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It’s Barbenheimer weekend, and this is one of the two movies everyone is talking about.

At the theater we saw it, more than half of the audience was wearing pink. All day we’ve seen a ridiculous number of people wearing pink out and about. Safe to say this is a little bit of a phenomenon.

First of all, it does have an unsubtle feminist message*, so if that’s a problem for you, you won’t like the movie.


I thought it was hilarious. All the main cast are charismatic, excepting Will Ferrell, with Allan as the stand out scene stealer. The characters have arcs, the story has a plot, and there’s even some memorable action, if you are willing to stretch the definition of action.

The ending gets a bit schmaltzy. Some of the music is pretty hard to listen to, like a cover of Aqua’s Barbie Girl that’s worse than Aqua’s Barbie Girl. Still, I laughed harder than I expected to l.


*There are nuances to it, and it kind of takes the pish out of radical feminism a few times. The treatment of the Kens (as women before feminism) and their Ken power over correction seems to be barbed as much at them as at toxic masculinity. And there’s a tween spilling out Twitter level social critiques, like calling Barbie a fascist. Yes, she does grow to see nuance by the end of the movie.

I am in this weird position of I have no interest in going to see this film, but I’m really glad it exists, because it seems like they’ve done a really good job of it.

Didn't get to see Barbie myself yet, but my wife wasn't a fan. Granted, every complaint she had about the film makes it sound more and more awesome, so I need to make some time to get to theater.

I'd watch it - not sure I'll get my boys interested though!

Very much up for Oppenheimer but as it's a 15 the youngest is excluded. May need to wait till it's streaming somewhere.

Saw it. Recommend it.

The audience was a mix of men and women of all ages. Everyone was mostly dressed up. I also saw a group of teen boys who went of their own accord, and a couple other unattached boys there as well. The audience was all dressed up, and we saw pink lines at the theatre all weekend when we drove by.

The film did $150 million opening weekend. Let's compare that to Indy, which has done $300 Million Global so far. Ouch! Barbie is crushing Indy.

Not much more to say beyond what Bob said. The comedy hits and the cast is stellar, the script is loaded with subtext, and this is a movie you can watch and think about way after you have seen the film. The end is a bit.... schmaltzy.

Anyone surprised that a Barbie movie has a feminist agenda should really try waking up from that coma they have been in since the late 60s. However, it is by no means a "man-hating" film either. Instead, the message is a pretty simple find out who you are, and be that person message. However, America's monologue and core message of the movie is GREAT.

I was surprised at how anti-corporatists it is though. I am sure Mattel signed off on everything that happened in the film, and it really does them and corporations in general no favors.

 LunarSol wrote:
Didn't get to see Barbie myself yet, but my wife wasn't a fan. Granted, every complaint she had about the film makes it sound more and more awesome, so I need to make some time to get to theater.

It really has a lot of awesome packed into it. The Kens, even at their worst behavior, are just so much fun. I was laughing my ass off at coolest Ken’s beach chariot made of lesser Kens for a while. It’s only onscreen for a couple seconds, but encapsulates the stupid-awesome aesthetic of the Kendom.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crispy78 wrote:
I'd watch it - not sure I'll get my boys interested though!

Very much up for Oppenheimer but as it's a 15 the youngest is excluded. May need to wait till it's streaming somewhere.

My son is a young tween and really connected with the mother-daughter dynamic in the movie. He laughed at a lot of the ridiculous Ken and Allan stuff, and Will Farrell(!), but a lot of the more adult humor went over his head. (Like the “I could beach you off all day!” jokes.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The audience I saw it with had a lot of retirees and their adult children, as well as some groups of 20-somethings and a few other parents with children. I was surprised how skewed the demographics were toward middle age.



There’s one line near the end of the film that is getting a lot of pushback I’ve seen. Just when it seems like lessons have been learned, problems solved, and the world is finally fair, a Barbie drops a real barb that proves it very much isn’t. And it makes people uncomfortable. I personally think this is intentional, and fits the theme of the real world being complicated and uncomfortable, and real change requiring effort and self reflection. But if that was the intention, it could have been done better.

 Easy E wrote:

I was surprised at how anti-corporatists it is though. I am sure Mattel signed off on everything that happened in the film, and it really does them and corporations in general no favors.

