You still don't know what Barbenheimer is? đŚ
Come sweet child, let me wash away your ignorance.
âSeriously?!
Itâs like youâre photoshopped!â
If it wasnât bringing in an already released third movie, âThe Atomic Blondeâ mightâve been a solid candidate to name the event that has come to be known as Barbenheimer - itself a bit of a Frankensteinien nom de guerre due to its amalgamation of things that should not beâŚ
And lest you think Iâm exaggerating to call it an âeventâ when itâs really just two movies opening so like, whatevs, but fuckinâ a man, it has its own Wikipedia entry! I donât even have a Wikipedia entry (editorâs note: not a good comparison guy). And to think, it almost didnât happen.
See, Christopher Nolan used to be a staunch Warner Bros (WB) director, all the way back to 2002âs Insomnia and up until 2020âs Tenet, when he decided to make Oppenheimer at Universal due to his frustrations with WB releasing all their movies âday and dateâ (in theaters and digital on the same day) during âthe bullshit.â And wouldnât you know it, Barbie, lucky for them, is a WB movie. So if both projects had been WB movies, thereâs no flippinâ way weâd have had them released on the same weekend, because as I wrote about two weeks ago, studios think about competition in a bit of an obtuse way. And if things had gone that way, we wouldnât have had this beautiful piece of⌠art? Sure, letâs call it art.
But we are where we are and the internet did what it does. Whether itâs inventiveness, genuine interest in both films, pure boredom or a nihilistic culture so desperate for meaning that itâll grasp onto anything, people are double-featuring a movie where the central character is deeply considering the meaning of mortality and⌠Oppenheimer.
I do love it. Itâs of course silly, but thatâs partly what makes it fun. And it really is good for the box office, which is good for movies. I mean, Barbie may go on to have the biggest opening weekend by a female director ever (currently held by Captain Marvel), which is fucking crazy, and crazy fucking awesome.
Because whether you see one, neither or both, this is a weekend where the movies coming out are trying something. Not just trying to make money (that too, always), but creating legit fresh cinematic experiences that hopefully people will enjoy, remember and talk about for a long time.
So yeah, Barbenheimer is silly, but it may also may be⌠important?
Whoâda thunk it!
NEWSY BITS đž
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EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE(S) đ
Cobweb - bound to be overlooked this weekend, this horror story about creepy parents (instead of creepy kids for once) may finds its audience on streaming, because reviews are good enough it seems to be worth a watch if youâre a hardcore fan of the scary stuff. Playing in Limited Theaters This Friday
I really donât need to tell you that the Barbie movie is coming out, do I? Because it is fucking everywhere. Almost quite literally. Google. Airbnb. Architectural Digest. uh⌠Burger King? One could say the Warner Bros. marketing department have done their jobs. Which is true! But the people who most importantly seem to have done their jobs are the filmmakers, namely co-writer / director Greta Gerwig and star / producer Margot Robbie. Because without a great, marketable movie, there is no great marketing1.
But as noted, youâve seen the marketing, youâve probably caught snippets of the actors talking about the movie too, but what is the damn thing actually about. Barbie, duh. đ
âŚâŚ..
Right, I understand how that could be confusing. When I say Barbie, you think of the doll. But when I say Barbie, I mean âBarbie,â as in all of it. The doll, the image, the little girls, the little boys, the love, the hate, the marketing, the consumerism, the controversy, the conflicted feelings, the stories, the nostalgia. I mean, honestly, the marketing is kinda spot on, Barbie is everything. Because a toy as ubiquitous as she is inevitably takes on the qualities of the crowd, for better and worse.
But why Barbie? Why arenât we here talking about same kind of âX is everythingâ quality for I dunno, some bullshit âboy toyâ like G.I. Joe? Well to be quite frank, Barbie is a woman. And the complex feelings you, I, âweâ have about women are represented in this toy made of plastic.
And luckily, Gerwig seems to have insightfully identified this and made a delightful movie that not only embraces the bright levity of what Mattel likes to think Barbie is, but also brings forth the more difficult aspects Mattel probably wishes Barbie wasnât. You could say itâs a set of messages masked within a melange of comedic mayhem.
And I bet if you ask someone who intends to see Barbie why they want to see it, youâll be met with a mixture of responses too. All of them valid of course, but probably quite individual as well.
Because Iâm not sure most people even know that the plot revolves around Barbie and Ken (Ryan Gosling - being called a scene stealer in nearly review) transitioning from perfect Barbieland, populated with a plethora of perfect Barbies (played by the likes of Issa Rae, Dua Lipa, Alexandra Shipp and Ritu Arya) and sure, a few Kens too (Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir) to the real world after Stereotypical Barbie (Robbie) starts to consider death and like ugh, flat feet, where they figure out everything is nooooot quite like it is at home. Which is terrible for Barbie and kind of, shall we say, invigorating for Ken.
But a large reason why the marketing has worked as well as it has, is because even if people donât quite grasp the story, they donât need to, because in reality, they just want to âplayâ with Barbie. All of it.
And ok, Ken too.
