It probably needs to be said that the success of these two movies – with “Oppenheimer” also vastly exceeding the most optimistic box-office expectations despite its length – and the relative failure of several sequels this summer isn’t necessarily a referendum on quality. If it’s not nuclear annihilation, the movie goes beyond all that pink to prod women to contemplate what images of beauty and role models they were fed growing up and how to process them now. Oscar-nominated director Greta Gerwig (who shares the writing credit on “Barbie” with Noah Baumbach) clearly invited that conversation, wanting to do more than simply be colorful and frothy. Inevitably, Barbie’s embrace of feminism and inclusiveness (including a trans character) has triggered a “Barbie” backlash from the expected sources who feast on cultural outrage, although the film’s bountiful box-office haul – raking in more than $160 million in North America for its opening weekend, the year’s biggest – doesn’t do much to support the “Go woke, go broke” contention. That includes a brush with “the real world,” and a rude awakening about the patriarchy that exists there, where women are ogled and don’t hold every seat on the Supreme Court.Ĭillian Murphy in "Oppenheimer." Universal Pictures “Barbie” also leaned into the thinking-person’s-summer-movie formula, turning the “How do we build a film around a doll?” question into a treatise on how Barbie, with her impossible physique and colorful accessories, fits into the 21st century. “Oppenheimer’s” sobering, even depressing streak was baked into the concept, and reflects Nolan’s audacity when it comes to challenging audiences, whether that’s mind-bending concepts such as “Inception” or (far less successfully) “Tenet,” or the issues of vigilantism and a surveillance state woven into “The Dark Knight.” Just releasing the film during the summer made a statement, reflecting the director and studio Universal’s belief that a “serious” movie wouldn’t wilt in the July heat. Robert Oppenheimer’s belief (or perhaps more accurately, hope) that the mere existence of the atomic bomb would render war “unthinkable.” That we are still worrying about the nuclear threat nearly 80 years later, during another war, puts a provocative bow on Manhattan Project organizer J. Obviously, the wonder twins known as “ Barbenheimer” (conjoined by their shared release date) approach the notion of asking audiences to think in different way, and to varying degrees.ĭirector Christopher Nolan’s three-hour epic “Oppenheimer” pivots on questions of morality, and unleashing a weapon upon the world that gave humankind the means of destroying itself in a headlong race against the Nazis during World War II. Indeed, checking your brain at the door has become practically synonymous with summer moviegoing, before the fall brings the customary rush of festivals and awards-hunting prestige fare. Thinking might not seem like a unique demand, but one needn’t really do a whole lot of it to sit back and enjoy the sensory overload of “Fast X” or the latest “Transformers” prequel. Yet the two films share one attribute that’s often assumed to be verboten during the sequel-heavy blockbuster season associated with summer: They both ask audiences to think. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” wouldn’t appear to have much in common, despite the Internet joke that turned them into an unlikely double feature.
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