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6 . Barbenheimer
160 Plays1 year ago
At what point is never better than late? We push the envelope this week with a podcast episode on the July 21st 2023 cinematic phenomena Barbenheimer!
Me, Michael Porcelli, and my very own wife Lindsay Chrisler, exchange hot takes and deep in the weeds analysis about these two radically different, yet strangely intertwined movies.
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Transcript
Barbie's Design Dilemma
00:00:00
Speaker
With a car, how does she fit her legs in the car? You jam the Barbies in like they're not really in the cars very well. They don't just sit in the seats comfortably. Not really, no, because the legs are never comfortable on the Barbie yet.
Introduction to Barbenheimer Phenomenon
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, this is Robbie and the Sane and Miraculous podcast.
Special Guests and Film Release Discussion
00:00:22
Speaker
Today, just in the most timely fashion imaginable, we are talking about the Barbenheimer phenomenon. This is the release of these two movies. I'm not going to talk about it much because once we get to the conversation, I'm going to introduce it all again. It's going to be me and two special guests.
Recording Blunders and Mispronunciations
00:00:40
Speaker
who I also introduced at the beginning of the conversation so there's not much for me to do right now I'm gonna get to the actual conversation very soon but it's gonna be a fun one it's very fun I enjoyed editing just now before I go into the conversation I just have to say two things both of which is just me noticing some something stupid that I did
00:00:59
Speaker
and preemptively pointing it out so that you don't point it out, I suppose, or whatever, making sure that you know that I know how dumb I was in those moments. So one, I put, there's a moment where I'm introducing movies and I put one in the blue corner and one in the red corner, and I should definitely have put Barbie in the pink corner. I feel sad about that missed opportunity. And then the other thing, this is whatever, this is a random story. So, Margot Robbie, her last name is the same as my first name, but for some reason,
00:01:27
Speaker
Early on in her career, when she first popped up, I got it into my head that her name was pronounced differently and it was pronounced Robey, not Robbie. And I just have always pronounced it like that. And even gone to the extent of like, I've heard people pronouncing it the other way, the normal way, the way you pronounce my name and felt like,
00:01:49
Speaker
Those idiots, they don't know, you know, they haven't heard anyone talk about her or heard her talk about herself or whatever. So I just had this whole idea in my mind about how you pronounce that name. Then during the conversation, I pronounced it in the way that I thought it was pronounced. And everybody else, Porcelli and Lindsay, spoiler, that's who the other people in the koala, were pronouncing it in the regular way.
00:02:13
Speaker
And afterwards I went and looked it up and I was just wrong. I've just been living a lie this whole time and you pronounce her second name the same way you pronounce my name. So I don't know why you would care about any of that, but welcome to my internal world. I'm not going to talk anymore.
Introducing Guests and Barbenheimer Themes
00:02:26
Speaker
I'm just going to bring you a conversation about Babenheimer.
00:02:48
Speaker
All right. I'm here with, uh, Michael Pochelli. You said, yeah, you'll have to look it up, which means you'll have to figure out how to spell it. Um, I'm here. Hello everybody. So I'm here with, uh, my good friend, Michael Pochelli, who if you all have been, um, following along to the podcast, you will recognize his voice.
00:03:14
Speaker
Malefuos presents, if that's the word, Malefluos presents. And joining us, special guest, first time ever on the pod is my wife, Lindsay Crisler. Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
Hi, hi everybody. We felt like we needed a female perspective here because we're going to be talking about Oppenheimer. So, you know, it's just good to have a woman here for that. Let's get in trouble as soon as possible with gendered stuff. Like let's just, I mean, we're, we're, we're heading there soon. Like the bomb countdown. Exactly. We're talking about this kind of.
Cultural Impact of Barbie and Oppenheimer
00:03:53
Speaker
ridiculous, ludicrous phenomena that showed up July of this year, 2023, where both the superficially billed as a kind of bubblegum, silly, fun summer movie, Bobby,
00:04:09
Speaker
But directed by indie darling Greta Goig, which kind of makes you immediately go. Is this gonna be bubblegum fun? Some of pop movie or is it gonna be something else? So that's in the in the blue corner and then in the red corner Christopher Nolan, you know, whatever serious serious Movie lover darling
00:04:31
Speaker
I don't know what you say, but Chris Millan, he's like a big deal or one of the last serious, very serious movie beast. Movie beast just kind of hasn't made a bad movie. Uh, I don't think, but Charlie makes a face cause he's got bad ideas about inception, but, um, but it's not made a bad movie in my opinion. Anyway, he's, he's, you know, everybody loves to be very, very, uh, interesting.
00:04:57
Speaker
direct to make this very serious movie about maybe the most serious thing that's ever happened. And they both came out.
00:05:05
Speaker
on the same day and everybody on the internet got very excited about that. And I would not, uh, necessarily have wanted to make a podcast and we, we, you know, all three of us have seen both movies. Obviously Lindsay and I went to see them both together. I would not have thought about making a podcast about this movie, except that, um, watching them, I found that there was a lot of interesting things to say about them. It wasn't just.
00:05:32
Speaker
a kind of silly cultural moment where these this big contrast happened but both movies are very interesting in very different ways and so we thought that we would get together and have a conversation about them and here we are. Barbenheimer what's it called? Barbenheimer yeah I think you know there are variations but I think that's the one that stuck. You know before the end of this conversation I think it would be fun to
00:05:57
Speaker
They got sort of stuck together just because of the scheduling and whatever, but like, you know, that sort of primes my mind to kind of try to find ways that they fit together. So if there's a way to talk a little bit about that in here, that'd be fun too. Great. Yeah. Maybe we'll finish with that. Anything else about the kind of phenomena before we dive into the individual movies? I think.
00:06:21
Speaker
it sort of represented a major return to theaters to like pre pandemic times. That was sort of fun to be a part of that, like a part of the cultural moment, something that I'd missed for years, but like going to opening weekends to big movies or big directors I want to see and kind of like being part of a crowd, kind of having a shared experience was
00:06:41
Speaker
It had been a really long time and it was really fun to be a part of that.
Movie Marathon and Spoiler Alert
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah. We've been starting to see movies in the theater again. And, but this felt like we kind of wait until the crowds have dispersed, but this felt like we got to see it now. Very exciting. Yeah. We did three in three weeks. We did mission impossible Oppenheimer and Bobby and Oppenheimer and Bobby were both just packed.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah. So here's the structure of the, of the, this, uh, conversation, just so you all listening know, we're going to do, first we're going to talk about Bobby and then we're going to talk about Oppenheimer. And then at the end, we might try and find kind of some thematic connection. And within each movie, there is going to be, we're going to begin with a non-spoiler section. And then at some point I'm going to say, okay, now we're going into spoilers so that, uh,
00:07:33
Speaker
You don't have to listen to the spoilers if you haven't seen the movies yet. There'll be time codes in the description so you can jump to the relevant section. And I would say this is probably just going to be way more fun if you have seen the movies. So, so I would recommend go see the movies and come back and finish listening if you haven't already. But if you want some encouragement to see the movies, maybe you listen to the non-spoilers section. Hello.
00:07:58
Speaker
Editing Robbie here. The thing that original recording Robbie just said is not true. We did follow that structure for Bobby. So we stopped Bobby with a non-spoiler conversation and then we move into spoilers with Oppenheimer. We're just beginning with spoilers, two spoilers all the way through. Just a heads up. So we're going to start with the Bobby.
Love and Humor in the Barbie Movie
00:08:16
Speaker
No spoilers. What's up with Bobby? I want to hear you say some stuff first, Lindsay. What's up with Barbie? I loved it. I loved it. I loved Barbie.
00:08:25
Speaker
I know that it's very problematic movie. I know that. Yeah, I can't say anything about the end. We're non spoilers. But I just loved it. The
00:08:37
Speaker
How old was I when I was playing with Barbie, the seven-year-old in me that got to see Barbie as a person? Just delighted. And I have a huge crush on Ryan Gosling. Who doesn't? And I thought it was incredibly well cast. I thought it was super fun. I thought the set was amazing. I love the dance scenes. I love choreographed dance. I mean, that movie, the first half was for me.
00:09:02
Speaker
And the second half was incredibly problematic, which I'm sure you guys will go into great detail. And I also love that everyone was wearing pink at the movie theater. It was like you said at the beginning porch, that it was an event. It was an event. Women went to the movies. And I have not had a movie in my friend group that anyone has been talking about for years. I don't remember the last time any of my friends were talking about a movie. I only hear about movies from my hubs. So it was totally a cultural moment. And I was
00:09:32
Speaker
I have not laughed out loud at a movie like that in so long. I don't remember the last time I was laughing out loud so frequently. Yeah. I laughed out many times. There was like a great sense of humor to it. And it was something like just a fun playful silliness to it all.
00:09:48
Speaker
And it was just really enjoyable. I thought it was hysterically funny, uh, in places there was multiple jokes that I was cracking up very silly, very kind of, uh, astute observational bits about. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if it's, this is spoilers, but there's, there's like, there's like a man showing his girlfriend, uh, the godfather and.
00:10:12
Speaker
And we were in the middle of watching the godfather actually while when this happened so it was like there was stuff like that that was just like
00:10:19
Speaker
There was a guy learning a language on his little app that was like, I'm doing that all the time. So like, I felt seen by some of the things that they, where they were, uh, some of the things they were showing about man. And you both have so much of that Casa Mojo vibes going on and with your setups right now. Like if the podcast listeners could see, I am in, I'm in the Mojo Dojo Casa of, of Robbie and Portia's mic setup.
00:10:48
Speaker
Yes. All the humor about men basically fit. Yeah, totally. I agree. It was pretty funny moments where as a man, I sort of feel like, Oh, you know, but we'll talk a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Exploring Barbie's Thematic Depth
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah. Then, then the dark underbelly of Barbie was revealed and it was very uncomfortable for all of us that have any kind of appreciation for men. So before going into that, just to think of a good,
00:11:14
Speaker
on trade to like a non-spoiler section on my end would be to sort of think about my expectations going in. You know, there's like a lot of movies recently that are about like products, like video games or other things like Beanie Babies or whatever. And it's an interesting and weird moment. And like, you know, thinking that you could, you could just do something sort of like straightforwardly, what it is, I guess, or just tell the story about, you know, the,
00:11:36
Speaker
you know, the the Blackberry product or something. But, you know, because Barbie, I mean, I can't think of a time when there wasn't Barbie sort of discourse happening just growing up, you know, right at church. Barbies were basically forbidden, you know, from the little girls. I don't think my sister ever really had one. They were kind of on the bad toy list.
