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Film: Barbie 

So much to dislike! Bill Simmons coined a term "sports hate" to distinguish between actual real hate and just "sports hating" a certain player. So I "movie hate" Noah Baumbach films and he's managed to extend his circle to his now wife Greta Gerwig. 

Where to begin? In no particular order:

Hitting a trifecta of things I hate in films: corporate brand extension, misanthropic hipsterism, gender studies 101 themes...  

Irony - the best parts of the movie are Will Ferrell and Ryan Gosling. At least I laughed (lightly) during their scenes. So in a movie about feminism, the guys steal the show.

The underlying misanthropy. This is my main issue with Baumbach film in general. It's shallow cruelty masked as "realism." I find them boring, tedious, and untrue. Like I'm hanging with a depressive. So while yes, a lot of ideas are brought to the fore in the film - none of the ideas are interesting. The father gets mocked for trying to learn a second language. The Ken's are mocked for their helpful attempts to show Barbie's how to work photoshop and invest. There was some wit in that final sequence, but if you excavate the underlying meaning, it's got an upside down world view. The Barbie's basically steal the election validating the claims of the Jan 6 protestors! This is the Gerwig-Baumbach political philosophy?!?

Lacking emotion. The only vaguely true emotional moments are tiny moments between America Ferrara and her daughter and Gosling's lack of identity. For a movie about Barbie, she's a pretty uninteresting character. I don't buy her existential crisis one bit.

I don't mind the nonsensical plot mechanics. Par for the course for these type of movies. 

Kate McKinnon was a tiny jolt of life into a movie that starts off dead for 20 minutes. I was in a theater about 30% full - not a single laugh for nearly 25 minutes into a movie that is supposed to be a comedy.

Musical numbers were lacking passion. Like they were just there to fill in runtime. Also - just me - or were there too few musical numbers to feel like a musical and too few jokes to feel like a comedy?

Thankfully no audience cheers for America Ferrara's lecture. Pure cringe. 

Why does Barbie decide to become human in the end?

In her "meeting God" (ie Rhea Pearlman scene) was it just me, or is this what I imagine happening in an acting class?

Gerwig likes 80s and 90s sitcoms, doesn't she? This is a point in her favor and probably why she's a better filmmaker than her husband.

Gerwig seems to diss on her dad in a lot of these movies - reading into this and Ladybird I'm sorta like: does she blame him for dealing with a bout of unemployment when she was a teen? Sorry to be so Freudian. 

Some nods to wokeness being hijacked by corporate stooges. Fine point. Not sure what to take away from it. Not sure the film knows. Does this undermine wokeness? Further validate it? Similarly, not sure if handicapped and trans Barbie's were making a joke about inclusivity or trying to be legitimately inclusive. Does Gerwig know? Does WB know? Does Mattel know?

Trans Barbie tough to stomach on screen. No one will say it, but everyone will think it. You can tell because post-production did a job on actor to make it seem like maybe just a sort of ugly barbie - but informed viewers will recognize the actor and someone involved with the film is hoping it will "open up discussion" on the matter while others see it as an opportunity to sell dolls.

My wife defends the film because it was a smart move by Mattel and better-than-expected-for-a-Barbie movie. Is there a term that can describe this nonsense? Like a cousin-term to "damning with faint praise." A good move for Mattel? That's what we ask of our movies now?

This is not a film for kids. This is a film for women who want to it every which way. This movement of women taking their daughters (and sons) into this cult of hateful nonsense will have a very nice backlash that I am going to enjoy watching.

UPDATE: Just had a realization about the end of Barbie - the weird mother-daughter /tree of life montage at the end was about Barbie discovering she wanted to be a mother (never felt this emotionally at all in the film). Trip to gynecologist nails this point. Took me 2 days to figure this out - either I'm dumb or the hid the ball on it. Why?