Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Barbie (2023) - Greta Gerwig | Houselights #176

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Barbie (2023) - Greta Gerwig | Houselights #176 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the net party. Hello everybody at home, and welcome to Houselights.
0:23
House of Gerwig, the final entry so far of Greta Gerwig's filmography as
0:29
solo director. Today we are talking about twenty twenty three's Barbie, the massive
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pink phenomenon that was one half of Barbenheimer and I am your co host Tristan
0:42
Rudel, and with me as they are every single week, is Doctor sci
0:46
Fi himself, Darren Moser and the one and only John Mills. Are you
0:51
guys ready to get into a world of plastic and surround yourself with the neon
0:58
glowing color that is Barbie Pink? Sure? I am Ken? How about
1:02
you? Ken? Yeah? That's good idea, Ken, very good?
1:04
All right, Ken, Let's let Alan take it away here. You know
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what, I'm cool with that. I'm okay with that. Surprise, surprisingly
1:14
cool because look cards on the table. Alan's something of a scene stealer,
1:19
so you know, and a fantastic martial artist. Yes, that's true,
1:25
apparently Michael Sarah. Yeah. One of the reasons why they were able to
1:30
do that so well is because Michael Sarah learned so much of the martial arts
1:38
with his time with Scott Pilgrim. Oh, no, kidding, that's pretty
1:45
great. Apparently he kept it up like he like continued training and learning and
1:49
everything like that, and so he says like, oh, yeah, I
1:52
got this, I got this. That's pretty great. That's that's good to
1:55
I did not know that tidbit that that you know, you like to see.
1:59
You know, I think it speaks to so many things. But you
2:02
know, I know that the conversation is just firing up. So I'm sure
2:07
we'll talk about Alan in more depth as we go. So yeah, I
2:13
mean, okay, this film, if you haven't seen this film, you've
2:16
heard of this film. If this is one of those movies that like everybody
2:22
was talking about. Everybody was whether you hated it, whether you loved it,
2:25
whether you whether you yourself didn't even care. People were talking like.
2:31
It was in the news, it was in the media, It was on
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you know, all over Reddit constantly, it was on Twitter, and this
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this was an absolute phenomenon. This was this was a massive hit. Now,
2:46
Darren, can you tell us how much this made? Oh? Oh
2:49
can I It had around one hundred and forty five million dollar budget, some
2:53
ungodly amount of marketing. I'm sure but it made ten times as budget with
3:00
one point four billion with a Bee. I think it's like the eleventh highest
3:05
grossing movie of all time at this point. I don't know if that's for
3:09
inflation, Probably not, but probably. Yeah, it made a lot of
3:15
money for Mattel and yeah, a lot of this was. This is one
3:20
of those films that it makes you wonder how much money it would have made
3:23
without Oppenheimer. Now, obviously Barbie lifted Oppenheimer more than Oppenheimer lifted Barbie.
3:31
But because of the whole dichotomy of it and the whole Barbenheimer phenomenon, you
3:37
know, I'm gonna be saying phenomenon lightsnight, you know, it really makes
3:40
you wonder, Like I wish there was a way that we could figure out
3:44
how much they would have made individually. In all honesty, and this could
3:47
be controversial because I'm such a Nolan fan. I think it was a one
3:51
way street all Do you think it was one? You don't think. You
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don't think at any effect on Barbie. I do not think that the Oppenheimer
3:58
audience was Maybe there was some sliver of it, but not enough to have
4:02
impacted it's gross income. I have no data like, what am I going
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to do disprove a negative sort of thing? But like, yeah, I
4:12
think that Barbie became such a phenomenon, and then people ironically started saying,
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how is Oppenheimer coming out? And it became like a thing where I think
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the people that were interested in Barbie said, oh, that'd be a laugh,
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And I just that's the way I perceive it is that it's a more
4:29
of a one way street. And I think that, For instance, one
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of my daughters got caught up in that she saw Oppenheimer with me in the
4:35
theater specifically so she could do Barbenheimer. She saw Barbie opening weekend, and
4:40
then when I was getting around to Oppenheimer, I was like, you want
4:43
to go, She's like, oh, Barbenheimer, Yeah, I'll go.
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So that's my anecdotal evidence of that. I mean, I feel like you
4:50
have to be more right than wrong on that one. I mean, it's
4:54
clear that Barbie was the dominant for us here when it came to just even
5:00
like cultural impact finances, Like the only reason why Oppenheimer even got close to
5:06
a billion it was was because of the Barbie effect. Unquestionably, unquestionably,
5:11
I mean, a three hour biopic about the guy who was the project manager
5:15
for the Adam Bomb isn't really a crowd pleaser, let's be honest. So
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I love about you. You know, quote unquote demoted him down to project
5:24
manager just the whole point I did. I did not demote him. I'm
5:28
talking about history. Quote unquote, okay, quote unquote, all right,
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some say would say father of the isomic bomb or inventor. You're like,
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no project manager. He was middle management. You need a good project manager
5:42
to get any project off the ground. I complimented him, if anything.
5:45
So, Darren, when was the first time you saw this movie? Ah,
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that would be today. I saw it, hey, or for this
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wonderful podcast, And I didn't really have an interest in seeing it year.
6:00
And I think I do want to add to our discussion on the Barbie effect.
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I do think it also happened to capitalize on kind of that post COVID
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ramp up again into theaters, like if this had been two years prior,
6:19
very different story, but it was just detached enough from we don't go to
6:26
theaters anymore to like, hey, I want to go to the theater.
6:29
I want to see something fun, And Barbie filled that niche perfectly so I
6:33
think that's a factor. I don't want to say that's the only factor in
6:38
the success of this movie, but I'm sure it's a piece of it.
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I think that's fair. I think that another factor to bring in, and
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I'll go ahead and call it. I'm being dismissive in any way, but
6:48
sort of like what I would call the Titanic factor, because one of the
6:51
things that made Titanic such a monster hit was that there was a film that
6:55
was appealing to an audience that doesn't typically get something served up to them as
7:00
a point of interest sort of thing. They always attributed Titanic's massive box office
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that there was an untapped audience that it appealed to, and I'd say that
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Barbie actually managed to pull that off as well, where it's it's very clearly
7:15
something that's going to appeal to an audience that isn't used to, that isn't
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typically appealed to with your big Dune blockbuster or Christopher Nolan film and stuff like
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that, like this is top Gun Maverick. Yeah, that's a good example
7:29
too. So yeah, So, I mean, I think I think all
7:31
of those things were factors. But the thing is, you don't get to
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one point for something billion dollars without actually landing it, Like that'll get you
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a big opening weekend, maybe a second weekend through inertia, but to be
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a sustained hit. The way this wound up being, you know that you
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can't take away from it, like you can get the audience in in the
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first couple of weeks, but word of mouth will kill you in a heartbeat.
