggest debut of the year. But they also showed up to see Christopher Nolan’s R-rated historical drama “Oppenheimer,” which collected a remarkable $80.5 million in its opening weekend.

Hundreds of thousands of ticket buyers refused to choose between the seemingly different blockbusters with twin release dates. So they opted to attend same-day viewings of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” turning the box office battle into a double feature for the ages. The craze known as “Barbenheimer” worked together to fuel the biggest collective box office weekend of the pandemic era, as well as the fourth-biggest overall weekend in history.

and:

Among its many records, “Barbie” also scored the biggest opening weekend ever for a film directed by a woman. “Captain Marvel,” which was co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, previously held the title with $153 million in 2019. “Wonder Woman,” from filmmaker Patty Jenkins, stood as the record-holder for a movie solely directed by a woman with $103 million in 2017.

Hopefully the robot ETs will appreciate the black humor in this endtime activity when they eventually pick through the ruins of our civilization.

I honestly just have a hard time staying at the movie theaters that long anymore. last time I did that was "Das Boot" followed by "45 Years"

I have colleagues who can and do; I'd rather grab lunch.

My daughter did (and liked) both movies.

Thinking now that diehard Springsteen fans will have maintained a level of Sitzfleisch that would make this kind of undertaking a walk in the park for them.

lol otm

was the Barbie also a 70 mm

it was not.

Barbie must be seen in 29 cm

The most positive review I've seen on Barbie - I'm a skeptic and Brody tends to oversell his favored comedies (Trainwreck, The Spy Who Dumped Me), but using references like the classic Warner Bros. cartoons could very well make a plausible case for greatness:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/barbie-is-brilliant-beautiful-and-fun-as-hell

― birdistheword, Saturday, July 22, 2023 12:38 AM (yesterday)

I started reading this the other day and then just decided to put it off until I saw the film myself -- brody it should be noted is probably one of the biggest gerwig boosters there is, so I wasn't surprised to see what seemed to be such a breathlessly positive review

I'm a gerwig fan and I can't say that there is that much about the film that reminds me of anything else she has ever done; certainly not visually, but even script-wise, the comedy is usually insanely broad and OTT. That it works is a small miracle and, as I said, a testament to her abilities.

My SO is doing OPPENHARBIE (yes in that order) today but with a friend right across the city and I'm not a big enough Nolan fan to want to see a film that long that in the cinema but might see Barbie at the place just down the road once the furore dies down.

this was fantastic, a blast all the way through and yes that last line was lol. It was also unexpectedly moving? my 16 year old was crying buckets towards the end and she wasn’t the only one

my husband was extremely, extremely reluctant to see this and came out a fan

What’s the big deal, nobody remembers the 1977 craze of Salòday Night Fever?

Totally forgot about this, but there used to be double feature drive-ins in Illinois. I went to one when I was 4 and have vague memories about it, but I think they were all gone by the end of the ‘90s.

I’ll probably catch Barbie later and skip Oppenheimer but the whole double feature concept is a nice bit of nostalgia. I do it all the time during the summer (A/C helps as do an easy, quick lunch breaks that are typically around my go-to theaters) but it’s especially nice when they’re programmed as such. Film Forum used to do a lot of ones and the summer before the pandemic had a great one on the ‘80s programmed by Jim Hoberman courtesy of Lincoln Center.

Forgot about this too, but the kids I used to babysit back home told me they and their friends used to hang out inside the multiplex and just see movies all day for essentially the price of one (obviously not what you’re supposed to do).

The weather in most places is helping people want to spend upwards of 5 hours in an air conditioned theater too.

When you don’t have AC at home, it’s really hard to leave the theater - I’ve spent entire 100 degree days at MoMA watching movies.

In Westwood after seeing “Oppenheimer,” Quentin Tarantino walks across the street and buys a ticket to see “Barbie.” pic.twitter.com/w7TdfCE04n

— Saul Gonzalez (@SaulGonzalezCA) July 23, 2023

I took 1 star reviews of #Barbie from furious men on letterboxd and put them on the posters because it makes the film seem ever cooler. pic.twitter.com/V4YzmnB8bj

— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) July 23, 2023

"confusingly attractive" one is my favourite

Barbie vs Oppenheimer: Which is the most searched movie in the Balkans in the last 24 hours pic.twitter.com/NdGhhZ9IUw

— kos_data (@kos_data) July 22, 2023

Cultural divide

Ope, even bigger...

#Barbie opening weekend has soared to $164 million, a big jump from Sunday’s already record-breaking estimate of $155 million. https://t.co/h1HwxXYFA8

— Variety (@Variety) July 24, 2023

Walter Chaw's take sorta reads like Armond White's review as written by a reasonable person: https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2023/07/barbie.html

You're better off tracking down a bootleg of Todd Haynes's Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, in which the singer's downfall as she struggled with an eating disorder and the social pressures on a woman in the spotlight is told exclusively through the use of Barbie dolls. Mattel's had that one hidden away in copyright limbo for decades now. Funny, that.

this is reasonable?

Stereotypical Barbie not having a vagina is fascinating, however, and I wish they would have shown her naked: hairless and nipple- and vagina-free. Ditto Ken, who jokes about his smooth genital mound without our ever getting to regard the Cronenbergian uncanniness of an entirely castrated Ryan Gosling.

Question: if they showed Barbie or Ken naked but smooth, with no genitalia or nipples, like the dolls (that kids play with), would the movie have gotten an R?

Undermentioned "Barbie" stat is that the movie runs under two hours, which allows for more screenings and hopefully encourages others to cut down a bit on bloat.

I think the entire review is reasonablein the sense that is that it is a take that considers the film in terms what it appears to be trying to do, and fails.

Again, haven't seen, and probably won't, but it strikes me as reasonable to expect that a film that aspires to a metacommentary on an iconic product to explore the full implications of its subject.

oh crumbs, my mate watched it at the weekend and said it was mostly awful.

The more I read the WC review, the more sane Arm0nd's take almost seems in comparison?

("The devil you know" etc.)

can't believe they dedicated this movie to valerie solanas.

The post-credit sequence, which was just a supercut of Town Bloody Hall, was also a shock

This is the track they should have put over the end credits:

https://soundcloud.com/lighghtmusic/lighght-pulse-b-aqua-x-youngstar

saw it this weekend, it's hilarious and yes America Ferrera's monologue is unsubtle but it also got cheers at my screening so it clearly works. The movie has what I would describe as a degree of metacommentary that blockbuster audiences will find interesting without being alienating (no, you don't get any Cronenbergian body horror and the folk biology of a come-to-life Barbie is not in fact fully realized or consistent, but then they couldn't manage that in Blade Runner 2049 either so I'm not sure why it's an issue here). Only weird thing is that it's a movie about Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken pretty much steals the entire show.

Gosling was great in it but at a certain point I did think "okay, that's enough of you."

Since Barbie and Ken have no genitals, it wouldn't have hurt to have shown him nude a couple times imo

You're better off tracking down a bootleg of Todd Haynes's Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, in which the singer's downfall as she struggled with an eating disorder and the social pressures on a woman in the spotlight is told exclusively through the use of Barbie dolls. Mattel's had that one hidden away in copyright limbo for decades now. Funny, that.

Funny, but wrong. It's Richard Carpenter that has blocked distribution of Superstar.

I unequivocally do not think Gosling steals the entire movie. Robbie is magnificent in it.

Yeah, Gosling has just enough screen time. Also: he has a gift for not overdoing his effects when he senses we might be tiring of him.

it is a take that considers the film in terms what it appears to be trying to do, and fails.

