Barbie : Pretty, Pink, and Poignant
By: Kaelin Brown
Coming to terms with the end of our adolescence is not an easy thing to do.
The Barbie movie helps viewers to revisit that adolescence, while asking important questions of identity and self worth.
Barbie begins in Barbie Land, where imagination runs freely, and everything is perfect – or seems to be.
Every Barbie has a Ken, and every Ken loves his Barbie.
When “Stereotypical Barbie,” played by Margot Robbie, begins to have thoughts of death, she unknowingly creates a ripple in perfect-pink-plastic Barbie Land.
Embarking on a journey to the “real world” Barbie is forced to understand that maybe everything is not what she thought.
Barbie Director Greta Gerwig, created a list of movies on the popular movie website Letterboxd, that inspired her work.
Movies on that list include The Truman Show, and The Red Shoes.
Like these movies, Barbie is colorful, and campy, but is also – unexpectedly – existential.
Gerwig masterfully crafts an environment that draws in viewers of all ages, while still maintaining a serious undertone that tackles topics of misogyny and motherhood.
Audiences initially believed Barbie would be a light hearted comedy (which it is at times).
But at the core of Barbie, is a film that truly understands how the patriarchy affects everyone, even a plastic doll!
It is colorful, musical, and extremely impactful.
While a common criticism of the movie is that the feminism in it can seem one dimensional and shallow, the truth is that Barbie is a good start.
The movie, which has brought in over one billion dollars at the box office, making it the highest grossing film of 2023, may be some peoples first exposure to feminist ideals, and will hopefully be the beginning to an important conversation for many.
Barbie is now streaming Prime Video and is still in many theaters as well.
Oppenheimer: The Explosive Biopic Worth Your Time
By: Olivia Sasek
Picture being inside of a sold-out movie theater full of anticipation, tension, and silence – this was the scene on July 21st when a film about the most controversial events of modern American history was released.
Oppenheimer is a film that realistically illustrates the story of the man behind the Atomic bombs, and it doesn’t read like a monotonous history lesson.
Oppenheimer details the life – including studies, career, and involvement in The Manhattan Project – of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic bomb. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus, the three-hour-long film recalls his life starting from college up until after the bombs were dropped – nothing more, nothing less. The movie is fast-paced and straight to the point, leaving no time for the viewer to get bored. Oppenheimer shows the events of his life in all their horrors and dramas while giving a historically accurate representation of everything connected to his life, such as the bomb, the people involved, scandals, and more.
Like other biopic films, Oppenheimer is dramatic, thought-provoking, and interest-grabbing. It dives straight into the action and leaves the responsibility of knowing the context of the events to the reader – but the film is based on such a known topic that anyone who passed US history class should have some knowledge of it. The film can be compared to Oliver Stone’s JFK. Both films are three hours long and based on historical figures who played a big role in either WWII or the Cold War. JFK is not a biopic but rather explores the unknowns of conspiracy theories surrounding JFK in the format of a biopic, but director Christopher Nolan took huge inspiration from it and cited it as a precedent for Oppenheimer.
Christopher Nolan beautifully directed and wrote a heavy and thrilling biographical film that will have you at the edge of your seat every minute of it. The distinct film style with black and white color filters, interesting points of view, and intricately chosen soundtrack, details, and cast will grab your attention and make you appreciate all the effort put into the film. If not for the intricate visuals, the cast full of A-list actors will hook your attention. Actors Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Junior, Florence Pugh, and Emily Blunt do a terrific job embodying their characters, and the costume crew gave their all when dressing the actors to look straight out of the ‘40s. If you’re not big on actors, the fact that no CGI was used on the nuclear explosion seen in the film will keep you curious. Oppenheimer has so much to offer and is so attentive to detail that there is something to love in it for everyone.
Oppenheimer was released on July 21st, 2023, and can be seen in any theatre and be streamed for free on Peacock.