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So obviously word of mouth was strong with Barbie. I think it made
8:00
a million dollars a day for forty nine days something like that. It was.
8:03
It was something like that. And the only thing to the only I
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think the only thing to do longer was The Hangover with fifty two days,
8:11
which is crazy to me, you know, considering our discussion about the director
8:16
category and that it was the director of The Hangover went on to direct Joker
8:20
somehow got during the little like there's you know, that's sort of a weird
8:26
history thing there. There's something there. I don't know what it is,
8:30
but there's something. There's something something there. So John, when did you
8:35
first see this? This that was interesting thing? Right? Yeah, I
8:39
was going to save myself for house lights because side note to the audience,
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that's how much I care about you all is. I missed this on its
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theatrical run, and not through I didn't make any specific choice not to go.
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It was literally the way my life is. I had a choice to
8:54
either see Christopher Nolan's latest film or Barbie, and I'm gonna be honest with
8:58
you, Christopher Nolan's going to win one hundred percent of the time you could
9:01
put them up. I mean, there are very few people that no one's
9:05
not going to beat at this point. But so then inertia carries on,
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and as we joke about all the time, oh then my queue just doesn't
9:13
ever fall down. So I'm just stuck there the whole time meaning to get
9:16
to something, and I'll get to it. And then I went on a
9:18
cruise, very brief cruise to celebrate my mother in law's birthday. That was
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a big, you know, odometer turning sort of birthday. So we got
9:26
all a whole bunch of family together. We took a group cruise over a
9:30
weekend and one of the nights they were having Barbenheimer at the theater by the
9:33
pool, like the big movie screen on the top deck, and my daughters
9:39
could not wait. They were like, oh yeah, you're going. And
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I was like, but the live show that's going and they're like, no,
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we're going to Barbie. I'm like, you've seen Barbie, I have
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it. Who cares? And it actually became a point of contention for the
9:50
briefest amount of time with everybody else in the group. Was like, no,
9:56
I can see Barbie at home. Why would I see it here?
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I'm going to go to the live sh show. And but you know,
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I'm an indulgent father, and when my daughters really want me to do something,
10:05
I'll go out there and sit on a pool deck chair and watch a
10:09
movie with four dollars popcorn. You know, that's what you do. I
10:15
myself didn't see this in theaters. I missed it. It was it wasn't
10:20
really something that compelled me to go. But it was just one of those
10:24
things where I was like, oh I can I can wait, you know
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till till streamy, Like it's no big deal. But my wife she went
10:31
with some other friends and like I think some other mom friends, and they
10:37
all wore pink, you know, like they they did the whole thing.
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They you know, they got the bucket and they you know, they they
10:43
they did everything that you were supposed to do. Like there there was that
10:46
thing where everyone said like you got to do X, Y and Z,
10:50
you gotta do this, you gotta do that, and they they did that,
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and she had a fantastic time. And she came home and she was,
10:56
you know, praising it and just saying it was awesome. She's like,
11:00
it was touching, it was made for women by women, and she
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told me all the best parts. She's she's just like going through it just
11:07
because she it was. It was a movie she couldn't stop talking about.
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And I said, I was like wow. I was like, I'm really
11:13
looking forward to this now. And she told me the Zack Snyder joke and
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I lost it. I absolutely lost it with how she told the Zack Snyder's
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joke. And and then when I saw you know, I saw it when
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I came to streaming and yeah, I was uh. And we watched together,
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and then my my wife kept trying to convince my seven year old to
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watch it and she's like, nah, I don't want to watch it.
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She's like, you watch Barbie's movies all the time. She's like, yeah,
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but those are cartoons. I like the cartoons. I don't want to
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watch a real live action Barbie. And we finally got her to agree to
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watch it, and then she watched it like three times in a row,
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you know, that week, and she she fell in love with it too.
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So this was yeah, this was when this movie was announced. I
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was like, you know, oh, they're making a live action Barbie.
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They've been trying to make that for like fifteen years. And then it said
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it was going to be written and directed by Greta Gerwig. I was like
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the lady person like. I was like, okay, now I'm interested.
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That's what got me interested. I was like, Barbie movie, don't care
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A Barbie movie by Greta Gerwig. Yeah, that you've got my attention.
12:18
Well, I think you said something or somebody said something in the previous weeks
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about how you know, basically production companies are more willing to go with the
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sort of like the untested tent pole director, and Gerwig isn't untested, she's
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obviously, you know, award nominee, award winner. I'm not saying it
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like that. I'm saying like, this was a very smart but also relatively
12:43
low risk move for the studio, specifically because if the thing bombs, you
12:46
blame the director they weren't ready for the role. If the thing's a hit,
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you're a genius for picking the wonder kind director who's now got a massive
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career. Blah blah blah blah blah. Like it. Literally, I hate
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to break it down like that, but I guarantee that was at least part
13:01
of the decision making process was like, how if this thing goes sideways,
13:05
how can we sidestep blame? And I think that what they did was they
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wound up getting you know, based on the results, I think they go
13:15
right into the best possible choice they had in that situation. But also kudos
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to Margo Robbie for recognizing because she's a producer on this, recognizing the potential
13:24
there and the you know, the angle of attack to get the movie made,
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and you know, I mean, I think that there's also a factor
13:33
that Mattel has burned itself on movie adaptations before of its toys, Right,
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aren't they responsible for Battleship? And so I think they they understood that they
13:46
needed a fresh approach to the trailer didn't start as the from the studio that
13:52
brought you Battleship exactly exactly the studio that brought you nothing else. We didn't
13:58
do anything for this movie. This is a brand new idea that we had.
14:03
Well. But like you said, John, I mean, yeah,
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we're a director discussion podcast, but you cannot talk about the creation of this
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movie without talking about Margot Robbie like it is her and Greta Art made this
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at least on the marketing front. I got. That's the vibe I got
14:22
is that as much as it was Greta's movie, that Margot had a massive
14:26
hand in every step in the in the being the face of it as well.
14:31
Yeah, and I think that that's something that probably stung a bit,
14:37
was Margot Robbie got plenty of like you know, headline credit, but I
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don't think that the average audience member understood how much she had to do behind
14:46
the scenes as well to move things forward. And you know, Tritian,
14:50
you're always fond of saying it's like, well, there's a reason the producers
14:52
are the ones that accept best Picture, and it's like, you know,
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I sincerely hope that not only as Gerwig enjoying something of an explosive career growth
15:03
and potential here, but also Robbie is you know, she's a player.
