Barbie aesthetics
American movies and TV have been in the doldrums for years now, a Sargasso of remakes, reboots, "franchises", spinoffs, sequels, prequels, and whatever other tired derivative pretexts can be conjured to milk a few more bucks from the corpses of the true original works of decades past. There have been exceptions -- The Shape of Water and Get Out were genuine masterpieces -- but few and far between.
Perhaps even worse, visuals have become gloomy -- underlit, murky, dreary-looking, depressing. Colors are dull and muted. Star Trek, for example, has visually devolved from this:
to this:
The change in look reflects the change from the bright and optimistic tone of the original to the tediously cynical, pessimistic outlook which is so fashionable today. If you've seen a sampling of modern movies, or even their trailers, you know what I mean. It's no wonder so much of the new stuff flops. It's not only derivative and unoriginal (and often preachy), but visually dull. One of my own all-time favorite movies, Pleasantville, famously made light and color a brilliant metaphor for liberation and openness and optimism. The lesson, however, went unheeded by the big-studio masters of murk.
So it's not surprising that this has been attracting a lot of attention:
This is, to be blunt, the first movie trailer I've seen in months (if not longer) that inspired me with any interest in actually seeing the film it was advertising. Granted, it doesn't tell you much about what the story will be like. But it does tell you that it's not taking itself too seriously (as if that would even be possible). It's probably going to be cheerful and fun. It's probably not going to be preachy or woke. It certainly isn't a bastardization of some great classic of the past. And, well, it looks like that. Amid the wasteland of superhero rehashes and clunky remakes of Disney cartoons, it's something new and different.
At the very least, it's a positive sign. If it does well financially, maybe other studios and streaming services will get the hint.
Finally, a couple of reactions. Grace Randolph:
Brett Cooper:
It shouldn't matter -- but inevitably does -- that Randolph and Cooper are at the far opposite ends of the spectrum in their political views. In these days of polarization, we should be a bit grateful for anything that diverse people can like in spite of their differences, even if it's only a featherweight movie based on a kids' toy.
Perhaps even worse, visuals have become gloomy -- underlit, murky, dreary-looking, depressing. Colors are dull and muted. Star Trek, for example, has visually devolved from this:
So it's not surprising that this has been attracting a lot of attention:
This is, to be blunt, the first movie trailer I've seen in months (if not longer) that inspired me with any interest in actually seeing the film it was advertising. Granted, it doesn't tell you much about what the story will be like. But it does tell you that it's not taking itself too seriously (as if that would even be possible). It's probably going to be cheerful and fun. It's probably not going to be preachy or woke. It certainly isn't a bastardization of some great classic of the past. And, well, it looks like that. Amid the wasteland of superhero rehashes and clunky remakes of Disney cartoons, it's something new and different.
At the very least, it's a positive sign. If it does well financially, maybe other studios and streaming services will get the hint.
Finally, a couple of reactions. Grace Randolph:
Brett Cooper:
It shouldn't matter -- but inevitably does -- that Randolph and Cooper are at the far opposite ends of the spectrum in their political views. In these days of polarization, we should be a bit grateful for anything that diverse people can like in spite of their differences, even if it's only a featherweight movie based on a kids' toy.
posted by Infidel753 at 7:21 AM
16 Comments:
It sounds like you do not like Noir movies, perhaps?
Blade Runner, the newer version is weaker, Rutger Hauer speech at the end. Seven Days in May. Fail Safe. Cop Land. Soylent Green. They can be depressing though. Deer Hunter was to close to home.
The darkness gets to you after a while.
Blade Runner was a masterpiece (the real one -- I didn't see the remake). Like, say, Alien, it had valid reasons for looking like it did. It was an original -- they didn't take something bright and optimistic and turn it dark and gloomy. It's also one of the very, very few dystopian movies that was actually good. Seven Days in May and Fail Safe were really implausible, conjuring unrealistic nightmares just for the sake of being nightmarish. Soylent Green, in hindsight, was just another phantasm of the tired "overpopulation" fallacy.
Those movies had some artistic merit despite being essentially nonsense. You can't put the current cookie-cutter superhero crap and preachy woke bastardized remakes of old classics on anything like the same level as even them.
Darkness and even horror have their place. Nowadays, they're making almost everything look like that. We're drowning in the murky and mucky and depressing. I'm starved for light and color. The pendulum needs to swing back.
Tee hee - never took you for a Barbie guy.
nothing like a good comedy to lift our spirits - now I'm thinking about how, on one hand, star trek went from normal people to 90s women characters in suits so tight they had to be sewn into, & on the other hand Picard is more of a sex symbol the older he gets! (waiting to see that happen with a female character...)