Again, haven't seen, and probably won't,

ok then

Again, haven't seen, and probably won't, but it strikes me as reasonable to expect that a film that aspires to a metacommentary on an iconic product to explore the full implications of its subject.

expectation is a prison, etc

I saw it last night, loved it, generally. The music is great! I loved the “Hi, Barbie” song and the “I’m Just Ken” sequence

It did feel strange that the film’s larger crux was about the crisis of modern masculinity rather than anything present-tense feminism. Also it did feel like it had an essentialist thesis, the denouement was nice and appealing ”Barbie becomes human woman, acquires a vagina” but, well, yeah. I had fun

Called my kids, who are seeing the movie today with their conservative grandmother, to make sure they know what "patriarchy" and "gynecologist" mean.

me: "Do you know what a gynecologist is?"

8 year old: "A scientist that studies guys?"

No that's an anthbropologist

i think one of the points the movie is trying to make is that the full implications of its subject are the full implications of, well, a lot of things

Gosling was all I heard anyone talking about walking out of the theater afterwards... perhaps he benefitted from his musical number being at the end instead of the beginning

Miss this Brody driveby until now:

Barbenheimer '57: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? vs. Bridge on the River Kwai (OK, not same opening day but same idea)

— Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow) July 19, 2023

I'm driving by it, yes.

If you think “Barbie” vs. “Oppenheimer” is hype, remember that Christopher Nolan had “The Dark Knight” open against “Mamma Mia!” in July 2008.

Incredible battle. pic.twitter.com/MaBpHhDqNk

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) July 19, 2023

Details he added:

Mamma Mia:

$609m on a $55m budget
(~11x return on production budget)

The Dark Knight:

$1B on $185m budget
(~5x return on production budget)

would rather rewatch mama mia than TDK

Here we go again

A non-exhaustive list of all of the so-called "woke" things the #Barbie brand has been doing for years that conservatives don't know about because all of their outrage is fake and they've literally never been Barbie's core audience. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/3PKGEetQ4m

— BJ Colangelo (STRIKE FIRST! STRIKE HARD!) (@bjcolangelo) July 23, 2023

wait - I'm starting to think this isn't a biopic about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie ?

Phew, finally saw it. My guess that it was secretly a musical sorta held up!

Expectations fulfilled, great set design, fun cast, tons of good jokes - occasionally a bit basic and essentialist but it wears it well.

Feel like the whole corporate part of the story could've been done without, there was enough juice in the mother-daughter stuff, the existential crisis and the Barbie/Ken stuff. No real major spoilers forthcoming but just in case: The scene of Barbie discovering all the Mattel execs are male as part of her blackpilling is good, but after that they don't fulfill a consistent role, they're kind of antagonists but also ultimately "good" (Ferrel refusing to just go with the Ken version even though it's selling well) and end up not really doing much of anything - a few funny moments but they could all have been better delivered by the Kens imo. Also I love Rhea Pearlman as any right thinking person does but that final speech felt endless and failed to hit, the previous resolution was satisfactory and I get it had to end with the focus on Barbie herself but it didn't really deliver.

This movie is such an interesting intertwining of things that are really interesting and fun, with all the countervailing choices that have to neutralize those and turn them into "have your cake and eat it too" material. I had a lot of fun watching it, no regrets, also loved all the design work, most of the jokes, and the overall plot idea of a redpilled Ken trying to remake the Barbie universe as a dude-bro playboy paradise, albeit a sexless one. But I wasn't delighted in the way I could tell most of the crowd was.

For me, all the Mattel scenes just highlight the decision to address critiques of Barbie solely in terms of "is she a good role model," which quickly swerves away from a quick litany of actual real life critiques (consumerism, 'math is hard,' etc.) to "well, we all agree that Barbie has always tried to offer an amazing array of career role models, but how can we reckon with the fact that despite this, patriarchy endures?" This self-pitched softball is not exactly hit out of the park; the film just talks about it a lot, and sort of lands on this jumbled brand-messaging slogan as a thesis: "Well, Barbie was trying her best to inspire us, and Mattel was too, even though they were a bunch of men only trying to sell toys, except Will Ferrel who sort of believes in the dream in a doofy way." Critiques of Barbie in terms of body image issues get lip service at best. Very disappointingly there is exactly one non-skinny Barbie, who is basically not a character. (A tangent to this: "Weird Barbie" is also barely weird at all - did Gerwig and McKinnon have funkier visions that got quashed?)

A related shortcoming, I think, is the VERY clear decision to not do anything with the plain fact that millions of kids used these toys as avatars of their limited knowledge of adult sexuality. Everybody I've talked to who played with Barbies as a kid has commented on this --- it's like THE biggest thing you'd be hoping to see explored in a satirical Barbie comedy for adults. You have to imagine that was on some of the creators' minds, and that it was an absolute 'no' from the toy company.

I actually thought it was the mother-daughter material that felt grafted on --- as if someone at Mattel insisted there needed to be a kid-friendly aspect of the story, and Gerwig did her best to shave it down to a minimum. The result is that those characters kind of get lost for long stretches, and feel like they're missing the setups to their own climaxes, for me anyway.

A related shortcoming, I think, is the VERY clear decision to not do anything with the plain fact that millions of kids used these toys as avatars of their limited knowledge of adult sexuality.

Explain?

this is secondhand but: i am told that one major way of playing with Barbie was to put Barbies and/or Kens in bed and/or sexual situations together. a way of gaining a grip on 'what adults do,' or of beginning to realize one's own inchoate desires/fantasies, etc. the film engages very briefly with the idea that we'll see a Barbieland existence that reflects the way Barbie is played with, for example floating down from her house rather than descending on stairs. that's dropped like a hot potato in general, but at least for my crew, it really highlights the forms of play that we don't see.

I do agree with the comment upthread about the Mattel execs. when they returned at the very end, I actually had forgotten they'd traveled to Barbieland in the first place.

Overall I did enjoy this a lot, though nothing made me laugh more than hundreds of Kens singing Matchbox 20's "Push" simultaneously

also very good points Doc C!

oh I see. Actually, I was thrown out of the movie during that Ken-Barbie exchange about sleeping together. Barbie responds (I paraphrase): "And do what?" The audience roared.

The Will Ferrell scenes were by far the worst. When I think how this film is close to two hours, I blame those scenes.

the "and do what?" piece is a little jarring in that minutes later, upon being catcalled in California, she immediately states she doesn't have a vagina and Ken doesn't have a penis.

I figure the aim of "and do what?" was meant to be more 'do what, we have no genitalia!', but the way the dialogue is delivered comes across more like a Pleasantville-esque obliviousness to the existence of sex.

Yeah, I heard it as the Pleasantville thing. I guess it would work better as the former, and makes for a logical setup to the (excellent) final joke.

the "and do what?" piece is a little jarring in that minutes later, upon being catcalled in California, she immediately states she doesn't have a vagina and Ken doesn't have a penis.

this

I thought Richard Lawson's Vanity Fair review did a nice job capturing the limitations I was feeling in the movie, and also how it managed to be pleasant on balance anyway.

In an amusing side note, a former student worker of mine who I keep touch with on Facebook mentioned he and a friend were at last night's Matchbox 20 show. So I had to ask if they mentioned Barbie at all prior to "Push" and his answer was "They did not! Didn't mention the movie at all at any point." Obviously it's not like they need to but given how the song was used in the biggest pop culture event of the summer as such, perhaps they felt discretion was the better part of valor.

Weirdly slightly bummed that I'm probably not going to get to see this in theaters. Was supposed to go see it with my wife and son this weekend, but they got impatient and went with other friends yesterday.

