This week we continue looking at the 10 films nominated for Oscar in the Best Picture Category. This week we look at two vastly different films on the same theme In a category we call “Revenge of the Robot Women.” It’s going to be tight, but I plan to get out three more episodes before March 10 when the Oscars are awarded. Wish me luck.

Hi, this is Chris Young, and welcome to episode 56 of Contemplating Life – Oscar edition.

This week we continue looking at the 10 films nominated for Oscar in the Best Picture Category. This week we look at two vastly different films on the same theme In a category we call “Revenge of the Robot Women.” Consider this plot line…

A beautiful young woman is not naturally born but is an artificial creation. She is confined in a world created for her by her maker. She lives a happy yet mundane life. She slowly becomes aware that she is more than what her maker envisioned. Her natural curiosity and a desire to contemplate what life has to offer sends her on a quest into another world. It is a strange bizarre environment that is alien to her but she explores it with vigor and discovers that there is more to her and to life than she believed was possible. In the end, she becomes an independent, self-actualized woven who is in control of her life. At first, she exacts revenge on the men who tried to possess and control her but ultimately finds a way to peacefully coexist with the males of the species.

Pop quiz: is this a description of the film “Barbie” or “Poor Things”?

Answer: Both.

There was so much hype this year about the popularity of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” that we shipped their names together and came up with “Barbieheimer” to describe the phenomenon of people who went to both films on the same day. It was only a coincidence that the films were released about the same time and unexpectedly found overlapping audiences which led to the Barbieheimer phenomenon.

There should have been media hype about “Barbie’s” connection not to “OppenheimerInclude but to “Poor Things”. While “Barbie” and “Poor ThingsEnclosed are vastly different in approach and style, the outline in my opening paragraph is a reasonably accurate summation of both films. The filmmakers used vastly different approaches to tell the same story of a woman discovering her potential.

“Barbie” is set in the fantasy world known as Barbieland and is occupied by the namesake toy. She journeys into the “real world” and although we are familiar with it, it is an alien landscape to her. Her fantasy world is all she has ever known.

In contrast, Bella Baxter is the creation of a mad scientist. He discovered the body of a pregnant woman who had lept to her death off a bridge into a river. He salvaged the brain of her unborn child and implanted it in her 30-year-old body. He then re-animates her in a scene typical of any Frankenstein movie you ever saw. Her literally infant mind develops quickly and approaches life with an insatiable curiosity which eventually leads her to discover the pleasures of sex. First, by herself, then with a lover, and finally as a French prostitute. All of which is depicted in explicit detail.

So, while there was an unlikely crossover of audience between “OppenheimerEnclosed and “Barbie”, “Poor Things” is extremely R-rated and not appropriate for the typical Barbie viewer.

It’s more likely you are familiar with “Barbie” given its popularity so let’s talk about “Poor Things” first.

Willem Dafoe plays Dr. Godwin Baxter, a brilliant surgeon who bears horrible scars and disfigurement on his face. This is the result of his father performing multiple medical experiments on him when he was a child. These experiments included genital torture. To say that his physical scars are only part of his problem is an understatement.

Rather than be called by his given name Godwin, he prefers to be referred to as God and makes that request unapologetically. He is a deeply twisted individual.

Emma Stone plays his creation Bella Baxter whose origin we described earlier.

Ramy Youssef plays Max McCandle, an ambitious medical student who is recruited as God’s Igor-like assistant (without the hunchback). Max’s job is to observe Bella and record in notebooks everything that she does as she rapidly progresses in mental and emotional capability.

As the film opens she has the mind of a very young child. She is awkward both physically and emotionally. Yet she begins progressing rapidly. Even her hair grows at an astonishing rate of an inch every few days. No explanation is ever given why.

God keeps the girl isolated in his mansion/laboratory to keep the experiment of development pure and untainted. But God himself also avoids appearing in public because of his disfigurement. Bella isn’t his only experiment. The courtyard of his villa is occupied by strange hybrid creatures such as a goat with a dog’s head or a dog with a duck’s head, I forget what weird combinations he has running around his courtyard.

When Bella reaches a mental age of what appears to be maybe 8-10 years old she discovers on her own the joys of masturbating her adult body and asks, “Why don’t people do this all the time?”

