Daily

Undisciplined “Barbie” Gush

by

…as I’m waiting for the big-ass, 15/70 IMAX screening of Oppenheimer to begin at 7 pm…this is the best I can do on the fly…please forgive the repetitions.

Barbie is cheerful, ironic, smart…it’s colorful, pop-pop-pop feminist and male-despising propaganda in a fleet and funny way…it’s clever and snappy enough to make you say to yourself “okay, fine…men are the foolish morons in this thing and there will be no oxygen for steady, fair-minded viewpoints…just give into it, man…whatever. Because it’s zippy and fizzy and a fair amount of fun.”

Barbie really is fun and juiced for the most part…it’s sharp and clever and peppy as fuck and production designed to a fare-thee-well.

Red-staters will have problems with the basic Barbie attitude. This movie definitely tries to nudge the little girls and boys that will see it into the man-hating, male-pitying side of the discussion. Megyn Kelly, take note!

If you want to start your little girl (or your little boy) on a path to despising foolish and idiotic straight men, this is the film to take them to — trust me.

In a very good-natured and heavily ironic and often comedic way (except for the final 25 to 30 minutes, when it turns into one soul-baring speech after another about the burdens of being a woman and the necessity of men accepting their fundamental immaturity and subservient role, and the task of crafting and molding your own identity)…what was I saying?

In a very good-natured and heavily ironic and often comedic way Greta Gerwig‘s movie absolutely DESPISES men. It really does — it’s total propaganda to this effect.

But at the same time it’s giggly and brisk and breezy and funny and, I have to admit, a very well assembled satire of sorts. A woman-celebrating, man-pitying satire. Wheeee!

Never has a major studio film ever conveyed such utter contempt for straight guys…in its peppy and good natured way Barbie constantly belittles men and regards them as delusional little boys with selfish and thoughtless agendas.

But it does so with such brisk and perky energy & with such a persistent sense of nerve and extra-ness…a certain punching-through-the-fourth-wall self-awareness.

And it does have a great final line that is just about equal to the final line in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot so you just have to roll with it and accept the male humiliation and the dominant species of Barbie-women.

This afternoon’s audience was like a midnight crowd at the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the early ’80s, or like the young-girl audience that first showed up to see the first Twilight on opening weekend…a lot of women (and a couple of trans guys!) dressed in pink and giggling and delighted with how the film made them feel. And a fair number of gay gays laughing and giggling and feeling the euphoria.

This is a cultural event, this film…it’s a celebration of the feminine wonderfulness of Barbieland and straight-male mocking and belittling, and a concurrent celebration of feminized gay males.

All The Kens are allegedly straight, you see, except they all look and dress gay. Go figure.

There are phony moments here and there. During her initial visit to the real world, Barbie sits next to an 80something woman and, despite having no frame of reference about older people or age or anything about real-world biology, she says to the 80something woman, “You’re so beautiful.” And the old woman chuckles and says, “I know.” Bullshit, doesn’t work.

My screening was crammed with Millennials and Zoomers…mostly women and a decent smattering of gay men. There was a guy sitting behind me who was giggling like a deballed falsetto Chihuahua…”hee-hee-hee-hee….ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo…hee-hee-hee-ee!”

At the very beginning a hot-pink Warner Bros. logo appears, and this same idiot was DEE-LIGHTED by this…”ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo…tee-hee-hee-hee-hee!!” I almost turned around and said to him, “Do you know what the term ‘easy lay’ means?”

First thing I wrote after Barbie ended: “I have to give Gerwig and Noah Baumbach credit for having created a fleet, zippy, self-acknowledging, hall-of-mirrors Barbie universe that mostly works.

“If you don’t mind the relentless humiliation that is heaped upon the stupid, self-deluding Ken men, the film holds together. It’s fully realized and precisely thought through and is quite the pink creation, quite the work of imagination…

“Even though it regards men as pathetic and immature and basically seven- and eight-year-olds…the Barbie women are the wise and the strong and way, WAY more commanding and visionary and competent….the Ken men are foolish, emotionally stunted infants, and woman know SO much more and are SO much wiser and more mature and they, henceforth, will lead the way. And are destined, it is fully implied, to run the real world once the men are fully deballed and schooled and feminized…”

No Clint Eastwood or Lee Marvin types allowed! And no Cary Grants or Jack Lemmons either! Only buff-bod gay guys who are pretending to be straight, or at least aren’t identified as queer.

Okay, That’s It…Done

by

I’ve written respectful, approving things about Sound of Freedom, and I strongly disapprove of all the lefty (or woke Stalinist) critics who’ve either panned or refused to review it because of the QAnon nutbag associations.

But I’m off the bus now.

Reason: Last night’s special Donald Trump screening at the Bedminster Golf Club, which was also attended by Freedom star Jim Caviezel. It’s a very decent film, and it’s just crested $100 million domestic, and they couldn’t leave well enough alone — they had to invite The Beast onto the bus.

I’m not saying “fuck this movie,” but I almost am. As far as I’m concerned Caveizel and associates have poisoned the well.

CODA Bros!!

by

Every person reading this post needs to sit down, take a breath and ask themselves this question: Deep down, am I a CODA bro? Do I place a higher value upon movies that deliver strong emotional goods (i.e., that warm feeling of empathy that spreads throughout your system) than films that feel more intellectually-focused…more brainy-ish?

To put it differently, am I more of a cinematic Dylan fan or am I more into movies that give me a kind of pre-Rubber Soul Beatles high?

