I want to sincerely apologize to all SUGP members for the Ken puns I am going to make for a month straight. Now, I had to sit through a trailer for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 to see this fucking movie so let there be no doubt in any of your minds that I have suffered for my art.

Oppenheimer? Who gives a fuck about nuclear war! No cool tanks or jets? Pass! Gay! Dune? You aren't going to see that shit and they've cut my shill paycheck. Barbie? This is it right here. This is REAL cinema. Martin Scorcese said so, you can look it up, but you shouldn't since you should take my words at face value instead and it's much funnier if you do. That statement is only slightly irony twinged. Barbie is a REAL movie, not in the sense that it exists, but that it exists as an actual complex piece of cinema, though it's perhaps a bit over its head, it's still trying and striving to hit that mark. That's kind of crazy to think about, that in the hands of virtually anyone else, this would just be productslop. Maybe it still is, just a little bit, but the level of creative control that director Greta Gerwig had over this film shines in every moment and every scene. Much like the trailers promised, this is simultaneously a love letter to, and a dissection of, Barbie.

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat, the production design is A+ tier. Sets, costumes, whole nine yards, this movie captures a very distinct feeling and energy both inside and outside of its "Barbieland" scenes. This goes beyond just "making everything pink". Everything is done with practical, physical sets that maintain a distinctively toy-like and artificial feel, while also feeling like a real place where these characters live in their fantasy utopia. Every costume and outfit feels like it could've been ripped straight from one of the dolls, and you can tell there was a great love of detail and attention put into everything. This even extends into the real world to a degree, with Mattel's Headquarters taking on a surrealistic corporate dystopian feeling with a thin veneer of color plastered at its highest floors, cleverly tying into the secondary characters of soulless executives and their personalities and role within the story.

I recall some complaints about both Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling being "too old" for their roles, and these people are gay and retarded. I genuinely cannot imagine any other actors playing Barbie and Ken, as both nail the look, physicality, and emotion of their characters, which sounds really fucking stupid as I type it because I'm talking about fucking Barbie and Ken, but I'll get to that in a second. Everyone in this movie, at bare minimum, gets a "mild thumbs up". You have a whole plethora of endless actors and actresses playing various variations of Barbie and Ken that inhabit this fictional universe, each with their own fairly distinct personalities and performances that still encapsulate the KENERGY of this universe. My biggest complaints probably revolve around the "real world" human characters feeling a bit boring and preachy, but that kind of contrast with the rest of the cast is fine to differentiate between the two worlds, but this leads in to one of my complaints.

Barbieland is very campy and goofy and everything done and said there is sort of tongue-in-cheek and comical and highlighted up to an absurdist degree. So when Barbie and Ken get to the real world and they're immediately hit with an exposure to "reality" that also feels very tongue-in-cheek and comical and highlighted up to an absurdist degree, it kind of undermines the differences between these two places. It also leads to a kind of tonal dissonnance, one which intentionally permeates the entire film as it's more or less a comedy revolving around a crippling existential crisis, but in regards to the differences between utopian Barbieland and reality, it feels like there should've been a starker contrast, and doing so likely would've helped with the film's messaging, which leads in to my next complaint.

I'm not going to sit here and discuss or complain about politics. This is a Barbie movie. It is a feminist movie. It discusses and analyzes the role that women play in society, how the roles they play make them feel, and how Barbie ties into all of this both as an inspiration to girls, and as a product which has, intentionally or not, defined femininity. And it gets political about this, because no shit it does, and if you don't like that and aren't here for it, then the good news is that there's still stuff here for you, but this is the message of the film, and to its detriment, I feel it's delivered with the subtlety and bluntness of getting nailed directly in the nose with a Barbie Dream Convertible at full force. It's not even that it's hammering you over the head with it, because that's fine, that's whatever, it's just the way its delivered throughout the film is often through very direct, spell it out for you word by word, monologues and speeches, and I fucking hate that shit. And I can tell why it was done that way, because it very much feels like Gerwig wanted this message to be easily understood and digestible by the wide audience this film was targeted towards. That's not a bad thing in itself, but it was just handled incredibly clunkily.