So go solo!

I actually prefer going to movies solo tbh. too many instances of friends constantly wanting to yammer during a movie which drives me insane.

unless I attend a critics screening I go to movies solo all the time

in part because my friends think I'm a psycho for insisting on 10 a.m. screenings

Oh I don't mind going solo to the movies, it's more of a timing issue right now. The next three-four weeks are packed between work deadlines, the kid's baseball games on weekends and family events.

Since they saw it last night, my wife promised us dinner with a different group of friends during the time we were originally planning to see it. First world problems. Might have to be sick for a day from work to go see it and Oppenheimer.

the "and do what?" piece is a little jarring in that minutes later, upon being catcalled in California, she immediately states she doesn't have a vagina and Ken doesn't have a penis.

I agree it's an inconsistency, but both moments made me laugh and in a comedy that trumps all.

Critiques of Barbie in terms of body image issues get lip service at best. Very disappointingly there is exactly one non-skinny Barbie, who is basically not a character. (A tangent to this: "Weird Barbie" is also barely weird at all - did Gerwig and McKinnon have funkier visions that got quashed?)

It's very focused on the binary, which tbf the toys are also all about the binary but...the furthest you get from it as a man is to be a little mild mannered like Michael Cera, the furthest you get as a woman is to have an eccentric haircut. Queerness doesn't really exist. Yes the one token fat Barbie wasn't great, though unsurprisingly still an improvement over the toys - I googled it and apparently there is one "curvy barbie", image search for sad lols.

I actually thought it was the mother-daughter material that felt grafted on --- as if someone at Mattel insisted there needed to be a kid-friendly aspect of the story, and Gerwig did her best to shave it down to a minimum. The result is that those characters kind of get lost for long stretches, and feel like they're missing the setups to their own climaxes, for me anyway.

It's not seamlessly handled from a structural pov by any means but I found the revelation that Barbie is getting depressed not because she's owned by a sad kid but because of a mother's doodling, and how what served as escapism for her at first seems to means nothing to her daughter very moving.

xposts to Ned

Matchbox20 dedicated “Push” to Ryan Gosling at another show so they’re definitely aware and seem to be good sports about it

Rob Thomas dedicates a performance of “Push” to Ryan Gosling pic.twitter.com/sjxs2lpmTB

— William Goodman (@goodmanw) July 24, 2023

Hahah excellent.

Do we have too many people in the UK or too few..I am confused 😂https://t.co/cg7txKKA8Q

— Rupak (@ghose77) July 28, 2023

We could use one less...

i wanna take you for grahantahad

i thought this was fucking hilarious and pretty fantastic though i do dislike it when movies solve their problems through inspiring speeches (sort of the opposite of pearl where a long monologue only deepens the movie's derangement; here ferrera stopped the film dead for me)

imo allan is trans coded

the ken dance was magnificent, anytime the movie worked itself into a liminal space (e.g. rhea perlman's office) i got sooo happy. the ending seems divisive—even i'm torn on it, because the dialogue between barbie and her creator is just... kinda obvious and less smart than the rest of the movie is. but i'm just thrilled anytime two characters walk out of the movie they belong to into a blank soundstage with gradient lighting. just a visual delight from beginning to end

ken trying to be a Man and instate his very childlike interpretation of the patriarchy in barbieland kinda vibrated at the same frequency as an i think you should leave sketch

Gosling's dancing restored my faith in wanting to have sex with him.

Is it because he was actually the worst dancer of the entire crew of Kens?

i thought Gosling was a dancer IRL

Gosling letting his Mickey Mouse Club bonafides shine

All I saw was Simu Liu ad others eating his lunch

He can dance on my face.

Just make sure he doesn't mark his moves

See guys, this is exactly the kind of behaviour that lead the Kens to fail, pitting men against each other like this.

Alfred and I share a mission of putting men against each other

It won't play.

Everything but the Kens snapping at her rear end

this was…ok. happy greta’s getting her bag. I think I finally think of her as gen x now however

Just saw this and liked it a lot. The trio of Everything Everywhere, M3gan, and Barbie - movies that are willing to just go there and be bonkers - restores my faith in humanity a bit.

"happy greta’s getting her bag. I think I finally think of her as gen x now however"

???? she is 39 years old.

BTW I did not like Frances Ha. It was good at doing what it does, but that is not something I want done to me. Barbie is a romp though.

I make my students watch Lady Bird every semester -- the most contemporary film on my syllabus.

I thought this was good, not great, and that's fine.

"happy greta’s getting her bag. I think I finally think of her as gen x now however"

???? she is 39 years old.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Saturday, July 29, 2023 12:39 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh ok I guess she’s technically a geriatric milennial. I absolutely love her but I guess most of the attempts at subversion reminded me of like, barbs (no pun intended) you’d see in a buzzfeed article or something. it’s a tough line to walk and I’m glad she’s gonna be richer than shit

buzzfeed ofc also a millenial thing, but if you want to quietly pass that off onto gen x you have my support

That Vanity Fair review more or less captures my feelings. Def. a movie I want to think more about, including whether or not it's really worth thinking more about.

Like, I haven't seen Oppenheimer yet, but I can't imagine that movie will really give me much to think about at all.

I guess we all still think about nuclear annihilation quite often.

re-Gen X, this was co-written by Noah Baumbach fwiw.

also re: Francis Ha, that was directed by Baumbach. she cowrote it though, but if you want to attribute any unlikability to it, you can get away with blaming him (I think it is good).

I can watch Francis Ha any time or place.

I wouldn't watch Barbie again (I liked it).

my gf called barbie a “good slumber party movie” which I think is a good take

preferring it to frances ha though…

I’ll settle for it being the least offensively insultingly bad blockbuster in … what, the last 10 years? 20?

This Barbie has a Nobel Prize 💖 He’s just Ken pic.twitter.com/Ljbqdfpgfd

— Malala Yousafzai (@Malala) July 30, 2023

Nice leftpod crossover discussion between shows Pod Damn America and Everybody Loves Communism after they all saw the film. They loved most of it. https://m.soundcloud.com/poddamnamerica/everybody-loves-barbie-w-everybody-loves-communism

Funnier than I had even heard it was. Michael Cera’s natural off putting weirdness was also put to good use.

I really enjoyed this but I don't think I have anything to add to the conversation.

From Variety:

After two weeks on the big screen, “Barbie” has generated $351.4 million in North America to stand as the fourth-biggest domestic release of the year. Globally, the Warner Bros. film has grossed more than $750 million and ranks as the third-largest film of the year.

The three ahead of it in the US are the Mario Bros film, Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; looks like at some point this week it'll surpass Guardians and Spider-Man.

That's pretty wild. I've gotta assume that like other phenomenon, from Titanic to that Qanon movie, it's being boosted at least a little bit by repeat business; one of my kids has seen Barbie three times already, the other twice. Positive word of mouth has got to be a big boon as well. I've heard plenty of people talking about Barbie (and Oppenheimer, though weirdly, not a word from anyone I know about Mission Impossible).

Tom Cruise is tanking this summer

MI was great as usual, though not as good as the previous two.

there's a kind of john henry aspect to tom cruise today that i find compelling

there's a certain kind of film fan that will never not stan for Cruise and the MI films, I'm confident they can keep pumping those out forever, or until he eventually dies doing some stunt at least

but tom can't told off time forever is what i meant, like the physical toll

I kind of wanted to see this one but I haven't seen an MI movie since...the third one? I don't even know. This sounded as though it were a direct sequel to the preceding one so I figured I'd just eventually check these all out streaming

you've been some amazing action sequences

I watched em all out of order, you'll be fine.