00:11:57
Speaker
And then in my college years, hearing the sort of like feminist anti Barbie discourse at that time. So, and then thinking like, well, there's no way you can kind of get away from that. And then knowing Greta Gerwig is doing it. The question is really going to be like how she goes about doing that. So I was coming in expecting there to be
00:12:20
Speaker
some thematic complexity, some unavoidable political commentary or messaging or some kind of point to it all. And I was kind of coming into the movie going like, well, let's see how they do it. Let's see how well or how poorly it kind of goes. And so I was definitely primed in that way going into it. I think it was unavoidable to be primed in that way. There's no way I can think of
00:12:46
Speaker
Barbie, the product without thinking about all the cultural discourse about the product itself before going in. So, you know, and it didn't disappoint in that way. Definitely tackled that stuff head on. Yeah. Like the Lego movie doesn't have the same, the same kind of charge, but I think you could have made a movie that was just, I mean, they've been making Bobby movies for years, right? Like a Cinderella and it's like, whatever, like there's a bunch of animated Bobby movies and they've been, you know,
00:13:15
Speaker
shitting out i don't know if they're any good but like you know just just in this kind of corporate you know toy merchandise way that people make media um that where i don't think they address that i mean i haven't seen any of them but my my sense is that it's not that's not what they're about they're just about the fantasy unexamined they're a they're a modernist version of the story sure so yeah but yes but you know you see greta goig and
00:13:42
Speaker
And you see, you know, the trailer that was the 2001 reference and you go, OK, this is going to be that was what got me excited. I saw the trailer and I was like, OK, let's go like this is a while. I think I just let's just get into spoilers. Yeah, I'm ready. So it sucked.
00:14:04
Speaker
I spoil it. It does upgrade and it sucks at the end. No, I don't know if it sucks.
Barbie's Plot and Character Development
00:14:10
Speaker
So the plot, I'm just going to do the very brief overview of the plot. If you've seen it, you know, and if you haven't, you should not be listening because you can see it.
00:14:20
Speaker
So, you know, Bobby's in Bobby world and everything's, you know, the mundane world, which is home on the world, which is this kind of magical utopic feminist paradise, where all the Barbies are just having a grand old time doing what they're doing. And then the Kens are kind of a little bit miserable and a little bit like sidekicks that don't really know what they're doing with their lives.
00:14:40
Speaker
And then central character, Bobby, Margot Roby starts to... Well, what happens is her heels touch the ground, which is fucking brilliant. I mean, the thing where she takes off her shoes and she's still in the high heel position around the tiptoes is hilarious. And then her heels touch the ground, which is this kind of like... And everybody's horrified now, like, your heels touch the ground.
00:15:03
Speaker
And so this kind of leads her into, you know, to go into the other world. And the other world is kind of our everyday, regular human world. And so she and Ken go to the human world to find the person that's playing with Barbie, who's obviously having some problems, which is why Barbie is becoming, you know, whatever is having her own problems, malfunctioning, right? malfunctioning. And the other thing she's having is like, she's having kind of thoughts of death, right, which is the other very funny
00:15:33
Speaker
gag. The Barbies. So funny. Anyone ever think about death in the middle of like this big dance number? Like this is like needle scratch and everybody's staring at her like, what are you talking about? Which, you know, this all is like kind of like hitting your thirties. It's kind of like in your twenties, you're beautiful and your body works and you don't think about death. And then in your thirties, some things start to, you know, just slightly head south and you start thinking about death.
00:15:56
Speaker
So there's something like that, right? But so then she goes into the real world to try and find the person who's playing with her. There's some subplot about Mattel as a company, which is in there and it just doesn't make sense and it's annoying and it's, I just don't, you know, but that's also in there. Will Ferrell is just always very funny, but it's correct.
00:16:15
Speaker
A lot of sense. And so while she's searching for the, the, the person that's playing with her can discovers the patriarchy and discovers that in the real world men are in charge. And then that's very funny. And he has a whole.
00:16:30
Speaker
sequence where he's running around kind of enjoying or trying to reap the benefits of patriarchy and then everybody goes back to Barbie World and they oh they find that this mother and daughter who are the ones playing with Barbie we think it's the daughter and the daughter hates Barbie and she kind of has a diatribe about it we go back to Barbie World Ken has instituted the patriarchy brought it back suddenly the all of the Ken's are in charge
00:16:59
Speaker
Is that what they call a kendo? The kendo, yeah. And they've kind of thrown the bobbies out of their houses and instituted the mojo. What's it called? The kasa?
00:17:08
Speaker
So anyway, and so, you know, and it's this kind of ridiculous whatever these men kind of having a good time and doing the patriarchy. And so this is, you know, the act to like crisis is, oh, no, like the patriarchy is here and the men are going to do this vote. And there's like some political thing where the men are going to overthrow the women. Political leaders and all the Barbies have become like zombie sort of like
00:17:34
Speaker
That's nice by the patriarchy. That's right the cans of convinced all the Barbies that the page right good idea Yeah, and so all of the Barbies are kind of yeah are in this like subservient kind of you know Whatever the MRA version of what men want women to look like right? Yeah, and yeah, I know you're so smart, and I'm so dumb and like all of that right and
00:17:58
Speaker
And so then there's like a little rebel cadre of Barbies, including, uh, we had Bobby, it's very funny, uh, Kate McKinnon, like as her hair has been colored in with felt tips and her legs have been split open and stuff. And they kind of, they hatch a plan and the plan is, what's the plan? The plan is just to remind all the brainwashed Barbies that they're, you know, that they're queens and that they, they're boss bitches and that they're, they're in charge.
00:18:24
Speaker
And so they do that, they overthrow the cans and then Ken has this moment of like main Ken, like Ryan Gosling Ken has this moment of realizing that he is Kenneth, which is also very funny. And, you know, and kind of having a little bit of like.
00:18:43
Speaker
You know an epiphany and he was like basing all his life around Bobby and then he was and then he did this patriarchy thing which is anti-bobby and that really there's something in between which is not even in relationship to Bobby but is just like about him right which is like a kind of a nice arc and it's like the kind of after you get a lot of movies and a little bit hinting at where my critics of the plot.
00:19:03
Speaker
Coming here and then Bobby and so then you know that and then the patriarchy is overthrown the matriarchy is reinstated the president Bobby says that the basically we're not going to try to do some kind of unification or integration of these two things and
00:19:21
Speaker
try and find a place for the kansas society they will go back to their original place and everything will continue as it was at the beginning uh and then regular barbie decides for reasons which are in no way clear and are cheaply motivated by this sequence of kind of babies and and children playing and then people getting old and dying uh two she's she's kind of decides that she wants to be human
00:19:47
Speaker
And so then she goes to the human world and becomes a human for no reason at all. Uh, and then the, you know, and then there's this great punch line where she goes to the gynecologist. We think if she's applying for a job and she's going to get it and it's going to be great, but really she's going to the gynecologist and it's like, right. Being a human is a pain in the ass. You have to go to the gynecologist. Um,
00:20:07
Speaker
So that's the plot, more or less anything like super important that I missed there before I get into my complaints. Well, I think the plot, one of the funny parts in the plot at the end, which was the it wasn't totally. I think you're a little bit off. It wasn't totally. We're just going to fully restore the way it was before. It's like we're going to kind of go back to the whatever Barbie land as dominated by the Barbies.
00:20:31
Speaker
And we're going to like, let the Ken's do a little bit more something, right? Like, but they can't be on the Supreme court. You know, there's a little joke in there. It's like, but they can be like mid-level judges or something. And you're just like, okay, a little, a little kinda, you know, dig at current events in there, but yeah, it's not fully.
00:20:48
Speaker
That's right. It's not, but it's not fully integrated either. It's not like, Oh, we're a world of equals. It's sort of like Ken is like, Oh, I guess I don't need to obsess about Barbie. I can like, I can be enough and not feel like the only way my life has meaning is if Barbie looks in my direction, you know? That's right. That's so you're right. It's, it's, it's kind of 95% back to where it was with just like a little bit of like, ah, okay. Maybe we need to make a little bit of room.
00:21:14
Speaker
You know, which is clearly a comment, right? Like on, and there's a, there's a line earlier on where, uh, Ken's trying to get a job. And so this is kind of getting into politics. I do want to do my story kind of analysis first, but so maybe we'll come back to this. So let me just do the story part and then, and then, uh, before we get into more of the politics. So.
00:21:34
Speaker
My main complaint, and I thought it was brilliant. Like I was joking when I said it stuck. I think, I feel very mixed about it. I think it's brilliant and deeply flawed. That's how I feel about it. Brilliant and deeply flawed. And so, you know, we've talked a lot about the brilliance and Lindsay, I think you kind of ran down very well, the things that are great about it. And I agree with you about all the things that are great about it. Problem, my main problem with it is the plot. And my problem with the plot is that they set up.
00:22:02
Speaker
this thematic thing, which is that it's about Barbie's wrestling with mortality, essentially, right? And finitude and limitation and humanity, right? She's perfect, but then she falls from perfection. And so the story starts out being about that, and she goes off to try and figure out what's going on.
00:22:29
Speaker
and that's you know but then her antagonist and the forces of antagonism are not about that like if ken had been the if if ken as the villain right ken's the villain of the antagonist right if ken had been
00:22:47
Speaker
criticizing Barbie for her flaws. Like, what? Oh, this is gross. Your heels are on the floor. You have cellulite. Why are you bumming everyone out talking about death? Right. That is an appropriate antagonist for the thematic arc of the main character. Right. Like if what the main character is about is reckoning with limitation and and humanity versus right. Like that's the theme that set up is perfection versus humanity.
00:23:12
Speaker
And, and but then this other whole thing comes in, which is about patriarchy, and about, you know, men versus women, it's more of the sexist stuff. And that becomes what the movie is about. And the climate, the act to, like,
00:23:31
Speaker
at the kind of bottom of act two is about the men, the patriarchy have come in. And then the resolution, the big battle is about the women, the Bobby's kind of unbrainwashing themselves and casting the men out and reclaiming their thing. So it's like, it starts off being a story about one thing and it finishes being a story about something else. And Bobby has nothing to do with that second story.