All of this ends up building into what feels like a messy third act and a sort of rushed conclusion to the film, which isn't to say the third act is bad. In fact, this is where the film goes full force. Barbie is a comedy, and it nails the ever difficult challenge of "being funny". The film is packed with jokes and gags and sight gags, and honestly? Just about every one of them is executed perfectly, setup, punchline, execution, timing, one after the other. This reaches an insane fever pitch in the third act, culminating in a climax that is so insane, and absurd, and over the top, that I had the biggest fucking smile on my face the entire time. The third act also starts to touch on a lot of deeper messages in the film beyond what is spelled out and beaten over the audience. While I said this is a feminist film, I think that the message the film ultimately conveys at the end, is one of seeing the world through the opposite gender's eyes and striving for a sense of equality and self-worth regardless of who you are, and regardless of expectations. But like I said, I think that this message and the conclusion it wraps to ends up feeling a bit rushed, as these particular issues do not come into the forefront until the final moments of the film.

It's not some kind of masterpiece, but hey, it was a really good movie, far and beyond what I would ever expect from a god damn Barbie movie. Like I touched on in my Oppenheimer review briefly, I'm really glad that there's so much positivity surrounding both films and that they're each finding an unexpected audience in each other. It's really great to see people opening up to something they may not have enjoyed, and coming away from it happy. And that's why you're going to see this movie SUGP. Not now, but the moment this hits DVD/Digital/Streaming, I am hosting a group watch because this movie will be really fucking funny to watch together.

SIRS DO NOT REDEEM THE FILM IN INDIAN MARKETS BLOODY BITCH BASTERD

World renowned hack fraud Christopher "BRAVO" Nolan has finally pulled it off, by releasing a fantastic film that is not action oriented, something which I frankly did not believe could be done when this film was announced. The story of Oppenheimer is not one of big bombastic action setpieces that you would expect from Nolan. This is what was so intriguing about it from the jump, it's not his usual fare, it's something that arguably, is completely outside of his wheelhouse, but it's also something he was clearly intensely passionate about. All of it culminates here, and much like the bomb the film revolves around, it goes off with a bang. I may be tempted to conclude that this is Nolan's best film, but in actuality, I cannot. Not because it isn't his best film, but because dear reader, I was the REAL hack fraud this entire time. I've only seen the Batman movies. Send your complaints to the General Chat with a friendly ping and remember to keep comments positive and friendly!

What can be said about Oppenheimer that Bore, Jim, and whatever other reviewers you so frequent haven't said already? I don't know, so I'm just going to start rambling instead. What counts as a spoiler? I don't know, all of this is historical fact, hell, you probably already know the entire plot just from skimming a few wikipedia articles on the subject, something which most people here have doubtlessly done before this movie came out. If you don't want spoilers for the movie uhhhhh be dumb??? I'll try to avoid giving away too much though.

I won't lie to you, this is a three hour film about scientists talking, and having hearings, and politicians talking to scientists, and having hearings. A three hour movie centered largely around talking may seem incredibly dull and boring, but I'm going to tell you right now that it is not, and that is where the great skill of the movie lies. Direction, writing, and editing all come together in a perfect trinity to turn what otherwise could've been something incredibly boring and dull, into something that is engaging, anxious, fear-inducing, and thrilling all at once. It is a rush of an entire gamut of emotions packed into its runtime, each synchronizing near perfectly with the experience of Oppenheimer throughout the film, throughout his life. This is further enhanced through the manner in which the story is presented, non-linearly. Now at first, this seems like it might devolve into a confusing mess, especially early on as we speed through Oppenheimer: The Student Years, but once these bits of backstory are out of the way we settle in to three distinct time periods, jumping back and forth between them as the story sees fit, but never in a way that is confusing to the audience. By limiting the jumping around and tying it to story and thematic necessity, it not only helps the audience understand and build the mental connections necessary to understand what is going on fluidly, but it also enhances the story being told in each time period by bridging them together. Furthermore, it ties back in to ensuring that the film never feels dull. You never fear things dragging on for too long, or spending too much time on any one thing, because everything the movie is trying to tell is being told simultaneously across multiple time periods.

The sense of emotion conveyed by the film is aided greatly by the score. There has been a point of contention over it being too loud, or too overused in certain sequences, and I kind of agree to an extent. Early on in the film especially, it felt like it was overpowering a lot of the dialogue, making it harder to hear, or in some cases distracting from what was going on a bit. Perhaps my ears just adjusted to it as the movie went on, or maybe the mixing just got better, but once things really get going and the Manhattan Project truly kicks off, it got better, though still overbearing in some parts. It was an excellent score to be sure, and it added a lot to the film with its repeated leitmotifs and clever little sonic tricks. Stomping of feet reverberating like an unstoppable locomotive, clicking and screeching like a geiger counter, otherworldly noises from beyond the fabric of the universe, it conveys so much of the film's emotion that overbearing or not, I cannot imagine the movie without it. The score's usage during the bomb scene in particular elevated it to a sublime level that I imagine will likely go down in cinema history. No that is not a spoiler it's a fucking Oppenheimer movie of course there's a god damn bomb scene and of course it's fucking incredible.

