Barbenheimer

This past week was a big one for movies.  The Barbie movie and Oppenheimer both opened on July 21st and the hype before the release of the two films had been huge.  Reviews were great for both and they each starred famous actors that were getting a lot of praise for their performances from critics and general audiences.  

Cal went to the see the two movies the first weekend that they opened, joining in the Barbenheimer craze (seeing both movies back to back at the same theater.).  He loved each of them, but was glad that he saw Oppenheimer first as the making of the first atomic bomb was a little bit deeper than Barbie's female empowerment theme filled with a lot of humor.  He highly recommended that we see them.

Cameron and his friends talked about a Barbenheimer movie night, but several of them were scared off by Oppenheimer's three hour run time.  Instead they all went to the Barbie movie together.  Cameron even dressed the part, putting on his best "Ken" outfit.  He thought the movie was fantastic.  Alina did too, seeing it three times in a week.

Paula, Gabrielle, Meg and I decided that a girls' night at the Barbie movie was an awesome way to spend Meg's last evening in Syracuse.  Meg and I found the perfect outfits for the night, complete with Meg's Barbie t-shirt and a lot of pink involved.  I really didn't know what to expect, but from start to finish, I absolutely loved the film.  The theme definitely revolved around female empowerment, but it was also incredibly funny.  It was so neat to see all of the Barbies that I played with as a child in the film as well as the ones that Meg had in her collection.   We all laughed out loud when we saw the Barbie with the "pooping" dog on the big screen.  Meg had one of those too.  Meg and I also each had had a Barbie dream house, a Barbie van and too many outfits to count.  It was so much fun to see how they incorporated those into the movie as well.

The film wasn't just about Barbies, however.  It showed what the world would look like if women were in power instead of men, and it really made us think.  We had heard a lot of criticism before the movie by conservatives stating that it devalued stay at home moms or made men look idiotic, but I didn't see that at all.  Although I would have changed the ending, the four of us all agreed that it was one of the best movies that we had seen in years.  It was definitely my favorite girls' night of the summer.