15:07
Now you know her company, she's a player. Yeah, her company is
15:13
legit. Like she she is a savvy businesswoman in the industry, especially with
15:18
how young she is, and she's been able to parlay a great on camera
15:24
presence to power behind the scenes. And I think it's Lucky Chap is the
15:31
name of her production company. I do believe, so if I'll confirm that
15:35
once I'm done speaking. But I'm pretty sure as Lucky Chap like, yeah,
15:39
it's it's it's gonna she not not only did this movie make Oh,
15:45
I'm getting the thumbs up from Darren. Yes, it is lucky yet fantastic.
15:48
It is estimated. Now I know not everything is money, but it
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is estimated that with her being an actress, the lead actress in it,
15:56
a producer, and also negotiating with Warner Brothers, she gets a percentage of
16:02
the back end she got. She got a fifty million dollar take home.
16:07
That's more than what Downey Junior got for Endgame. Yeah, that's that's that's
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insane. That's insane. Oh, I mean it's great, honestly, because
16:18
oh no, it's great. I think it's fantastic. No, but but
16:22
I'm saying I'm saying specifically because we're so tortured with hearing about you know,
16:26
Schwarzenegger made twenty million dollars for whatever role, and it's like, yeah,
16:30
all he did was he walked on set and did his thing. I'm not
16:34
like, you know, trash in Schwarzenegger or anything. He got Buttsons Robby,
16:38
But yeah he didn't. But Robbie was doing right. She was doing
16:44
real necessary business work behind the scenes. And it's like, I feel better
16:48
about her getting a lucrative payday like that than I do about somebody who's like,
16:53
oh, I'll do your movie if you give me twenty million in profit
16:56
points, or you know, somebody like Brando or it's like, oh my
17:00
gosh, yeah, I'm going to be on screen for eight seconds and I'm
17:03
going to get a huge payday, Like I'd rather somebody like Margot Robbie makes
17:07
out in the end of it and and and becomes the player. Do you
17:11
know what's crazy is that Margot Robbie decided to produce the film before she was
17:17
a lead actress. And she didn't say I want to be a lead actress.
17:21
Because sometimes sometimes that'll happen where some like someone will you know, find
17:25
a script, like someone will give them the script and say like, hey,
17:27
I want you to like this is This happens with Witherspoon a lot where
17:30
she'll somebody will hand her a script and she'll say like, oh, we
17:33
want to start, want you to start in this? And she's like,
17:36
oh, oh, I would you know? This is a great project.
17:37
You know I want to produce this as well. Oftentimes it's not producer first,
17:44
then actor and actress. With her, that was the case where she
17:48
met with Greta Gerwig and she and she wanted Lucky chapter produce it. And
17:52
then you will not believe this who was originally cast or who was the original
17:59
hopeful for Barbie? Can either of you guess who was originally supposed to be
18:03
Barbie? To quote macho man Randy Savage, I got no idea. Gal
18:10
Gado, Oh wow, that's really different. Wouldn't that have been atrocious?
18:18
I wouldn't necessarily say atrocious. You know, again, I can't prove one
18:23
way or the other. Maybe, but I don't see anything in her body
18:27
of work that I've watched that would indicate she could carry this film the way
18:30
Robbie did. To give gal Gado godant, whatever the benefit of the doubt.
18:37
The only good role that she's ever had is the first Wonder Woman film,
18:41
and because she played a fish out of water. So potentially, if
18:47
I was going to be extremely generous, because I personally believe I think she's
18:52
a horrible actress to like to be generous, she could play another fish out
18:59
of water like she did with a woman here. Maybe, but I think
19:03
for scheduling or she couldn't commit or something like that, she wasn't able to.
19:06
And so that's when Gerwig said, Okay, I want you Margot Robbie
19:10
to be the leader. With all that said, with all the behind the
19:12
scenes stuff and Margat Robbie being a producer and you know, bringing about the
19:18
success that is Barbie, I think we would be remiss if we didn't focus
19:22
on the main aspect that most everybody thinks about, and that is Marcot Robbie
19:26
as Barbie in front of the camera. So, John, what did you
19:30
think about her performance? Overall? I thought it was very good. She
19:33
understood the assignment. I mean, obviously she's the producer. She understands the
19:37
assignment, one would hope, so, but she you know, she delivered
19:41
what this is the thing, This is The thing that sucks is the way
19:45
I'm about the phrase this is going to sound dismissive, although it's not.
19:48
Oh man, I can't wait. No, she delivered what the role needed.
19:53
She delivered the type of, you know, the type of witty,
20:00
dry delivery that that wink at the camera deserves, so that it doesn't get
20:07
sugary or too transparent, like I would point to, for instance, a
20:12
scene where she's in the they're in the dance party and she goes you guys
20:17
ever think about dying and her face freezes as she realizes what she just said,
20:22
and that is you know that that's an acting trick to pull off,
20:27
not to make it look like an act, like to make it look natural
20:30
to the character that you're portraying or whatever, which is seems sort of silly
20:34
in the context of your playing basically you know, toy story at that point,
20:40
like a live action toy story in that sense of like a toy realizing
20:45
the you know, the existential reality and then she just yeah, yeah,
20:52
yeah. No. I don't think that's dismissive at all. I don't think
20:55
that's dismissive at all. I think that's great. I think one thing that
20:57
I thought about. What you're talking about is when she delivered the line when
21:03
I can't remember who asked it, but they said, they're like, where
21:07
do the Kins live? Or where does Kin live? And she goes,
21:11
I don't know, like like she never really thought about it before and just
21:15
they just go wherever they go, but they don't care, and it just
21:19
it was it was delivered perfectly. Yeah, I think I am very much
21:23
a fan of Like when it was announced that, you know, that Barbie
21:29
was being made and that it was Greta Gerwig, you know, as I
21:32
said earlier, I was like, Okay, now I'm interested. And when
21:33
they said that Margaret Robbie was going to play Barbie, I was like,
21:37
well, who else would it have been? You know, it's a fair
21:41
question. It's a fair question. And I know I mentioned Schwarzenegger before,
21:45
but like, if Schwarzenegger gets a starring role like this, he's literally just
21:48
walking on set having his dialogue guy work and I'll be back somewhere and he's
21:52
mailing it in and he's walking out. Robbie doesn't mail it in. Robbie
21:56
obviously cares about the material, and that's necessary for this main character. She
22:00
didn't have enough proof of purchases to mail it in, so she just had
22:04
to bring it every day. That's a little toy humor, folks, which
22:11
you'll only find here on House Lights. If you were around in the eighties,
22:15
you would really get that. So Okay, as we move on,
22:19
because we've talked about Robbi a lot behind the scenes, of course, but
22:23
as we talk about other performances, one rises to the top, and in
22:27
some circles, especially if you're in the Academy circle, the one that rises
22:34
sometimes above Margot Robbie is Ryan Gosling's kin. You know, Darren, what
22:41
do you think about him stealing the show? As some people have said,
22:47
I mean, I could definitely see it in the fact that Margot Robbie was
22:52
such a shoe in, like it clicked once you heard her name, You're
22:56
like, oh, that makes total sense. But Ryan Gosling clicked in kind
23:00
of a double take kind of way, like really, and then you think
23:04
of it for half a second more and you're like, Okay, I could
23:07
see that, and then he just yeah, he brought it. I mean,
23:11
I think half of America tuned into the oscars just to see him sing
23:15
ken enough, you know, I'm pretty sure that's I'm just somewhere. Yeah,
23:19
I'm just Ken, And yeah, no, I enjoyed his performance.