00:23:55
Speaker
Bobby doesn't really care about the patriarchy. She doesn't really care about the matriarchy. And then it finishes with Bobby, like, completing her arc, which is she decides to become human.
Plot vs. Story Debate
00:24:07
Speaker
But it's like I said, you know, it's completely unmotivated, like there's not like,
00:24:12
Speaker
we don't see why she would make that choice in any real way. It's not that she had a battle with the antagonist and that that came to this kind of resolution or this conclusion. The writers just go, well, let's just put some babies crying and old people and everyone in the audience will weep and then we'll be like, yeah, being human is great. And then she'll choose to be human. And so her story is weak and Ken's story,
00:24:40
Speaker
Is strong like can stories so much stronger right like can you know as as the antagonist like he has this arc. That makes sense that's the matically connected right like I you know I already described it but like he starts off being kind of bummed out about Bobby world and like all he wants is Bobby but she's kind of ignoring him it's not that into him.
00:25:00
Speaker
And then he realizes like, Oh, he fuck her. I'm just gonna do my own thing. And that's this kind of, you know, counter thing. And then he it's thesis synthesis. How do you say see this antithesis and synthesis. And then he has a synthesis, which is like, both of those are reactive to Bobby. And actually, what's most important is that I connect myself. That's a that story, like,
00:25:21
Speaker
She's joined up from beginning to end. And so I just think it was confused and weak about that. So that is my biggest critique. I think overall, you're right. There isn't a logic to the plot that makes any sense from one thing to the next. It sort of switch for a little brief bit. The Mattel executives are are the bad guys for no apparent reason. And then and then at the at the end, you're totally right. Like her
00:25:50
Speaker
her desire to be a real girl is or go back to the real world is sort of unmotivated. She doesn't even have a good time. I was, I was kind of expecting like, Oh, with the, the plot of the, like, Oh, Barbie's going to the regular world. And now it's going to get really interesting.
00:26:04
Speaker
And it really didn't, it was just a several gags. And then they just go back to Barbie land. And actually the plot that is important is almost all in Barbie land. So that sort of leaves her with no clear motivation to want to become a real girl, I guess. I mean, I suppose with the exception of the mom character sort of saying like, Hey, why can't we have like a normal Barbie or the regular Barbie? You know, and I think there is something about
00:26:29
Speaker
Barbie wanting to like choose a mortal life. Cause it's just limited. I guess you're sort of left with like very sort of abstract, like philosophical reasoning. You know, it's like, okay, it's like the, you know, the, the immortal person choosing to, I was reminded of like live Tyler in the Lord of the rings, like her, our wins. Like I just got to choose a mortal life, but she's doing it for love. And Barbie's not doing it for any reason, right?
Feminism and Patriarchy in Barbie
00:26:51
Speaker
She's just wanting to do it to be real.
00:26:54
Speaker
Right. That big character in Lord of the Rings that's barely in it. Right. It's like super like a third tier character in the story is way better motivated and tells that exact same story in like 10 minutes of screen time. Right. Yeah. But you know. Yeah. My pushback a little bit would be
00:27:13
Speaker
So I've changed my opinions about this movie in several different ways, and I'm really surprised at how stimulating it's been for me to think about in many different phases and angles. But one of them was this plot one.
00:27:26
Speaker
I just let go of like, okay, the plot. I mean, some movies are about the plot and some movies that are sort of setting up like the logic of the plot. And it needs to make sense according to the internal rules of it. Like, like a inception and then violates its own rules. Like I'm like, okay, that doesn't work. Right? Cause it's, it's sort of selling you this idea that there's a plot logic, but like this really just is
00:27:50
Speaker
It's a series of skits almost. It really is like playing with Barbies, right? Like, Oh, now Barbie's going to whatever. And now we're just going to Barbie's going to do this now. And then it's like, okay, we're going to get on the rocket ship and now we're going to go over here. We're going to get on the, yeah. Like really use all these vehicles.
00:28:09
Speaker
In the end, it kind of doesn't really matter that much. I mean, I get that it doesn't make the plot good, right? But like if I just sort of accept that this movie is not really a plot movie, you know, and then just say, OK, cool. Like for stories that don't really care that much about plot. Is it fun? And it's sort of like, OK, then it's just like a scary a series of skits where those skits are thematic and, you know, they are sort of barely hanging together with any kind of plot logic between them.
00:28:38
Speaker
And it works. But because the plot starts going off, the movie starts going off the rails. The movie really starts going downhill as they get, as the plot gets weaker and weaker. Like the second half was so much less enjoyable than the first half for me. I just, you know, wasn't laughing out loud. I was like, Oh God, Barbie's sad. Like the moment that it really turned for me was when Amanda Ferreira, the mom does her monologue. I was like, Oh no.
00:29:07
Speaker
Oh, no, this is so not good. This is not a good monologue. And then they're reprogramming the Barbies and then
00:29:17
Speaker
And I didn't realize the Mattel thing was so off, but now it feels so off. When I think about the movie and I think about the Mattel plot line, that is so forced and so weird. And we were in Barbie World and it was funny and then it got, it just, I think the plot going off the rails makes the second half of the movie is just so problematic. Yes, I agree.
00:29:41
Speaker
Just to say, but I want to come back to the monologue because I think the monologue is a good launching point for the political side of things. But yeah, the Mattel stuff, like the problem with the Mattel stuff is they set up these rules, which is that in Barbie land, everybody's weird and cartoonish. And then there's a real world and we go to the real world, but then the main people we interact with in the real world are these cartoonish Mattel guys that are not like, it would have been so much more interesting if the Mattel guys had been
00:30:08
Speaker
real Mattel, if they were gonna go to Mattel, it should have just been like really normal, real life people. And the cartoonish people are in the Barbie world and in the real world, they're realistic. I mean, I think just skip the Mattel pod entirely, but the fact that they, it just broke the rules that Mattel was also the cartoonish people. That's true, because when they're going down Venice Beach, you get the really creepy feeling of like, oh gosh, Barbie Land was fun.
00:30:33
Speaker
And this world is scary and you feel the difference. And that's the best part of the movie is the kind of 10 minutes where they're just in the real world, just the fish out of water thing. Like that definitely works the best. And they definitely should have done more of that. And they just didn't. And instead they put her back into when she's in Mattel world, she's not a fish out of water. Like everybody is as weird as her.
00:30:59
Speaker
Right. And then porch is right that they go back so fast, like they do. And then they're like back on the rocket ship back and you're like, wait, we're already going back and it's not hard to go back. This is bizarre. Right. Right. And so and to say about the plot, like I agree that I think it the movie loses energy is the plot.
00:31:17
Speaker
as we lose the thread that we started with. And what I would say actually to this kind of thing you said is I want to make a distinction between plot and story. Like I actually think that it doesn't really, not every movie needs a plot and you know and I think you
00:31:33
Speaker
If Inception has problems, Inception has problems with the plot. Let's not get into that, but that's a plot problem. But story is different. And I'm not that interested in watching a movie that doesn't have a story. Because for me, story is the way that a movie says something.
00:31:55
Speaker
and this movie wanted to say something and it failed to say it with its story and when that happens instead it tries to put what it's saying directly in the mouths of the characters and that just feels like you're being beat over the head and it's dumb and it's obnoxious and it's patronizing and so then we come to the monologue where rather than saying that
00:32:17
Speaker
with the story, they put this obnoxious monologue in the mouth of the mom character. And I want to say something about the monologue, and I'm actually going to insert a clip here and hope I don't get in trouble because it reminded me so much. So Michelle Wolf at the correspondence dinner
00:32:34
Speaker
When Trump's gone just like that it was that right like so Trump got selected and Michelle with this comedian That has a monologue of the correspondent the White House correspondence dinner. That's about it's the same monologue But it's it's one of the greatest fucking pieces of performance that's ever been recorded. It's just like
00:32:55
Speaker
Hello. Editing Robbie here. A correction. It's not from the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Michelle Wolf did do a famous speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner where she kind of taught Trump and co-apart. The monologue that we're referring to in the conversation is not from that. It's from her HBO special, Nice Lady. So we were confused about that. I'm going to play a short clip from that now. I think it's absolutely brilliant. You should go watch the whole thing on HBO, Nice Lady. Here is a brief clip of Michelle Wolf.
00:33:24
Speaker
All is not good. And even if we do try to have it all, even if a woman out there definitely wants it all, we've put up too many obstacles in your way to make it possible. It's like, oh, congratulations. You're having a baby? Great. Couple of things. We're going to need you to get that car accident of a body back to work as soon as possible because this is America and we don't think you need time to recover. Also, you should breastfeed. It's what's best for the baby. But don't do it in public, you pig. Do it in the old janitor's closet underneath the bridge with the rest of the breastfeeding trolls.
00:33:54
Speaker
And don't have to take time off from work when your kids are sick. Well, think you're not dedicated. Also, why are you such a bad mom? By the way, your salary is just enough to cover the cost of child care. And we know you're exhausted. You don't really know who you are anymore. You're trying to balance your whole life and your new life. But quick, go have sex with your husband. He's about to leave. He doesn't understand what you're going through. Quick, go now. And sweetie, smile.
00:34:24
Speaker
It's spectacular. It makes me cry. I mean, every time I watch it, it's just like it's exhilarating. It's hilarious. It's cutting and it has this mic drop ending that just makes you go.
00:34:36
Speaker
Like it's so fucking good. And then you get the Bobby monologue. That is just like, it's, it's trying to do the same thing to women. I mean, it's supposed to be empowering and it's totally insulting. I'm like, do you like, this is supposed to represent who I am in my struggle. You are not transmitting the actual struggle of being a woman in a man's world. Like.
00:35:01
Speaker
It's such a letdown. I was so disappointed. I thought it was so crap. I'm glad you're saying that. I mean, I, I can imagine some women really resonating with it. I mean, I see it on social media, like who are just repeating what they're hearing, but not women who are actually like feeling what the real thing is. Like it was so like, it was like what women are supposed to think. It's like the thing that is being fed. I just can't believe that that's like, we're still putting that out there in this supposed to be like female empowerment movie.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And Greta Gerwig, come on. Like you, you know how to re you know, how to like, infuse things with something else. There's like an Instagram stupid feminist, not feminist monologue. Yeah. There is a, there is a version that just is going to maybe speak more broadly. Maybe here's where we get into a little bit of trouble.
00:35:54
Speaker
There's a version of the story when you're trying to create social activism, right? And there's a way that some of the...