Much praise has already been given to the performances so I shant repeat what has already been said, too much anyways. Cillian Murphy delivers a definitive performance, both in terms of the character he's playing, and perhaps for the actor himself. Robert Downey Jr. starts out seemingly understated but all of the nuance of his character and performance really just keeps growing and bubbling until it explodes in the third act. The supporting cast is massive and endless, some people appearing for a mere handful of minutes, but none of them ever feel like "Oh look at this whacky cameo!! XDDDD!!!!!!". Special big shoutout to Casey Affleck, the character he plays appears for maybe three minutes total, but he manages to exude this aura of menace and terror while still remaining soft-spoken and polite, but just off enough to make you want to run. Special big FAIL for Gary Oldman who didn't do anything wrong but the minute I saw him show up I was like "Huh is that Gary Oldman? That looks like Gary Oldman in Gary Oldman makeup. Huh? Is that him? Oh yeah there's the closeup it's Gary Oldman"

I could go on and gush about individual scenes and moments I really liked, but there are a lot, each of them carefully building into and layering on top of each other, and that might broach what one would consider spoiler territory. Specific things I did NOT like did in fact exist. There were a few um, "awkward" moments in the film. I feel that they were very much intentional, whether it's portraying Oppenheimer as a bit of a sperg, or just giving off a very weird and uncomfortable feeling that I can't talk about without spoiling. And again, my take is that these things were intentional. Oppenheimer is a very subjective film, and a good two thirds of it is shot from and framed from Oppenheimer's specific point of view. A lot of it is meant not just to portray the events of his life, but also to put you in his shoes, both narratively, and emotionally. Maybe Nolan is just retarded, but watching, I felt that these scenes would draw a lot of people out of the film with how unintentionally comical they were, and that is definitely a net negative.

The film is not interested in answering the questions that may surround Oppenheimer and his work. It wants you to do that for yourself. The facts are presented for you to decide, and while I said that the film is very subjective, there are also other points of view scattered throughout that leave you questioning whatever pre-conceived notion you may have gone in with surround Oppenheimer and the bomb(s). And yes there are the big existential questions of did Oppenheimer do the right, or even necessary thing? Are nuclear weapons ultimately a good or bad thing? etc, etc. But there are also smaller quandaries which one doesn't even consider within the macro-level discussion. I don't want to get too much into them since that also broaches spoiler territory, but there are so many "what-ifs" that leave you torn and considering the broader implications that these clashing personalities and their politics had on our world. And there is the other tale that Oppenheimer ultimately tells, the death of the scientist, and of the sciences. It is the end of an era where Scientists could simply do science without becoming tangled in the messy web of politics and bureaucracy that dominate those same fields today, and have paralyzed our response and action to things ever since that era ended.

Conclusions? This is a film that everybody should see, both because it is a very well made film from a filmmaking and technical perspective, from an acting perspective, and also because the message it presents and the questions it raises both about Oppenheimer himself, and his work, are still very timely and relevant to this day, perhaps more than ever. At the same time, purely due to its nature as a three hour drama, it becomes paradoxically difficult to recommend, perhaps as paradoxical as the man himself. Perhaps this is not a film for everybody, but I highly recommend it regardless, and ultimately I feel that due to the Barbie memery, we're seeing a lot of people that wouldn't have seen this film go out and give it a chance, and enjoy it even, so why don't you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlaosFBu6OA

"WHERE'S THE KINO," Batman shouts as he grabs Kinoplex Robert and throws him through the Popcorn Machine. Glass shatters everywhere and Batman advances on him, beating him repeatedly. "WHERE'S THE KINO??? WHERE IS IT? YOU'D NEVER GIVE IT TO AN ORDINARY SINGLES VIEWER! WHERE IS IT, WHERE'S THE KINO, WHERE IS IT????" I watch silently as Robert is beaten within an inch of his life, doing nothing to aid him. He refused to fill my licensed The BatmanTM Popcorn Vessel with Crab Legs as I requested, insisting it was for Popcorn only. This is the fate Robert deserves. This is my vengence, my kino, my The Batman(2021).