Out: Thursday
Where: Theaters
1 hr 54 mins | PG-13 | đ : 89%
This is, in the most practical of terms, a biopic. But there has never been a biopic quite like this before. Because thereâs never been a biopic about the man who is credited with creating an object that can destroy the world as we know it before.
If this sounds like Iâm about to go into âserious and important movieâ territory, you are correct. But just because a movie is serious, doesnât mean it canât be entertaining. Hell, Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolanâs The Dark Knight trilogy is nothing if not serious, straddling the line between earnest and hammy and it is insanely watchable.
But if Oppenheimer is beset with a somber mood, thatâs only because its subject is a man who, after watching a nuclear explosion for the first time, recalled reciting these lines from a Hindu poem to himself, âI am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.â
Are you understanding the fun people are having contrasting this movie with Barbie yet? đ
And sure, Universal may have missed an amazing marketing opportunity by not having star Cillian Murphy rap in character as Robert J. OPPenheimer, changing the lyrics of Naughty By Natureâs 1991 classic hip-hop hit O.P.P. to a dissertation on quantum physics, but sure, be cautious. This movie honestly doesnât need a ton of marketing. Itâs the movie equivalent of the stoic partygoer who youâre initially cautious of engaging in conversation with, but after a few minutes of back and forth youâre peppering them with questions, eager to suck out every piece of knowledge in their gigantic brain. That is to say, itâll find its audience.
Which is a credit to Nolan, whose somewhat cold style may turn off some, but heâs one of a few filmmakers who can take an objectively important, but still kinda nerdy historical topic and turn it into a massive cinematic blockbuster.
But Oppenheimerâs story did have drama to it apparently, and not just the kablooie kind either. Thereâs romance, sex, intense moral conflict, political subterfuge and even Einstein. Itâs a lot. Which may be why the run time is a bit of a behemoth at three hours. Or, it could be because Nolan is trying to fit in all the famous actors he cast. See, yet another benefit of having Christopher Nolan direct a movie is that he can basically snap and a litany of great actors fall into roles he created. Murphy, a long time Nolan collaborator, is apparently almost obnoxiously good at portraying the famed scientist. But thereâs also Emily Blunt as his take no bullshit wife, Matt Damon as the mustachioed Army dad of the Manhattan Project and Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimerâs⌠nemesis? Or maybe thatâs unfair to the man. Not Strauss, Oppenheimer. Because when youâre battling the laws of physics, humans are a mere trifle, no?
âOppenheimer,â Christopher Nolanâs staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as âthe father of the atomic bomb,â condenses a titanic shift in consciousness into three haunted hours. A drama about genius, hubris and error, both individual and collective, it brilliantly charts the turbulent life of the American theoretical physicist who helped research and develop the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II â cataclysms that helped usher in our human-dominated age.â - from the New York Times review of Oppenheimer
Out: Thursday
Where: Theaters
3 hrs 0 mins | R | đ : 92%
I know what youâre thinking. And I can assure you, Jamie Foxxâs hair is indeed real. Just kidding, how the fuck should I know?? Right, I should be investigating these types of things. But sometimes itâs hard to tell whatâs real and not in this life. Something the trio of They Cloned Tyrone are set to figure out.
While this Netflix flick is sure to get less of the conversation this weekend, that might be a bit of a shame, because of all three ânotableâ releases this weekend, it actually has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score. đŽ
Tyrone is a modern day set, but 70âs styled sci-fi satire (say that shit three times fast) where a pimp (Foxx), sex-worker (Teyonah Parris) and a drug dealer (John Boyega) investigate a government conspiracy to clone Black people. It all sounds ridiculous2, and thatâs probably intentional - the director did describe the movie as âIf The Truman Show drank a bottle of vodkaâ - but reviews say the cast and their extremely potent chemistry is what makes the movie really work.
So either while the rest of the world watches Barbenheimer, or maybe after youâve partaken, you are free to escape to your couch and enjoy the bounty that is the modern moviegoing experience.
âItâs not often that a film can be accurately described as a sci-fi, mystery, action-comedy, thriller and Blaxploitation. Itâs a credit to Juel Taylor â here making his directorial debut â that They Cloned Tyroneâs mishmash of genres doesnât result in a tonal mess. Rather, itâs a consistently hilarious ride, where the laughs never dull the poignant, sharply observed messages at its centre.â - from the Empire review of The Cloned Tyrone
Out: Friday
Where: Netflix
2 hrs 2 mins | R | đ : 97%
Do you like trailers?
The Haunting in Venice - Iâm honestly impressed by Kenneth Branaghâs commitment and the fact heâs been âallowedâ to make three Agatha Christie mysteries into movies. They donât look bad, quite solid in fact, but these types of movie, at this budget, are just not made very often.
The Holdovers - Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways) loves his combination of awkward and heartfelt, and his next looks no different.
The Creator - this one hasnât been getting a ton of attention, which I guess makes sense considering itâs not based on a super well known intellectual property, but it is also an original big budget sci-fi movie not based on well known IP (rare). Maybe that turns it into a sleeper hit? Or just something people sleep on. đ¤ˇââď¸
Migration - the Illumination people (Despicable Me / The Super Marios Bros. Movie) do a bird movie.
I know, there are no absolutes, but by and large this is true
but is it that ridiculous?