Being seen to (appear to) hate the corporate system makes corporations money.

I saw it yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and I was laughing throughout the film. I thought it was incredibly well done, and far surpassed my expectations.

Oh yeah, the made-up controversy of the dotted line on the map. Wow, a stretch at best.

It is super obvious that those dots were suppose to represent Japan in that very distorted and cartoon drawing of the earth.

It has nothing to do with the disputed border claims of China.

Haven’t heard that one. I was referring to the Supreme Court line.

Wife and youngest daughter saw it.

Hated it. Said it was really boring. Just when it picked up speed, it stalled out.

My wife said she can't recall checking her watch so often in a theater before.

My daughter wanted to like it, but couldn't. I asked her if it passed the Siskel Test.

For those who don't know, late movie critic Gene Siskel had an easy test to determine if a movie was any good. It was simply to ask yourself whether you would rather be seeing what is on the screen, or a behind-the-scenes film of the cast having lunch together.

She said no, she'd rather see the cast just talking and interacting than the film. So it failed the Siskel Test.

Box Office: ‘Barbie’ Scores Massive $93 Million, ‘Oppenheimer’ Adds Huge $46 Million in Second Weekends

https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/barbie-box-office-oppenheimer-second-weekend-records-1235681039/

Greta Gerwig’s cotton candy-colored fantasy comedy again led the way, adding a massive $93 million between Friday and Sunday. Ticket sales for “Barbie” declined just 43% from its debut and resulted in the seventh-biggest second weekend in history. The only movies that enjoyed bigger sophomore outings were billion-dollar behemoths “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($149 million), “Avengers: Endgame” ($147 million) and “Infinity War” ($114 million), “Black Panther” ($111 million), “Jurassic World” ($106 million) and “The Avengers” ($103 million).

I think I also read that it topped $500 Million worldwide, which absolutely crushed Indy. I thought Wonder Woman killed the idea that a major movie led by a female character/IP could not make money at the box office. If Wonder Woman killed that idea, then Barbie buried it 6 feet under.

Does anyone think we will see more big tent movies based on female leads or female IPs going forward?

 Easy E wrote:
Does anyone think we will see more big tent movies based on female leads or female IPs going forward?

Sure.

The real question may be where studios go after the advertising juggernaut that was 'Barbenheimer'. The exposure the films got was ludicrous - I mean Oppenheimer has made $400m+ so far and really under any other circumstance how many people would be drawn in by the promise of a 3 hour long disjointed biographical drama?

Saw Barbie yesterday. Really enjoyed it. A lot of fun.

Really enjoyed Barbie as well. Very smart commentary/satire, its a very political movie (arguably radical in some respects) that is drawing in crowds that probably wouldn't normally go see a movie with that sort of message. Curious to see what the societal impact of the film is longer term. I can very easily see this becoming one of those cult classic films that people keep going back to years later (except, unlike something like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, this is actually good).

Oppenheimer is also very good. I did Barbie then Oppenheimer, apparently you're really supposed to do Oppenheimer then Barbie, otherwise you're left with a feeling of existential ennui and dread - many have reported such feelings after the Barbie/Oppenheimer viewing order, seemingly at a higher rate than those who just watched Oppenheimer on its own. I can confirm the sentiment is true (but not that it would not have occurred had I not watched Barbie first), I am left with the feeling that nothing I do in my life will ever be as consequential as what Oppie did, but I also feel the weight of humanity's sins bearing down on my soul. I'm only being a little dramatic.

What did you just say about Rocky Horror Picture Show?

How very dare you!

Listen, my girlfriend performs in Rocky 2x a month, she actually leads a Rocky cast here in the states, and I'm literally sitting at a Rocky convention aa I type this lol. As the famous callback goes, the success of the film was am accident. It's the definition of so bad it's good.

Boooo! Hisssssss! Booooooooooooo

You’re entitled to your opinion but it’s wrong and it’s bad

‘Barbie’ is Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing global release ever

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/29/business/barbie-global-release-harry-potter/index.html

Warner Bros. has swapped its wands for pink heels.

Summer smash “Barbie” is the highest-grossing global release in the studio’s 100-year history, beating out 2011’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”

Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” edged out the saga’s finale by $767,505, according to Comscore projections. Comscore estimated a global total of $1,341,854,460 through Monday for “Barbie.”

