![]() (Although the idea of a portal that allows Barbie and Ken to travel to the grimy Venice Beach boardwalk, and the exact area of L.A. Here, the cinematic parallels are even stronger, as Barbie’s script winkingly encourages us not to overanalyze the concept, which is exactly how Nolan has managed to vanquish our disbelief in things like dream-hacking and time inversion. From there, Barbie continues to pull the rug out, next invoking a Möbius strip-like continuum that bridges the realm of the dolls and our own existence. It’s a hilariously-pitched non-sequitur in the context of Gerwig’s feminist fable, but, having indeed spent the first half of my day mulling death, “the destroyer of worlds,” I had the eerie sense that Barbie could read my mind, and knew I was having trouble moving from the inferno of Oppenheimer into the utopian post-war dreamscape she is supposed to inhabit. Alas, narrative requires conflict, and after we are introduced to Barbieland in its idealized form, our flawless heroine ( Margot Robbie) blurts out an intrusive thought that brings her latest blowout dance party to a screeching halt: “Do you guys ever think about dying?” I hardly noticed how cheap Chinese food, Twizzlers, and Coca-Cola were churning together in my gut. Of course, when I had to settle for a place in the wheelchair-accessible row, I felt like part of the problem.īarbie at first held out the potential for sheer escapism, and make no mistake: hot actors goofing around is a decent salve after sitting through the Manhattan Project. I was dismayed to find that a family had shamelessly claimed my well-chosen seat for the latter, and, not wanting to eject a child from it, went away in search of an unoccupied chair, mumbling about the collapse of civilized order. Saturday, a fire alarm at the AMC Burbank 16 caused an evacuation and cascading entropy.Īudiences, for their part, were always bound to approach the alignment of Oppenheimer and Barbie as a battle royale event, dispensing with the usual etiquette if it meant optimizing your experience. On Reddit, theater employees have braced for this weekend like you would a hurricane, expecting huge business to result in punishing work shifts. ![]() It was as if the place were subject to its own kind of fission, one that could release intense energy if not brought under control. I didn’t, but in the concessions area, I noticed that the combined force of these summer blockbusters was already taking its toll: more popcorn on the ground, and several soda fountains were out of ice. Over beers, I gave her a poor synopsis of what had transpired that morning, lingering on the hyped sex scenes - was Oppenheimer really such a fuckboy? - and we headed over to the multiplex, where I hoped I would not have to endure the shame of showing my next ticket to the same employee who scanned me in before. Thankfully, a quick lunch at Panda Express proved suitably mundane to bring me down to earth, and afterward, I met up at a bar with my friend Anna, who would join me for that afternoon’s screening of Barbie and, like dozens milling around the area, was wearing pink for the occasion. A bustling mall did not make for the easiest reentry into linear consciousness, either. Would anyone interested in a three-hour epic about the scientific race to develop weapons of mass destruction want to see a famous doll brought to life in a candy-colored fantasy, or vice versa?ĭua Lipa Takes You Inside 'Barbie' Dreamhouse With Behind-the-Scenes Footage of 'Dance the Night'ĭuly shaken by this story, and the recognition that I was born into its aftermath, I had trouble coming back to my senses. Released together on July 21, they probably looked like ideal counterprogramming for their respective distributors, Universal and Warner Bros. These, of course, are the broad strokes that connect Christopher Nolan’s harrowing biopic Oppenheimer, focused on the “father of the atomic bomb,” and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which tackles similar questions of identity, legacy, and complicity with equal vigor. It is perhaps not entirely a coincidence that this era, the middle of the 20th century, also transformed the United States into the global superpower it has been ever since, through military and material triumph: we ended World War II, and economic prosperity followed in suburbs, superhighways, and space-age appliances. Sure, repertory theaters will curate stacked showings of classic fare or art house favorites for the cultured cinephile in us, but the first-run double - one you might randomly drop into knowing little about either movie - seems the relic of a time when we had more hours to kill, and fewer screens to distract us from that magical silver one. The double feature is something of a bygone pleasure.
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