I saw them

I
IV
V
VI
VII

then

II
III

they really are some of the better action films in the last decade.

Saw Barbie last night, much much better than Oppenheimer. Was quite funny, and far more political and thought provoking than I was expecting, even knowing Greta Gerwig was directing. Audience was cosplaying and really into it too.

I don’t mean this sarcastically, but what thoughts did it provoke for you? to me the attempts at subversion seemed like the sort of basic internet jokes we’ve seen on one blog or another over the past decade or so

The three ahead of it in the US are the Mario Bros film, Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; looks like at some point this week it'll surpass Guardians and Spider-Man.

It says something about the media bubble I live in that I looked at this post, said "Mario Bros film?," looked it up, and learned there was a movie that opened just a few months ago and made A BILLION DOLLARS that I didn't even know existed. And I have kids!

Yeah there was no Discourse around the Mario brothers film, that’s probably why.

Today YouTube recommended to me “Ben Shapiro Totally DESTROYS the Barbie Movie” a 43 MINUTE LONG video, when the algorithm clearly knows how have never watched one of his videos in my life, but it probably knew I watched Barbie because I bought the movie tickets online.

I don’t mean this sarcastically, but what thoughts did it provoke for you? to me the attempts at subversion seemed like the sort of basic internet jokes we’ve seen on one blog or another over the past decade or so

― k3vin k., Monday, July 31, 2023 4:26 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think maybe bc most of us are terminally online and participate in conversations about these things (or maybe just me), we (i) take for granted that a lot of ppl absolutely do not talk about shit like this, and those ppl are going to see this movie about barbie fighting the patriarchy. ive been thinking about this movie every day since ive seen it bc theres a lot to take away about how to introduce a broad, nonacademic audience to ideas that most ppl find to be inaccessible or hostile. it's not perfect, it's just rly rly good.

ive been thinking about this movie every day since ive seen it bc theres a lot to take away about how to introduce a broad

sure man but honestly I think women can watch this movie and form their own conclusions

ughhhhhhhhhhhh

hahahaha

I completely agree though

When my wife and I went to Crate and Barrel after seeing Barbie, somehow it came up when chatting with the clerk ringing us up and she told us how much she loved it and cried at America Ferrera’s speech about the demands of modern womanhood.

I groaned through several portions of this movie, but when I saw the young women crying during the speech about patriarchy, I realized this thing isn't about me or for me.

yeah there was a group of women behind me laughing uproariously at every little joke… idk man

They wanna talk about Barbie's speeches, I wanna fuck Ryan Gosling, something for everyone, man

I don’t mean this sarcastically, but what thoughts did it provoke for you?

cried at America Ferrera’s speech about the demands of modern womanhood.

I mean I felt that scene was the central message the film was trying to convey, and said so many unspoken realities it was practically audacious (but that's the point - it shouldn't be audacious to say those things, and it's a tragedy that is the state of things to begin with). In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Gerwig signed up for this project in order to deliver that specific missive directly to an impressionable, young, female audience. I was thinking all that as I was watching it, and was in awe of it. The movie was a love letter to women, but also a love letter to independent, critical thinking, and to the concept of identity independent of a sexual partner, which has obviously been much more of pressure applied to women than men, historically.

I'm actually quite surprised at how many here missed all that, I guess. It was pretty clear this movie wasn't for me in the first 5 minutes.

I'll also confess we bought a bottle of prosecco rosé at the theater to enjoy whilst watching it, and that was by far one of the most on point and best movie concession decisions ever, so pardon my "rose tinted glasses".

It was pretty clear to me at least that there was humor and sarcasm mixed with very direct, earnest messaging (which is in and of itself, a common trope in these types of films anyway). I suppose it's challenging for many to figure out which is which?

The movie had good jokes, which is definitely for me (who is not a woman).

I havent seen this and prob wont unless we happen to pyrate it, but yeah its very clearly a Film For Women, given how copiously women are cheering and crying, and some men are getting hilariously, insanely angry about it.

I thought Diablo Cody's thoughts about why she was unable to write a screenplay for this when she was hired for it was illuminating. https://www.gq.com/story/barbie-movie-first-attempts-amy-schumer-diablo-cody

"Five years later, Cody has some ideas about what went wrong. “I think I know why I shit the bed,” she tells GQ over the phone from Los Angeles. “When I was first hired for this, I don’t think the culture had not embraced the femme or the bimbo as valid feminist archetypes yet. If you look up ‘Barbie’ on TikTok you’ll find this wonderful subculture that celebrates the feminine, but in 2014, taking this skinny blonde white doll and making her into a heroine was a tall order.”

Cody remembers feeling like the artistic stakes were high, especially given the relative dearth of female-focused—or driven—IP. “There was a lot of pressure to not write the dramatic equivalent of ‘math is hard,’ she laughs. “I grew up playing with Barbies,” she says, “and those were sort of the first movies that I ever cast. A lot of people learn to tell stories by playing with dolls.” The plan had been to package Cody’s affectionate and idiosyncratic take on the character with an unconventional leading actress—specifically Amy Schumer, whose crass, confessional work as a stand-up and sketch comic gave her a certain counterculture credibility. It was, in theory, a terrific idea, but Cody recalls that the concept was ultimately less liberating than it seemed. “That idea of an anti-Barbie made a lot of sense given the feminist rhetoric of ten years ago,” says Cody. “I didn’t really have the freedom then to write something that was faithful to the iconography; they wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn’t figure it out because that’s not what Barbie is.” She cites a recent interview in which Gerwig told Robbie that the key to playing Barbie was a “lack of introspection” as an example of how complex—and contradictory—the material can be.
When Schumer finally dropped out in 2017—citing scheduling conflicts—the role was supposedly shifted to Anne Hathaway, but without much additional traction on the creative side. Cody notes that part of the problem was that The Lego Movie made for a daunting template, having managed so voraciously to have its cake and eat it too in terms of being both a satire and an act of brand extension. “I heard endless references to The Lego Movie in development,” she says, “and it created a problem for me because they had done it so well. Any time I came up with something meta, it was too much like what they had done. It was a roadblock for me, but now enough time has passed that they can just cast [The Lego Movie antagonist] Will Ferrell as the antagonist in a real-life Barbie movie and nobody cares.”

Huh, my wife highlighted Ferrara's speech as an example of the movie being kinda basic.

fwiw while I accept there's a lot of ppl who don't discuss gender issues at all I also don't think it's just the terminally online and academia in 2023 either - I certainly have noticed my more normie friends becoming more aware and thinking about this shit even if they're not, like, reading Judith Butler. I think the average Barbie audience's reaction is more likely to be "fuck yeah I agree with all of this" rather than "mind blown I'd never thought of it this way". And that's totally fine imo - catharsis at the movies is a good thing.

Yeah there was no Discourse around the Mario brothers film, that’s probably why.

Yes there was! An initial reaction of "god no why Chris Pratt when will we be rid of this dude" followed by the usual culture war (I believe brain damaged right wingers have been championing it as "anti woke").

i saw this with my five-year-old daughter at the weekend and i thought it was great - greta gerwig has directed three bangers in a row imo, and the leaps in ambition between each are pretty remarkable

i can't wait to see what she does next with the blank cheque that this movie will undoubtedly give her

i'm also looking forward to rewatching this with my daughter as she grows up because i'm sure she'll take something different away with her every time

One thing in Barbie that actually made me think a different way was the introduction— my wife and I hadn’t realized that Barbie was the first doll of an adult.

based on a German comic strip about a high end call girl! this would admitidely have been hard to fit into the narrative.