God notices her sexual awakening as well as Max’s attraction to her. So, God concludes that the next phase of the experiment should be that Bella and Max are wed. He employs attorney Duncan Wedderburn played by Mark Ruffalo to draw up a marriage contract that includes the provision that Bella must remain sequestered in God’s house.

Intrigued by this strange request, Duncan sneaks off into the mansion to meet Bella for himself and discovers this childlike creature in the body of a beautiful woman. He decides that he, not Max, should be the one to introduce her to adult life. He is quite a cad and a sleazy person and plans to exploit her for his own pleasures. Together he and Bella plot her escape and they go off on a romantic tryst to Lisbon Portugal where they engage in frequent sex and debauchery.

The setting for the film is a bit of a steam-punk Victorian setting. All of the interiors look relatively normal for such a setting but the moment that Bella goes anywhere outside, everything takes on a surreal dreamlike quality which by comparison would make a Wes Anderson film seem boringly normal and realistic.

This film makes use of varied cinematic styles and techniques to set the mood. While sequestered in God’s house, the film is in black-and-white. But like Dorothy escaping Kansas to Oz, once she leaves the house and goes on her adventure with Duncan, everything is in bright oversaturated color. Most of the color sequences were shot using Kodak Ektachrome which gives that bright oversaturated look. Those that were shot on other types of color film were color-adjusted to match. Ektachrome is a slow film that requires significant lighting the filmmaker had to use other films when more light was not available. The cinematographer also makes use of a variety of strange lenses including highly distorted fisheye lenses and some scenes filmed with a 4 mm lens look as though we are looking through a peephole. I never did figure out exactly what these varied points of view were designed to evoke.

Bella has absolutely no inhibitions and no filter so she says exactly what she is thinking at any moment. At one point while they are out to dinner, a baby is crying nearby and she announces, “I must go punch that baby.” Duncan has to restrain her as she rises to actually do it.

Bella leaves Duncan to explore the city on her own and fearful that he will lose her, he drugs her, stuffs her in a trunk, and takes her on a cruise ship where she will be unable to escape him. Aboard the ship, she befriends other passengers. By this time she has begun reading and has gained advanced intelligence. She debates philosophy with her new friends as she reads volumes of books to expand her mind.

Meanwhile, Duncan gambles at the ship’s casino and wins a small fortune. When the ship docks at its next port, Bella notices that there are poor people in the world with sick and dying children. She takes all of Duncan’s money and tells the ship’s porter to give it to all of those poor unfortunate people. She didn’t notice how broadly the porter smiled as he took the money obviously for himself.

Now penniless, they are forced off the ship in France and Bella happily turns to a life of prostitution because it gets the money she needs and involves her favorite pastime sex.

Duncan goes insane having lost complete control of her. We later see him as a shell of his former self in an insane asylum. Bella is now a highly intelligent self-actualized person who is not going to be exploited by anyone.

Although the film is highly bizarre and the surreal setting and weird cinematography can make it difficult to watch, overall I found it quite funny, strangely enjoyable, and worthy of the accolades it has received.

Emma Stone is nominated for an Oscar for Lead Actress. She has already won the Golden Globe for Lead Actress Comedy and the BAFTA Lead Actress.

Even though this is a bizarre character who is played over the top, it is a fantastic bit of acting. She transforms from the childlike creature we see at the beginning of the film through the sex-crazed uninhibited adolescent into a sex-crazed young woman and eventually a highly intelligent philosopher. It is an amazing acting feat. With those wins already chalked up she is the odds-on favorite for the Oscar but might face stiff competition from Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon. If Gladstone wins it would make her the first Native American to win in that category.

I will rank it as my 7th favorite film of the 10 Best Picture Nominees but don’t take that as a slight. I very much enjoyed it.

I cannot recommend it to everyone. You have to have a bizarre sense of humor and can deal with the explicit sex scenes and the overall surreal nature of the film. I liked it. But I’m weird. It’s a strange new take on the Frankenstein legend.

The film has earned 11 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director for Yorgos Lanthimos who is also nominated by the Directors Guild, Lead Actress Emma Stone, Supporting Actor Mark Ruffalo, Adapted Screenplay by Tony McNamara based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling all of which are richly deserved. It is also Oscar-nominated for Original Music Score and Film Editing for which I have no opinion.