23:25
I again, it's interesting with these performances because they're they're not real, like
23:33
they're not playing people the way they're acting the way, so you have to
23:38
kind of put on a whole nother layer of performance because you're kind of playing
23:45
this beach ken dim witted kind of like I but I talk about relationships,
23:52
but I have absolutely no I have like fourth, like a four year old's
23:56
level of knowledge of that. And so it's just it's really it, and
24:00
he never changes from that, Like, yeah, he has a small arc,
24:04
but I don't think he really got a lot out of the real world
24:07
like Barbie did. Like I mean, he got some books and horses in
24:11
the patriarchy, but besides that, you know, besides all, besides all
24:17
that. Yeah, it's just he was always I always felt like a kid
24:22
could easily have just been like and then Ken says this, and then Barbie
24:26
says this, Like that was kind of the level of depth, which I'm
24:29
not saying is bad. It's just that's what this movie was kind of like
24:33
Lego movie where to a point they're kind of feeling like they're being play acted
24:40
by a child. Yeah, I get what you're laying down there. I
24:47
would say that Ryan Gosling was who so long as you cast Ken Well,
24:52
it was inevitable that he would steal the show, because I think his arc
24:56
is like that of you know, when you cast the Joker in a man
25:00
movie, you get the right joker and people are going to talk about the
25:03
Joker and that why. I want to I want to hear why, because
25:07
that's that doesn't that doesn't seem obvious to me. But you said it was
25:11
obvious to you whenever you you cat yes, whenever. I'm not saying that,
25:15
oh, well, I saw the Barbie movie and it was obvious that
25:18
Ken would steal it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that,
25:21
like, when you have a top build character who's got to carry everything along
25:26
and they're the focal point. Then when you get a character that has something
25:30
a little more lack of better word zany to do, then they're going to
25:36
steal the show. It's inevitable. It's always going to happen. It's one
25:40
hundred percent of the time Darth Vader is not in Star Wars that much,
25:42
but he's super interesting and so everybody's like, oh my god, Darth Vader,
25:45
did you see him? And like I said, the Joker, you
25:48
cast the right joker, And everybody talks about Heath Ledger, Like Christian Bale
25:52
does a great job in the Dark Knight, but everybody talks about Heath Ledger.
25:56
You know. It's that sort of thing. It's like, that's what
26:00
I consider inevitable about it, is that that's the type of role that is
26:03
always going to get the attention because it's the one that doesn't have the burden
26:10
of carrying the main arc throughtcha okay, it orbits the sun right, and
26:17
thus it can be a little it can be different and often memorable. Okay,
26:22
I I okay. I took what you said like like, oh,
26:25
well, you know, if they ever going to make a Barbie movie,
26:26
then can of course would steal the show. Like I was super confused by
26:30
that. But no, oh no, no, no no no. Trust
26:36
is usually confused by at least one thing I say per show. So that's
26:37
fine, that's right. I beg you to explain yes to me. I
26:45
was. I was unabashedly in awe of Ryan Gosling uh doing doing Ken.
26:52
I am legitimately in the camp of he stole the show like he was.
26:57
He's the one who makes me laugh hardest. He's the one who makes me
27:00
laugh the most. I think, John, like you were saying that Margaret
27:04
Robbie does the heavy lifting. She carries the story. She's the vehicle that
27:10
we care about. She's the heart, She's the one who we want to
27:14
follow and we want to see succeed. But Ken is the one that gets
27:17
the belly laughs, who gets the smiles and like just even like the little
27:22
stuff like when like when he wants to have a sleepover cause you know,
27:27
and do what boyfriend and girlfriends do, and she's like, what's that.
27:30
He's like, I honestly have no idea. But like when when they she
27:34
says it's girls' night, it's sleep overnight or whatever, and he's walking away.
27:38
The camera's on the crane where we're zoomed out really far, and he's
27:42
walking away and he starts doing that dance that he did, you know earlier
27:47
in the film, and he's just by himself, and then he just kind
27:49
of like swings his arm like just like ah shucks, and like he's by
27:53
himself, no one's watching except for the audience. It's just little moments like
27:56
that that just make me friggin lose it. Another little moment that I enjoy
28:02
is when he says I'll probably I don't remember the exact line, but he's
28:04
like, my job is beach, right, And he he's so legitimately confused
28:10
by I don't even he doesn't even know what it means, but he knows
28:12
that it's what his job is. Is beach, not water, not a
28:18
life lifeguard, not lifeguard, which a lot of people think. It's just
28:22
beach, not the beach, just beach, just beach. And I love
28:26
how ernest, like when he when he sneaks in the car when they go
28:30
to the real world. I love how earnest he is where he says it's
28:33
like like, what if there's beach, Okay, you're gonna need a professional.
28:37
That's right, That's right. Yeah. Uh. You know. I
28:41
think that there's another factor there too, though, because it's ken is the
28:47
permission to have fun with what's you know, a pretty weighty through line for
28:52
you know that the Barbie character is carrying on and people are always going to
28:56
be attracted to the fun character. It's, you know, just the same
29:00
reason that Alan winds up double stealing the scenes that he's in, because Alan's
29:04
like the the ultimate super inside joke. That's like deep knowledge about Barbie,
29:11
the Barbie lie. I didn't know Alan existed before this movie, and I
29:14
was like, oh wow, that, Oh that was really a thing.
29:17
No kidding, right, like that that sort of thing. And then the
29:22
way Sarah plays him every time he's on screen, like he's look, I
29:27
say this with all due respect to mister Sarah, and I know exactly what
29:32
basically being Michael Sarah. Yeah, Michael Sarah asked, you know what.
29:37
But he's the right when you get him, you know, but he was
29:41
the right choice. Like that. If you want to talk about an actor
29:44
where it's like, oh, we could quibble about who could have played Barbie.