00:36:03
Speaker
the stories or the themes or the things that people say are sort of simplified and they don't really capture all the nuance, but it really is sort of like, it's like a banner. It gets kind of reduced down to a hashtag sometimes like hashtag me too. And there's power in sort of consolidating it. You know what I mean? Like, like or whatever, like, and you're just like, okay, that's the whole thing. Right. Or it's, you know, it's something we can kind of unify behind.
00:36:26
Speaker
But in the end, when it sort of stays that way, right, and it doesn't get fully like unpacked, it becomes
00:36:36
Speaker
it can become, I should say, for some people, like a self-perpetuating victim. It's like, well, you know, when it comes to battle of the sexes or feminism and this kind of thing, like my way of putting it, like I hear what you're saying, like it's, it sounds disempowering to women. I'm like, yeah, I agree to me. I think of it as like,
00:36:57
Speaker
there's a simplistic version of this kind of historically oppressive patriarchy, which I think just gives men too much credit, which is like, you know, we weren't really that smart enough to like manipulate
00:37:11
Speaker
everything in the whole world, two hour advantage. Like we just put one over. I'm like all the women for like thousands of years. Like we got them. You know what I mean? It's like, and they, they, they do actually mock this in the movie a little bit where Ryan Gosling is kind of cruising around going like, cool, give me a job. Cause I'm a man.
Barbie's Decision and Missed Opportunities
00:37:29
Speaker
And like the doctor woman is like, no, you know? So, so there is, I don't think Greta Gerwig was not aware that she was kind of like poking a little bit at that cartoonish version of the patriarchy.
00:37:41
Speaker
is like, okay, it's not really that simple, you know, but, you know, Robbie pointed out, you pointed out to me and we talked about it, like, they kind of back that out when he talks to the other guy. He's like, can you do the patriarchy wrong? And yeah, exactly. Like he, yeah. So the, and there's also a problem with the doctor scene where he goes to the hospital and he's trying to be a doctor and it's very funny. And this woman's like, well, you know, you can't be a doctor. You can teach a degree or whatever, you know,
00:38:06
Speaker
And then he says, well, let me speak to a doctor, which is this classic trope, right? Like, you know, there's even like a riddle that's like, you know, where the gag is the doctor was a woman, right? And it's like this classic trope of like, men assuming that women can't be doctors, right? Or can't be in those kind of professions.
00:38:24
Speaker
But it doesn't make sense for Ken, because Ken's lived his whole life in Barbie World, where all of the doctors were women. So like, you know, there's no coherence there, right? Like Ken would assume that the women are the doctors and that the men are something else. Because the women have all the professions in Barbie Land. In Barbie Land, the men don't do anything. Yeah, they beach, which is very funny. I beach.
00:38:45
Speaker
Then he goes to another man. He's like, you're not doing patriarchy very well. And the guy's like, no, we are. We just had to get a little bit more sophisticated, which I think is, you know, that the ending is the, is the Bobby saying, well, we're going to do matriarchy. We're just going to get a little bit more sophisticated, right? We're just going to, this is going to be an exact mirror of, of the, of the real world. But just to say like, I, you know, you kind of talked about like the nuance, right? Like this, this kind of feminism and the.
00:39:12
Speaker
The war of the sexes or however you want to frame it, but like this the thing that it thematically.
00:39:19
Speaker
turns towards halfway through and that this is such a potentially nuanced thing. There's so many interesting and powerful things to say about this. And the monologue doesn't do it. And you're kind of saying like, well, you know, sometimes this gets reduced to a slogan or a catchphrase or whatever. But I just want to come back to this point about like the way that you do nuance in a movie is not by having the characters say more nuanced things. It's by having the story.
00:39:45
Speaker
be more nuanced is by having the different characters that represent different uh points on the kind of thematic spectrum each have a point and so that's how you do nuance in a story and but they didn't even start telling that story until halfway through and they never really started so it's like again i think if if they wanted to say something about this patriarchy and and feminism
00:40:12
Speaker
There's a lot to be said about it, but you have to tell that story. So I'm going to push back here, I think. Like I'm not totally a hundred percent behind what I'm going to say, but I'm going to, you know, for the sake of like making this exciting. Let's see. So the question to me is like, if, if I let go of like overall plot coherence, so I'm kind of in postmodern storytelling, like, okay, that doesn't matter. And it's like a Barbie, you know, where you can kind of like, okay, now, now here's Ken, who's like, let me talk to a doctor.
00:40:41
Speaker
Now here's again, you're in patriarchy all wrong. It sort of doesn't matter that like, that's the same Ken or like hit the logic of his experience makes any sense between the two. What matters is it like we're going to like,
00:40:53
Speaker
impressionistically, like dab a little situation that gives you some facet of this nuance, right? And the question is, does it, when it's said and done, all kind of stack up to something where the, where the nuance is conveyed overall. And I would say it kind of is. I mean, if I, I talked to my sister, I'm like, Hey, how was that bar move for you? She's like, it was good. I'm like, what did you think the message was? Well, it's kind of like, you know, like,
00:41:15
Speaker
much patriarchy bad, you know, too much matriarchy bad. And you know, we got to like find a happy middle and I'm like, okay, well, if it works for regular audiences that like the sum total of the, like it's nuanced actually does get through, through a series of sketches that like in and of themselves
00:41:32
Speaker
are coherent, but none of them sort of make a logical coherent plot overall. It's fine. It sort of works as a vehicle for that theme. But I would say your sister is exhibiting the classic Porcelli family tendency of bringing something to the movie that is not in the movie.
00:41:51
Speaker
Let's take my sister out of it for a second. Just say like, if, if she's an avatar for an audience that kind of goes like, Hey, in the end, they are saying something kind of nuanced here. And you know, if I plug into the online discourse, there definitely is that voice out there, which is kind of like, no, it's not this man hating thing because XYZ reason. And you know, they are kind of criticizing this.
00:42:14
Speaker
Barbieland, whatever you want to call it, authoritarian, fascistic world, right? It's criticizing that, right? Like that's not in the movie, right? Like the closest that comes to criticizing that stuff in the movie is the teenage girl has this kind of rant about how Bobby is like the Pope feminism back by 50 years and she's worse than Hitler or whatever. Like she's a fascist anyway.
00:42:38
Speaker
Right. And and you can read that as, oh, this girl is kind of being hyperbolic, you know, that she's and that she softens a little like, like, oh, that critique is hyperbolic and it's too far. And she softens a little bit later on. And and then she's on board with Barbie and realizes that Barbie's cool. Right. So the closest you get to any kind of critique
00:43:06
Speaker
Well, I don't even know, but none of that's a critique of Bobby Land. Like, what's the actual – I guess that would be it, right? Sorry, I confused myself. So if you take her literally, then there's a critique of Bobby Land in there. They're like, oh, this is – put feminism back for years and you're a fascist.
00:43:23
Speaker
But she, by the end of the, again, story, by the end of the movie, she's on board with Bobby Lynch. She's helping the Barbies deprogram and she's cheering on. And there's nothing in the movie that shows that there's anything wrong with the matriarchy. Like the utopic feminist matriarchy in the movie is just coded as being the good thing.
00:43:50
Speaker
but she does leave she does leave that matrix because she wants to be real right but they don't if she yeah and i said like if she said this matriarchy is not working for me like oh when the president says no the kens can't be on supreme right right and barbie goes wait a second.
00:44:10
Speaker
You guys are missing the point here. Shit, I'm going to have to go to the real world where at least there's a chance of change and evolution and growth because this shit. But that's not in the movie. In the movie, the reason she goes to the real world is because of a montage of babies and old people. Like it's not. So again, like if you if you want to tell that story, you got to put it in the movie. Well, they kind of told now I'm kind of like, maybe they did tell a story. I mean, you're talking me into an opposite opinion, actually.
00:44:40
Speaker
I'm like, well, she did kind of like she helped her sisters. It's all about sisters, right? It's all about females working together. And then she helps the sisters reestablish the matriarchy. And then she wants to go with these real people to the real world where she felt things because she liked feeling things.
00:44:58
Speaker
And then I'm like, well, maybe that is a good message for women because we're taught like, oh, we should look like Barbie and we're playing with these Barbies and like, we should have a boyfriend like Ken and we need to look like this blonde woman and this blonde guy needs to be our boyfriend. And then they go to the real world and feel all of these things and dismantle everything. And then she chooses the real world, which I think now that I think about it, that's what I wanted the movie to be about. I wanted the movie to be about like,
00:45:25
Speaker
my childhood was right and like playing with Barbies was good and the growth of my life is about not being perfect and not being about in the beauty standards and not having the perfect boyfriend and being with my sisters.
00:45:41
Speaker
So they should have told that story. That's a great story. The story you just described is an amazing story. It started out, the movie started out being that story. I was very excited to experience that story. They didn't finish telling that story. They, they, yeah. You have, you have high standards, Robbie, and I respect your high standards and like, I appreciate it. And in this,
00:46:02
Speaker
It's like I'm of two minds. You know, on the one hand, I'm on board with your thing, right? Like I'm like, yeah, like it is incoherent. And in a way they don't like the story itself does not demonstrate
00:46:14
Speaker
these takeaways that we're talking about in a clean way or in a clear way or whatever. I'm like, it does not add up. But, and I think this is the thing where I kind of, this is my second point of view is like, it ends up working. It ends up being that that is the takeaway for a huge amount of the audience. Like the thing that Lindsay just said ends up being people, the women, especially kind of like walk away from me going like,
00:46:44
Speaker
yay, sisterhood and yay, playing with Barbies was great and yay, I gotta be a real woman and not a Barbie woman and the real world and real feelings are important and
00:46:55
Speaker
there was enough of that sort of in a illogical, you might say, but who cares? It doesn't have to be logical, right? I mean, who doesn't need to be logical. It doesn't, it's just in your, you're like, is it really in there? I'm like, I think it's, if there's a huge population of people that watch that thing and they come away with that thing, you know, it didn't, it didn't successfully create that thing for you, Robbie.
00:47:21
Speaker
No, I'm gonna go ahead of that. I don't care if it successfully created, like... It successfully created it for a lot of people. It did work. It worked. Yeah, but, you know, a lot of things work for a lot of people. Fast X Furious works for a lot of people. Sure. All I'm saying is this is about robbing your standards. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we're doing our criticism here, right? So I have, I have critiques and it worked for a lot of people. It's not a robot to any of my critiques, even if it did.