My wife's mom didn't like Barbies, so when my wife and her sister were growing up, she got them metal Tonka trucks to play with instead. My wife and her sister would dress up the Tonka trucks and have them gather for tea parties.

My mother banned Barbie dolls because she thought they would set unrealistic body images for my four sisters.

She would later jokingly lament that they all got Barbie-adjacent looks anyway; I decline to opine on this.

We didn't buy Barbies for own personal daughter but she sometimes got them as gifts. We didn't have the energy to resist. No one seems to have been harmed in the process.

We didn't buy them, either, but iirc they never asked. The one kid of ours that was into dolls was into American Girl Dolls, which seem to be all about the specific story and less about general fantasy play.

I did sort of appreciate the redundancy (for lack of a better word) of this movie's message (assuming it even really has a message). After all, the one stand-in for "kids today" in this movie is cynical, above it all, doesn't like Barbie, makes fun of Barbie and sees through Barbie by way of decades of criticism/debate. And yet, that doesn't stop the movie from didactically, explicitly setting up a pro/con dialectic. Just because it's obvious to many older or jaded or enlightened viewers doesn't make it less effective, and as my kids pointed out, sometimes it's nice to hear things said out loud for once. From my vantage, the meta commentary, fourth wall breaking and narration were all kind of a crutch to help support a movie that functionally doesn't have much of a story, but I guess I'd rather have a movie full of ideas and no story than a movie with a story but no ideas. 

We didn't buy Barbies for own personal daughter

This phrasing raises questions about your own...personal...daughter.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cNd4eocq2K0/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGGUgTChCMA8=&rs=AOn4CLBh7dInVLaQT755SpLwuGP1Tla-xQ

My nieces played with Barbies, they no longer do. That's all.

Took my mom. She cried. But she never owned a Barbie, just Skipper

My mother banned Barbie dolls because she thought they would set unrealistic body images for my four sisters.

My mother banned Barbie dolls because they were overpriced, encouraged further purchases of overpriced fashion accessories we couldn't afford, and as far as she could see they weren't any better as toys than hand-me-down dolls from relatives.

My sisters liked Jem better *shrug*

so did I -- truly outrageous!

god if only gerwig had helmed the jem movie

Also: the average JEM plot was no worse than G.I. Joe's or Transformers -- same writers and animators.

The Misfits vs The Kens

Are we really discussing Barbie (the doll) now?

If so I will direct the jury's attention to razors and printers and Build-a-Bear and Calico Critters. American Girl is just an elevation of the same principle.

Gillette did very well with the model of selling you a handle of a razor (for not very much) with the expectation that you would keep buying replacement blades. Epson and its equivalents have done very well by selling you a printer with the expectation that you would keep buying toner cartridges.

Of COURSE part of the point of Barbie is that you would keep buying clothes and accessories. It is a well-known model.

We were discussing it, I don't think anyone was putting it on trial though. Anyway, I'll allow it, but watch yourself counselor.

My mother did not ban Barbies and I had several of them, including 90s notables Rollerblade Barbie, Hawaiian Barbie, and, of course, Baywatch Barbie, who came with a dolphin that made dolphin noises. The idea of playing mother to baby-type dolls repulsed me and Barbies were the only ones I'd interact with. Barbie's opening scene was pretty spot-on for my experience.

I had a fun time at this film and was happy that it was more absurd than I expected. I can agree with Daniel_Rf's wife about the America Ferrera monologue (and the following deprogramming quips montage) feeling a bit basic, but I think m bison's post is right, and I get how that part would resonate for other people more strongly.

Also, I thought this take on Barbie and 'girlhood culture' had some interesting and agreeable observations and may be of interest to others:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/barbie-movie-review-girlhood-greta-gerwig/674821/

"‘I’m doing the thing and subverting the thing,’ she told The New York Times. Yet the film feels more ambivalent about the thing, unsure of what exactly it wants to say about its corporate roots besides ‘they exist, we know.’"

really love this piece https://t.co/oVRgkIf9ul by @becbecliuliu @anothergaze

— Hannah Bonner (@HannahB40843697) August 1, 2023

Barbie's corporate ownership knows the value of Barbie as a brand and almost certainly retained a right of approval over the script, so that ambivalence about that Barbie's corporate roots may have been the only course Gerwig could safely steer to get their sign off.

Love to do everything I possibly can to get "sign off" by the manager.

that ambivalence about that Barbie's corporate roots may have been the only course Gerwig could safely steer to get their sign off.

Have you watched the film?

Alfred otm.

The movie is pretty freaking weird, but for me one of the weirdest things about it is the degree to which Mattel gleefully signed up to pay to satirize itself.

It's a very 2020s moment and I tentatively approve. Expect a Black Mirror episode soon.

another way to look at it is that mattel gleefully signed up to let greta gerwig make her third movie about mothers, daughters, and the sociteal expectations placed on both women and men that just happens to star barbie

It's not really that weird imo, cf all the anti-corporate jokes in 90's films or the recent films about an evil algorithm ruining creativity (new Space Jam did this) - they don't care as long as the money rolls in.

also as stated above Ferrel refuses to let the Ken reality stand even though it's profitable - because Mattel, in the end and for all their faults, care about the happiness of little girls above all else

another way to look at it is that mattel gleefully signed up to let greta gerwig make her third movie about mothers, daughters, and the sociteal expectations placed on both women and men that just happens to star barbie

otm

We've lingered enough. It's poll time: Barbenheimer: The inevitable poll

Finally saw this & really enjoyed it

My biggest takeaway was that I really felt like the heart of this movie (or the heart of the inspiration of the movie?) was that it is weirdly & specifically about 90’s feminism

the few years from like 1991 to 1994 where it felt like conversations were shifting & women centered ~things~ were just cooler & ideas about femininity were being challenged

then… SMASH CUT …. to aggro offspring numetal woodstock & girls are just drunk midriffs everywhere thongs-out uh, ok i’ll use my own wording at the time “slutfest”

and the going to war thing

like idk it all seems like it’s right there in this movie lol right down to Matchbox 20 and Gosling’s Kid Rock fur coat & guyliner

i don’t feel like i’m crazy to think that Gerwig was not indirectly kind of using that whole weird time & abrupt change to talk about bigger issues. it’s not perfectly 1:1 and she’s tackling a lot of things so it is kind of handwavey but it felt v clear to me lol

(also i have been listening to a ton of Bandsplain so i may just have nineties brain)

ALSO

rmde at all you nerds nerding this thread and literally no one bringing up how on point Barbie ~details~ were

Monolith barbie dressed identically to first Barbie!! Midge!!! Grown Up Skipper, Magic Earring Ken … the OUTFITS the HOUSES the SKI MOBILE the CAMPERVAN omg i was amazed

even Weird Barbie was deeeply hilariously accurate

sorry

i meant to say - part of why i saw the movie through that specific lens was also the repeated use of Indigo Girls — like, that song in my time in my late teens, it really & truly connoted a very specific kind of hopeful excitement within my circle of friends & women’s groups etc, this new perspective or something idk invigorating

and the way in just a few short years that that feeling was SO lost so fucking completely it made my head spin

haven't seen the film yet. I like these posts, VG

yeah great posts thx

You know something I caught that was kind of weird? Jamie Demetriou is in it, more than just a cameo but iirc he doesn't do anything more than some background mugging. But he's a funny guy! He would have made a better Mattel CEO than Will Ferrell.

“a podcast hosted by two wise young trees”

booming posts

I did love this, which will probably surprise no-one?

