From March of 2020 up until I stopped doing VHS of the Week late last year I must’ve mentioned my immense sadness surrounding my inability to take in a big ticket blockbuster in a packed movie theater in a dozen different articles. Even when Covid started to ease up-ish, I still couldn’t bring myself to return to the multiplex. The risk was still there and the movies weren’t. I enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick way more than I thought possible…but I watched it at home on my small TV with all my distractions. I have only seen two movies post pandemic…both at Brookline’s independently run Coolidge Corner Theater. The bizarre and unexpected Barbenheimer craze seemed like the perfect opportunity to return to a conventional movie house (twice) and take part in a rare yet extremely popular phenomenon that involved stepping out to the cinema.
It seemed like a no-brainer to put the Heimer before the Barb so you’d have a nice palette cleanser after a 3 hour Christopher Nolan film about nuclear holocaust. I started checking showtimes on a Sunday afternoon and found that Barbie was sold out throughout the day at pretty much every theater within a 30 mile radius…and most of the remaining seats for Oppenheimer were in the front row. See kids–because nowadays you have to choose your assigned seat with the purchase of a ticket. No more buyin’ a 4 spot for you and your pals and hoping for the best. Then I noticed that there were plenty of empty seats for the 7:30 showing for Oppenheimer at the Solomon Pond Mall Theater, which is a good 40 minute drive from Boston. This theater opened in 1997 as part of the now-defunct Hoyt’s chain…and was the second closest multiplex to my home in Grafton, MA…which means that I saw most non-college season films there from 1997 through 2001…and then never went there again. Titanic…Face/Off…South Park…Blair Witch Project…Gladiator…saw ‘em all at Solomon Pond Mall. I figured that it’d be nice to make my return to the cinema at a place that held some medium to heavy nostalgia for me. I even listened to my summer ‘99 mix on the drive out so I would feel all the feels (I was REALLY into Californication by RHCP that summer. Eeeeee). I had read that surviving movie theaters were doing this, that, and the other thing to try to entice people to leave their houses to watch movies in a dark room with 300 strangers and was looking forward to seeing what sort of improvements they’d made to Regal Solomon Pond, as it’s now known. Answer: zero improvements. If they still had the Godzilla stand-up in the lobby I would’ve thought I had stepped into the summer of 1998 (actually–the lobby was suspiciously devoid of posters for upcoming movies…possibly because there are so few direct-to-big-screen movies coming out in 2023??). I noted that the ticket booth had been removed…as had any sort of anything to prevent one from simply walking into a theater without purchasing a ticket. I queued up for my popcorn and saw a sign that said “We are offering a limited menu this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience.” This was confusing to me as they were still offering like 20X the amount of swill they used to serve back in the day. You could still get a steak quesadilla. And booze. Lots and lots of booze. When my turn arrived the conversation went like this:
Kid:........
Me: Hello?
Kid: Yeah?
Me: Umm…can I order?
Kid: Yeah?
Me: Ok…I’ll have medium popcorn with butter and a root beer.
Kid:......what?
Me: A medium popcorn with butter and a root beer.
Kid: Can I see your ID?
Me: For what? The root beer?
Kid: Oh. Yeah..we don’t have root beer.
Me: Ok…what kind of soda do you have?
Kid: Umm…pepsi…diet pepsi…mountain dew…lemonade…root beer
Me: root beer??
Kid: Yeah.
Me (about to pass out): Ok..man…can I please have a medium popcorn with butter and a root beer ... .please.
(The kid gets my root beer but not the popcorn)
Me: Ok…and the popcorn?
Kid: Oh…do you want butter?
Me: (in my head–JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!!) (Out loud)–Yes please
While he was fetching my popcorn I saw that the person at the counter next to me was purchasing their movie ticket and selecting their seats on a computer screen. So…that’s how they roll now? You buy a ticket at concessions? Ok…cool.
Me: Hey…do I need to show someone my ticket.
Kid: Oh. You have a ticket?
Me: Yes.
Kid: Yes.
Me: I need to show you my ticket?
Kid: Yes.
(I open the Fandango app on my phone and show him the barcode. He holds up a scanner to it. It beeps. The end).
Me: That’s it?
