Barbie is poking Box Office records all over the world. Of all the films. A movie about a toy. Oppenheimer is also pulling in huge crowds – nothing commensurate with Barbie but you can’t bring the kids and it’s much longer.
I am very happy about all of this. Cinema has been on its knees since COVID and now some of the bullshit humans running streaming platforms have started to believe they are gods in the industry. Numbers like this will be helpful in pulling them down a peg or two and maybe even helping them understand that this existential strike taking place currently mostly in LA is not just a load of wingeing lackeys – it is a necessary recalibration. This job is still a job. It is only a few who reach the massive paychecks that some assume we all get. The majority of us go from workshop to Panda to self-tape and back again and wonder what the hell they will do when they finally get too old to sustain the energy output. We haven’t got nest eggs. When our work is used we need to be paid. We have made many compromises. There’s passion, there’s joy, but the worse we are treated the harder it is to hold onto that, and we need to know there’s still somehow a shot at decent money and the chance of not being terrified of the cold in old age while our image is used to line somebody else’s pockets.
So yeah I’m glad that this dumb bright movie about toys has pulled people back to the cinemas. Lots of them have already closed. This might just be enough popcorn to ensure that the ones that survived don’t end up as Wetherspoons.
We were at The Dome in Worthing, and they didn’t know what had hit them. 2pm on a Monday and staff who are used to three people and a stray seagull are processing a crowded house for Barbie. The internet, more and more the haven for utter moronicism, has almost eaten itself over this movie – “Ken is not a good role model!” “My child asked me what a vagina is!” “Aqua had some weird lyrics!” “I am scared of women!” “Mattel are a vile megacorporation who only really care about the bottom line!” “Mummy I did a poo!” etc etc. I enjoyed it for the styling and the chance to just sink into some absolute colourful bollocks for a few hours on a disgusting July afternoon and now I’m writing about it on the internet too so nurrr.
I’ll see Oppenheimer soon, but the whole double bill thing would have been too much for me. The cinema as a place we can go to watch a film and enjoy it? Hell yeah, bring it on again. Where have you been? Let’s remember the joy of film while they are still being made bold and weird. So much community was murdered when we all had to be terrified of one another. Today we had kids running up and down the aisle, people throwing popcorn and blowing their noses… Loads of us had pink clothes on just to conform, and yeah it’s that same herd instinct that made us all shut the doors that is now sending people out to watch these films. Fine. Sometimes we can go baaaa. I just did. Baaaaarbie. The studios will get a shot of adrenaline when they see the numbers. Neither film is merely a moneygrab – both have some decent artists both on screen and behind the camera. So the buoyancy of the studios should lead to more money for bolder big screen movies. And that’ll be more jobs for the boys and ultimately might mean, if I’m lucky, that I can put the heating on for an hour or so on Christmas Day when I’m ninety.
Meantime I’m gonna go to sleep happy about the fact we did something we used to do all the time. Perfect environment for a summer blockbuster to take hold, when its basically fucking January out there.
AlBarclay 