00:47:49
Speaker
Did it work for a lot of people? I don't even know. I have one friend that saw it and she said, it was okay. I mean, it made a billion dollars. It did. It did work for, it did work. It worked. It entertained a lot of people and a lot of people saw it and a lot of people were happy about it. It's such a bummer. You're going to say more things, Porch, but it's such a bummer that they couldn't have just gotten one more thing right about that movie, which is just to have a little more love for the Ken at the end.
00:48:19
Speaker
Like really can't what can't we be strong sister women going to the kind of colleges and being hot and like can't we also love the men and give them a Casa mojo dojo and like
00:48:34
Speaker
like the the last like it we are all so in love with Ryan Gosling throughout the entire movie through thick and thin like no matter what he does we all love him he's there is no wrong note of Ryan Gosling in that movie and really Margot Robbie doesn't see that just for like a minute at the end like a little bit deeper love
00:48:52
Speaker
It doesn't it doesn't not work and it is so uninspiring to women who do want to be in healthy relationships with men I don't know why we can't have a healthy relationship with a man in a movie I don't know when this became this thing that like is not allowed in movies anymore, but it's weird this I totally agree with this idea that And I don't I think they couldn't do it like I mean that would be kind of cool Maybe there's some point in the future where we can have the Barbie movie that is about
00:49:20
Speaker
the healthy integration of masculine and feminine. Cause like, there's a, you know, the majority of the population, it's not everybody, but like, yeah, like, you know, feminine females and masculine males that want to have like a healthy, positive, you know, man, woman, intimate partnership.
00:49:36
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. In this movie, it is not about that. And you can't even make it about that. And it, right. And they didn't even give them one seat in the government. Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah. It wouldn't be what they're tracking. Yes. Totally. But in a weird roundabout way, right? Like we all love Ken.
00:49:57
Speaker
It's sort of, some people are sort of saying like, it's accidentally conservative. This is another sort of theme out there in the discourse where I'm like, and I think it's a little bit of a stretch, but the accidental conservatism would be something like, Hey, when, when
00:50:11
Speaker
When Ken tries to do the like simplistic version of the patriarchy, it actually doesn't work, right? Ken's development as a man is the more interesting plot line. And then in the end, Margot Robbie's decision is I want to go be a real woman. And the thing that defines that is her reproductive system, right? Like she is choosing to go into the real world and like
00:50:33
Speaker
make babies and grow old, right? Like that's what she wants to do. And like, and all the conservatives are like, it's a secretly conservative movie right on Greta Gurman. I don't think she was trying to do that, but the funny thing in all of her machinations to do what she was trying to do, she sort of accidentally did that. Like, I think it's kind of in there. It reveals the confusion of the culture right now. It reveals so much that this incredibly brilliant director
00:51:02
Speaker
who is a very sophisticated, I don't know how old she is, I think she's like women in her late 30s. And that all of these kind of roundabout things that we're talking about, like this is an example of what's going on. It's confused, everybody's confused.
Mattel's Influence and Cultural Confusion
00:51:19
Speaker
Yes. That's great. That's such a great note to end and move on to Oppenheimer, except there's one more topic that we just need to at least touch on, but I do, but I love that analysis, Linz. I think that's right. Yep. It's an expression of how deeply confused we are.
00:51:36
Speaker
So the last piece I want to talk about just briefly is corporate whitewashing. I thought you were going to say how hot Margot Robbie is. No, I'm not going to say that. But you know, we can take that as red. You know, it's funny because you said like Ryan Gosselin was no perfect and Margot Robbie is also no perfect. So why aren't we raving about her in the same way? Because her story wasn't as good.
00:52:00
Speaker
She didn't have perfect notes. Her acting was off. It was patchy. Really? Oh yeah. She didn't sell it like Ryan Gosling. She was not totally Barbie. Interesting. I didn't have that experience. I think she's one of the most beautiful women out there right now. There were a couple of moments where I knew it was Margot Robbie, whereas Ryan Gosling was Ken. Okay.
00:52:21
Speaker
I have very high standards about acting. I have such high standards. That's right. And you know, Barbie. I'm curious if anyone agrees with me. Maybe not. And Barbie and I go way back. So maybe that's part of it, is you have a deeper sense of Barbie than we do. But yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
This is worth touching on for sure. Yeah, so just that like, okay, even so let's say that this is this kind of progressive feminist movie, let's say it succeeded, right? Port your argument that like, for a lot of people, it, you know, it really worked and kind of told this like empowering message for women that they took away and you know, whatever.
00:52:56
Speaker
um even if it did all of that it did it you know at the at the behest of the of a corporate overlord whose only interest is selling as many pieces of plastic as he can or as they can yes um and trying to you know uh rehabilitate the image of this toy that has become increasingly
00:53:20
Speaker
understood as problematic over the years. And so there's also this sense of like, wait, this isn't some progressive, like from a capitalist, you know, whatever critique point of view, this is totally gross. It's like, it's just like this gross.
00:53:37
Speaker
exercise in like spending you know two hundred million dollars on a commercial that nets your billion dollars just on the commercial plus you know lindsey i'm a reveal something about you now like lindsey after we finished watching the movie went and bought bought two barbies i was just trying to find it to show you guys the barbies that i bought after watching the movie
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm sure you are far from alone in that, right? Like many, many bobbies have been sold. Although hiding it from all of my heavy friends. Holy shit. They will not, I can't show them to any of the toddlers. Just to kind of throw that in there as well. Yeah. Such a weird, such a weird result of that movie. I don't think it's a weird result. So, you know, I think whether they could have pulled that same thing off without depicting the Mattel executives,
00:54:25
Speaker
probably, you know, like that's sort of what they were there for. They were, they were there where Mattel is basically saying like, Hey, we're, we're in on this joke. And yes, no matter what happens in this plot line, we're going to monetize whatever we're going to monetize the mojo dojo Casa house. So it doesn't really matter. This is selling like you did like there. And what's funny about that, you know, if you think about like, you could
00:54:47
Speaker
One view of this movie, which I also have seen, which I don't know if it totally works is like you could say this is a lefty critique of corporate sort of woke. Washing or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Like it's it's woke capitalism and this is what they do, right? They are going to pretend to be socially progressive so that you buy their product. It doesn't really matter that they aren't socially progressive, right? Like
00:55:15
Speaker
And they're in a way, it's like actually sort of mock the whole movie is mocking that. Right. And in a way, like whether the movie does mock it, like, and it also does it at the same time, which in some sense you could say is fucking genius. Like, I mean, it's really brilliant.
00:55:34
Speaker
I mean, from a marketing commercial point of view, it's brilliant. And the marketing leading up to the movie was extraordinary. I mean, this is incredible. I have a friend who's just talking about this that like everywhere she turned, there was like Barbie stuff.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yeah, I like leading up. So from a branding point of view, the whole exercise is a masterpiece. Yes, totally worked. Yeah, it's just like, do we want to encourage that kind of we want to crush?
Transition to Oppenheimer Discussion
00:56:02
Speaker
Well, they tried it. So I watched this documentary with its on Hulu right now called something tiny shoulders, which is also Mattel doing
00:56:10
Speaker
a documentary about some of these very, it's all women. It's all these progressive women trying to figure out how to make, to keep Barbie relevant. And that's when they kind of changed some of the body shapes. They do multiple body shapes. And like the movie sort of is depicting them kind of pulling it off. Like they get some good press at that time, but like, you know, it was weak. I mean, I was not aware of the multiple shaped body.
00:56:34
Speaker
Barbies like from five years ago, you're not the target audience. No, totally. But what I'm saying is like, if, if Mattel is trying to like recuperate something by doing something like making a documentary about, you know, the, the Barbie, the director of Barbie, who's this lesbian woman trying to like evolve Barbie in a progressive direction and kind of succeeding sort of like that versus
00:57:00
Speaker
what Greta Gerwig and Marco Robbie just did for the brand. This is way more successful than what they did. Right. Like, but it's not like they haven't been trying, right? It's sort of, this is another iteration of it. All right. Oppenheimer. I'm ready, bro. I hope we have less to say about switching years. I have less to say about it. Um, which is, it's interesting, right? That it's like, this is the serious grownup movie about historical whatever. And, and I definitely, it doesn't have quite as much cultural
00:57:31
Speaker
Maybe I'm the one who has a lot to say about this. I fucking love it. I'm just going to say, I'm going to change the plan. I know earlier we said there was going to be a spoiler section, a non-spoiler section. That just felt really awkward to me doing the Barbie one. I think for Oppenheimer, it's going to be spoiled. Yes, go see it. It's really good. Go see it. Go see it, and this is going to be spoiled all the way. It's also harder to spoil because it's history, although there was no funny stuff. You know the middle anyway.
00:58:00
Speaker
So Oppenheimer, do you want to do a kind of brief recap? Yeah, yeah. I'll recap Oppenheimer. Well, you know, it's about this guy. The name was Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer's Historical Narrative
00:58:09
Speaker
He's a physicist and he is famous infamous for being the director of the Manhattan Project, which created
00:58:16
Speaker
the atomic bomb in World War II. And he did that out in New Mexico at a place called Los Alamos, which happened to be just a favorite place from his childhood. And that arguably changed history. It's sort of like the birth of the atomic age, the birth of the bomb, and the bomb sort of looms as this thing that we don't even know life without the bomb existing, this kind of potential that humanity could destroy itself.
00:58:44
Speaker
is now there. So he runs this whole project with all these physicists and it kind of culminates in this dramatic moment where they do the Trinity test.
00:58:55
Speaker
And it basically happens around two thirds of the way through the movie, maybe even halfway. It's somewhere in a midpoint of the. Yeah, I think it's pretty much slap bang in the middle. I wouldn't be surprised if it is to the minute in the middle. I don't know, but yeah. Yeah. And that sort of is one of the structural things about it. I think that's kind of interesting. And, you know, the way that the plot is sort of told, it does these sort of headlines at the beginning, like fission and fusion. And there's essentially two interwoven plots. One is the plot line of.
00:59:24
Speaker
Oppenheimer at a hearing in the nineteen forties or fifties where his security security access is being revoked because he's whatever communist sympathizer supposedly. And then there's a bunch of flashbacks to the creation of the Manhattan Project pulled from his point of view. It's part of the a plot or the fission plot. And the second plot is the fusion plot, which is a story about a confirmation hearing.