Kid: Yeah.
I made my way to Auditorium 1 and looked forward to getting horizontal in my fancy leather reclining chair and…yeah nope…the fuckin’ place looks just like it did on opening night in 1997. Same seats…same carpets stained with 26 years worth of butter flavored topping and soda spills and smashed nonpareils. “Why would they make us choose seats if they’re the same shitty seats?” I say in my head. Mind you…I don’t necessarily mind a plain ass movie seat as my plain ass has sat in these plain ass seats for most of my 45 years on the planet. I just figured with the higher price point and the pre-assignation that I was in for, you know, for a little something extra. I chose a seat at the end of an aisle but when I arrived at my row I saw a foursome of college bros. And the bro next to my one empty seat was a friggin’ mountain of a man whose meat hook was so large that his elbow (and diet coke) were resting on my armrest. The armrest on the OTHER SIDE of the seat. I approached sheepishly…apologetically.
Me: Ahhh….sorry man…this is my seat!
Bro: (long pause) seriously bro?
Me: Ahhhhhhh….yeahhhh…waaaannnngghhh….
I looked behind me and saw a bunch of small rows with 3 seats in them that appeared empty.
Me: Ahh…why don’t I sit over there and we’ll see what happens.
Bro: Good idea, bro.
I parked my snacks and had to pull out my phone and search the Fandango map for the 7:30 Oppenheimer. Almost all of the rows in my section were vacant. It was already 7:25 so I figured I’d be cool. I settled in. The screen was showing commercials..which has always been fairly standard practice before the coming attractions start. Except these commercials do not stop at 7:30. Oh no, y’all…they kept playing until 7:45. Like…to the point where I’m thinking “somebody MUST have gone to tell management that the movie hasn’t started for some reason, RIGHT??” We see the same Pepsi commercial 6 times. We see a lot of ads for TV shows that are only playing on streaming services (you know…streaming…the #1 reason why no one goes to movie theaters anymore??). We see a mini doc on the brilliance of Taylor Sheridan (who has like 7 shows going…all on streaming platforms). There’s also a goofy ass Regal TV “talk show” hosted by my old Emerson pal Maria Menunous, who once performed a Chris Tucker impersonation in our Oral Interpretation class that was so horribly ill advised that the teacher flat out called her racist. The lights finally dimmed at 7:46 for the intro to the intro to the previews…all motherfucking NINE of them. We saw a preview for the new Agatha Christie jam, the new Dune, the new Exorcist, back to back previews for what I thought was the same Jason Statham movie…except one was The Meg 2 and the other was Expendables 4…which I assume are nothing alike. Every time the green “This preview has been approved for all audiences'' screen appears the audience starts to groan. People dick around on their phones and record TikToks and vape aggressively. One crew a few aisles below me are on their fourth round of High Noon Vodka Soda Seltzers. The previews finally conclude with a plug for a new Paul Giamatti comedy from indie auteur and accused rapist Alexander Payne. And then...MORE COMMERCIALS!! These are for a Regal Rewards program. I’m thinking the best reward they could give me would be to come fucking kill me in my seat. It is now 8:05 and the movie has not yet started. I return a text my friend Peter sent me about a pair of Gucci loafers he graciously bequeathed to me and start to fantasize about being at home on my couch. That’s right, folks–It’s my first night seeing a summer blockbuster at the theater and I’m wishing I was home instead.
Finally…the lights dim…and the picture is up. It’s Oppenheimer…or “Oppy '' to his buds. The picture is sharp and the sound is dimed out. It’s louder than My Bloody Valentine concert…and I’m already loving it. About 10 minutes into the movie I saw 5 kids headed in my direction. They look at their tickets and then look at me. “Hey man..I think you’re in our seat.” It it now 8:25…nearly a FULL FUCKING HOUR after the movie was supposed to start. Are these people really buying tickets an hour into a movie?? (answer: yes). It’s not a big deal…I simply slide down one row…but these kids?...they somehow bought up the row where I had been sitting…as well as the row below where I moved to. And they will continue to communicate with each other throughout the entire three hours by texting or simply shouting across me.
