Will Barbie movie be tolerable?

How could they do this to Marty again?

 

Don't ruin the bit!

In all seriousness, a lot of politicking goes into this. Doesn't negate the valuations of artistic merit, but to be noted. The real issue with Greta and Noah is that it should have been an original screenplay, not an adaptation. Look at the difference in competition:

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall
David Hemingson, The Holdovers
Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer, Maestro
Samy Burch, May December
Celine Song, Past Lives

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
Tony McNamara, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest


I have always said that if you say someone was snubbed, you have to say who they would replace. I have not seen Zone of Interest (not really available), or Poor Things.
Saw the other three. But not really qualified to judge directing merit. In terms of Best Actress, was not really that impressed by Huller in Anatomy of a Fall.

But here's the real issue for Greta, Margot and Noah - there is no award for overall vision bringing a certain vision and project to screen. I was blown away by this piece, linked earlier in this thread - “Barbie” Is Brilliant, Beautiful, and Fun as Hell

What Margot did to get the rights, etc. Way more than acting. So I guess I understand that the role did not require much range -acting qua acting. But the overall vision was amazing.

And for all three of them, putting a piece out there that went simultaneously Highbrow and lowbrow, funny and moving, not too preachy (IMO), while still saying a lot. The movie really did impact society far more than anything in years, IMO.

I realize that is not the strict criteria for acting/directing, but it should be recognized. I am under the impression the Academy looks at the movie as more superficial than I saw it. But what do I know?





BEST DIRECTOR
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Edited to add: Zone of Interest is now at AMC Locally. Now to convince the wife. Not optimistic. Never did talk her into 1917, even at home, or All Quiet on the Western Front.

 

My only input is that I thought Sandra Huller was really good and I never want to go to French court

 

Ha! You enjoyed it more than I. We watched 3 of 44's list after it came out - Anatomy of a Fall (OK); Blackberry (like, but wife was lukewarm) and American Symphony (very good). Couldn't get into Spiderverse. Still getting to Monster or Thousand and One

 

A French movie with an ambiguous and unsatisfying resolution that will leave you wanting answers you will never get, this is my ideal film

 

So what board does this crossover post go on?

 

The other night I gave my wife three options for a movie to watch: The Japanese film Shoplifters, Anatomy of a Fall, or Babylon. She said, “Not Shoplifters, I don’t feel like reading right now. Either of the other two are fine.” I thought, Anatomy of a Fall it is! Just before hitting the rent button, I thought, I guess I should check the language just in case. Babylon it was!

PS we both liked Babylon, even if it took us 3 night to finish the damn thing.

 

Quite a bit of Fall is in English. As subtitled movies go it’s not too much reading!

 

It’s back on the list!

 

A movie about a toy where the corporation that makes it plays a major role got Best Picture, Screenplay, and 2 acting Oscar nominations. As Producer, Robbie gets the BP nom that is a greater recognition of the overall success of the film.

 

A good take-down of Barbie in NYT. Pretty much echos my view of it

With “Barbie,” Gerwig upped her commercial game from acclaimed art house to bona fide blockbuster. She was demonstrably ambitious in her conception of what could have been an all-out disaster. She got people to go back to the movies. All of these are successes worthy of celebration. But they are not the same as directing a good film.

Surely it is possible to criticize “Barbie” as a creative endeavor. To state that despite its overstuffed playroom aesthetic and musical glaze, the movie was boring. There were no recognizable human characters, something four “Toy Story” movies have shown can be done in a movie populated by toys.

There were no actual stakes, no plot to follow in any real or pretend world that remotely made sense. In lieu of genuine laughs, there were only winking ha-has at a single joke improbably stretched into a feature-length movie. The result produced the forced jollity of a room in which the audience is strenuously urged to “sing along now!”

Opinion | ‘Barbie’ Is Bad. There, I Said It.

 

I think that's a little harsh. I think the movie compares pretty well to White Noise, made by her partner Noah Baumbach. Obviously, Barbie is a lot different source material than one of the great American novels, but they both were impeccably cast, had very interesting and sophisticated visual styles and neither were "bad" movies, in the sense that they were poorly crafted or made, even if they didn't totally work. The strangest thing about the Barbie movie was that it really wasn't made for kids or a kids movie.

 

I will not quibble on taste or claim it is a great movie. I'm more appreciative of it's message and societal impact then its cinematic craft.

That said, I think that critic is off base at least in the excerpt here, by saying that it did not create as compelling or as fully formed human characters as did Toy Story. I agree with the observation but think it rather misses the point. The whole point of Toy Story is that what we thought were are inanimate toys have fully formed personalities that we don't detect. The point of Barbie was that we think our toys in the Barbie world are fully human when we anthropomorphize them, but that's only because we have anthropomorphized them into a very fake superficial and ultimately unsatisfying version of humanity, especially with an unbalanced over emphasis on certain aspects of superficiality in appearance, focusing on gender relations.

I don't think the creators of Barbie failed to create realistic human characters in the dolls; I think that was deliberate