The showdown of the fucking summer. Place your bets.

There was no doubt in my mind that Barbie would take #1 in the box office this weekend – it’s PG-13 (and not rated R for Florence Pugh‘s pervasive nipplage), it’s under two hours (and not three hours, meaning more showtimes can fit in a day and people won’t scoff at the idea of sitting in a theater for three hours), and the marketing campaign is among the best I’ve ever seen (shoulda signed that Whoppenheimer deal with Burger King, Christopher Nolan, tsk tsk.)

I decided early on the move was to see Oppenheimer first because it’s heavier and longer and then cool down with the bright lightness of Barbie. I could have seen Oppenheimer in IMAX like I did with the latest Tom Cruise movie, but I decided a three hour “drama” in those seats would murder the fuck outta my back, rendering me inoperable for Barbie. I wanted a place where I could eat some food cause I know I’d be hungry but also pressed for time. So I decided to hit up The Majestic’s 35mm 9:50am screening of Oppenheimer and snag some breakfast tacos and coffee before diving into their COMPLETELY SOLD OUT 1:30pm Barbie with a meat lover’s mini pizza and an Raspberry Italian Cream Soda that never arrived.

The wait staff at this dine-in theater was completely overwhelmed, in fact theaters across the country were overwhelmed this past weekend. It was the fourth biggest movie weekend of all time, OF ALL TIME. Barbie (and to a lesser extent, Oppenheimer) did what Tom Cruise said he was going to – save the idea of going to the movies, in one single weekend. That’s a hero in my book.

If Barbie was the hero of the weekend, movie theater chains were the villains (NOT their overworked employees though), ignoring all the signs of a Barbie opening weekend disaster and understaffing their theaters anyway. I still thirst for my Raspberry Italian Cream Soda.

Oppenheimer

Suppose I were to solely assess Oppenheimer on its more face-value aspects, such as the blistering cinematography, the incredible film editing, the unmatched sound design, and the cavalcade of brilliant acting performances. In that case, it’s absolutely the masterpiece a bunch of critics and Nolanites are touting it to be. However, certain deeper elements don’t work in the film, and those mostly start with the screenplay’s odd structure.

For two-thirds, the movie follows Robert Oppenheimer’s mental state and moral concerns with building the bomb and just how he’s a weird fucking guy. Through Cillian Murphy‘s abused puppy dog eyes and hair-raising stares, this is a difficult person to like. He’s brilliant, but he’s a bit of an asshole, and empathy doesn’t come naturally to him. He tries and is smart enough to question our government’s motives, but he’s a weak pushover. The last third of the movie is this intense and well-written courtroom drama that seems tonally at odds with the luxurious slow burn of the first two-thirds. It abandons living in Oppy’s psychological guilt prison for him externally fighting with Robert Downey Jr.‘s Lewis Strauss (head of the Atomic Energy Commission) and the supreme court (?) or some bullshit…THIS MOVIE IS CONFUSING AS HELL AND MOVES MAYBE AT THE PACE THAT GENIUS CHRISTOPHER NOLAN UNDERSTANDS THE WORLD WITH HIS GODDAMN 186 I.Q. OR SOME SHIT, BUT HEY, BRO, MAYBE SLOW THE HELL DOWN CAUSE I’M STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHY OPPENHEIMER IS IMAGINING FUCKING FLORENCE PUGH IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE DURING A COURT DEPOSITION.

But whatever, the acting is great, I was emotionally invested in the moment and I’m sure on rewatch I’ll understand the movie more. For as confusing and convoluted it all is, there wasn’t a second I was bored. I was lost all the time, but never bored. Part of the confusion is that there are seven hundred million speaking characters in this that I was only able to tell apart because I know all of the actors who played them. “Oh here comes General Casey Affleck!” I’d say or “Russian Benny Safdie is just speaking his truth” or “Old Josh Hartnett sure is nice for a union-busting Republican.” All of these characters are well written and performed, with Murphy and Downey, Jr. being the clear MVPs. The clear LVPs are the two female characters written by Christopher Nolan, who I’m convinced has never met a woman in his life. They are the least developed and least believable characters of the movie and the fact Nolan‘s only two female characters basically boil down to a “bitch” and a “whore” is troubling. I get they probably were dog shit people IRL, but at least make them dynamic dog shit people, Christopher. The only saving grace is that Florence Pugh (the dirty mistress) and Emily Blunt (the terrible mother/nasty wife) are such good actors that they deliver despite what they’ve been given.

