Barbie (2023)

Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives an idyllic life in Barbieland.  It is a land where women are accomplished and men are accessories.  Ken (Ryan Gosling) is less fulfilled.  Unless he gets Barbie's attention, he feels empty and worthless.  Barbie's world starts to go awry when she ponders death, much to the horror of the other Barbies.  Then she finds her shower is cold, her milk is sour, and her feet are inexplicably flat.  She must consult Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who explains that a rift has been opened between the real world and Barbieland.  To seal the rift, Barbie must go to the real world, find the girl who plays with her, and fix whatever ails her.  Barbie would rather not but finally relents.  To her shock and dismay, Ken has stowed away in the Barbiecar and come to the real world with her.

Barbie is dismayed to find that men dominate the real world, including that the CEO (Will Ferrell) and the entire board for Mattel is exclusively male.  They want to box her up and send her back to Barbieland!  Meanwhile, Ken is delighted to find himself acknowledged.  One woman even asks him for the time!  He learns of patriarchy and horses!  While Barbie continues her search for the girl who plays with her, Ken returns to Barbieland to establish the patriarchy!

The story of Barbie is, surprisingly, that of Pinocchio.  She is unwittingly on a journey to become a real woman.  Along the way, she gets ogled, arrested, upbraided by a middle school girl (Ariana Greenblatt), and pursued by Mattel goons, but she does meet her girl - who proves to be an adult (America Ferrera).  The changes that Ken has wrought in Barbieland begin to show in the real world!  Now, Barbie must return to Barbieland and save it from Ken!

The relationship dynamics are shallow.  Barbieland had virtually no conflict - beyond some jealousy among the Kens - and was basically a female Utopia.  In fact, Ken really has some valid objections to Barbieland.  Obviously, I am not the primary audience for the film and can't really identify with some of Barbie's concerns.  The end message is weird.  So, Barbie was upset that the real world was dominated by men and yet that is the world she chose.  The final scene where I thought she was reporting for her first day as a female member of the Mattel Board - thus correcting that glaring oversight - was instead her first gynecology appointment.  Really?

By contrast, Ken's story arc is more interesting.  He exists in a world where he is an accessory and has no real purpose.  His visit to the real world and return swings the pendulum from Barbieland to Kendom.  Ken gets a song and dance routine, which is hilarious.  Though vapid and shallow, Ken is quite likable, almost childlike in how he views the world.

Overall, fun and vibrant.  Good popcorn fun. 

Isle of Dogs

The movie opens with a prologue of a time long ago when the Kobayashi clan sought to wipe out the dog populations of Japan.  On the very day that the dogs were about to be wiped out, a boy samurai slew the leader of the Kobayashi clan and saved the remaining dogs who became pets.  In the present, dogs are everywhere and assailed by dog flu.  To prevent a potential leap from dog to human, all dogs are banished to Trash Island.

The story centers on a particular pack of dogs: Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex (Ed Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum).  They are all alpha dogs and thus all decisions are put to a vote.  Soon after they have won a fight with a different dog pack, Atari (Koyu Rankin) crashes on Trash Island in search of his dog, Spots (Liev Scheiber).  Most of the dogs take to him immediately but Chief - who has been a stray for the majority of his life - shows mostly disdain.  The growing relationship between Atari and Chief is extremely well done and the best thing about the movie.  That Atari wins over the misanthropic Chief is the heart of the movie.  Cranston does a brilliant job in bringing Chief to life and provides an emotional and convincing transition from a 'bad' dog to one that risks life and limb for Atari.

While Atari and the dogs seek Spots, Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) the American exchange student and cub reporter for the school paper untangles the machinations of the Kobayashi Clan's plot to avenge themselves on the dogs of Uni Prefecture.  This storyline is mostly uninteresting but does provide some background for Atari, setting him in the role of the modern version of the boy samurai of the prologue.

The movie is somewhat awkward in using English for the dogs, exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig), and a translator.  Though used to good effect a couple of times, it more often slows the movie because we hear both the Japanese and then the English translation.  On top of that, there are scenes that could have been cut or shortened.  It felt like a long movie though it was only an hour and 40 minutes.

 

Not the best Wes Anderson film but not his worst.  Enjoyable but nothing to rush out and see.

Lady Bird

Lady Bird is the story of a girl's senior year at a Catholic high school in 2002 and 2003.  Though her name is actually Christine, she introduces herself as Lady Bird.  This is a coming-of-age story that mostly focuses on the relationship with Lady Bird and her mother.

Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) is in full rebellion mode for most of the movie and usually playing the alpha male in her love life.  She courts the men who interest her and they are mostly indifferent lumps who don't protest at being her boyfriend.  Of course, perhaps she is finding men like her father who is also something of a lump.  At one point, Lady Bird's mother (Laurie Metcalf) starts explaining how her father is depressed and he is sitting silently in the room as this discussion takes place.  Even her brother Miguel - obviously adopted though that is never openly stated - works as a checker at a local grocery store despite having a mathematics degree from Berkley!  She lives in a world of passive or underachieving men.  She abandons her old clique - notably best friend Julie - and joins the 'popular' group.  She eventually regrets the move.  She also regrets surrendering her virginity to one of the lumps mere moments after the act.  She lies, cheats, and steals.  At her Catholic school, she laments that a pro-life speaker's mother didn't have the abortion and thus spare them from that school assembly.  Lady Bird offers nothing but contempt for her hometown, Sacramento.  Her fondest wish is to go to school on the East Coast.  By the end of the movie, she is attending college in NYC and realizes that she misses Sacramento.

 

This is obviously autobiographical for writer/director Greta Gerwig, who was born in Sacramento in 1983, attended a Catholic School, whose mother was a nurse, and attended college in New York.  Clearly some poetic license was included to spice up the story or maybe she squeezed several years worth of antics into a single year. 

 

Lady Bird herself is not a likeable character.  There is a combination of self-loathing and constant rebellion that makes it difficult to like her.  This speaks well of Ronan's ability to bring the character to life.  Her mother (Laurie Metcalf) is a far more sympathetic character.  Julie (Beanie Feldstein) is the only other character to be realized, a shy but talented girl that Lady Bird abandons for the popular kids only to reconsider later.

 

There are some SJW moments like Lady Bird's pro-abortion stance.  She sees a poster of Reagan at the house of her boyfriend's grandmother and he offers an embarrassed shrug.  Soon thereafter, we discover he is gay and is terrified of telling his Catholic, Republican family.  Another character is reading Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of the United States, a book that looks only at the warts of American history and laments that socialists and communists were suppressed.

 

Skip this one.