Lady M: I actually know hardly anything about Barbie dolls, nor have any interest in them. But a good movie can be made about anything.
Daal: I guess preferred forms of sexualization change over time. Nowadays I doubt they would go with those very short uniform dresses on the original show. (Actually dresses and skirts wouldn't be such a good idea on a spaceship because they depend on gravity, and the artificial gravity could fail due to a battle or power outage, though Star Trek never showed that happening because they didn't have the special-effects budget for it.)
What makes a man a sex symbol has always baffled me a bit.
The first Barbie trailer riffs on 2001 (which is possibly the most portentous load of wank Kubrick ever delivered - I am including AI) but the second hints heavily at the "Wizard of Oz" so whilst Dorothy travels from Kansas to Oz, Barbie (and Ken- a Ken - there are many Kens*) travels from the Barbieverse to reality. So the word on the 'net is that the "Barbie" plot is a sort of inverted "Wizard of Oz". Now, that is kinda cool. And dare I say it? There seems an echo of "Toy Story". Consider the existential angst of Buzz Lightyear realising he isn't actually Buzz Lightyear - just a toy Buzz Lightyear.
And, yeah, the trailers got me quite excited. Because it just looked fun! Clever and fun - right from the start of the second trailer where we see Barbie take her shoes off and reveal her weird feet - Barbie dolls are designed for high heels.
For the record I'm a married heterosexual who has no interest in dolls.
"Deer Hunter" never floated my boat but then I just love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Best war film ever? Nah, that has to be "Kelly's Heroes". Or possibly, "Where Eagles Dare". "Memphis Belle" has gotta be close.
OK, I'm off on a limb here but I would not be surprised if "Barbie" didn't have a ref to "Aliens" and Newt's doll. "Because she's just a piece of plastic".
Anyway, Life in Plastic, it's fantastic!
*Such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earring_Magic_Ken
NickM: Indeed -- you may have seen this item which I included in one of the link round-ups in February. Quite clever.
An "inverted Wizard of Oz" story has possibilities, so long as they don't try to make it too realistic, which would involve a Munchkin (or a Barbie) flying into the real world and having to get a miserable minimum-wage job, be harassed by a shitty landlord, not be able to afford healthcare, etc.
The high-heel thing made me cringe just a little -- high-heeled shoes always look so uncomfortable.
Maybe a Barbie would think of a human, "she doesn't have bad dreams because she's just a hunk of meat".
"Maybe a Barbie would think of a human, "she doesn't have bad dreams because she's just a hunk of meat"."
Oh, that is good. That is getting on to asking whether "Androids Dream of Electric Sheep".
I suspect any AI that might be possible would make most SF aliens look utterly normal.
And that is why I read you. a post about the lighting in a popcorn movie gets me thinking existential thoughts ;-)
Hey Infidel ... haven't been by here, or any blogs for that matter, in probably a couple years(?). But just wanted to drop in and see what you were doing, good to see you still are pumping the posts.
As far as the Barbie flick ... no, I didn't know about it, but it does look fun and colourful, and you make so many good points, as far as the movies being pumped out today (all about a quick buck), as far as the hazy, fuzzy, dark settings and such. So much too, as far as political correctness, and ain't it the truth ... as far as sequels, remakes, etc ... like endless rehashed sh*t, and nothing much original. I can imagine being like 18 years old back in the early 70s, and I would have probably went to see a colourful, funny flick like Barbie doing acid (LOL), I mean, that was me back then {:-)
I did some posting on my Ranch Chimp blog some years back on Barbie, but it was in humour, because of something like how they were trying to make Barbie politically correct, or some silly sh*t right wingers were trying to do on Barbie Dolls ... which frankly, I hope this Barbie flick covers all the politically correct, and puritanical points correctly, because you will get critiism from the right as well as the left, if it isn't correct and suitable for those with, let's say ... sensitive hearts (LOL)
There is still no match, for me, when it comes to going to a movie in the theatre house, with the massive screen, and sound. Lots of folks just do the household big wall screen, but to me it doesn't replace that big screen theatre experience. I have Netflix at home, I did watch "Emily the Criminal" the other night, I thought it was good, but only because I could really relate to the story, from my own life experience.
Oh, BTW, Infidel ... my wife, Rosalie. who you met years ago, died March 06, 2022, after a month long battle in the hospital with Covid ... I visit her grave every sunday morning, more below
https://www.restlandfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Rosalie-Pickering/#!/TributeWall
Also, my granddaughter, Sharmaine recieved a full scholarship to Cornell University, she's a hardcore environmentalist too (listening to me too much as a kid {:-) ... but off to Ithaca, NY in August to start
Hope things are well with you ... Later Guy ....