Ugh…right…so then there’s this movie. And look…the last Christopher Nolan movie I enjoyed was Memento, which I saw when I was living in NYC back when the twin towers were still standing. I figure this is historical non-fiction, right? He can’t possibly pull any of his obfuscation bullshit with this one. Wrong…WRONG…and wrong again. The first 90 minutes ignore pretty much every rule of good storytelling as well as a few rules that haven’t been created yet. The story takes place over a period of about 40 years…following J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) from his years as a haunted yet brilliant college student to his years as a haunted pariah. Why does he know what he knows and why did he do what he did? Couldn’t tell ya! The movie ricochets back and forth in time with zero rhyme, reason, or explanation. Cillian Murphy is young…then he’s old…then he’s young again. His hair is long…then short…then long…then gray. Some scenes are shot in black & white, it seems, for shits and giggles. Characters are spoken of but never properly introduced or developed. They’ll say “we need to get Hornig on this project” and then someone new will appear but there’s a grillion of the same white dudes wearing the same suits and I have never have much of an idea who is whom (note: they do randomly wear name tags at certain points…but not with actual names…just numbers like “K7”. This is never explained and is not at all helpful). Would it have KILLED them to drop in a title card letting us know what year we are in once in a while?? Oppy is building a bomb in Los Alamos…then he’s already dropped it…then it’s the 1950’s…then it’s the 40’s again…I think!? A much ballyhooed sex scene between Murphy and Florence Pugh is PG-13 tame. Seriously, the sex scene in Caddyshack was racier. I guess they do sit around butt ass naked for a good long while but you don’t see much flesh. Gotta go back to 28 Days Later if you wanna see your boy Cillian hang some dong.
But then…about halfway through…right around the time the kids in the aisle below me inform the kids above me that the movie sucks and they are going outside to smoke weed…everything snaps into place. The run up to the test at Trinity (I know this because I read about it later…I feel like they don’t actually mention what it’s called) is cinematic dynamite (heh). Everyone is rapt…even the High Noon drinkers.The ones who aren’t snoring, anyway. Finally, we have ourselves a flick. After they drop the big one we transition into a courtroom procedural, which was too little too late for much of this Marlborough crowd, who started to exit by the two’s and three’s. But me…I was digging the hell out of it. The performances, from top to bottom, are solid gold, particularly Robert Downey Jr, finally showing off his formidable chops in a non-Marvel flick. Matt Damon was reliably Matt Damon and Emily Blunt was stunning as Oppy’s long-suffering wife. Even Matthew Modine got in a few licks (Loved you in Vision Quest, bro!).
After the movie I go home and quietly drink/cry myself to sleep. I wake up at 10 AM and discover that Barbie is already sold out for the entire day at the Coolidge Corner Theater. Since I’m probably totally absolutely never going back to the Solomon Pond Mall I start to search for showtimes elsewhere and find that most screenings are pretty well booked for the day. There’s a few aisle seats available for the 4:30 screening at the theater at Legacy Place in Dedham. A few nights earlier I mentioned this theater to my friend Kirstin and she said “I feel like there’s a major malfunction every time I go there.” It was then that I realized that the only other movie I had seen there was the sequel to 21 Jump Street (22 Jump Street?? It wasn’t very memorable) and that there was no sound until about 15 minutes into the movie. We all just sat there frozen thinking that surely someone would go tell management there was no sound…but no one ever did ( I mean….eventually they did). I went ahead and bought the ticket anyway and made sure to arrive at 4:30 on the dot so as not to prolong my aggravation in the event of a 40 minute commercials/previews delay. In the lobby I found a Barbie “pink carpet” that you were welcome to walk down and photograph yourself on. And people were doing just that…and by “people” I mean a shit ton of little girls and their moms..who thankfully paid no attention to the bearded 45 year old lonely man also trying to snatch a selfie on the pink carpet. I purchased popcorn with butter and a $5 bottle of water (too much root beer is bad for you). The concession stand worker asked to see my ticket and I wanted to give him a huge hug. I entered the sold out theater and found a crowd made up of young children and their mothers ...groups of ladies in their early 20’s decked out in pink…myself…and a lady next to me in her 60’s who looked kind of like Patti Smith. When I sat in my seat (a black leather recliner!) she leaned over to me and said “Barbie, huh?” I said….”yup!” We laughed. I pressed the recline button on my seat and it did not move. I pressed it again and again and shined my light down to see if I wasn’t doing something wrong but no ... .I got a broken damn seat. Still cozy though…I guess.