On Monday, Warner Bros. said “Barbie” will pass “Harry Potter” to become its highest grossing film globally. That’s still not enough to crack the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time, however, which is dominated by Disney franchises like Marvel’s Avengers, Star Wars and Avatar.

Does this mean we can get an actually good Jem and the Holograms movie? I am convinced that the live-action Jem movie had the best end-credits teaser I have ever seen.... but after watching the movie I was convinced there was no chance we would see that teased movie.

Probably not, but you might get a Barbie sequel that nobody asked for or really wanted instead.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Probably not, but you might get a Barbie sequel that nobody asked for or really wanted instead.

I dare say, slap a 2 at the end and make it all over again. What could go wrong?

Removed - 'nuff said.

Caught the last screening in my town.

+Pretty damn hilarious as a parody of gender wars the way delusional teen girls on 2014 tumblr imagined them to be.

+Being sympathetic to both Barbies and Kens without really picking sides.

+Adored the toy world and product satire, Barbie standing on tiptoe outside shoes etc.

+Ken song

-While funny, corporations should not be depicted as lovable bumbling idiots rather than the greedy sociopaths they are

-Real world girl and mom were absolutely terrible and made every scene they were in worse (apart from girl's initial takedown of Barbie)

-Movie did not know how to tie the middle and end together, the "Barbie deprogramming" was a lazy and unsatisfying resolution and mom's speech was bad (not in the message, in the execution).

I thought "Barbie" was very good, but not perfect.

I went in thinking that the only way to do this movie well would be to have it subvert itself and be extremely, genuinely funny, and that's pretty much what Greta Gerwig delivered. I can't imagine this movie being made that way successfully by another director in any era prior to this one. A "Barbie" made in the 80's, 90's, 2000's, or even 2010's would have been downright painful to watch.

I went with my wife and daughter, who both loved it. My young son absolutely refused to go, which was both completely expected and quietly hilarious to me. That would have been me at his age. At my age now, going to see "Barbie" for fun makes perfect sense. So my boy stayed home with my full understanding, and the rest of us had a blast.

So why wasn't "Barbie" perfect?

This is asking for a lot, given that "Barbie" had to be suitable for children, but for me the perfect "Barbie" movie would have dealt with Barbie's origins in the sultry, adult-oriented "Bild Lilli" cartoon and doll in (then) West Germany. I don't mean that the movie needed to devote 20 minutes to the subject - it could have been humorously and honestly tackled in Helen Mirren's opening monologue. It's part of the history of the doll and it's schizophrenic identity as both an expression of female empowerment and an objectified, impossible beauty standard.

More generally, I thought the movie needed more focus and judicious editing. The middle and end of the movie just crammed in so much messaging and so many character revelations for Barbie, Ken, the Mom, Her daughter, even the executives, so rapidly that it felt a bit confused and sloppy around the edges, and therefore unearned. Put another way, "Barbie" felt a bit like "The Empire Strikes Back" if George Lucas had directed it rather than Kershner. (I'm talking Lucas in his youthful prime with other people checking his impulses, the Lucas who directed "A New Hope," not the unchecked Lucas of the Clone Wars disasters, so that comparison isn't as damning as it may sound.) A good editor could have made "Barbie" a straight A. As it is, it's probably a solid A-/B+. Definitely fine popcorn fare.

Some stand-out moments (spoilers ahoy):

The teen girl calling Barbie a fascist, and then Barbie crying about it in a state of hurt bewilderment, was hilarious. (I think Barbie said "Am I a fascist?" - if so, it's one of my favorite lines - but I may not be remembering that correctly.)

The introduction with Helen Mirren stating matter-of-factly that Barbie had definitively solved sexism for all women and girls for all time was a baldfaced sucker punch that had the entire audience (including me) laughing heartily.

It was nice to see Asian Ken giving White Ken a run for his money as the alpha male, given how seldom Asian males are positioned that way in Hollywood movies. (No, I'm not saying it never happens, particularly these days.)

"Closer to Fine" was crowd-pleasing, but also awesome, and I thought the resurrection of that song in that context was a successful pop culture zeitgeist moment, not just a cynical nostalgia ploy. I enjoyed listening to the Indigo Girls in my youth, when I found their energy, emotional honesty, and creativity genuinely inspiring rather than off-putting, and it's nice to see them getting some respect now.