I briefly thought, during the last scene with Rhea Perlman, that Barbie's accent was turning more Australian, and fantasied that the final twist would be that she was turning into Margot Robbie.

All I saw was Simu Liu ad others eating his lunch

― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Friday, 28 July 2023 19:23 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

The Ken vs Ken angle was apparently birthed when Gerwig watched Gosling watching Liu nailing that backflip.

"Weird Barbie" is also barely weird at all

And got less weird as the film went on!

There's a cohort with an attitude that's gotten generally keener on equality as equality has gotten (slowly) closer - "hahaha careful now, we don't want to shoot past into where we're unfair against men!" - for them, I loved that the vibe at the end was "Well we've seen that the reverse of Barbieland is grossly inequitable, should we just go straight back to how we were?" "Yeah. Yeah, let's do that".

Also it is so good to see a film with a great trailer, where the first 20 minutes contains nearly everything in the trailer, and a joke about corporate personhood.

my own real life Weird Barbie:

tips of fingers missing from both hands because I “cut her nails”

one loose leg that kinda hung limp because my sister & fought over her and somehow “wishboned” the rubber band attaching her leg to her hip

crazy hair from many failed haircuts including an entire bald patch in the back

“earrings” that were actually just bent sewing pins stabbed into her ears but they kind of stuck out like frankenstein bolts

her clothes were the nasty handknitted barbie clothes that we hated that our aunt bought at a craft fair (long navy blue woollen skirt & a red & white striped cardigan with huge fake-pearl buttons

also her skin color was a weird zombie grey color after i took her “swimming” in the bathroom sink in water that i colored w my grandma’s permanent blue hair dye
(also was grounded for a week for staining the sink).

Nice to hear that you really played with your Barbie, VG!

<3 vg

we played HARD lol

I didn’t like Barbie as a kid, but I still got a couple as gifts from other people. Don’t remember playing with them much other than the time I cut the hair off one - I like to think it was practice for when I did the same thing to myself when I was 12 lol.

but I do recall a cousin of mine who loved them and she always had a stack of Weird Barbies with her in the bath. Matted, wet, grey hair Barbie, several beheaded/de-limbed Barbies, magic marker Barbie… but the most important thing for her was that none of them wore clothes. A nude colony of Weird Barbies.

lol wow

i really liked playing w barbies as a kid, like I definitely did well into 6th grade

my sister and I had a few over the years - we usually got one each for christmas iirc Sunsational Malibu Barbie; Happy Birthday Barbie; Golden Dreams barbie ; Pink N Pretty Barbie; Peaches & Cream barbie; Dream Time Barbie; Barbie & The Rockers with cassingle; Twirly Curls Barbie
I think we had a Skipper too that became my little brother’s Barbie bc we didn’t want him to play with Our Barbies™️

I didn't have a weird barbie. My worst mutilations were that I cut one's 'fingernails' on one hand, which haunts me to this day bc it was a barbie my mom had from the 60s who still had her hair in a beautiful big beehive wrap and I feel bad about ruining her, and I then used the same nail clippers to trim off the tip of my ken's nose. That might have been around the same time I gave a troll doll a tattoo with black pen. That's really the sum of my childhood toy destruction.

I found this movie's point of view a little incoherent in a way that probably bothers me if I think about it too much, but I loved all of its big swings and had a very pleasurable (even sometimes emotional) experience watching it.

Yeah, that was pretty much it for me as well.

Weird Barbie of course very true to life, but "Toy Story" kind of nailed the sad exile of tortured dolls, too. Come to think of it, lots of great Barbie (and Ken) gags in Toy Story 3. With musical sequences!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72swN9sb6A4

Anyway, so back when, when the Barbie trailer came out, and I noticed Will Ferrell was holding a pair of drumsticks? My prediction was that he would play the drums at some point, which is something Will Ferrell does a lot, for some reason. But he never did. He just was holding a pair of pink drumsticks. Why?

Will Ferrell is not, himself, a good drummer, but he did the tedious "more cowbell" SNL skit.

And he does bear a superficial resemblance to RHCP drummer Chad Smith, which has led to him doing a completely fake drum duel with Smith.

Maybe it's just a running gag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uBOtQOO70Y

There's also all the drum stuff in "Step Brothers." It's a running Will Ferrell gag for sure, just don't what it's doing in this movie.

Perhaps something that was cut.

Anyway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/movies/barbie-1-billion-box-office.html

(Still behind the Super Mario movie domestically but I'd guess that'll change.)

It's a-me, Barbio

I simply cannot be the only ILxor to have seen this movie who also treasures Alan Moore's Supreme: and so, to anyone else as such, doesn't barbieland bring immediately to mind The Supremacy? as barbieland is the meta-home to Alan, Midge and every other iteration of Barbie, no matter how shortlived, so is the Supremacy the dwelling of every Supremium-effected-for-one-issue version of the character, every version of Supreme rebooted and revised away from contemporary continuity?

Wife, myself and 6 year old went today: I wanted her to see a movie in the theatre likely to be remembered as emblematic of this year and era, but as bright as she is, that this film is META META META left her at a disadvantage…she liked it, but probly will not treasure her memory of seeing this film in this or any other manner…

I do salute Gerwig for getting away with "beach you off" etc etc

I rather liked this piece. (gift link)

Michael Sicinski's brief writeup hits all the right notes afaic:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/barbie-greta-87347254

The mid-film reversal, Kendom, isn't just an exaggeration of masculine tropes, although it certainly is that. It's a misguided play-acting at "being a man" by a group of "men" who don't even have genitals. It's the Incel Universe, and the only note I'd give on this is Gerwig might've found some way to directly parody Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson.

It's fine and she did.

Not even going to bother to link it, but unsurprisingly Bill Maher had an absolutely moronic take on this.

Finally saw it this weekend, liked it a lot! Not much to add that hasn't already been covered more eloquently in other posts, especially Veg's booming posts and the bit about "Closer to Fine" feeling emblematic of a brief window in the early 90's where things genuinely felt like things might be moving in a positive direction. Liu was fantastic and I didn't even mind Ferrell doing his usual schtick.

excellent piece, i really loved that

(re Ned’s NYT gift link)

I assumed that Closer to Fine was a reflection of America Ferrera’s character playing with her old doll that her kid no longer wanted, which was why I thought all the references leaned towards the mid-90s (and the Ken song was totally ‘Gillette! The best a man can get!’).

one thing the "meta" approach succeeds at is allow the movie to "have its cake an eat it too" in the sense of fulfilling audience's base desires on multiple levels while simultaneously critiquing them from other angles. it's all done in a playfully but also subtly enough that different people can walk away with totally different takes on it depending on what they "want" out of it

on one level the movie is a celebration of modern liberal "#girlboss" feminism. every woman in barbieland owns her own house and works in a high-status occupation. you're cheering on the barbies to stop the ken putsch. but at the same time, the kens are themselves a disenfranchised underclass; they're propertyless, have no representation on the supreme court, relegated to superfluous jobs. barbieland is a profoundly gender unequal society; it just happens to be a matriarchal one. the movie telegraphs this but only slightly (for example the line at the end that's like "we can give you one seat on like, a lower court, for now", itself echoing the line where the CEO in the real world admits "the patriarchy's still winning, we're just better at hiding it now"). for the most part the movie is smart enough to let the audience indulge in the patriarchy-smashing fantasy, while using the "alt text" to convey some cynical "hot takes" about simplistic representation narratives