Overall, this was one of Nolan‘s better films despite how much shit I talked in this review. As a piece of art it has this gorgeous rhythm and visual poetry to it. I’d love to watch Oppenheimer on mute to Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon, maybe after an entire ounce of mushrooms. Maybe I’d finally understand what an Atomic Energy Commission is. The film is emotionally very cold but that fits the story of a guy who created something that will one day murder the entire world. I far prefer this to Nolan trying to be oddly sentimental like he was in Interstellar. That Anne Hathaway monologue about measuring love made me want to vomit. Anyway, for as technically brilliant as Oppenheimer is, it’s just not something I ever connected emotionally with. Nolan has never made such a film and I suspect he never will. Grade: B+ (In Theaters)

Barbie

And I thought Oppenheimer‘s screenplay was a mess, holy hell! Barbie is a likable but never quite lovable smash-cut of a hundred funny little moments that fails to completely satisfy as a whole. First of all, who is Barbie? I understand that she’s a toy but is that all we ever find out about a character we must empathize with, root for, and implicitly understand for 114 minutes? Margot Robbie is one of the best working actors we have, but shit, what are the stakes for this person(?) she’s playing? Is it a person? Is it an “it”? Is she/it a tangible representation of the marriage between how men view women and how women view themselves? I feel like Greta Gerwig and husband Noah really needed to establish these things. I tried to just go along with Barbie and be like “Oh, forget about it, it’s Barbie!” but the movie reaches a point towards the end where we need to be emotionally invested in this toy lady’s journey to discover herself and I just couldn’t find a frame of reference to actively care about her.

Gerwig is a terrific filmmaker. Lady Bird is a masterpiece and her Little Women is the single greatest adaptation of that source material. Her husband, Noah Baumbach, is not as good but still pretty damn good – The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha (which Gerwig starred in and co-wrote) are his best. That’s why it’s such a shock that their take on Barbie turned out so messy…and to be honest, pretty bland at times. Of the many shortcomings of Barbie, ambition is certainly not one of them seeing as though it tries to be a thousand things at once. So much so that it ends up being lesser than the sum of its parts. It could have worked solely as a ridiculous comedy with it never being confirmed what type of reality they’re in, but once they also try to make it a “message” movie (it’s a great message, but still) for young women and kids, it doesn’t really work. This is not a movie for kids, not because it’s super inappropriate but because all of its jokes are geared towards peeps my age. Most people under 12 in my movie theater (boy and girl) seemed painfully bored to be there. So if it’s a movie for people my age, why do they need this message? Don’t they already know? Is it just to have Margot Barbie repeat back their own beliefs to us as a way of re-assuring us? I dunno, it’s strange, but let’s dive into the stranger part.

The whole meta Will Ferrell as the Mattel CEO Guy thing was such a half-assed concept that added nothing but more confusion to the movie. They try to make him the villain at first and then when it doesn’t work they do a u-turn and transition Ken (a fantastic Ryan Gosling) into the villain. Did Gerwig and Baumbach not have a backspace key on their Mac books? Also, what are the rules of this Barbie world? Toys just exist on this island of misfit toys outer world that no living human has ever discovered? Is everything that is ever thought up just happen to exist in its own world too? Does that apply to non toy objects and major concepts? Is there an island where Oppenheimer’s bomb is ordering long island iced teas and taking salsa lessons? In what is maybe the most ironic unfolding of events in this movie is the fact that Ken, the eventual villain, ends up being the most complex character with the most pathos. This is one of Gosling‘s best performances but it helps Gerwig and Baumbach give him the best lines.

I apologize if I’m coming off as a major grump during this review, but believe me, there are aspects of Barbie I really loved. All of the performances are entertaining from a scene-stealing Issa Rae as President Barbie and the always great Kate McKinnon as Fucked-Up Barbie. There’s no shortage of laughs, at least in the hour of the film, and a scream-funny Matchbook Twenty acoustic guitar beach sequence towards the end. Costumes, sets, hair and makeup are all clutch your seat vibrant and deserving of Oscar nominations, and the soundtrack is interesting to say the least. However, I think the concept of this movie and what it accomplishes is far more interesting/valuable than actually sitting down to watch it. It’s a good but narratively/thematically disastrous comedy that could have been so much better given the immense talent involved. It did get people back to the movie theaters in record numbers though, so it’s important if only for that reason. Grade: B (In Theaters)