Mark Ruffalo gives a memorable performance as the sleazy lawyer who tries to exploit Bella. And what’s not to like about Willem Dafoe as a mad scientist? I wish that Dafoe had gotten more nominations. Ruffalo probably won’t win for Supporting Actor but he is definitely worthy of the nomination.

It has 11 BAFTA nominations including Best Picture and Best British Film of the Year. Its 7 Golden Globe nominations also included Supporting Actor Willem Defoe. Emma Stone won the Globe for Lead Actress in a Comedy and the film won Best Comedy.

Stone and Dafoe have also received SAG nominations for lead and supporting roles respectively.

IMDb lists 395 nominations and 90 wins at the time of this writing. It has earned over $32 million in the US and Canada since its December premiere and over $93 million worldwide. It is available for rent or purchase on Amazon or YouTube.

* * *

For our purposes, I’m going to assume you have not yet seen “Barbie” but given its popularity that is probably not true. Anyway, “Barbie” is set in the fantasy world of Barbieland. It is occupied by dozens of women all named Barbie and a bunch of men all named Ken. Our lead character played by Margo Robbie is known in the film as “Stereotypical Barbie” She is the swimsuit-wearing, dream house-residing, pink convertible-driving Barbie that you normally think of when someone says “Barbie”. Other Barbies include an African-American president, astronauts, doctors, lawyers, the entire Supreme Court, Nobel laureates, and every other occupation ever imagined for Barbie.

The main Ken is played by Ryan Gosling. He is the stereotypical Ken who is blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and who hangs out at the beach. He is accompanied by a variety of other Kens of various ethnicities. None of them have an occupation except beaching. He’s not a lifeguard by the way. He just hangs out at the beach and spends his days pining for the attention of Barbie.

It is a perfect world in which all of the Barbies are happy. They believe that they have saved the women of the real world because they have proven that Barbie can be anything and so can you. Although Barbie’s daily routine is monotonous and repetitive, one day she starts feeling some existential dread. She starts thinking about death. She also has other bizarre feelings that are foreign to her. Among the transformative changes she experiences is that suddenly her feet are no longer fixed in the typical high-heel-wearing position that Barbies are known for. Her heels actually begin touching the ground.

She is directed to seek help from “Weird Barbie” who is brilliantly played by Kate McKinnon. Weird Barbie has bizarre makeup drawn on her face in crayon. She is always in an awkward pose usually very severe splits. Her hair is a mess. She is what happens to Barbies who are played with two hard and left in a box in the basement for too long.

Weird Barbie advises stereotypical Barbie that something is wrong with the girl who is playing with her. The girl is unhappy and her negative emotions are bleeding over into stereotypical Barbie. This has opened a portal between Barbieland and the Real World. Her only remedy is to travel to the Real World, find the girl who plays with her, and figure out what is troubling her.

Barbie sets out on this quest and is accompanied by Ken who stows away in the back of her dream car.

Barbie finds the Real World to be completely unlike what she expected. She believed that because she was a role model who proved that women could do anything, she expected the real world to be dominated by powerful independent women. Obviously, it is not. On the other hand, Ken is pleasantly surprised that men are respected and not just unimportant companions for the Barbies. He does some research and discovers that the world is a patriarchy in which men rule. While our Barbie seeks out her owner, Ken returns to Barbieland and begins taking over as he teaches the other Kens the principles of patriarchy.

Initially, Barbie believes that her owner is a young tween girl named Sasha but soon discovers that Sasha and her friends hate Barbies.

Sasha: We haven’t played with Barbie since we were like five years old.

Girl 1: Yeah, I hated dolls with hair.

Girl 2: Me, I played with Barbie but it was like the last resort.

Girl 3: I loved Barbie. [Sasha gives her a nasty look]

Sasha: You’ve been making women feel bad about themselves since you were invented… You represent everything that is wrong with our culture. Sexualized capitalism. Unrealistic physical ideas…

Barbie: no, no, no. I am technically Stereotypical Barbie but…

Sasha: You set the women’s movement back 50 years. You destroy girls’ innate sense of worth and you are killing the planet with your glorification of rampant consumerism.

