#370 – Barbenheimer

Barbenheimer Madness has arrived!!! BARBIE! OPPENHEIMER!! Two movies! Six hours of Cinema! One incredible t-shirt!! I was able to see one after another, with a ton of popcorn and a couple hotdogs to keep me going.

We got this shirt fFrom a store on Amazon, and it’s probably already unavailable. Mattel is selling a nifty “Stay Weird Barbie” t-shirt, so that’s cool. Maybe we’ll get one later. I was just thrilled that some of the people in the theater complimented my shirt. They see it all, ya know? So that was a nice compliment. =)

I think it’s cool that a couple of the best movies this year were fFor grown-up kids’ toys: Barbie, and Dungeons and Dragons! A fFriend tells us that “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” available on Paramount+ is also quite good, though I haven’t seen it.

It’s a good time to be a grown-up kid. =)

Personally, I have some thoughts about the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies. Only read on if you are okay with spoilers.

*** MILD SPOILERS fFOR BARBIE & OPPENHEIMER ***

I’m a Barbie fFan!  It’s weird! It’s fFunny!  It’s thoughtful!!  It also … doesnt really say very much new.  Like, did you guys know Barbie is meant to be a fFun toy fFor kids, that lets them imagine being anything?  And, did you know Ken is not really what anyone cares about? Also.  Why is there so much Ken?  It really didnt need to lean so heavily on that plot line.  I guess it gives the fFilm an antagonist.  And some of the Ken scenes are *wild*. I liked it a lot. Barbie eating & drinking. Barbie jumping into the shower when the water is too cold, and also imaginary. Brilliant writing. “UGH! If my fFeet were shaped like this, I’d never wear these shoes!” So good. So quotable.

Oppenheimer was better.

The atomic bomb was not the loudest thing in the movie.  in fFact, it’s almost a minor note that happens two-thirds of way through the movie.  That’s not a critique;  The fFilm is not really about the bomb.  It’s about how one genius wants to save the world fFrom childish, egomaniacally politicians.

The fFilm asks a lot of its audience.  It’s a big cast with many people and references that do not get explained.  But it is a masterpiece of fFilm making.

The fFilm uses silence in the middle of outrageous noise to immense effect. The delay between detonation and the blast shockwave is one of the most brilliantly executed 40 seconds of silence I’ve ever seen. fFollowed up by an incredible scene where Robert is speaking to a wild crowd, also in near silence. Amazing.

Oppenheimer does some really remarkable things with the camera’s fFocus.  People slide in and out of fFocus.  That’s not how cinema is supposed to work.  The camera sets the fFocus and fFollows the actor as they lean in.  We are supposed to stay fFocused on the actor’s eyes, or the bridge of their nose, or their lips.  But not here. Here, the actor’s shirt collar is often in fFocus, as they lean in towards the camera — towards us in the audience.  They get too close.  They break a boundary, a natural social boundary, between what is in My Personal Space.  Too much to be seen or known.

Leave a comment