isaac963

[isaac963]

Magic the Gathering tip: don’t fire a bunch of staff in the middle of the holiday season you fucking idiots

[isaac963]

no caption needed

[isaac963]

Did someone photoshop his face just a little lower on his head?

the class war is not some hypothetical future event. class war is being waged right now, by the ruling class, against you, every single day of your life. the question is what you're going to do to fight back.

[isaac963]

from the thread

[isaac963]

[isaac963]

what was i made for?

“ophelia” by john everett millais but it’s barbie and for the sake of this concept let’s pretend that there is in fact water in barbieland

[isaac963]

Just saw the Barbie Movie today, and what an achievement of a film. So layered so complex, simultaneously tongue-and-cheek and angrily relevant. While many have pointed out the central themes of the issues faced by women, I think there is another message Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, and co-writer Noah Baumbach are telling audiences. Both Gurwig and Baumbach are members of the Writers Guild of America, and Baumbach even skipped the premier in protest. I think their professional frustrations with the major studios was on full display in this film.

A live action Barbie film was first announced in 2009 by none other than Universal Studios. After the project faltered, it went to Sony pictures in 2014, with Amy Schumer slated as the lead. Yet, creative differences between parties involved lead to that project fizzling out, and the rites reverted back to Mattel in October 2018. Those involved on the creative leadership side of the film all departed. Mattel then approached Margot Robbie, who not only signed on as the lead, but helped produce it with her and her partner’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment. Robbie pitches the film to Warner Bros, who green light it, and then taps Gerwig to join the project as Screenwriter, and eventually Director. Written over the pandemic, principal photography began March 22, 2022, wrapped July 21, 2022, and was released nearly a year later July 9, 2023 to critical and audience acclaim. 14 years in the making on a property picked up and put down by many, it’s surprising this film came to fruition, and we were given a gem. It’s also clear that MANY hard working people brought this film to us.

Barbie makes reference to many other films and classic film genres. It begins as 2001: A Space Odyssey, it uses narrative voice over, The Matrix gets a shoutout, 300 (not a direct reference, but the Ken battle has a lot of slow motion that I would argue is alluding to 300), even a choreographed old Hollywood dance number. And though Barbie, being the pop culture icon that she is, could surely stand in its own limelight, so why would Gerwig and Baumbach do this? Why allude to other films in your own film, why make that creative choice? I don’t think it was just to be funny, or meme-y, the film does so much of that, to great effect, without alluding to other works of film. I think they’re telling us Barbie is also about film, and the rotten state of the film industry. From that perspective, what else does this movie do that other films just don’t do anymore, and why do it this way? Every set piece was practical, built on a sound stage, every prop was practical, every accessory crafted, every backdrop was painted and lit, and it ALL looked amazing. The transition from Barbieland to California, all of those moving set pieces (the rocket, the boat, the snowmobile) were PRACTICAL made of plywood, foam, paint, and RIGGED to move. Surely, doing that in green screen would’ve been easier, and used less materials, why do it this way? I think it’s a rebuke of the studio executives.

To me, it says cinema is first and foremost an art form, and incredible things are possible when you let your artists tell the stories they set out to tell. It can be incredibly lucrative when you trust your creative professionals to do well and properly compensate them for it. Cinema, second most, is a business, but executives don’t make films. Workers do. The workers who built that dream house, hung those lights, sewed those costumes, applied that makeup, delivered that catering, swept and mopped at the end of the day. They made a film that’s now made over $700 million dollars (and still going) for a studio that invested only $145 million. How much of that went to salaries is not public knowledge. 1,100 people were credited from cast to catering, nearly all of whom will receive no further compensation for the extraordinarily profitable film. On top of that, executives are trying to find ways of replacing some of them with AI.

Which brings us to Mattel’s depiction in the film. Though it says Mattel on the building, I think Gurwig, Baumbach, and Robbie mean all corporations. Warner Bros., Amazon, Netflix, all of em will put profit over people, profit over art, EVERY time. They want to twist tie all of us into our Barbie boxes, make us forget we have agency, make us forget that we’re not commodities to be sold. They may have the patents and the copyrights, but Barbie belongs to everyone, our experiences with Barbie belong to us. Pantone 219 c, a color on the visible light spectrum belongs to everyone in spite of what Mattel will say (I love ya Stuart Semple)! “Do you guys ever think about [the stupid rules we’re told to follow before] dying?”

I feel the film makers were truly conveying the dissatisfaction of the workers of Hollywood, people everywhere really. Proud to work hard and honestly, but angry at their exploitation. The patriarchy marring Barbie’s dreams, just as Hollywood marred the dreams of movie makers.

10/10 Go see this movie.

[isaac963]

gritty both capturing the zeitgeist as usual AND educating me on the availability of free flow butter at american cinemas

[isaac963]

this fucks

[isaac963]

Pat Robertson’s grave is thirsty for my piss.

[isaac963]

Happy pride, and happy anniversary to this tweet