Content Consumed: Barbie and Oppenheimer reviews, Twitter as “X”, and more

Hey, hi! Welcome back to Content Consumed. In today’s edition, we’re discussing…

💕 Review: Barbie
💥 Review: Oppenheimer
🔕 Twitter becomes “X”, basically a whole new app
🎥 Watchlist updates: The Bear finale, Righteous Gemstones
🔪 Doja Cat hates her fans

Barbenheimer: The Review(s)

I saw Barbie on Thursday night and Oppenheimer on Friday night—and I’m still exhausted. What an experience. Here are my takes:

💕✨ BARBIE ✨💕

Quick takes…

• Barbie didn’t rewrite everything we know about feminism, but we shouldn’t have expected that. It was basically Modern Feminism 101, which was still appreciated, but made things like America Ferrera’s big monologue moment more cheesy than moving.
• Yep, it was overmarketed. I already saw the film's first ~15 minutes through all the promo clips they released. And of course, it’s one big merch ad (ex: the unnecessary I am Kenough sweatshirt Ryan Gosling’s Ken wears at the end, along with Chevy cars and obviously everything Mattel). But again—who are we to expect any differently?
• It was so much fun. The whole theater was giggling, laughing, singing. Ken thinking the patriarchy was mostly about horses? Hilarious. Barbie’s adventures in the real world? So entertaining.
• A visual masterpiece. The set was immaculate: the Dream House (or Mojo Dojo Casa House for the Kens), the road trip animations, and practical effects. ALL THE OUTFITS. The way the Barbies functioned like they did when you used to play with them: the attention to detail was incredible.
• Loved the cast. Ryan Gosling stood out, as expected. The perfect Ken. Margot Robbie was a brilliant Barbie. Simu Liu was as annoying as I expected, but whatcha gonna do. I’m not usually a fan of Kate McKinnon but I thought she was hilarious as Weird Barbie and her line delivery is always impeccable.
• The Mattel executives' storyline… felt forced. I don’t know how else to describe it. There was no real conclusion to that.

Did it live up to the hype? Yes and no. If it hadn’t been so overmarketed…
Boo! Tossing tomatoes at… the Mattel executives’ storyline.
A moment I’ll remember: The last scene, where Barbie goes to the gyno.
Underrated star: Michael Cera (but could you ever really call him “underrated”?

🗯💥 OPPENHEIMER 💥🗯

Quick takes…

• If you could pick one movie to ever see in a theater—especially in IMAX—it’s this f*cking movie. Oh my god. The (test) bomb going off was such a visceral experience. The sound, the visuals, the full-body shake… I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced anything like that. Christopher Nolan, as we know through movies like Dunkirk, is a god amongst men when it comes to this type of movie experience. I felt it all.
• Am I just really bad at understanding time jumps or was this a more difficult movie than usual to comprehend? Because I swear I didn’t know what year it was half the time, especially in the beginning. And honestly, that’s really my only problem with Oppenheimer.
• Cillian Murphy. My god. This’ll be the role that wins him the Oscar. An incredible cast all around, even if I did have trouble keeping track of everyone.

Did it live up to the hype? Yes, a million times over.
Boo! Tossing tomatoes at… I know it was already a 3-hour movie, but some time could have been given to the New Mexico inhabitants that were either (a) displaced (thousands of Native Americans) or (b) faced with a lifetime of illness as a result of bomb testing.
A moment I’ll remember: Cillian Murphy / Oppenheimer delivering a speech after the bombs were dropped in Japan, and suddenly the full force of what he’s done hits him. Incredible, incredible cinema.
Underrated star: Emily Blunt. I think this was the most incredible performance I’ve ever seen from her. In the last half hour of the movie, there’s this one scene… you gotta see it.

Of course, more to discuss…

• Twitter has a stupid new name: “X”. It has a shoddily designed logo, too, which Elon can’t even get on the HQ building. He wants to make Twitter an “everything app” called X, not only social networking but also banking and shopping. Aka, he just completely disintegrated Twitter’s built-up brand value. Cmon, dude. Be f*cking for real right now. Why buy an app only to 100% change everything that it was and lose all your users (and especially advertisers) in the process?! Dumb. Read more here.
• The Bear finale was beautiful. It was a great ending to a near-flawless Season 2. Carmy has no one to blame but himself now—and he’s finally realized it. Meanwhile, everyone else is now living up to their potential. I didn’t expect to be so moved by Pete’s conversation with Natalie. Heartbreaking.
• After missing last week, I’m caught up on Righteous Gemstones. Please do not make the same mistake I did two weeks ago of watching this show with your parents—especially this episode. When I say full nudity, I MEAN IT! The Judy/BJ storyline is what keeps me coming back every week—it’s agonizing in the best way. But last night’s episode really was jam-packed. Lots of fun.
• So, Doja Cat probably hates you if you’re a fan of hers. She spent the weekend mocking her own fans on Threads. “If you call yourself a ‘Kitten’ or fucking ‘Kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house,” she told her fans, a fanbase which calls themselves Kittens as per her own suggestion years ago. “Just delete the entire account and rethink everything it’s never too late,” she told one fanpage. And they’re madddd.

And that’s it for me today! Love you, thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Casey

👉🏼 Read the most recent Content Consumed over here.

👉🏼 Explore more content over on the Content Consumed Instagram.

👉🏼 Find out what I’m reading at my Goodreads profile.