Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie

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?

Adapted from the Barbie Lore

^not joking

Yes. https://variety.com/2024/film/awards/barbie-moved-adapted-screenplay-oscars-1235848136/

I guess anything adapted from an existing IP, even an inanimate object, counts a an adaptation. Like, I guess The Lego Movie was considered an adapted screenplay, too.

FUN FACT: In 2014, the Academy deemed THE LEGO MOVIE an adapted screenplay even though we had already won the National Board of Review Best Original Screenplay award — because it was based on LEGO bricks and had a LEGO version of Batman as a character https://t.co/UzTl9tS4jj

— Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) January 4, 2024

And all sequels are adapted from the original film

So would anything incorporating an existing IP, like a Dracula or a Frankenstein('s Monster) or a Mickey Mouse or a Bugs Bunny, count as adapted? What about something like, I dunno, Spirit of the Beehive, which features lots of Frankenstein? Or anything that riffs on The Godfather, like Zootopia?

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

And Ferrera getting a nod for saying only "it sucks to be a woman, doesn't it?" for three minutes, and doing practically nothing else throughout the entire film

uh she did a lot more than that