00:59:53
Speaker
for the guy who was a former head of the atomic energy commission named straws played by Robert Downey Jr. And that story, it also has flashbacks from his hearing. So it's like these two hearings that are unfolding at two different timeframes and they're both flashing back to almost like this entanglement between their storylines. Cause they had a period of time where their lives overlapped kind of after
01:00:19
Speaker
after the Trinity test, like the life of Oppenheimer overlapped quite a bit with the atomic energy commission in the U S and that's, and straws essentially gets, gets revealed in the end that he had manipulated circumstances to sort of forcibly, uh, get Oppenheimer, his security clearance remote black bolt. Yeah. Basically.
01:00:43
Speaker
And then the question is like, why is he doing this? Is it sort of like at one level, it's kind of this personal injury where kind of like Oppenheimer at this congressional hearing is sort of like mocking whatever him or the atomic energy commission and, or is it sort of one of these kind of like professional jealousy things sort of like, you know, the way Salieri was jealous of.
01:01:05
Speaker
of, of Mozart in the movie Amadeus kind of like, you know, I don't get to be in the limelight. And so it's like, you know, cause I'm not the brilliant physicist, right? And he just trying to sort of ruin him out of professional jealousy. It's that sort of storyline is kind of in there. And in the end, you know, he basically
01:01:23
Speaker
kind of succeeds and you know the movie is me kind of tied all together here is like it is really about this man it's less about the bomb it's more about this man named Oppenheimer and him essentially you know the the book is called American Prometheus which is his bio that was the basis of this movie and they do that the title about Prometheus they do a little title at the beginning and Prometheus is the mythical
01:01:51
Speaker
being who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, and as punishment, the gods basically tortured Prometheus for eternity.
01:02:02
Speaker
they chain him to a rock and a bud eats his entrails is that what happens here yeah yeah and this is kind of like he is the prometheus right his he takes the power of the atomic bomb and gives it to humanity and then he's forever tormented for having done so for the rest of his life and arguably he's because he's trying to redeem himself
01:02:26
Speaker
by like opposing the H-bomb or doing all of these sorts of things. He's tormented. You can sort of see that he's tormented. Does he regret it? Is he trying to just justify himself? Is he trying to like do enough penance to like make up for it? It's hard to say, but he is definitely tormented for the rest of his life, like Prometheus. That's it. That's my summary.
01:02:49
Speaker
Yeah. I was like, there's something confusing about the movie. And when you said there were flashbacks within the two hearings of like, Oh, right. I was tracking classic. Like, even though this is a lick, an event, Christopher Nolan still managed to like make my brain go in like multiple different
01:03:08
Speaker
He just can't help himself. He can't help himself with that editing. He just can't. He loves non-linearity. It's like his thing. It's been that way from the beginning. I'm like with Memento and stuff. Right. He loves that. It's interesting. I mean, it's like a great device. Like it's, it makes it very interesting. Let's get some takes here. I did the summary. I want to hear your takes. So I, similar when you were talking about Barbie, like going in with expectations. So I went into the expectation that it was going to be gutting. I thought it was going to be.
01:03:37
Speaker
absolutely horrifying gutting. I thought I was going to come away with like even more fear about nuclear weapons in the world. And I was going to see the impact of the nuclear bomb. And I was going to like get inside this man's mind. And I was just going to be fucked up. And I wasn't at all. I was like, I was mildly fucked up by the volume of the IMAX theater.
01:04:03
Speaker
I was so messed up by the shaking seats and the migraine I was getting from the IMAX theater that we had to go to a second theater. We had to like go and so we watched the first half twice. Bailed on IMAX partway through. We bailed on IMAX, bought tickets, went to our regular home movie theater and we got in and I was like, Robbie, I am so peaceful. This is like the most peaceful movie watching experience ever.
01:04:28
Speaker
And because I had been through hell in the IMAX theater. And then, so I don't know if it
Atomic Bomb's Impact and Aftermath
01:04:32
Speaker
was that. And, you know, there was, it was climactic in the way that his movies are. I loved the climax. I thought it was so well done. I think he does climax just so amazing. I just love his version of that, of the climactic event in the movie. But like, I left being like,
01:04:54
Speaker
I don't know how he feels about his impact on the world at all. And I guess that's his personality. But like, really, we're not talking about the impact at all. Like, I feel fine. And like, that was the kind of a lightweight Christopher Nolan movie. And I thought the acting was incredible. And I thought it was well done.
01:05:13
Speaker
I think some, some, some parts similar, some parts a little different. Like I, um, and I think I probably set you up to think it was gutting. Cause I was reading these reports, early reviewers and people, and I think Christopher Nolan saying that people were walking out of the early showings and they were speechless and they were devastated. And like, so I was going in with this and I was saying to Lindsay, like I'm scared, like, Oh man, this is going to be intense. And, and really going in with this sense of like, Oh God, this is going to be.
01:05:44
Speaker
Harrowing and it's and it's gonna be one of these movies that you know That that kicks the crap out of you and leaves you not feeling very well for a while and and I also felt like Yeah, like a little like You know, there's this build-up and it starts off like that and I was kind of anxious like the first 20 minutes when he's having kind of mental problems he like tries to poison his professor and he's like
01:06:09
Speaker
just having all this anxiety and then this kind of intensity of like, he's learning physics. And I thought that opening sequence is fantastic and kind of terrifying. And then building up to this climax, I think it's in the midpoint.
01:06:24
Speaker
where they they test the bomb and like even and you know they they really kind of set you up to be like is it gonna work even like you know that the trinity just happened to work but like you don't know and like they kind of have one shot and this is all thing and like are they all gonna be blinded are they all gonna is the world gonna catch on fire like this is all thing and then you know and then it happens and it's this you
01:06:46
Speaker
It's it's weird and like people have talked about the scale and that he specifically shot it in a way to make it like impossible to understand the scale of the explosion and there's all this stuff that yeah and they and they do i mean the sound design is fantastic all this really wild stuff with sound.
01:07:02
Speaker
They have like, there's one moment, I can't remember exactly how they use it, but they like use a clip of Florence Pugh's character breathing during the sex scene. They like splice that sound into some completely unrelated moment in the movie. Like they're doing stuff like that. That's just like wild. And I think breathing when they detonate, right? It's silence except for the breathing. Breathing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, so stuff like that is just like that's him and it's and it's a next level and it's this kind of playing with with with the the the synesthetic reality of consciousness that he's he's creating a dream and you're walking into a dream and he's playing with it in this way that is you know, and so
01:07:52
Speaker
Like I said, like he hasn't made a bad movie and so it kind of hits that bar. And then after the explosion, there's this, you know, another hour and a half or whatever. I don't know. Is it three hours long? It's almost three hours. Three hours. I think it's over three hours. Yeah. So there's another hour and a half, which is about this kind of very small stakes.
01:08:15
Speaker
political kind of drama. It's like a courtroom drama or it's like, you know, like, and that's fine. Like that. And it's an interesting, it's not, you know, the House of Un-American Activities Committee stuff, like, like that stuff is creepy and weird and it's interesting. And I do want people to tell stories about that. But my main problem with the movie is that it did, like,
01:08:42
Speaker
It kind of blew its load and then and they climax halfway through and then it was a long time afterwards that was kind of anticlimactic and a lot of people talking in rooms and and with like pretty low stakes.
01:09:01
Speaker
And kind of somewhat confusing stakes, well, not, not too bad. And then, you know, and then it has this kind of punch line at the end. And that's where I differ a little bit from you, Linz, that I was left with a kind of, I do think that the punch line, which this is a big spoiler if you haven't seen the movie, uh, you know, and it's, is that at the end he, he says to Einstein, you know, we were worried that we would set off a, that, that detonating the bomb might set off a chain reaction that destroyed the world.
01:09:29
Speaker
And then the punch line is I think we did, you know, or I just say, I think we did. I think we might have or something. And that's kind of, you know, that's the thing he says to Einstein that freaks, I sign out so that Einstein snubs Robert Downey Jr. So the Robert Downey Jr. Gets pissed off with, with, uh, Oppenheimer, but just the moment that has him want to really take revenge on him.
01:09:49
Speaker
Right. That kind of. Yeah. Or at least sets that that sticks in his mind. I miss that. I think I tried. I think I didn't follow the whole movie. So egocentric because Einstein like frowns at him while walking past. Right. He doesn't. He doesn't acknowledge him. Yeah. So obviously Oppenheimer said something shitty about me to Einstein.
01:10:11
Speaker
It was nothing to do with him. He gets so bent out of shape that decades later, he schemes this whole thing to take away Oppenheimer's security clearance because he doesn't like him personally. I thought he was great. I thought Robert Downey did an amazing job.
01:10:30
Speaker
So I guess maybe there's something about me trying to like sell what it worked, what really worked about all of that for me, because I get that there's this whole way that the second half is anticlimactic. And I guess it really matters if you buy into the Promethean story of it, right? It's about him.
01:10:50
Speaker
It's about how he works for the rest of his life. Right. Like that for doing what he did. Right. This is why the second half is potentially interesting. Right. Like, and like in the end, I think there's this comment that, um, his wife makes Emily blunt. She's just like, I think you're just going in there and letting them walk all over you because you feel guilty about what you did. And you're trying to like make up for it somehow.
01:11:20
Speaker
And, and she's like, and it doesn't, it's not going to really matter. Like nobody's going to really remember. Are you really going to, I can't remember the comment is like, it's like, are you, is this really going to absolve your conscience? Like it's almost kind of proposing that question to him. And like, and in a way he's just kind of like, I don't know. Right. Well, I don't know. Like, is this enough self torment? Maybe you're right. Maybe that is what I'm doing. Am I going to.
01:11:43
Speaker
be free of this, right? Like, I don't know. He became very famous. Like he's like, he has a platform. Like I fucking made the atomic bomb, right? And I'm going to use this platform to like speak out against like the usage of the bomb and the creation of the H bomb. And like, people are going to listen to me and respect me because I'm the guy that made it. Right? Right. It's in the movie, but it's very,
01:12:10
Speaker
kind of slightly in the movie. Like it's like, you don't get a big sense of that. Like you get a big sense of this. Yeah. I think it's the, the Prometheus kind of angle, I think makes a lot of sense that, but it's like, oh man, like, do we just want to watch somebody get tortured in this like.