Barbie: No. I’m supposed to help you and make you happy and powerful…

Sasha: Oh, I am powerful. And until you showed up here and declared yourself “Barbie” I hadn’t thought about you in years you fascist!

Eventually, Barbie discovers that the source of her angst is actually Sasha’s mother Gloria played by America Ferrera. Gloria is a secretary at Mattel. In her spare time, she begins designing new Barbies based on her own inner fears and turmoil. She found her old Barbie and began playing with it as an adult and that is the source of our main character’s transformation.

The FBI alerts the executives at Mattel that their creations have infiltrated the real world. In a panic, the Mattel executives led by their CEO Will Farrell eventually round up Barbie and attempt to put her in a box to be transported back to Barbieland. This will close the portal and set things right. Barbie escapes Mattel headquarters with the help of Gloria and Sasha.

Then Barbie takes Gloria, and Sasha with her when they return to Barbieland where they discover that the Kens have taken over. They brainwashed all of the other Barbies including the president, the Supreme Court, doctors, lawyers, etc. into being airhead women who are obsessed with serving the needs of the Kens.

In a pivotal scene, Gloria delivers a monologue about how difficult it is to be a woman in the modern world.

Gloria: [to Barbie] You are so beautiful. So smart. And it kills me you don’t think you’re good enough. Like we always have to be extraordinary. But somehow we are always doing it wrong. You have to be thin but not too thin and you can never say that you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy. But also you have to be thin. You have to have money but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. Sigh… You have to be a boss but you can’t be mean. You have to lead but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You are supposed to love being a mother but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people…

This causes the brainwashed Barbies to snap out of it.

Can they regain control of Barbieland? What will the Kens do if they succeed? And now that stereotypical Barbie has been to the real world and had her eyes opened to the imperfection of reality, what will her life be like? Can Gloria and her daughter Sasha heal their broken relationship?

Writer/director Greta Gerwig has created a phenomenal work in this film. It is a hilariously funny yet deeply poignant and touching exploration of the roles of men and women. Even though I’m male and never played with Barbies, it nearly brought me to tears of nostalgia over my love of my favorite toys.

I can’t discuss this film without mentioning the opening scene which is a parody of a classic film. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I will describe it in detail in a spoiler section at the end of this podcast that you can skip. For now, let me just say that I have not laughed harder at a film in decades than I did in that opening scene. As it unfolded, I realized what was happening. I realized very early what film it was spoofing. At one point I said to myself, “If that girl playing with dolls starts to do what I think she’s going to do, I’m going to lose it.”

She did.

I must’ve laughed out loud for 10 minutes. I had to pause the movie. Wiped my eyes. Details in the spoiler section.

The film has earned 8 Oscar nominations yet many critics claim that the lack of a nomination for director Greta Gerwig and lead actress Margo Robbie were a serious snub. I have to disagree. Keep in mind that there are 10 films nominated for Best Picture but only 5 nominations for Best Director and 5 nominations for Lead Actress.

Let’s look briefly at the competition for director. Justine Triet did an amazing job in “Anatomy of a Fall” and happens to be a woman so we can’t say it was sexist that Gerwig did not get nominated. Just because Martin Scorsese has been nominated as Best Director 10 times, that’s more than any other living director, it does not mean he should not be nominated for his amazing work in “Killers of the Flower Moon”. Christopher Nolan very much deserves his nomination for “Oppenheimer” and is likely to win. Yorgos Lanthimos showed amazing creativity and vision in bringing to life the bizarre world of Bella Baxter in “Poor Things.” Finally, a film we have not yet discussed “The Zone of Interest” also is a stellar achievement by director Jonathan Glaser. He has found a new and innovative way to explore the horrors of the Holocaust without showing us any of those horrors. We simply hear them. I would bump no one from this list to make room for Gerwig. She did get a nomination from the Directors Guild.

Along with Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig is Oscar#nominated for Adapted Screenplay. I believe this is where her creativity and contribution to this film truly are Oscar-worthy. It is a brilliant screenplay.