29:45
We could be like, oh, well somebody else could have done what
29:48
Gossling did. Oh, SEEMUELU was fine, but this it was like,
29:52
but that character of Alan, I'm like, there is absolutely nobody else I
29:56
see in that role. There's no one else I can see doing what he's
29:59
say be done. There Apparently Jonathan Groff. It was offered to Jonathan Groff
30:03
and he turned it down, and that would have been interesting, but I
30:07
don't think anywhere near as endearing or vulnerable. And with Michael Sarah, apparently
30:17
what happened was is that they he had a mutual friend with Greta Gerwig.
30:22
He found he found out that they were doing the Barbie movie and he he
30:26
got her email from that friend, emailed her and said, Hey, I
30:30
would love to be a part of this. Is there anything I can do?
30:33
He's like, I think he's like I read that maybe like Alan was
30:37
was going to be in there. He's like, he's like, is that
30:38
is that a role I could do? You know? Have you cast that
30:41
yet? And within five minutes she emails him back and says, Hey,
30:45
I'm going to be on Zoom for like the next hour, so just click
30:48
this link whenever you're ready, And so he clicks on the link immediately and
30:52
they just talk for the next hour and then he was Alan after that,
30:56
and it was I just love stories like that where it's just you know,
31:00
like two people just you know, like because of like one connection. It's
31:03
just like, Oh, I want to be in your movie. I would
31:04
love for you to be in my movie. Then boom, it's done.
31:07
And yeah he was. He was so great, and I love that he
31:11
wasn't just like a cameo, like he actually had stuff to do. He
31:15
actually had he moved the plot forward. It would have been very easy to
31:18
make that character like the Sugar Daddy, you know, where there's kind of
31:22
wave and acknowledge that he's there. Yes, yes, also a figure I
31:26
didn't know existed. It's not actually sugar Daddy, it's Sugar's daddy. That's
31:32
right, Yes, that is. It's very very key. I am floored
31:36
that that that made it, that made it to shelves. Uh, you
31:40
know, I guess so. But you know, the thing is, I
31:45
think that there's one performance I want to ask about, uh, and that's
31:49
Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell, much like Michael Sarah, You're gonna get Will
31:55
Ferrell. Will Ferrell I think works very well. But there is always going
32:00
to be a part of me that's going to be very interested in maybe what
32:04
somebody else could have done with it, to be a little more like Ryan
32:07
Gosling, a little more earnest with it. There are certain, yeah,
32:13
certain times where it's too obvious that Farrell's in on the joke and Gosling doesn't
32:19
appear in on it, like he's playing it where he's not in on the
32:22
joke. Therefore it's funnier. It's tricky also with Farrell because he's the funny
32:29
man, but he kind of needs to be the straight man to make us
32:32
kind of buy into what's happening, because ridiculous stuff is going on. And
32:39
I would have loved to see Lance Reddick as a whole Oh wow, that
32:46
would have been a great casting choice. That would have been a lot of
32:51
fun, like to be fair, to be fair, I had a previous
32:54
episode where we talked about all the great ways that Lance Reddick could do anything,
33:00
and I'm just contruing that on but you know he can deliver that like
33:05
straight laced CEO delivery, but also being like so so Barbie showed up and
33:13
just you believe him, you believe everything he's saying on how ridiculous it is.
33:16
I could see him hitting the Ryan Gossling note. Yeah I could.
33:21
I can. I'm playing scenes in my head right now, and I'm like,
33:24
it would have been fantastic. That would have been fan freakingtastic. Ah
33:32
pissed at you, Darren, I'm pissed at you for even suggesting that,
33:37
because it's so it's so amazing. I mean, it's again, like you
33:39
said, all he did was you'll sprinkle some lance Reddick on it. That's
33:43
all. That's all you gotta do. We gotta like that's gonna become a
33:46
thing in the in the show. Like next movie, we're gonna be like,
33:49
who could have lance Reddick played and improved? Yeah, welcome the House
33:55
of Reddick lance Reddicks segment where we talk about which role of this movie should
34:01
have been played by Lands. But like Darren, you're absolutely right because like
34:06
both of you, both John and Darren, you just the Will Ferrell is
34:10
the funny guy. He's he plays the funny guy. He's in on the
34:15
joke, and so he kind of nudges and winks and everything like that,
34:17
and that actually I think that not his his bit, and some of the
34:22
real world stuff knocks it down a pig for me, Like it kind of
34:27
knocks down a star for me. Like before, like just to reveal a
34:30
little bit, it was, I understand that you had to have some weirdness
34:37
in order for them to actually get to the real world. I get it,
34:39
Okay, I get it. And the jokey stuff was fun, like
34:44
when they flipped the car and like when like you know, and it's it's
34:47
all it's all kind of joky, but it's not slapstick. When bart when
34:52
Barbie was getting chased in the Mattel headquarters and they're like going around the cubicles,
34:58
that's slapstick. That completely took me out of it. What what it
35:01
violates too, is it made the real world more like the toy world,
35:06
so that that sort of the conceit gets confused, and that is that I
35:12
think is the bigger problem where it's like, I know what they're trying to
35:15
do there, but I almost wonder if that's some sort of way that they
35:21
were able to make Mattel more comfortable with them being lampooned, because Mattel is
35:30
the in between, Like, if anybody is going to be more wacky from
35:34
the real world, it's matel there the bridge, So I can I can
35:37
kind of buy into that, but I'm like your point too, John,
35:39
of you know, if if Mattel is completely tongue in cheek, it's easier
35:45
for them to kind of laugh at themselves in signing off on the plot.
35:49
Yeah, I think it makes these yeah. Uh. But as part of
35:54
that Mattel thing, you know, America Ferrara comes in. She she got
36:00
a due amount of praise for this. She was nominated for an award too,
36:04
right, wasn't she? Or I can't. I can't remember. I
36:07
honestly, I don't. I don't follow the oscars. I just remember her
36:12
name being mentioned a bit. She at least got a lot of praise for
36:15
it. I think like the entire reason why she got the praise and also
36:19
any kind of noms was because of that speech. It's saying, Gosling and
36:22
for earned nominations for the Academy Awards. Hey, there you go. Yeah,
36:28
I think everybody was so focused on Gosling being nominated that I think America
36:32
was a little pushed off to the side unrightly so. And here's here's where
36:37
I go a little bit controversial, I guess. Is that well, the
36:43
scene that everybody talks about where she gives the big monologue. I had a
36:46
flash in my brain the first time I saw it, and the second time,
36:52
you know, I saw it when I rewatched it. Of and Tristan,
36:54
you'll you'll get the joke, I know, because you've watched Futurama as
36:58
much as I have, and Darren, I think you have of the Robot
37:00
Devil at Fry's Opera. You can't just have characters going around saying how they
37:05
feel. That makes me angry. It's not a poorly written speech, it's
37:13
not a poorly performed speech. It's that the character is telling me all of
37:16
these things. But I didn't really see her go through that struggle in specific,
37:23
and I think that's where the screenplay doesn't do itself any favors. And
37:27
that's where I think the structure gets a little overly ambitious, and maybe some
37:30
things could have been pared down in an effort to let me connect with that
37:37
character more and understand more of what she had gone through as opposed to I
37:43
know we see her in flashes. I know that Barbie suddenly pieces together.