When I heard they were making a movie about Barbie my interest level was low to quite low. Then I heard it was written by indie sultans Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig and directed by Gerwig and I assumed it was gonna be some medium budget arthouse satire. THEN I found out that it was actually gonna be a big budget tentpole summer blockbuster co-produced by Mattel and my interest level went from HUH to what the ACTUAL FUCK?? Watching the trailer did very little to ease my confusion. Like…what was this supposed to be?? What was the tone?? How could these purveyors of razor sharp dialogue…the couple behind highbrow Criterion hits like Frances Ha….make a movie out of….Barbie!?? I read the pre-production notes on Wikipedia, where Gerwig said she her screenplay by Milton’s Paradise Lost and the 1948 technicolor musical The Red Shoes and I pictured theaters full of children with blank, expressionless faces who showed up expecting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and wound up with The Squid and the Whale…but with dolls.
The lights dimmed. There was one commercial…3 trailers…and one ad for a Showcase Rewards Program. The Warner Bros. logo was flashing on the screen by 4:38. The Showcase Cinema de Lux Legacy Place folks run a TIGHT SHIP! Now I was about to find out if I was about to see an indie flick masquerading as a blockbuster…and…yup…the opening sequence is a fucking homage to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Oddessey soooooo that question got answered right quick! Patti Smith there in the next immediately turned to me and started cracking up. In fact, we would laugh at pretty much all the same lines, giving each other knowing looks that said “we’re probably the only two pretentious assholes in this room who have seen Greenberg.” Margo Robie is Stereotypical Barbie and she lives in Barbie world full of perfect Barbie’s and Ken’s and I guess one Allan and one janky Barbie played by Kate McKinnon and HOLY SHIT halfway through the credits my seat just started to recline on it’s own…all the way way back until I was pretty much lying down. Score! So yeah…everything is perfect for Barbie but then one day she randomly asks if anyone ever thinks about death (Patti and I crack up again). Apparently there’s some sort of schism in the real world and Barbie and the Kennest of the Ken’s (Ryan Gosling) have to travel to actual Los Angeles to sort things out. When Ken is lost in Century City he gets the idea that the patriarchy and horses rule (mostly just horses though) and tries to turn Barbie Land into my step dad’s basement. Barbie has to smash the patriarchy and restore Barbie Land to a place where there’s a black Barbie president and an all-Barbie Supreme Court. I loved it…and I love that it made a far right commentator with a tiny dick and tons of free time named Ben Shapiro SO ANGRY that he filmed himself going on a 45 minute tirade…smashing actual dolls and denouncing the film as pro grooming or whatever the latest fucking hot conspiracy fever dream is. Stick to Sound of Freedom, bro.
About halfway through the movie I started to fall asleep….not because I wasn’t enjoying it…but because I was literally lying down in the dark. My brain did that thing where it was like “you can just sleep for 2 minutes and it will be fine.” And you know what woke me up? My fucking chair started to un-recline itself…all the way until my feet were back on the floor and I was completely upright. My chair…it KNEW! Anyway, I would say more about Barbie but this review is already 3000 words longer than I intended it to be. Suffice to say it is very much a Gerwig/Baumbach production full of witty dialogue, third wall breaking, and pop culture references that 99% of the audience will never get (Stephen Malkmus?? Dudes…). Will kids enjoy it? Probably not. Will the average moviegoer enjoy it? I think there’s enough going on there, yeah. Did the crowd I watched it with enjoy it? I have no idea! I can tell you that nobody walked out or left to smoke a J (that I know of). Did it restore my faith in the power of moviegoing and make me want to return to the multiplex as soon as possible? A little bit…it did…
Oppenheimer: 7 out of 10
Barbie: 8 out of 10
Barbenheimer sending a record number of people to the theater in one weekend: Priceless
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I can honestly say thanks to your helpful review I will be seeing the Barbie movie. Thanks for the laughs, Tebo!