That nomination is not without controversy. The Academy considers it an Adapted Screenplay because she did not create the characters Barbie, Ken, and others. This is a ridiculous distinction. There is nothing in the lore of Barbie remotely related to the story she has created. This is not an adaptation of an existing Barbie-themed book, cartoon, or any other work. The children who play with Barbie create their own stories. Barbie as created by Mattel is simply an image. Not a character. This isn’t like Transformers or G.I. Joe or other toys with movie, TV, or comic book tie-ins.

Typically when a work is listed as an Adapted Screenplay such as “American Fiction” the credits list the author of the book upon which it is based. This was also true with “The Zone of Interest”, and ”Poor Things”. Christopher Nolan has made it clear that “Oppenheimer” is the result of research from many sources including written biographies of the real man.

While I cannot defend the criticism that she was snubbed by the lack of a Director nomination, the criticism of this screenplay being listed as “adapted” is very much an appropriate complaint. This is a highly original screenplay.

The Writers Guild of America nominated it as an Original Screenplay as they should have.

Let’s look at Margo Robbie’s competition. We’ve not yet talked about the film “Nyad” in which Annette Benning plays long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad. It is an amazing performance. A very memorable character. Lily Gladstone’s performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon” while not my favorite among the five nominees is certainly Oscar-worthy. Carey Mulligan’s performance as actress Felicia Montealegre the wife of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” was a quality performance. German actress, Sandra Hüller was previously unknown to me. She delivers one of my favorite performances of the year in “Anatomy of a Fall”. She is also quite chilling in “The Zone of Interest” as Hedwig Höss the wife of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss but was not nominated for that role. Had these films premiered in different calendar years she might have been nominated for both performances. And finally Emma Stone will likely win for “Poor Things”. Who would you bump? I wouldn’t bump any of them.

The question we should be asking is how did Ryan Gosling get nominated for Supporting Actor as Ken? He did a good job. It was a funny character. But I don’t think there is anything that special or memorable about his performance. In fact, I went back and watched the entire film a second time just to focus on his contribution. I saw nothing after two viewings that impressed me that much.

In contrast, I will long remember Willem Defoe in “Poor Things” although I can understand why he would not be nominated in the same film in the same category as Mark Ruffalo. Nominating 2 Supporting Actors in the same film usually means neither of them will win. I would’ve liked to see a nomination for Rhys Ifans who played in “Nyad” as navigator John Bartlett who helped Nyad make her way from Cuba to Florida. I will long remember that performance after I’ve forgotten Gosling. Although I hated the musical remake of “The Color Purple” I could’ve given a Supporting Actor nomination to Coleman Domingo for his role in tha Christina film. Fortunately, he is nominated as Lead Actor for “Rustin”.

America Ferrera has a Supporting Actress nomination which is very much deserved. Her monologue that I discussed previously was brilliantly delivered and other aspects of her performance are quite memorable.

Although “Barbie” ranks only as my 8th favorite of the 10 nominated films, I very much enjoyed it. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.

The film has 8 Oscar nominations. Best Picture, Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling, Supporting Actress for America Ferrera, Production Design (much-deserved), and Costume Design (also much-deserved). They have gone to meticulous detail to re-create Barbieland based on actual products sold such as houses, cars, and especially clothes.

There are about 6 or 7 big musical production numbers and songs. Two of the songs are nominated for Oscars. “I’m Just Ken” by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt wasn’t a bad song.

[Excerpt from “I’m Just Ken” plays]

But the odds-on favorite for the whole category is “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell.

It’s a very touching and emotional song. It has already won two Grammys: Song of the Year, and “Best Song Written for Visual Medium”. The song won a Golden Globe. Here is a brief excerpt from the music video by Billy Eilish. Check out the link to the full video in the description. It’s a very touching video itself.

[Excerpt from “What Was I Made For?” plays]

“Barbie” received 5 BAFTA nominations. There were 9 Golden Globe Nominations and it won the Globe for “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement” whatever that means. Robbie, Gosling, the ensemble cast, and stunt ensembles have received SAG nominations.

Overall IMDb lists 417 nominations and 167 wins to date.

With an estimated budget of $100 million, released in July it has earned over $600 million in the US and Canada and $1.445 billion worldwide. [Note: This makes Gerwig the first female director to break the $1 billion glass ceiling.]

It is still showing in theaters and is available for streaming on Max and available for purchase or rental on Amazon and YouTube.