37:45
It's the mom who's influencing me. There's all, and that's all beautiful,
37:51
But that speech instead comes across as just a well performed monologue as opposed to
37:58
an emotional resonance for me. So I know that might be controversial, but
38:04
that's yeah, that's where I stand with it. No, I'm with you.
38:07
I feel the exact same way, and you know, you've you've done
38:10
a lot to kind of preface that. Yeah, like it's controversial, like
38:15
not a lot of people admit it, but uh yeah, Like when I
38:19
when I when I heard the speech, I got what they were doing,
38:22
and I was like, yeah, there is a lot of dichotomies. There
38:25
is a lot of contradictions and being a woman and from what I've experienced vicariously
38:31
through my wife and my sister and my mother and everything like that, and
38:36
so I got what they were trying to say, but I I it was
38:40
I had that Futurama moment where it was just like, you can't just it
38:45
felt so heavy handed that that was the the point in the movie where the
38:50
sledgehammer hit my head. And I think that might be one of those situations
38:55
where I just have to go that speech was not written for me, and
38:59
I like, I think I have to admit that I was not the main
39:01
demographic for that speech as a moviegoer, just a casual, generic movie gover.
39:07
That's where I felt the hammer on the head. But you know,
39:10
obviously that speech struck a chord with individuals, and you know, like we
39:15
joked about last week about three guys talking about little women. I think this
39:19
is that moment for me, is three guys talking about little women in regards
39:23
to America. Freerr's speech. Yeah, I mean I always have a difficult
39:30
time with it because like we're always breaking down the movies and it's just sort
39:36
of like objectively looking at it, and it's like it I think it's it's
39:39
also a fair point though, which I think you're getting at here, where
39:42
it's like there are plenty of plenty of movies where somebody else might and it's
39:47
not even a male female thing, but somebody else might look at a movie
39:51
I'm watching and they're like, why are you watching this? This is bad.
39:53
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know it doesn't work for you,
39:58
but it works for me. Thing hell, family classic exactly watching Oh
40:04
well, John, You and I were talking just yesterday and I said,
40:07
I was like, oh, yeah, that's a family favorite. What was
40:08
it? Oh, I don't remember, Oh it was it was it was
40:13
Maverick. It was Richard Donner's mem Oh that's right. Richard Donner's Maverick is
40:16
great. It's one of the rare Richard Donner movies where he figured out how
40:19
to end a movie that's a very big thing, very big thing. I
40:22
was happy for him in that moment, like John brought it up and I
40:25
was like, Riddell family favorite. That's right, that's right, that's right.
40:29
But see, that's just like nostalgia. It tips the scale because each
40:32
of us have a scale in us that can be tipped by our own experiences.
40:37
So that's definitely how it goes well. I mean I I think that's
40:40
also getting back to the structurally thing. I think that that is one of
40:45
the reasons that Ken winds up stealing the show a little bit is his arc.
40:49
I'm with him through it. I would have wanted to be with America
40:52
Ferrara through a little bit more of her arc, and I would have sacrificed
40:55
some of the Ken stuff for that. And so that's I consider that a
41:00
screenplay failing more than anything else, unless there's like an hour of footage sitting
41:04
on the floor where I could sit down and be like, well, objectively,
41:07
I think but and I think that's a thing that I think is nice
41:13
about the movie is while we do have some heavy handed moments, I think
41:16
that there's a tinge of universality to it because Ken's art gives, you know,
41:23
something to the mail audience as well about Ken cracking under the pressures to
41:28
behave a certain way as a man, and that's a very important I think,
41:32
you know, a counterpoint to what Barbie's going through and what they're talking
41:37
about, where it's like it's not a both sides is sort of thing,
41:40
but it's a it's a thing where it's like, you know, there are
41:43
pressure, there are pressures that Ken is going through. They're not the same
41:47
and he enjoys a little bit, you know, his pressures are you know,
41:53
reaping the benefits sort of angle or whatever you want to put it sort
41:57
of thing, but like it's still there. And I think that's why the
42:00
movie winds up playing more than four just its intended audience. I think that's
42:06
another reason Ken, you know, winds up helping the film find a broader
42:10
audience that maybe it was even searching for it first. Now I think that's
42:15
that's really solid. I never really thought of that before. Darren. I
42:20
want to ask you about the overall message of the film, you know,
42:24
like because you know, like John touched on it a little bit where you
42:28
know, like the we see Marv Robbie's Barbie become a real woman, and
42:32
you know, like all all the barbies are brainwashed by the patriarchy, and
42:37
it's not until they understand the pain of being a woman that they snap out
42:40
of it. And you know, like with that kind of message and with
42:47
with the you know, like you have people who've never seen it who hate
42:51
it and say it's, oh, it's just men bashing, and then you
42:52
have people who've seen it and love it and defend it or ignore it or
42:57
say, oh, yeah, I don't care. Darren, where do you
43:00
fall on that spectrum? Yeah, it's it's a really nuanced movie because at
43:09
its core it is a message movie. It has something to say it and
43:16
like we said, sometimes it's saying with a sledgehammer and sometimes it's saying it
43:21
with nuance. But but there's I feel like at times I'm gonna talk in
43:27
circles because you can say things one way, but you have to kind of
43:30
loop around on the reverse. So with the message that that is obviously coming
43:36
through, you know, I talked about this with with my wife and and
43:39
as we kind of chatted before, you know, I have a son and
43:43
a daughter cards on the table. I am not going to have them watch
43:47
this movie for a while I'm not banning it from the house, I'm not
43:52
throwing away a copy, but I they are not They're not old enough yet,
43:59
I think, and in my view as their father, to absorb these
44:05
concepts, especially how movies can very easily tell a message and push a message.
44:13
So for an example, with Barbie and the and the speech, you
44:17
know, that is something that is experienced by many women, but not all
44:23
women, and it is trying, you know, I don't know if it's
44:27
trying to say all women experience this or all women feel this way. But
44:32
but on the on the man's side, you know, my when my wife
44:37
was talking to me, she said, you know, when I think of
44:39
men in my life, she's like, I think of you, I think
44:43
of you know, my father and your father, and and just for those
44:47
of us that have been blessed with good male role models like we, I'd
44:53
much rather lift up that foundation than make a joke at you know, the
45:00
real struggles that that gender faces. And you can't get away with that with
45:07
this movie because it is trying to be a message movie. And I'm not
45:10
saying it shouldn't. It's just as a message movie. It's not like,
45:15
oh, it's a Barbie movie. Barbie movies at that level are like the
45:20
animated you know, this is trying to say something and trying to communicate something.