01:12:33
Speaker
black and white room in this very abstract way for 90 minutes. Like I get formally what it's about and that you have this explosion in the middle, everything leading up to it, and then the explosion in the middle, and then him being pecked to death by the vultures. But like, it doesn't actually work as cinema for 90 minutes. It's too fucking long. Like, and, and, and, and I think that Nolan, he,
01:13:03
Speaker
And I don't know that it's exactly, and we should look this up if, in fact, let's just look it up real quick. Like what minute? The bomb? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just going to look it up. Look it up. All right. Well, I'm going to, for some reason I can't find that information. So I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that it's at the exact midpoint and that Nolan sacrificed something about the movie for a formal formalist.
01:13:27
Speaker
like gag which is i'm gonna put this thing right in the middle that means i have to find 90 minutes of stuff on the back end of it to match the 90 minutes on the front end and he didn't have 90 minutes of stuff like they they just could have cut 20 minutes that's not what i think that's what he did i
01:13:46
Speaker
I think that's what he did. We got to figure it out, but I think that's what he did. And so then you have 20 or 30 minutes to that. That end segment was just 20 minutes too long. I have two things to say. I have two things to say about this, Robbie. One is. I would not put it past him. There was a lot of formalistic aspects to there always are to his movies, but especially this one, I think there was a lot of structural things and like it could have been a structural gag and it would make total sense.
01:14:14
Speaker
Um, and whether it sort of like works thematically to do that structural gag is a question. And I think it really matters if it works or not. If the second half of the movie is compelling. And for me, I was totally riveted all the way to the end of the movie. Like I was like, whoa. Okay. There was never a point for me where I was like, this is dragging on too long. I was just like, whoa. Like, and I'll share with you why it worked for me. So.
01:14:45
Speaker
I mean, it's, it's a lot about sort of fate. And like, if you think of, if you think of him as the bomb being almost a metaphor for him, it's sort of like, you know, it's like this weird thing where the, the beginning part, it's like, there's this sweep of history that is just like, this bomb is gonna happen some way or another,
Oppenheimer's Personal Torment
01:15:06
Speaker
right? It was Einstein and Sizzlard, the guy that built the pile at the University of Chicago, who wrote this letter.
01:15:14
Speaker
even before, I think it was even before Germany invaded Poland, like, Hey, those Nazis are crazy motherfuckers and they're going to build a bomb unless we do one. Cause all the science was just laying around. Right. And they all knew it. Right. Like, and that's when they started this project and it wasn't until Oppenheimer came along, kind of like make it all happen. Then it really kind of took off. But like that was that idea for that project was around for a very long time. And it's like, he just
01:15:39
Speaker
It's like there's this, the forces of history moving forward. And it's like, if it's not him, it's going to be somebody, right? He's like just the person, he is the vehicle, right? For this force of whatever it is. And like, I do, I also don't think there's any surprise that he loved the bag of ed Gita and he quotes it.
01:16:03
Speaker
I think, by the way, that is the dumbest part of the movie having sex, but like that's, he does say that at the test, supposedly, or soon after. Was it at the test? I thought, yeah, I thought it was in an interview after, or he, I think he, I think he thought it at the, what he says later in an interview is that he
01:16:20
Speaker
that passage ran through his mind which the fact that like i always found that even before i ever saw the movie i always found that slightly suspect i'm like you know the bag of argita well enough that in this moment of like this crazy peak moment of your life this quote from from this sanskrit text runs through your head of i am become death destroyer of worlds like it always seemed slightly suspect to me that like
01:16:47
Speaker
Did you think it at the time or did you go read your book later and be like, oh, that would have been a good thing to think at the time. Well, here's why I think maybe because he, you know, he was into like learning Sanskrit and he did actually read it in the original Sanskrit. He fucking taught himself. I'm sure he read it. I don't, I believe that, but the story, right? Is essentially, is it Arjuna? Arjuna is like getting ready to go into battle and Krishna is like this avatar of
01:17:13
Speaker
one of the gods, maybe the peak God or something. And he was like, Hey, like, and I think essentially Arjuna is sort of having this spiritual crisis about going forth and killing a bunch of people in war. And more or less the God is like, no man, that's your job. It's okay. It's your karma. Feel good about it. Right? Like this is
01:17:38
Speaker
It's not surprising that he's glomming on to this particular character, like saying that thing. Because I think he just thinks of himself.
01:17:48
Speaker
as that way, right? Like somebody's going to do it. It might as well be me because I know the right people are in the right place at the right time, or I can inspire other physicists to do shit together and I can get them out to Los Alamos to, you know, like I can do it. So he just does it. And like, and I think he, like the first is he just rides this thing up until that moment. And then after he does it, he's just, especially after they drive the bombs off and then
01:18:14
Speaker
drop them. There's a moment when he's speaking and he's like, Hey, we did it, you know, like, and, and, and just, and that's when he starts having these weird visions. To me, this is
01:18:23
Speaker
His conscience is just just pounding at his psyche. Like, what the fuck did you do? And like, that is the moment where becomes almost the most surreal. And it's like he's having a meltdown. And that that sequence is by far my favorite part of the movie, like that when he's giving this kind of he's giving this rally like speech, this kind of cheerleading like we did it, we won, you know,
01:18:48
Speaker
Because, and this is just after the bombs were dropped in Japan and he's, you know, and he's doing this speech. And meanwhile, yeah, like, I think that's a great way of describing it. His conscience is battering at the, at the door and it's, it's, that's harrowing. And I, and I think maybe my disappointment and this is, you know, I can let it go and well, whatever, but.
01:19:15
Speaker
I wanted that to keep going. I wanted more of that. I wanted it to become, I wanted it to be like mother, right? You know how mother starts off and it kind of makes sense and then it gradually escalates into increasingly insane amounts of
01:19:29
Speaker
horror and suffering I wanted the rest of the movie to be that and I understand that isn't the story like he didn't become like the way that he was tortured was not in a kind of in a in that psychological nightmarish way at least that we know about right what we know about with the way he was tortured is in these other ways so I think maybe if there's just you know you can't tell the story that isn't
01:19:58
Speaker
You know, he's trying to, you know, Nolan's trying to take the real historical thing and tell that story. But I, and so I think the real story and this, you said this to me when we talked about this before, which is like, he's, he's choked it down. Like he swallowed it and he, you know, took that.
01:20:14
Speaker
conscience and try to turn it into activism, which also is not quite in the movie, although it's more in the movie than the other stuff. I just like, I'm a sucker for a surrealistic horror movie. So when you drop a scene like that, and I'm like, Oh God, like, are we gonna go into like, just absolute, just like, bite marriage, horror, and then, you know, we, we don't. And like, you know, I think it's interesting as well. And to say, you know,
01:20:41
Speaker
As I'm saying that, I'm also thinking about Japan and the real human lives of which there were thousands and thousands and tens of thousands. People died in those bombings. It was interesting that they didn't put that in the movie.
01:21:03
Speaker
If that had been the horrifying thing that had been in the movie, I think that would have been and I kind of, you know, that would have been very difficult. And it's, you know, and maybe there's some, you know, you can say, well, it's from his perspective, he wasn't there. He didn't say it all.
Cinematic Choices and Performances
01:21:18
Speaker
He got he heard it on the radio, you know. And so like Nolan's doing that. But then Nolan also gets to avoid what otherwise would have been like, how do you film that?
01:21:30
Speaker
from that perspective without it just feeling like the most crass, gross, voyeuristic kind of like sensationalism. Well, it borders on the sensationalism in that movie, in that scene you really like, where it's like he's stepping on the ash and forks and the people's faces are peeling off. Right, right. But it sure, but it does that. And so maybe I'm a terrible person, but it does that in a way that's surreal and abstract enough and enough about
01:22:00
Speaker
his mind, right? It's about his mind. And I'm like, okay, that's how we're gonna do this. We're gonna do the horror through his horror. That's gonna work. That's a less kind of gross way of doing it than just actually making a movie about the actual bombings. From this point of view, it was not like you couldn't make a movie about that and people have, but then they didn't, right? They did it in that one scene and then they kind of went and did something else.
01:22:29
Speaker
I just got to say a couple other talking about dumps. So the sex scene where he reads to her from the Bhagavad Gita is just like, like I laughed out loud. Um, so dumb. The other, there's two other parts where there's a part where they're, they're hanging out. And it's like, it's his favorite. They're just hanging out in the desert with these buddies, his brother and his friend. And they're like, you know, this is my favorite place in the world. And then it's like, as the cameras fading out, the guy says, what's it called? Or something like that. He's like,
01:22:57
Speaker
Los Alamos. And it's just this like, you know, and then they do, we actually drove through Los Alamos not too long ago. Yeah, it's, you know, it's still an army base. Did you go to that monument? No, we were just driving through, we were going somewhere else and we just kind of, we didn't even know, we just were, we were driving through and then suddenly it's like, Los Alamos military facility don't stop and like, it's like, oh, okay, I guess we're here.
01:23:23
Speaker
Anyway, and then the other which is very similar to that was the scene where where straws doesn't get elected to the Senate or I can't remember what he's getting
01:23:35
Speaker
It's a cabinet hearing, cabinet approval. He wants to be the energy secretary. Right, he wants to be a secretary. And he doesn't get appointed. And there are a few senators that switched their, changed their minds at the last minute. A couple, you know, there's this one guy, a little senator by the name of John F. Kennedy. And it's just like, it reminds me of the meme where it's like, on that young man's name, Albert Einstein. It has this just like,
01:24:05
Speaker
like okay it's I'm glad that I now know that JFK was involved in that in some way but it also is just like it's these moments where Nolan is
01:24:16
Speaker
little cheesy, just like on the nose and kind of like totally what he did this that I think totally worked was like, this is one of those movies where you're just like, oh, that movie star is in it. Oh, there's Matt Damon. There's scary. There's you're like all these people like, man, it's amazing. And like that experience in the audience kind of recognizing these huge stars. Yeah, he's a little bit like.
01:24:37
Speaker
that time in history, right? Like it was just like, Oh my God, this is now Einstein. And there's Kurt girdle. And there's the guy that invented that. And there's the guy that discovered that. And like, and you're sort of like, they all did really JFK was part of that. Yeah. So it's a little bit like that.
01:24:55
Speaker
Couple of things that cut girdle, like I've just loved that. It's like such a little like fan service, nerd drop that like, you know, there are going to be people in the audience that are like, ah, it's cut girdle. And then there's people that are like, just, oh, this, I don't, just not understanding completely over my head. Yeah. It used to go on walks together through the Princeton kind of like, you know, trails. They used to do that all the time.
