The Week In A Bad Education Towers #46

Hello you! Big week for stuff this week, not stuff that I've done but definitely out in the world. You know what I mean, 2 big films? Both released on the same day? Internet going mad for it? You know what, never mind.

So, yes. The double bill to end all double bills, the ultimate counter programming from one movie studio against what used to be their favourite son. And me and the eldest went out in the rain and did it.

We started with Barbie which, admittedly, is probably the wrong way round but thanks to how the day panned out was the way we had to do it. And you know what? It was fine, it was no where near as bad as the time me and Ryan saw Toy Story 2 then The Beach, that was definitely the wrong way around.

Anyways: Barbie. A film based on a toy something, traditionally, isn't that great. Previously any Barbie media has been animated, my youngest really enjoyed the Barbie: Life in The Dreamhouse series that was on Netflix. But this is live action, a live action take on a Mattel toy brand. The last time this happened was Master of the Universe and, well, yeah.

But this isn't just a throwaway straight to DVD affair, this is a series piece of with serious names attached; written and directed by award winning Greta Gerwig, co-written by Noah Baumbach, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. This isn't messing about.

And its brilliant. Its a satire that deconstructs the impact of the Barbie toys have had on society and feminism whilst at once celebrating it and revelling in its plastic glory. Its a really fine line to walk, one that could easily bring the entire film down like a collapsing house of cards. There are some wobble, don't get me wrong, but its confidence carries it through.

The cast are brilliant; Robbie and Gosling are perfectly cast and pour themselves fully into their roles, going from outright comedy to heart breaking emotion in a heartbeat. The supporting cast don't let the side down, and let me tell you I was worried about Will Ferrel. Its sometimes hard to tell which Ferrel you're going to get, whether it'll be one that domintates or supports the film but he gets it and does his role well.

His section of the film, of the corporate overview of Barbie, is probably the weakest aspect. Here it really wants to eat its cake and eat it; the people in charge are all men, which the film calls out but they're all essentially nice and trying to do their best for Barbie in trying to maintain the status quo? It falls a little flat and like I say is probably the weakest part of the film.

I can accept that though, because it doesn't damage the essential message that the film is getting across, one of self empowerment and empathy for others. It also has several shots that might just be my favourite of the year.

its brilliant. And the soundtrack is cracking as well.

And then several hours later we're back in the cinema ready for, well, a pure slice of fried cinema.

Lets get this clear; Barbie was a movie but Oppenheimer is a capital eff Film. Its a Big Serious Film full of Big Serious Actors giving 110% to bring their art to the screen. Its Christopher Nolan with some IMAX cameras banging on about there being no CGI and throwing around big weighty themes about humanity and society.

And its good! It's a big old novel of a film, one that fully stretches out into its 3 hour run time to fully dig into its characters. Naturally, its about J Robert Oppenheimer, centred on his time leading the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear bomb. It stretches back showing how he got that position, and then after showing what it cost him.

It kinda of goes without saying, but this will get some Oscar nods when that rolls round. Cillian Murphy, seemingly always a Nolan bit player, gives it his all as Oppenheimer, holding the centre of the film for the majority of its run time. He's immersed into the role, his whole physicality given over to the person he's embodying. Those around him do just as well, especially Robert Downy Jr. He seems a million miles away from the Tony Stark swagger that brought him back to popularity, also fully immersing himself into his role as part of the US government working with Oppenheimer.

It looks a treat as well, didn't see it in IMAX but it has that confidence Nolan always brings to the screen. Moving from black and white to colour is a trick he pulled before in Memento and he uses it here, although perhaps with not as much strictness as that film.

Its around these parts that the film, stumbles is probably a bit too much, but loses itself in itself. Several strands of Oppenheimer take place in meetings and hearings that are years apart and cross cut between each other. A lot of characters move in and out of these threads, and it feels like it wants to drop the typical Nolan "ah-HA!" ending but doesn't quite land it. When the 'bad guy' is revealed its not exactly a surprise.

Weirdly, these bits reminded me of Shin Godzilla; that film had similar scenes of bureaucracy where really bleak things are being discussed and decided by a bunch of people miles away from the effects of their decisions. This feeds into one major criticism of the film I’ve seen, in that in a film about building the bombs that were dropped on two Japanese cities you don't really see the effects on that city or the country. All you get is what everyone else at the time would have had, you just hear about it over the radio that the bombs of dropped.

But that makes sense in the context of the film; its about how and why the bombs were built, not how and why they were used. Its a diasctintion thats important to the character of Oppenheimer; his goal is to build this weapon before the Nazis do, then his goal is to try and contain it through mutual agreements between nations. This is what the film is focussed on, rightly or wrongly, so to cut to scenes of the bomb destroying Hiroshima would be working against this. Seeing the way that the US military industrial complex crushes everything in its way as it embraces the principal of Mutual Assured Destruction is just as horrifying.

So yeah, its really good this. A real chunky thing to get your teeth into that'll need a couple of watches to really dig into its themes and intentions.

And then watch Barbie again to cleanse the palate.

It's been a nearly a week since the Steam Deck arrived! And it's proving to be well worth the money; my Steam library was never that big thanks to being on Macs for the last decade or so, and prior to that low range laptops. But now I can access all the games that I had picked up and they look great on the deck.

And then you can dig into emulation and oh my God it can play most things you can throw at it. I've been playing Dreamcast Crazy Taxi on it without it skipping a beat. Crazy Taxi! And I've not even started trying PS2 games on it yet.

What this has revealed is that I really need to get a bigger SD card to stick all this emulation on, and then I defo need to sort out my retro library to get everything in order.

I will report back on this further.

A new video!

Yep, this game does Winston well dirty and then goes downhill from there. I need ot get around to playing the C64 David Crane game, thats the one that was always held up as the high Ghostbusters video game water mark, The PS3 one was good, mainly due to it being full of the original cast and that, but there's still a really great game to be done with this franchise and I don't know if its ever quite been done.

Thats a whole lot of words and didn't even report back on Dead Reckoning. Maybe next week?

Anyways, bye!