Note that on Max streaming there is a special version that includes an American Sign Language interpreter superimposed in the lower right corner of the screen in addition to the usual closed captions. If you watch it on Max, I recommend you view that version to inflate those viewing numbers and encourage Max and other streaming services to provide such versions. I did not find the interpreter distracting.

In previous episodes, I said I was only able to see 9 of the 10 Best Picture Nominated films. Good news… “The Zone of Interest” is now available for digital download rental or purchase so I have now seen all 10 films plus four other films that were nominated for acting or screenplay awards but were not listed for Best Picture. I’m going to try to get three more episodes before the Oscars are awarded on March 10. I’ve not been able to get them out on time on Monday but we are going to go full speed ahead. I will try to get these episodes out between now and the Oscars.

Stay tuned after my typical closing for a spoiler-filled description of the opening scene of Barbie which made me laugh so hard I cried.

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I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe everyone.

Okay, I want to talk about the opening scene but I didn’t want to spoil it in the main section of the review. However, I just discovered that the opening scene I’m about to talk about was spoiled in a teaser trailer that was released before the film. If you’ve not seen that trailer only continue if you’ve seen “Barbie” or don’t care if it’s spoiled.

The film opens with Helen Mirren doing a voiceover narration…

Narrator: Since the beginning of time… since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.

But they were always baby dolls thus putting the girls in the role of mother. The scene shows about half a dozen girls aged 4 or 5 years old sitting on a rocky terrain outdoors playing with baby dolls, strollers, teacups, and plastic dishes.

That stark scenery along with the phrase “since the beginning of time” immediately told me this was a reference to the opening “Dawn of Man” sequence of the classic Stanley Kubrick film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In case you are unfamiliar with that sequence, it shows a bunch of prehuman apelike creatures struggling to survive in a harsh rocky desert environment. Suddenly a giant dark gray monolith appears in their midst. One of them cautiously approaches the slab and touches it. It emits a strange sound. Suddenly the creatures have gained great intelligence. They discover how to use tools. Specifically, one of them picks up a long bone from a carcass and begins swinging it as a club. He discovers it makes him powerful and he begins violently smashing a pile of bones sending bone shards flying in every direction. He then tosses the bone into the air triumphantly and we get a crossfade to the year 2001 and a shot of an orbiting satellite. Mankind has transformed from primitive tools like a bone club to the sophisticated technology of space travel.

Back to “Barbie”… The narrator says that this baby doll and mother will play continues until…” Then we get the iconic music “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from “2001”. We cut to a 10-foot-tall Barbie doll that suddenly appears on the landscape in the same way that the monolith appeared in “2001”. Or rather Margo Robbie as Barbie.

The girls cautiously approach Barbie as the music continues. When they touch her, a strange buzz sound emanates.

Then we get a close-up of one of the girls holding her baby doll with two hands by the doll’s feet.

It was at that instant that I said to myself, “Oh my God… If she starts bashing that doll on the rocks and busting up the plastic dishes I’m going to lose it.”

Just as I expected… The little girl begins swinging in a baby doll and violently smashing it into the ground crushing her plastic dishes and the skulls of the other porcelain dolls sending debris flying everywhere. She then flings the doll into the air and we get a crossfade to the Barbie logo.

I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I had to pause the movie and dry my eyes before I could continue. I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard at a film.

If you’re not a mega fan of “2001: A Space Odyssey” then you probably did not laugh as hard as I did. But I hope you did watch the movie before you read this and I hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as I did.

As I explained, I found out much later that this 2001 spoof appeared in a teaser trailer way before the movie opened. Several people on YouTube have created side-by-side views of the “Barbie” trailer and the opening scenes of 2001. However, these mashups are based on the trailer which is a shorter sequence than appears in the actual film. The sequence in the film is and the girls smashing the baby dolls are much more violent. I would try to make my own side-by-side comparison based on the film but I would probably get a copyright violation for it. Perhaps someone else will dare to do so.

I’ve provided a link to the “Barbie” trailer as well as one of the better side-by-side comparisons between it and “2001”. You really need to see the full beginning of the movie to really appreciate it. [Late update: I found a YouTube clip of the full opening. See the links.]

Tune in next week for more movie reviews as we continue Contemplating Life. Fly safe everyone.