barbieland is of course itself a creation of capitalist men. the movie is critical of mattel (ymmv but i was surprised at how much they got away with): the casting of will ferrel, america ferrera's daughter's anti-barbie rant, the soulless byzantine corporate hq. but that criticism stops short of criticizing the broader "barbieland ideological apparatus." this is what a lot of the criticism from pseudo-academic online marxists is about (like this n+1 symposium for example which contains the line "Did you hear that noise? I think it was a nail going into the coffin of mumblecore" lmao). sure, barbieland was cooked up in a corporate boardroom, but it's still something the audience has to be invested in saving for the movie to work. this is where things get a bit muddled imo. american ferrera's speech about how hard it is to be a woman is spitting hard truths to women in the real world, but why would it be persuasive to the barbies, who experienced like a few days of being mansplained to after a lifetime of being celebrated journalists and biochemists? and hearing the speech doesn't break the barbies out of the ideological "box" they were put in by mattel CEOs who dreamed them up, it just snaps them out of the temporary hypnosis patriarchy put them under. america ferrera is basically satisfied at being told "ok sure we'll make a normal barbie but only because it's profitable." the other move they try to pull here is a gesturing at a "reclamation" of barbie's feminist roots; all the Ruth Handler stuff, the montage of women home videos at the end. that all felt kinda random and tacked on to me

gerwig is b 1983 so kinda cusp generationally but the movie felt so gen x. makes me wonder how much influence noah baumbauch had on it

i didn't actually enjoy the movie that much (as like, a viewing experience) but it's been fun talking to people about it. everyone has a totally different take on it

great post!!

I've had that n+1 open in a tab for about a week now I guess I might as well read it

gerwig is b 1983 so kinda cusp generationally but the movie felt so gen x. makes me wonder how much influence noah baumbauch had on it

FWIW, when she made Lady Bird and Baumbach gave (or maybe just offered) his input, Gerwig expressed her concerns to him that she didn't want him to impose himself too much on what was supposed to be her film. Baumbach's credited as a co-writer this time, so I imagine he had more input, but unless something's changed, I imagine this film was very much her vision.

(Also I just noticed this, but if you google "barbie" or "gerwig" or a combination of the two, the following page of search results flashes pink with pink fireworks going off all over the place.)

Good post, flopson

thx homies ;)

FWIW, when she made Lady Bird and Baumbach gave (or maybe just offered) his input, Gerwig expressed her concerns to him that she didn't want him to impose himself too much on what was supposed to be her film. Baumbach's credited as a co-writer this time, so I imagine he had more input, but unless something's changed, I imagine this film was very much her vision.

gg studied went to barnard in the late 90s/early 00s, must've been steeped in gen x style media studies. all of nb's movies feel fundamentally evil to me and this had no trace of that

lol how so

I like The Squid and the Whale. I love Frances Ha, wonder why.

"fundamentally evil"

gonna need to hear some more context on this one.

kind of a derail for this thread but every character in squid and the whale is a terrible person, even his kid brother. kicking and screaming is basically a whit stillman movie if instead of charming everyone was an unlikeable prick. similar things can be said of greenberg and margot. and as the record (my posts) shows i'm far from the modal ilx poster whose main reason for not liking a movie is because its characters are morally flawed; i like noah baumbach movies. but imo they're portraits of awful, largely void of human warmth, people by an artist who is at least mildly sociopathic himself

The mid-film reversal, Kendom, isn't just an exaggeration of masculine tropes, although it certainly is that. It's a misguided play-acting at "being a man" by a group of "men" who don't even have genitals. It's the Incel Universe, and the only note I'd give on this is Gerwig might've found some way to directly parody Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson.

"they should have made it more obvious which specific online people they were making fun of" - this is the opposite of how i feel lol. i liked how it mostly side-stepped being yet another piece of "culture war" fanfic (cf the black panther "exact kind of communist i am" tweet) (although it nonetheless benefitted from ppl like ben shapiro turning it into one)

Except for Squid and the Whale, I've only seem them all once, but Squid and the Whale is probably the one I like most by a substantial margin (and probably why I've seen it a few times). That was actually my introduction to his work, back when I had yet to step foot in Brooklyn - all of the characters aren't nice or all that likable, but that also seemed logical given what the film was about to me: how even a progressive and intellectual family life can be prone to damaging, toxic problems, particularly different kinds of toxicity and how that ends up screwing up their kids.

Flops, that was a great post, and really captures how I feel/felt about the movie but am not nearly as good at articulating. In the end, I think the fact that the movie engenders (heh) so much thought and debate tips the scales way toward the positive. No matter how one ultimately feels about the movie, it's definitely worth thinking about, which puts it ahead of lot of stuff.

I don't agree about Baumbach's characters being devoid of human warmth. They are just people you want to direct to something better and of course you can't, because they are hapless. I thought Frances Ha was great, and Marriage Story, Mistress America and The Meyerowitz Stories were close to being great

I loved DeLillo's novel White Noise but thinking maybe the film is going to be pretty bad

It is.

Yeah I think his movies are sad about their character's flaws and predicaments, if they were evil they would be gleeful and celebratory about them.

Agreed that if they were evil that would also be ok tho.

Here for clickbait.

neither barbie nor oppenheimer have anything material to add to revolutionairy or liberatory struggle, stop trying to make it happen x

my latest for huck mag dot com https://t.co/GfmS7qlVLP

— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) August 9, 2023

I got someone really angry when I made the same point about Pedro Costa once.

🤣

I am trying to imagine what type of cultural product could possibly satisfy that person and coming up pretty empty

I actually didn't mind White Noise, but I approached it less looking for a good adaptation of the book and just as an excuse to get some good performances from Driver and Gerwig in a weird setting and, from that vantage point, I was not disappointed.

I love that it qualifies as a hot take to suggest that a Mattel-approved Barbie movie (despite its merits!) is not actually a tool for revolutionary uprising.

The best parts of White Noise (like the best parts of most 20th century novels) are sentences, and sentences tend not to be filmable.

Along with DeLillo, the best works of my favorite novelists (Woolf, Nabokov, Atwood, Ondaatje) have proven completely unfilmable. I mean yeah people make movies but their relationship to the books is pretty tangential.

ok i finally saw the barbie movie

it was fun

i don't understand how anybody on earth found the film "offensive". i thought it was an entertaining, well-made big-budget hollywood film with some good jokes in it.

i must admit the character of allan is a bit confusing to me. not sure what the character's role in the film was.

i mean i have my own read on it but it says a lot about me and very little about the actual character

allan's entire existence in the film is centered around the fact that he is Not Ken. he's not like all those other guys. he doesn't seem to really know what to make of that any more than we do. he doesn't really want to have anything to do with all the kens. he joins the barbies in their plot against the patriarchy, he hangs out with them, he dresses like them, even though he doesn't really have much of anything to _do_ in terms of helping them with their plan. allan is just trying to be, you know, a really good ally.

maybe there are other ways to read allan. i've got kind of a blinkered view on things.

Yeah i think that’s basically it. The add on might be that Allan might, in a different movie, get an “allan saves the day” moment and his allyship would be celebrated or played for a happy gag. In this movie, allyship isnt celebrated because *chris rock voice* you’re SUPPOSED to be an ally and you dont get credit for shit you’re supposed to do

imo allan is trans coded

― ivy., Friday, July 28, 2023 12:54 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Over $500 million domestically at this point, crossed a billion worldwide. Seems like in a week or so it'll overtake the Super Mario movie to be number one for the year so far around here, would still need more to go worldwide but looks reachable.

imo allan is trans coded

― ivy., Friday, July 28, 2023 12:54 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

― ivy.

oh thank god it's not just me

that _would_ explain all the blocky artifacting

and yeah i mean i'm jumping in like a month after everybody has seen and discussed the movie so it's probably all been said lol

I still haven’t seen it! Maybe next weekend.