45:25
So all that to say, you know, I want to make sure
45:30
my kids are exposed to those positive aspects of being a woman in our society
45:37
and being a man, of having a community and having good examples. Not
45:43
to say that doesn't exist and there aren't problems. Like you said in the
45:46
beginning, tryst and you know that there aren't people that feel this way,
45:51
but yeah, it it's kind of like when you're watching a movie for the
45:54
first time and you don't know where it's going to go. I didn't know
45:58
where this was going to go, Like it's happy Barbie Land, and then
46:01
you're in the real world and you're and you're kind of turn everything's turning on
46:07
its ear, and Barbie's very fish out of water and trying to you know,
46:10
navigate all of that. So, like I said, I knew I
46:14
was gonna be talking back in circles, you know, around to my points.
46:17
But again, like you said, there are things that come across in
46:21
this movie that are not aimed at me, are not aimed at my experience,
46:25
that are going to resonate better. But as far as you know,
46:30
I'm concerned. You know, it was. It was an enjoyable movie.
46:32
It was a fun movie. It is a well acted movie. But it
46:37
can't be a Barbie movie. It chose to be the message movie. And
46:44
so that's kind of how I have to accept it and balance it. I
46:50
think I get what you're saying there, Darren. And before we recorded,
46:53
I went ahead and and you know, spoke to the missus and I was
46:57
like, yeah, you know Barbie's and her general reaction to it was like,
47:00
yeah, it was good. You know, I really liked it.
47:02
I'd like to watch it again sort of thing. But she wasn't wasn't enamored
47:06
of it to the point like she loved going to scene it with waving the
47:08
Barbie flag. It's not her identity now. Basically, she thought it was
47:13
fun and she she enjoyed. You know, she did enjoy the speech because
47:16
she's like, yeah, you know, hey, but she wasn't like,
47:20
you know, fist in the air. It wasn't a call to action for
47:22
her sort of thing. I got, uh. And the thing is,
47:25
our youngest has seen it a couple of times, and all she sees is
47:30
the pastels and the jokes and that's it. That's all. She's not hitting
47:34
her on that second level yet completely over her head. Fair The middle child
47:40
loves to ras me with it. She's like, are you ken, Dad?
47:44
Which ken? Are you? You know? It's like a ha ha,
47:45
and I go, I'm allan. But the oldest paid me paid me
47:51
the Yeah, that's doll that needs to come out. That will not be
47:57
a well selling doll, but I can say it. My oldest paid me
48:01
a great compliment after the first time I saw it where I was talking about
48:05
it and her reaction was meh. I said, well, you know,
48:07
talk to me, kidd oh, you know, let's chat this out.
48:12
And we talked about it and I was like, ah, you know,
48:15
it was a little heavy handed here and there. It's a blah blah blah
48:16
blah blah. I go and honestly, I don't think i've ever and I
48:21
know my dad wasn't like this. And she looked at me, and God
48:25
bless her, she looked at me. She goes, yeah, I don't
48:27
think that movie really had anything to do with you. It was more Grandpa's
48:30
generation. And I was like, okay, I'll take that as a win.
48:35
That works for me. That's it. That's a huge win. Yeah,
48:38
I would take that. Yeah. Like like you guys, you know,
48:42
like I spoke with my wife about it several times, and she she
48:45
is that one who's just like, no, that's this was a great movie.
48:47
This was this is beautiful every single time she's watched it, and she's
48:52
seen it a couple of times now and a couple of times with our seven
48:54
year old, and she cries every single time she sees the mont of home
49:00
movies every single time. Tears. I'm talking real, not just misty tears
49:06
every single time. And she's seen him multiple times, and she agrees with
49:08
me that there's a few moments when it's like all of us that it's it's
49:13
heavy handed, like the hammer is thrown down. But like our seven year
49:19
old, like is kind of like your youngest John, She's just she just
49:22
laughs at the jokes. She sees a pastel, she laughs at Ken,
49:25
she laughs at Barbie. And I actually joked about how maybe we shouldn't take
49:30
our seven year old to the theater because I don't want her to think that
49:35
being a woman is that crappy yet, you know, but it turned out
49:38
that, you know, like she wasn't affected by by the movie that much,
49:42
and in that regard, like where you're you're worried, Darren, like
49:45
she she was not affected that way. But I totally understand why you wouldn't
49:51
want to to me, uh, it wasn't. It's it's interesting because that's
49:57
one of those heavy handed things, but it's nuanced at the same time,
50:01
because there's a couple of different ways you can take it, Like you can
50:04
take it at face value. And again, Darren, this is not like
50:07
a knock on what you said. Nothing that you said it was wrong.
50:09
But like if you take it at face value, which a kid might,
50:14
you know, it's like, oh, men are bad and boys are bad
50:16
and girls are put upon and that's it, and like that's it. And
50:22
but if you in certain ways that I kind of took it was as like,
50:25
oh, they're not making fun of men, They're just trying to illustrate,
50:29
you know, to the extreme, the negatives, the negatives of living
50:34
in a patriarchy. And you know, it was it was surprising to me
50:37
at the end, a pleasant surprise, or I should say, an interesting
50:40
surprise that at the end Barbie Barbie World or Barbie Land or whatever it's called,
50:46
didn't switch to a fifty to fifty system. It wasn't like, oh,
50:51
well, you know, like we're all equals now, you know,
50:52
it's it's a utopia where men and women are treated equal. They're like,
50:57
oh, you know, like even the even the kins are like, can
50:59
we have some people in the Supreme Court and like no, no, you
51:01
know, like and it's it's what it like to me. I took that
51:07
as it's kind of echoing the reverse of our world, where like, yeah,
51:13
we've made some great strides, but we have a long way to go.
