Barbenheimer!

It’s not unheard of for two big films to be released in the same week. That usually boils down to being released on the same day. The Exorcist & The Sting, Die Hard & A Fish Called Wanda, The Matrix & Ten Things I Hate About You, and The Dark Knight & Mamma Mia are all pairs of films that opened at the same time. Usually all the figures are based on the opening weekend and, surely, you can see more than one film between Friday and Sunday? So does it really matter? We may find out as last week saw two big films being released in the same week. 

Recently we had the opening of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and a week or so before that there was Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny. However, Both of those had the screens, pretty much, to themselves. How will the battle between Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig shape up? Which will you go and see? Who will be going to go and see both? I know that Dan will be scurrying between various auditoria so that he can get Peetimes for both. I, though, have the luxury of choice and I choose…let’s leave that for a minute.

I’ve seen the trailers for both films and I’m aware of the works of both directors. I also have enjoyed the works of both directors. More so Mr Nolan but that he is partly down to his bigger body of work; he has a dozen feature films to his name whereas Ms Gerwig has just four. Both of those numbers include this week’s releases – Barbie and Oppenheimer. Both films feature the life of an American historical figure but one has both feet based firmly in reality whereas the other totters on high heels into fantasy.

Ideas Live Forever

Oppenheimer tells the story of J Robert Oppenheimer. Being a theoretical physicist he isn’t an obvious candidate for a major cinematic adaptation but then it turns out that Doctor Oppenheimer wasn’t your typical theoretical physicist. He was a brilliant, multi-lingual, polymath who had studied at Harvard, Cambridge, and Göttingen. He was also a bit of an isolated figure who never voted, didn’t follow the news, and, like other intellectuals of the time, he supported certain social reforms which, in the repressive McCarthyite era, were deemed to be communist.

Barbie tells the story of Barbara Millicent Roberts born 9^th March 1959. During her life she has been a chef, film director, cashier, teacher, surgeon, architect, astronaut, and president of the USA. This is a very small selection of the, in excess of, two hundred jobs, sports, and academic positions. She has friends, family, cars, and houses. This is all from my memories of over thirty years ago when my daughters were fond of the range. My granddaughter who is a month of being ten years old has never been a fan and so I’m a bit out of touch!

Now I Am Become Death

One film is a serious, quite intense study of a man who, quite literally, changed the world while the other is a much more light hearted affair. A quick look around my friends and it seems like they all went to see…drum roll… Barbie! The overall opinions were very positive. “Funny, clever but still silly enough to be entertaining.” “I only agreed to go watch this so I could cynically rip the p*ss out of it afterwards. But, Barbie, you cunning minx…you got me. It’s a bloody brilliant movie.”

Dan has been to see both. This is mainly down to his sense of duty; he was hurtling between screens so that he could get Peetimes for both! Well done, Dan. He has also managed to review both so he had a lot on his plate this weekend. Fortunately, I had a bit more latitude about what I went to see but thought I might have some pressure to go one way rather than the other. It is the start of the long summer holidays and that usually means a few cinema trips with my, nearly, ten year old granddaughter.

Do You Guys Ever Think About Dying?

We were sitting in Starbucks and chatting about what Alice wanted to see. Her first thought was Elemental closely followed by Ruby Gilman, Teenage Kraken. But then came the surprise…”NOT  Barbie!” This surprised me a bit, I must confess. To be honest though, my darling granddaughter has never been what you’d call a girly girl. She has no dolls but loves football and rock climbing so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. So I had free rein to pick what I wanted.

And I went to see Oppenheimer! I love Christopher Nolan films. I’m not claiming to be hyper intelligent or anything but I’ve never found them particularly confusing. OK, Inception required a couple of watches but it was, at least, enough of a spectacle to encourage repeated rewatches. So off I went and got my ticket after fighting my way through a sea of pink clad people. It reminded me of the time I joined a few similarly inclined chaps to see Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country while the main theatre was packed with highly excited ladies who had arrived to see The Chippendales…