I'll see it two years from now and revive this thread so I can give all of you my fresh insights. ;-)

Get that money etc per Variety:

Margot Robbie is being richly rewarded for her key role in bringing “Barbie” to the big screen. The star and producer behind the summer’s biggest hit stands to make roughly $50 million in salary and box office bonuses, according to three individuals with knowledge of her deal.

“Barbie” director and co-writer Greta Gerwig will also likely receive bonuses because of the film’s outsized success. “Barbie” has earned an astonishing $526.3 million at the domestic box office since it opened a month ago, as well as $657.6 million at the international box office. That comes out to $1.18 billion globally — and that figure should keep climbing given that “Barbie” is still topping box office charts. The film is now the second highest-grossing release in the history of Warner Bros., behind “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.”

A collection of responses, some more critical than others https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/who-was-barbie/

Hey we go the plot of the sequel set:

https://www.tumblr.com/spongebobssquarepants/725814666959486976

The reviews are in from Mt. Juliet

Somehow we almost missed MOUNT JULIET, TN MAGA grifter Greg Locke demolishing a Barbie Dream House with a Bible attached to a baseball bat.

The movie would go on to gross over $1 BILLION dollars💰 pic.twitter.com/2CJwXLKe8J

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) August 17, 2023

very low budget special effects there. a monster truck fueled by bibles would have been much better

Demon Barbie would be hella cool.

For what it's worth, that was a Rainbow High House, not a Barbie Dream House.

Officially number one for the year here as of a couple of days ago:

https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/barbie-highest-grossing-movie-2023-1235700741/

And as noted then:

“Barbie” has grossed $1.3 billion globally and will soon surpass “Mario” (with $1.35 billion globally) as the biggest worldwide release of 2023 as well.

So yeah, preexisiting IP, marketing, everything else, but the fact remains: a Gerwig-directed film, with a script cowritten by her and Baumbach = the biggest film of the year, hands down.

The add on might be that Allan might, in a different movie, get an “allan saves the day” moment and his allyship would be celebrated or played for a happy gag. In this movie, allyship isnt celebrated because *chris rock voice* you’re SUPPOSED to be an ally and you dont get credit for shit you’re supposed to do

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Saturday, 12 August 2023 15:04 (two weeks ago)

My friend and I guffawed heartily at the line about "Good job, White Savior Barbie!"

I found America Ferrara's speech genuinely moving.

going back and reading this thread made me want to slam my head into a wall

Big ol' new interview with Gerwig here:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/11/greta-gerwig-interview

saw this, really liked the gags, performances, originality and style

it's hard to figure out if gerwig genuinely pitches for sincerity at all with the plot/resolution, because imo there are more than enough explicitly flagged caveats to suggest its far too cynical a movie to ask us to buy the earnest monologues from gloria even if they get us to where the plot needs to be

but it was great and if anything robbie was even better than i expected, given all she has to cover tonally throughout.

Margot Robbie absolutely eating Ryan Gosling’s lunch in this movie is a hill I’ll def die on

I don't go to theaters, so I finally caught up with this tonight and holy shit, it was hilarious. I laughed harder at Ken's fanny pack with "KEN" written on it in Metallica logo font than anything I've seen all year. Did it need Will Ferrell? No. But I'm glad that part was included because the depiction of Mattel HQ was almost something out of Terry Gilliam.

I liked it too. It's more of a kids movie than I had understood it was going to be. But a very good kids movie!

I haven’t seen anyone else describe it in those terms but it really does feel that way - I almost want to compare it to a typical Pixar movie where it doesn’t shy away from exploring complex ideas but has a broad and direct approach to the way it presents them, self-conscious that it’s trying to reach a much younger audience too.

And it has one of the all time greatest closing lines ever. Up there with "Some like it Hit" easy.

Hot

Damn speling korrector

"Forget it, Ken. It's Barbieland."

"Barbies everywhere, I absolve you! I absolve you!"

"You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

I definitely lolled when the car radio switch from Indigo Girls to Matchbox 20.

finally saw this. probably never thought i'd enthuse about a Barbie movie but it was generally great. i thought Gosling was grade A but Robbie was def even better, truly A++. i thought America Ferrera was great too - her speech could have felt vv perfunctory as far as messaging but it came from a true place, a good example of what this movie was being used to get across.

obv it had to balance pleasing Mattel w/giving the side-eye to Barbie to an extent, but it achieved that pretty well without feeling like it was product placement for a mega IP. which it was, but it didn't feel like a pandering take on things.

the Kendom stuff was great, we were dying at Ken's Century City epiphany.

oh and the Matchbox 20 zinging was solid work

to top off this extremely successful year, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach apparently got married and celebrated by seeing Billy Joel at MSG last night

Which one was right, and which one was crazy?

sounds like the plot to their next blockbuster collab

Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie, Pauly Simon's feeling groovy
Rock and roller cola wars, Ken can't take it any more

Margot Robbie, plastic dolls
Ryan Gosling has no balls
We didn't start the fyah

A fun part of this (really good) directors' roundtable.

GERWIG (To Haynes) I was going to say, you made the original Barbie movie. There was a bootleg of it at Cannes.

COOPER I saw it in film school. At Georgetown, the teacher had a print of it. Am I going to jail?

HAYNES This is Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.

GERWIG It’s a wonderful thing that we’re sitting at the table right now because I think genuinely, you made (the Barbie movie’s backers) nervous about the possibilities about what it could be.

HAYNES Are you kidding? I mean, my use of Barbies was as a subtext to a story about how women’s bodies are commodified and this incredibly heartbreaking story of a young woman suffering from anorexia nervosa. But you took on the cultural meaning of Barbie, and you exploded it and also made a concoction … a confection that everybody could share.

It is a confection - campy, silly and fun - but it's hard for me to see it as anything more than that! A campy, silly, fun, dumb movie. The actors are serviceable, but imo they absolutely do not deserve any acting awards recognition whatsoever. Its innovations are slightly more cerebral than with a lot of current pulp movies, so maybe in 50 years it will be seen differently, but I don't know, I don't think so

Bringing Up Baby was a campy, silly, fun, dumb movie. And a stone cold classic.

maybe Barbie will be seen that way in the future to some extent, but I don't think it's a stone cold classic

But it is a Coldstone classic

https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2142604/36_16_1446_CSC_2023_Barbie_Digital_Assets_IG.jpg?p=publish

"serious films about serious men will - and, gentlemen, must! - prevail"

Don't really care what people 50 years from now think, I'll likely be dead. Travelling back in time and showing it to my grandparents in the 50's might be interesting tho.

so maybe in 50 years

come again?

Someday we’ll know

i'm just here to applaud jaymc ppl

Now I want Cold Stone and a dismantled patriarchy

like there are going to be 50 more years

I wonder how this movie reads to people who have no context of the toys (which will probably be even more true in 50 years) -- would it feel to them like Malibu Stacy in the Simpsons -- an invented reference to/pastiche of something else?

Not if the Mattel Corporation has anything to say about it!

like there are going to be 50 more years

somewhere there is a trash gyre community of barbies and i'm bitter gerwig didn't visit it

You mean here?

somewhere there is a trash gyre

...festival

trash gyre and gimble

First, who cares about the Oscars. But second, talking about the Oscars, it's all too fitting that this movie was nominated for best picture, but not best director or best actress, though Ken gets a nom for best supporting actor. Also, what's up with "Best Adapted Screenplay"? Adapted from what?