51:17
And it's you know, Barbie Land is reflective, ironically as the antithesis
51:23
of our world, and so like, it's not a men are bad,
51:28
it's the patriarchy is insidious. And John, I loved what you said about
51:35
about Kin breaking under the trials that he goes through and how he feels like
51:38
he's always second best to Barbie and how you know, like and I even
51:42
love that moment when he starts to cry, and you know, Barbie comes
51:45
up to him and he says, he's like he's like, I'm a liberated
51:47
man. I know it's okay to cry, Like Yeah, I absolutely love
51:52
that, but I think I think we need to start wrapping up because we've
51:55
been going for a long time and so I think we're about to hit an
51:59
hour here, and I think we need to start wrapping it up. Because
52:01
it was to me like I will go first with my rating. I was,
52:07
like I said earlier on, I like the Will Ferrell joky stuff at
52:10
Mattel really took me out of it, and it really I think it knocked
52:16
it down because it just didn't feel like it fit with the rest of the
52:21
of the movie. And there was a few times when some other stuff was
52:29
heavy handed and it took me out of it where I felt like Gerwig was
52:31
trying to win some sort of like Twitter points with certain vocab where it's just
52:37
like calling Barbie fascists and then saying like, you know, like what did
52:44
she say like white Savior Barbie, Like she's a doll, And then the
52:49
one thing that I really really friggin hate where they could have excized it completely
52:52
and it would have made no friakin difference to the movie whatsoever, but making
52:57
the dad a moron, and then you know, then again adding another Twitter
53:02
point with using the term cultural appropriation. You know, it just that right
53:07
there. I was just like, you could have taken out every single one
53:09
of those little things and it wouldn't have hurt the message. It would have
53:14
it would have you would have maintained your message completely. I would not have
53:17
rolled my eyes so hard that I almost went unconscious. And it just it
53:22
would have given you know, far right haters less fodder. And it doesn't
53:29
cause it doesn't help your cause whatsoever. And you know now I'm getting deeper
53:32
and deeper into it, but it just felt like adding stuff to add stuff
53:37
to pat yourself on the back. And there was there was a little bit
53:40
too much of that at times. But great performances, great story, great
53:45
message, fantastic production design, a really nice album. Uh it just it
53:52
made me laugh. But some of those things really knocked it down. So
53:57
I'm giving it a three and a half. I think that's fair. I
54:00
I if I may, Darren, I'm just gonna jump right in. I
54:06
will actually say Tristan that when you're talking about quote unquote trying to score Twitter
54:09
points, I think your point's completely fair. And I know you might roll
54:15
your eyes at this, but I would say the best example of it isn't
54:19
just the use of a term, but it's inserting a joke at the expense
54:22
of the Zack Snyder director's cut of the Snyder cut of Justice League. I
54:29
promise you nobody else in my family even knows what the hell that joke's about.
54:35
That is such a niche joke. That's an online only sort of thing,
54:38
because it's like if I walked out up and down my street right now,
54:44
I mean, people would be mad because I'd be waking them up.
54:45
But like if I walked up and down the street tomorrow when everybody's awake and
54:49
I was like, hey, Zack Snyder, you know the Snyder cut,
54:52
they look at me, they'll be like, what the hell are you talking
54:53
about? And exactly right, And that's the sort I think that's the best
54:58
example I think that they're are. I just want to go on record and
55:01
say, you know, me and I am heavily invested in the Snider cut.
55:07
I love the Snyder cut. I've seen it multiple times. It's a
55:10
four and a half hour film. I've seen it multiple times. I love
55:13
it. I will watch it again. I lost it at that joke.
55:16
It's one of my favorite jokes in the our film. I know, I
55:20
know it is, it can be, but your very specific audience, Okay,
55:27
very specific audience, I'm okay, catered to, but ill yeah,
55:30
well of course, But I can say that I can't really expound much more
55:37
on what you laid out there in terms of there are moments where I just
55:43
sort of disconnect. The second time I watched it, I was like,
55:45
I just wanted to get through a part where I was like, Okay,
55:49
okay, let's let's move it along. Let's move it along. And I
55:52
started to feel the run time, which was unfortunate, and so by watching
55:55
it a second time, it actually knocked it down a little bit for me,
56:00
and I wind up with a three and a half as well. That
56:02
doesn't take anything away from Gerwig. I go back to what I said earlier.
56:07
I think that the screenplay needed another pass before. And granted you could
56:14
you could also trim stuff in editing blah blah blah blah blah. But I
56:16
think that there were just certain things about the screenplay that needed a little more
56:20
refinement before they made it into production. She still deserves all of the praise
56:25
for putting together something like this, specifically because you look at later Ladybird,
56:31
then Little Women, and then this. She scaled up with the size of
56:37
the production, the budget. There are a lot of directors who go Josh
56:42
Trank with this sort of thing, and she didn't. She stood up to
56:45
the pressure and she delivered something that audiences could plug into. So it is
56:50
a well deserved three and a half and an enjoyable one. Man, that's
56:53
the first time anybody said the words Josh Trank in years. I mean,
56:58
I think he perked up in bed just now. Probably there will not be
57:01
a House of Trank. Spoiler alert, Darren, what you're rating? Oh
57:08
yeah, I mean, as you know, I don't give half stars,
57:12
so I've been up and down on my rating. I'm going to give it
57:16
a three. And what's I was I was coming in, I was probably
57:21
gonna give this a two for the majority of a conversation just overall, but
57:28
I mean billion dollars aside. But no, that that really is true though,
57:31
in the fact that it is an accomplished movie and it pulled off a
57:37
Barbie movie really well overall, which I think it has to get credit for.
57:43
Like you said, you know, she's ramping up in I want to
57:45
see what she does next. This isn't like turning me off to Greta Gerwig.
57:50
It's not making me not want to see what she's going to be doing.
57:53
I'm really curious what that will be. But yeah, but overall,
57:59
I mean, I think it's middle of the road in that regard. It
58:04
wants to be above this world, but not of this world. It's just
58:08
really interesting because there's there's no father figure. There's no good male character in
58:16
this entire movie. And to say like, oh yeah, little girls don't
58:22
need good male figures, they don't need fathers around them, or brothers or
58:30
or uncles, and there's none. And again not saying this movie has to
58:34
fit that mold, but it doesn't. It doesn't even try to. And
58:38
I think that's kind of a knock against it. And it just that look,
58:42
like you said, John, that last little thing of like the dad
58:45
can't even get the Spanish right, like he has to, he has to
58:50
fail at everything, and it's like, okay, sure, why not.
58:55
But yeah, all that to say, I'm giving it a three, but
58:59
I will definitely be following her career with great enthusiasm. Now what we're doing
59:07
that closes the House of Gerwig for now, But as John was saying,
59:15
we're not doing House of Trenk, but we are doing something a little bit
59:20
more unique, or I should say not as well known. Definitely not as
59:24
well known as Greta Gerwig Darren. What are we doing or starting next week,
59:30
I'm really excited. We are moving to the House of Stuart Baird,
59:34
one of my favorite films. A lot more explosions in Barbie, but it's
59:38
gonna be a fun ride. We're jumping in with Executive Decision nineteen ninety six
59:45
in everything that is entailed here on House Lights, Join the Revolution, Join
59:52
the net Party.