Greta Gerwig's Barbie

From the auteur of Lady Bird and Little Women (2019) and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Comes a film that may very well reinvent the movie-based-on-a-toy genre as we know it.

Barbie

Kidding aside, I was definitely not expecting to pair freaking Barbie with freaking 2001: A Space Odyssey, let alone be living in a timeline where Also Sprach Zarathustra would segue into...what was that, disco music?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Dec 16th 2022 at 10:17:41 AM

How the hell did the teaser for a Barbie movie get me to crack up this much.

I know I've seen 2001 far too many times because I recognized those establishing vista shots right off the bat.

Looks fun and camp!

Unironically looks awesome.

This movie was already a huge meme before the teaser and this has probably multiplied that.

How the hell did the teaser for a Barbie movie get me to crack up this much.

It's more than likely that the filmmakers knew from day one there'd be some eye-rolling over the fact that it's a movie about a doll with a zillion lame-ass occupations, so they decided to play with the idea of Barbie. Kinda like how The LEGO Movie played around with LEGO. Case in point, we have Barbie being compared to the monolith from 2001 in terms of how it revolutionized dolls and apparently we'll have different people with the same name of "Barbie" and "Ken", because it seems Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir's characters are also named "Ken" and Hari Nef and Issa Rae's characters are also named "Barbie".

So just from those spoiler blocks alone, we're already on a one-way ticket to Bananas-ville.

Also funnily enough, last I checked on Barbie, Will Ferrell is apparently the bad guy (he's the CEO of Mattel), so it might be a case of deja vu since he was also the bad guy in The LEGO Movie.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Dec 16th 2022 at 12:53:50 PM

I'm a huge fan of Greta Gerwig, both as a director and as an actress. On the other hand, there are few things in the world that interest me less than Barbie. And this trailer is too campy for my taste.

Honestly, I don't have a good feeling about this... I hope to be proved wrong.

Word on the street was that Gerwig and Baumbach's screenplay got rave reviews when it was being distributed around during casting.

For both the absurdity and Gerwig's track record, this is absolutely a must-watch for me.

If I had a nickel for every time Barbie was in a movie directed by an admirer of Kubrick, I’d have three nickels. Or maybe more, I dunno.

This looks really fun. I watched the trailer with my sister and we both cracked up so much!

Yeah, this.

Given what Barbie is and the product's cultural reputation, there's no way a Barbie movie wouldn't have been a tongue-in-cheek comedy.

The trailer is insane and actually makes me want to watch this movie. Please Gerwig, don't let me down.

Helen Mirren confirms she narrated the teaser.

[camp intensifies]

I knew that voice sounded familiar!

Man, this seems fun.

I think the multiple Barbies and Kens is an excellent idea, and with Gerwig's track record, I'm fully on board.

I'm not looking forward to the meltdown from the Usual Suspects when they learn about a trans woman playing (a) Barbie, but then I doubt many of them will be interested in this movie in the first place (not that complaining about something they refuse to engage in is new for them).

I'm probably not going to see it in the cinema (mostly because that's just not really a thing I do much anyway) but this does look a lot better and smarter than I thought it would.

I grew up with the CGI-animated Barbie movies, so I'd probably be super excited for this even if the trailer wasn't so captivating.

I remember when they announced Gerwig would be directing and co-writing the film, my first thought was "what kind of movie are they making??"

Edited by pete-drumm on Dec 21st 2022 at 5:16:36 AM

I want this movie to be as campy as possible.

Like, there should be a segment thats just a spoof of the Pavalaguna Diva Dance sequence from The Fifth Element.

Yeah, I could see Margot doing just that.

It's gonna be even weirder if it ends up saving Margot Robbie's career.

I dont think Robbie's career is particularly imperilled right now though that it would need saving...

There's a (social?) media narrative that Robbie is somehow to blame for the flops of Amsterdam and Babylon, even though those are both ensemble films with other A-listers that suffered from confused marketing.

Especially since she’s apparently great to work with and even the negative reviews of both of those movies say she put in a good performance. From a casting director’s perspective, there’s nothing wrong with her. Gorgeous actress with a super wide range who is willing to do anything from high glamour to bizarre off-kilter superhero roles and gets praise for pretty much every role she’s in? Two movies that did meh at the box office aren’t going to dent that. Especially since she’s been in movies like that before (Bombshell didn’t do that great and neither did the Legend of Tarzan)

Especially since both of those movies also share something else. Maybe there’s not much of an audience for late 20s/early 30s period pieces? It’s not exactly a well plumbed era in modern film and while there is an audience that loves the glitz and glamour of the Roaring Twenties, it’s not that big and they tend to have…issues with people bringing up the reality of the era.

Edited by Zendervai on Jan 2nd 2023 at 12:00:13 PM

I'm 200 per cent sure it's not her fault, I like her in general ever since The Wolf of Wall Street (and I'm a sucker for 20s-30s-40s period pieces), but it would be nice if Barbie worked well anyway.

Edited by Iridener on Jan 3rd 2023 at 9:58:05 AM