NickM: In the case of Barbie it's more likely to be AD (artificial ditzyness), but the possibilities are endless.
If AI ever develops the capacity for real emotions, given how fast it develops, it might well quickly reach the point where it regarded the emotions of organic creatures as shallow and primitive, and developed a mentality of "they don't really feel things the way we do".
Ranch: Hello again! Glad to see you're still around. Yes, the posts are still coming thick and fast.
We're definitely going through a blah period for movies these days. I think they cost so much to make now that the studios don't like to take risks, so they just keep rehashing the same old formulas, so we get all these stale franchises and one cookie-cutter superhero movie after another. That wouldn't explain all the woke remakes, most of which flop, but remakes are traditionally considered a fairly safe bet if the original movie was popular.
I remember Rosalie. Very sorry to hear the news.
Congratulations about Sharmaine's scholarship. Cornell is a big deal.
My husband and I struggle to find interesting things to watch these days. What we're tired of is the typical Hollywood series and movies that predictably include: car chases, gun shootings and things being blown up. Yawn... A good story and an intelligent script is not easy to come by. We've actually been enjoying foreign made entertainment much more that doesn't include the above scenes.
I can certainly understand that. Good scripts in particular are a problem -- the script seems to be an afterthought with most of these special-effects-clotted monstrosities, even though it's really the heart of a movie.
Explosions are certainly popular. The last time I was in a real theater (several years ago), it seemed like every one of the trailers playing before the movie started with an explosion and contained at least a couple more. It was hard to remember where one trailer ended and the next one began, because they were all alike. Almost comical.
Foreign movies are one option. Older movies are another. Most of the ones I have on DVD are pretty old.
I get -I think- what you’re saying about the dark tone, it’s trite and predictable. No offense to anybody, but it’s kind of like tattoos, you’re not a rebel when everybody else has got one.
So cynicism is a default setting for unimaginative writers, and passes for wit + critical/original thought now I guess. It’s depressing.
The dark lighting to me is just kind of dull and tiresome to look at after a while. And I despise remakes of anything, they make me so angry how bad they are 😂
Some of the many reasons I don’t watch TV, podcasts work a lot better, I do a lot of cooking and stuff online & so don’t have to look at a screen, usually learn something.
As for political divisiveness, I would suggest 25% of the country are MAGA. That’s what the polls say. They’re just very very LOUD. And on Twitter, half of them aren’t even American
Although it might be not politically beneficial to come out and say it, a lot of Republicans have loosely formed an unspoken alliance with other moderate Dems/Independents in an anti-Trump coalition. This theory fits neatly with Trump’s pathetic current 25% approval rating.
MAGA is the engine driving the divisiveness, IMHO. Things will get better as it is reduced or eliminated, same as with the Russians. And they’re all allied anyway, so good riddance. They’re all only going to get louder as things get ugly for them tho, so strap in.
This kid stealing the documents this week, these are problems driven by MAGA-Qanon lunacy and it’s a real security threat, I wouldn’t dismiss the current situation is merely ‘divided’. MAGA are lawless, pro-Russia, treacherous, anti-Constitutional, and violently dangerous. And they’re keeping the rest of us from getting on with the nation’s business. That’s why their approval numbers in the House are tanking too
Reaganite: The murky and gloomy look is so pervasive now that the real "rebels" are those who give us brightness and real color. Same with cynicism and pessimism. It's been a fad for so long that cheer and optimism are now daring and subversive.
Most remakes are of really good movies from the past, and inevitably look all the worse by comparison with the original. If they're going to do remakes at all, they should remake old movies that had a promising premise but were poorly executed, and try to do a more worthy version.
I didn't intend this post to be political, despite the passing reference to polarization at the end and the political comments in the Cooper video. I know we have serious problems in politics, some of which you've accurately described, but we just need a break from all that sometimes.
"It shouldn't matter -- but inevitably does -- that Randolph and Cooper are at the far opposite ends of the spectrum in their political views." Grace always describes herself as a moderate and chides creators and executives for doing diversity just for diversity's sake instead of diversity being an organic part of the movie or TV show. She's also too much of a capitalist who likes business to really be Left. That written, while I'm sure there are TV and movie critics to her left, I don't know of any. Maybe Amanda the Jedi is secretly more liberal than Grace!
I stand corrected then, I suppose. I haven't seen her talk about her own politics much, but right-wingers seem to think she's pretty far left.
Of course most people think of themselves as "moderate" and of pretty much anyone on the other side as "extreme". So it's hard to say. Kudos to her for calling out "diversity just for diversity's sake", though.
Post a Comment
<< Home