???:

Speaking of featured music, there's one weird thing I still don't get, and any comments / disagreements are welcome and appreciated. I don't really know what to think of the use of Matchbox 20's song "Push." I'd heard the song growing up but never particularly liked it or bothered to listen to the lyrics, and I was unfamiliar with the controversy around the "I want to push you around / down" chorus. So when I heard that refrain in the movie for the first time, I did a double take - "wait a minute, did he really just sing those words?"

I just did a little googling and it seems that it's generally accepted that the singer wasn't talking about physical violence against women, but rather singing about his own emotional victimization by a girlfriend by turning the tables and being the one acting rather than acted upon, or something? That story strikes me as very garbled, but apparently the director of "Barbie" has only talked about how much she liked to the song growing up, and most people receive it as just Ken's funny, failed attempt to be "emo." Maybe I'm just too out of touch with the song and it's era, but I find that chorus very hard to dissociate from the aggression it appears to present. If "Push" was featured just to comment on men performing emotional over-vulnerability, and not violence / toxicity, I think I would have chosen a different song.

 Talking Banana wrote:


Speaking of featured music, there's one weird thing I still don't get, and any comments / disagreements are welcome and appreciated. I don't really know what to think of the use of Matchbox 20's song "Push." I'd heard the song growing up but never particularly liked it or bothered to listen to the lyrics, and I was unfamiliar with the controversy around the "I want to push you around / down" chorus. So when I heard that refrain in the movie for the first time, I did a double take - "wait a minute, did he really just sing those words?"

I just did a little googling and it seems that it's generally accepted that the singer wasn't talking about physical violence against women, but rather singing about his own emotional victimization by a girlfriend by turning the tables and being the one acting rather than acted upon, or something? That story strikes me as very garbled, but apparently the director of "Barbie" has only talked about how much she liked to the song growing up, and most people receive it as just Ken's funny, failed attempt to be "emo." Maybe I'm just too out of touch with the song and it's era, but I find that chorus very hard to dissociate from the aggression it appears to present. If "Push" was featured just to comment on men performing emotional over-vulnerability, and not violence / toxicity, I think I would have chosen a different song.

I think if Ken was ever presented as actually hateful, spiteful, or aggressive your reading of it would be more valid. But in every single scene Ken is doing what he is doing, ultimately, to seek approval and affection from Barbie. Even when he kicks her out of her Dream House, it's to get her to understand how he felt so that they can ultimately reconcile. Ken never actually WANTS to hurt Barbie. Or push her around/down. He wants her to understand how he feels. In THAT context, the song is his expressing his frustration. Not an actual desire to hurt.

As you mentioned. His "emo" phase. His failed and impotent emo phase.

 Lance845 wrote:
I think if Ken was ever presented as actually hateful, spiteful, or aggressive your reading of it would be more valid.

My reading of it is basically that I find the choice of that song with those lyrics bizarre, an open admission that I don't understand why that song was chosen, and an invitation to others here to illuminate me. What I would say is it's a song that's easy to perceive as violent given the lyrics, and whatever the song's background history is, a lot of people in the audience wouldn't be familiar with it.

I do appreciate your response, and I think you're correct about Ken's character as presented in the movie. The context does indeed marshal against taking the lyrics literally. But the emo point could have been made using countless pop songs from that era that don't have lyrics about pushing you around / down, so why chose this song to make the point? I don't get it.

Barbie has now overtaken Super Mario Bros as 2023’s most successful movie.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Barbie has now overtaken Super Mario Bros as 2023’s most successful movie.

If you told me 5 years ago Barbie would be a critically acclaimed film and one of (if not the) most successful films of its year, I'd have asked you what you were smoking and if I could have any.

Where's the making of documentary? Those are always interesting on these kinds of films.

Thankfully facts don’t care about feelings, so I too would love to see a making of.

And I’m pretty confident we can expect a sequel.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And I’m pretty confident we can expect a sequel.

This is the worst part, corpo now gonna milk it for all it's worth with no respect to the creators or the audience's intelligence. And 14 other Mattel toy lines... Uno the movie, seriously?