During yesterday’s Oscar Poker podcast Sasha Stone said that Oppenheimer was much more Dylan-ish than Lennon-McCartney.

What kind of music or what band is Barbie like? I won’t know until I catch it at 3 pm this afternoon, or roughly three hours hence. Oppenheimer follows at 7 pm. Both at the AMC Lincoln Square.

If I Sounded Like Marjorie Taylor Greene

by

…I would seek out a brilliant acting-and-vocal coach, part Evanna Lynch and part Henry Higgins, and beg him or her to please help me get rid of my white-trash, Deliverance hillbilly shitkicker accent. Because if I could sound more like Sigourney Weaver, I could become more acceptable as a national political figure.

Intimate “Salk” Perspective Is What Matters

by

Following a special screening of Salk at Manhattan’s Whitby Hotel last weekend, director Christopher Nolan explained why he chose not to show the human-scale benefits of the Salk polio vaccine, which began to be distributed in 1955 and eventually eliminated polio in the United States.

In the recent documentary To Eliminate Polio: Jonas Salk and his Miracle Vaccine, the impact of the innoculations is shown in abundant, upbeat detail. Although the documentary was released in part to drum up hype for Nolan’s three-hour biopic about Jonas Salk‘s heroic achievement, no such footage appears in Nolan’s Salk.

Nolan’s film doesn’t show thousands of children running around and enjoying their lives unhindered by polio, he explained, for a good reason. Salk is strictly a POV film that is centered around Salk’s immediate perspective, and since Dr. Salk didn’t innoculate any kids personally (except for his own three children) and didn’t go on a national goodwill tour to personally observe the vaccine’s beneficial effect upon families with children, it felt like “a reach”, Nolan said, to dramatize the effects of the Salk vaccine.

“We know so much more than Salk did at the time,” Nolan said. “He didn’t personally observe the mass innoculations and only saw them on TV, as he wasn’t exactly a ‘people person.’ He didn’t meet with any children or parents on a random basis, and he certainly didn’t administer the vaccine personally to children outside his own family, and so I decided to focus the film strictly on Salk’s research along with his dealings with scientific colleagues and a couple of government representatives.”

“Oppenheimer” & Oscar Poker Have Same Number of Syllables

by

It’s funny how these Oscar Poker chats go. Sometimes the discussion will feel relaxed and confident, and sound that way. At other times a relaxed chat (like this one) will bore your pants off. Still other times a discussion that feels awkward and inarticulate during recording will result in a good listen.

Having seen Oppenheimer in Burbank on Tuesday evening (7.18), Sasha shared her euphoric impressions, calling it a 10. She also described a grotesque encounter with a pair of selfish 20something women who were texting all through it. Jeff won’t see Oppie until this evening (Thursday, 7.20, 7:30 pm), and so he asked questions about this and that aspect while quoting from other reviewers. Plus a little Barbie action.

Again, the link

Truffaut or Bertolucci?

by

I happened upon these snaps (actually captures from a brief video) on Instagram…@alix_brown via keithmcnallynyc. Right away I was wondering if it’s from a ‘70s French film of some distinction. In and of itself the cigarette is unfortunate, but what the guy does with it is very Alain Delon in La Piscine or…I don’t know, Jean Pierre Leaud in Bed and Board. Back in the day I used to be that guy.

SAG/AFTRA, WGA Chill Option

by

Director-screenwriter friendo to HE: ‘I know you appreciate old-school class, etc. Mister O’s is a retro-designed supper club a la Mad Men and ’60s Rat Pack style in the Valley. Since Universal and other neighboring studios are making it additionally difficult for picketing writers and actors by doing things like cutting down shade trees and blocking sidewalks, this upscale restaurant is offering itself as a cooling station…and it’s a very cool place to hang and cool down.”

Sweet Spot — 165 to 180 Minute Length

by

Many three-hours-or-longer films reside on my all-time greatest roster — The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia, The Wolf of Wall Street, Scarface, The Irishman, Barry Lyndon, Ben-Hur, Titanic, The Seven Samurai, Gone With The Wind, Spartacus, etc.

Length, of course, has always been immaterial or irrelevant when it comes to quality — no bad film can be too short, no good film can be too long, etc. There’s nonetheless something a bit more transporting or inviting or impactful when it comes to films that are just a bit shorter — 165 minutes to 180 minutes, I mean.

If you’re talking “long but good movie,” 165 to 180 is HE’s sweet spot. Long but a little lighter, tighter and trimmer…slightly less indulged.

HE’s favorite 165 to 180s: The Godfather (175), Heat (170), Patton (172), The Best Years of Our Lives (170), Saving Private Ryan (169), The Thin Red Line (170), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (174), The Young Lions (167), The Longest Day (178), Beau Is Afraid (179), Dogville (’03), The Great Escape (172), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (171), Braveheart (178).

I even have a certain elveated regard for flawed films in this realm…King of Kings (168), In Harm’s Way (165), The Towering Inferno (165), The Good Shepherd (167), Alexander (175), etc.

All this said, we’ve all become sick of the relatively recent avalanche of needlessly long movies, otherwise known as the Peter Jackson King Kong syndrome….films running between 130 and 150 minutes or longer for no apparent reason other than a lack of basic narrative discipline.

Seasoned Critic Sez…

by

“Jeff — I totally agree with Paul Schrader on Oppenheimer — it’s the best film I’ve seen come out of a major Hollywood studio in eons. Really fantastic for the entire three hours. Tremendous.” — gmail message, arrived at 11:21 am eastern.