01:25:21
Speaker
And the other fan service, the other nerd fan service is Richard Feynman playing the bongos. Yeah, Richard Feynman playing the bongos. Exactly. Richard Feynman playing the bongos. He said you're Feynman, guys. Yeah, totally, totally. And he doesn't, I don't think he has a line. Like he's definitely not introduced. No, and they don't use his name either.
01:25:37
Speaker
You know, exactly. If you know, if you know, it's Richard Feynman, you know, and I was like, exactly. And it's so that's fun. I mean, I love that. And then Gary Oldman, just to name Gary Oldman, that scene is fucking incredible. Like he's so good, but he's so good in that scene. He's the president. He's, uh, is it Eisenhower? Truman. Truman. Yeah. Truman. He's like, I'm the one that dropped the bomb, right? Like I'm the one who decided. I'm the one. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, get this cry baby out of here.
01:26:04
Speaker
Yeah. So, so let me just come back to my theme and maybe, and there's not much more to say about it, but like this to me is why it works. And I'll say like that, that moment, the surrealism where, you know, he's seeing the corpses is speculative, right? We don't, cause we can't have direct access to other people's subjectivity in this way. This is the one place where
01:26:26
Speaker
It's like Nolan is going like maybe something like this or like, you know, if you had to imagine being that person that knows you just did that. Right. And then all these fucking thousands of people died. Like what would it maybe just feel like directly? But then the rest of it is sort of just like what we do have historical access to, which is like the decisions and the choices and the things that he said and did afterwards until he died. Right. And like
01:26:55
Speaker
in a way, if you sort of look at it from this point of view, that he is paying penance, he's trying to rationalize or justify what he did, or he's trying to balance it out in some way, right? Like, or his tormented conscience, like the Prometheus thing or whatever, like,
01:27:14
Speaker
It is related to that moment, right? It's like the horror of what he has done. And now he's just has that forever. And he's just now if it was the forces of history in from the beginning up to the middle, when it detonated, this is sort of like the the aftermath, right? And we all live in the aftermath of whatever we're, you know, the Cold War and all of that. But like, this is his own personal
01:27:42
Speaker
aftermath and in a way, his is sort of different than the rest of ours. Like we're sort of like, oh, God, I guess, you know, maybe nuclear work can happen. We can all die. And he's his aftermath is like. I did that. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Like, what does that do to a person? And I think. The other thing that's interesting and maybe there's a little bit of a tieback to Barbie here, if I can do it like.
Psychological Introspection in Films
01:28:06
Speaker
The movie never really gives you like he does never spells out his own psychology.
01:28:15
Speaker
No, it never like finalizes anything. But it's so much about his psychology. That's what's so weird. It's like super up. Like how much of his fucking face just filled the whole screen for so many minutes of that movie. And you're like, this is about this man and his relationship to what he did.
01:28:35
Speaker
But it's remains sort of impenetrable. Like it just remains kind of inscrutable. It's like we could just talk about it all we want or observe whatever he did, but it's sort of like he's sort of on another plane. He is a little bit like a demigod of some kind. Like we can't know. There's only one of him in the whole history of people.
01:28:56
Speaker
And Barbie's realizing her impact on... The movie actually is about realizing her impact on girls and being horrified by... She thought it was great. She thought Barbie was great. It was actually a terrible bomb in the female psyche. Yes. There you go. A body image in disorders everywhere. She's grappling with her own aftermath. Yeah. I mean, that would have been an interesting movie.
01:29:24
Speaker
Like for her to actually be confronted with that stuff, with eating disorders.
01:29:29
Speaker
Just fun fact. So let's do the, let's, this is a great segue. Let's do the unifying. Uh, fun fact, I just learned this from a Tik TOK. So is this true? Is this not, I don't know. It seemed pretty plausible. Barbie was modeled off of a German toy. Yes. Who was a, an adult toy. It was not for little girls. And she was a toy version. She called Lily. She was a toy version of a sex worker, of a gold digger.
01:29:56
Speaker
Essentially. So, so there was this cartoon character that was Lily, this gold digger. And she was, you know, trying to get into bed with men and get money out of them. And, you know, as an adult, whatever newspaper cartoon, and they made toys of her, which look remarkably like OG Bobby. And apparently the creator of OG Bobby visited Germany. And then a few months later came back and, uh, and made.
01:30:23
Speaker
the OG Bobby. So it's just a fun fact. I don't know what we do with that. Here's a point of tenuous point of connection that I just noticed. So Frankenstein is subtitled the modern Prometheus and you know, Bobby, the Bobby movie in a way is kind of a Frankenstein type deal. They made this creature and it's like, you know, it's not human, but it wants to just have a human life.
01:30:45
Speaker
Yes, and you know the modern Prometheus. So in a way they're both sort of kind of riffs on on Prometheus They think that's pretty tenuous, but there's a link. Yeah, there's some way and there's a you know If I mean Prometheus doesn't ever sort of like want to be mortal, but he sort of has this
01:31:02
Speaker
Like there's a demigod like quality to both Barbie and to Oppenheimer, right? There's like, well, but in Frankenstein, Prometheus is Dr. Frankenstein, right? He's, he's the modern Prometheus. He's bringing this new technology. And Oppenheimer is definitely Dr. Frankenstein. And then in.
01:31:24
Speaker
The Bobby movie, it would be Will Ferrell. That's right. It would be Ruth. That's right. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And she didn't know the impact she was having on making that Barbie. I mean, it is a female empowerment thing. Like at that time, Ruth was totally an unusual person. Like for, to be, she was an executive. She was running the business. She was the business person. Her husband was the creative one.
01:31:45
Speaker
Like it was, and that was just unheard of in the fifties, all these photos of Ruth and it's just like, she's just surrounded by like 1950s dudes in their little suits and ties. And it's just her, she's the only woman. She's like, I want to make a doll about me in a way. I think there's something about the inscrutability of their psychology that also is parallel. Maybe not for good reasons. And Barbie, like, like Barbie is sort of like vapid. She's just a,
01:32:08
Speaker
You know, here's, here's the thing. In a way, you know, Barbie is just this vehicle of historical forces and projections and like our ideas about, you know, like think feminism and the role of women and blah, blah, blah. But her herself and her own psychology, she's sort of.
01:32:22
Speaker
She doesn't really know what she wants, like she doesn't have original whatever. And there is sort of a way that Oppenheimer has essentially just succumbed to the forces of history. He just allowed himself in some way or another to be a vehicle of this kind of fatalistic thing.
01:32:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's interesting because he begins like we get a sense of his interior world until we don't. And then we, and then it goes away, right? Like maybe that. Yeah. That's the thing he loses. Well, it also goes away because his wife gets upset about his affairs, right? It has to go away because of his, I mean, the main way they show it going away is his love affair kind of getting shut down.
01:33:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, part of it too is like once he gets into the project, he just, you know, he just becomes almost an automaton, you know, and he builds this little land. I mean, that's my favorite part of the movie. Other than the climate, the bomb going off is building his land. It's a little Barbie land, his Barbie land. They have a post office and a, and a bar locked in there. They couldn't leave as part of why he did that. He brought them all to this place where nobody would have any reason to go anywhere. And you could just like build a fence around it and stop them from leaving. That's right.
01:33:33
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Any last thoughts? Uh, okay. Overall, let me just ask you this, which one did you like better? And maybe this is a similar question. Like which one are you excited to see again or plan on seeing again? Okay. I have a really complex answer to this. So I liked Barbie better and I'm more excited to see Oppenheimer again. I like that answer.
01:33:57
Speaker
And I think Oppenheimer is a way better movie, but I just can't get over how much I laughed out loud at Barbie. That is just too fun. Oppenheimer was not a real LOL experience.
01:34:11
Speaker
Except for when you're putting the bag of edgida and having sex. I also, I just want to also say about Oppenheimer. I'm realizing like we experienced it. I think, well, I definitely experienced it as overly long and, and I'm just thinking about, well, also we did see the first 45 minutes twice, like on the same night. So like.
01:34:33
Speaker
I'm also I'm very excited to see Oppenheimer again in a few months all in one go and and when I feel rested and with the adjusted expectations right with the sense of like okay without this kind of whatever it was that like
01:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, like this is about him and we can just take in the beauty of this movie about this man. So I would say I'm excited to see Oppenheimer again. I don't know that I will see Bobby again. If I do, it'll be a long time from now. And yeah, I liked Oppenheimer better.
01:35:02
Speaker
I think it'd be fun to see Barbie again. I don't feel like this like urge to see it again. I mean, I think I would laugh and it was sort of a, Hey, let's watch Barbie. If it was like the right mix of people, you know what I mean? It'd become like, yeah, like it's like, if we were together, like let's just watch Barbie again. That could be fun to do with you guys. But with Habenheimer, I'm like, I have to see that again. You can't wait. Can't wait. Yeah. And I did like it better. Like my first, like leaving the theater kind of feeling was like, I like this movie better. I think it's a better movie.
01:35:32
Speaker
But Barbie really stuck with me, like in a weird way. Like I've been mulling Barbie over and whatever in the internet discourse on Barbie way more than Oppenheimer. So. Yeah. I mean, you've been sending me like so many videos and links and like every, every day I get a new like, Hey, look at this take on Barbie.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:35:51
Speaker
So yeah. Last comment just so that everybody knows, Lindsay is wearing a beautiful pink dress for this recording, which nobody can see, but she came out in full Barbie force.
01:36:01
Speaker
Barbie Core is what they call it. And Porcelli and I are both wearing, we're both wearing baggy suit pants, which are pulled up to our nipples and fedoras.
01:36:13
Speaker
All right. Well, thanks for hanging out with us today. Thank you, porch. Thank you, Lindsay. Yeah. You guys make me like movies even more. Like I enjoy them so much, but then talking about them with you, I like, Oh yeah, I don't know. I, it comes alive for me even more. Makes me like watching movies more. Everybody should have a Robbie and a porch in their consuming movie culture corner. Well, now they can. That's right. Woo.
01:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. So, and if you're listening, like, let us know what you thought. I would love to hear takes. Yeah. You can reach me if you go to part of lions.com. There is a, there's an email form on there and I will for sure pass it on to these guys. And, uh, and if, and yeah, we might start some conversations, but yeah, we just love to hear what you all thought of the two movies. All right. Well, that's going to do it. Uh, have a great life everybody.
01:37:26
Speaker
Yeah. Bye.