Short Version: I'll repost what I said earlier. I liked it very much, it basically had all the problems I thought it would, and most of the strengths I thought it would. Pretty much exactly what I expected which in this day and age is frankly a good thing. STRONG maybe on it being the best Batman film. I will have to think about it more and probably rewatch it out of theaters to make such a definitive ranking.

Long Version: It's been 10 years since the last solo Batman film and 14 years since the last good Batman film(We don't talk about Snyder anymore). So if you're a Batman fan such as myself, you haven't had much in the way of kino lately. Thankfully, and I'm happy to say, The Batman lives up to expectations. It is not without its faults, but it's a very good film regardless, a very fresh take on the character. A lot of my regular(?) readers have already seen this, so I will talk Spoilers a bit in some sections but they'll be tagged. I think there was some concern early on, and still might be among some people that this would just be a retread of "le realistic gritty Batman" that the Christopher Nolan films brought us, and I want to immediately squash such talk because while this is a "realistic" sort of Comic Book Movie, it's so dramatically tonally and stylistically different from the Nolan films that comparing them in that regard is stupid. The Nolan films are very sort of cinematically clinical in how things are shot and executed, very crisp, clean, epic in scope and scale, and The Batman by comparison is incredibly flashy, stylistic, gloomy, sort of Gothic in its disposition, and more personal in scope.

The big surprise or delight for people has been Robert Pattinson's portrayal as Batman, which sort of goes in a different direction by making Bruce sort of secondary to Batman in that Batman has entirely consumed this man's life, his every waking moment, everything. There is not so much a Bruce Wayne as there is instead, appropriately enough, The Batman. This endless and horrible drive for vengence has taken such a psychological toll on him that he has become inseperable from it. He's more acting out a desire out of his control rather than out of a motivation to really help things or inspire people, something which is a major focus of his character arc throughout the film. Pattinson's Batman is menacing and terrifying in a way that even Bale's Batman never truly reached, largely because you can tell he sort of derives a need for it. It's so much a part of him that it can't be easily seperated from him as a character, and this is aided with some fantastic usage of cinematography and sound design. Batman's footsteps thud across the ground in an almost unstoppable fashion, the Batmobile roars with an almost demonic engine. It's an exploration of his earlier years and motivation without necessarily being a retread of something like Batman Begins, where this conflict is essentially resolved in the first act of the film rather than being its primary focus. Pattinson, previously critically renowned for his work in the Oscar winning Twilight Saga has an enormous amount of weight to carry on his shoulders throughout this film and he manages to do so tremendously well, capturing every internal struggle of the character perfectly and avoiding the hokey moments that Christian Bale sometimes fell into. A trap that a lot of previous Batman films sort of fall into is making supporting characters and villains more of a focus than Batman himself, and this is a film that sets out to explicitly avoid that. Batman is consistently the primary focus and avoids the pitfall of letting this focus fall to the wayside.

This isn't to say that the supporting cast is weak, absolutely not, it's more that the writing and the plot actually lean into Batman as the main character more than they do the supporting cast. Of course, you've got Batman going up against the Riddler, sort of reimagined as a Zodiac Killer-esque figure, and played by Paul Dano to continue the theme of /tv/ meme casting. This mostly works out alright. All the Riddler bits are very tonally on point and at times unsettling even though the movie has to be very careful to keep that PG-13 rating. Some things didn't work but I'll talk more about those in specific later. More importantly, the nature of his crimes gives Batman the opportunity to flex his mental muscles. The film is a lot of things at once, and a sort of noir detective story is one of them as the Batman tries to stay ahead of the Riddler. Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman was actually pretty good. She has the sort of sensuality, toughness, and damage the role needs, and I feel like she had good chemistry with Pattinson, which needs to be the lynchpin between the two. TDKR fucked this up immensely with a very sterile and boring pairing, Batman Returns remains the king with an electrifying pairing between Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer, though this movie does make a good go at it regardless. Jeffrey Wright as Gordon I initially did not care for, but I feel he really came into his own later on in the film as the relationship between him and Batman developed and strengthened and I warmed up to it by the end. John Turturro plays Carmine Falcone and gives a shockingly great performance. There's this very subtle aura of menace around him, even when he's being outwardly friendly, and he's normally a very goofy actor who's playing this role very seriously without hamming it up. His performance was probably the biggest surprise of the movie for me. Andy Serkis's Alfred doesn't have a whole lot to do in this movie. He's just kind of tired of watching Bruce destroy himself and kind of takes a back seat to events throughout. Colin Ferrel(a skinny Irishman) plays The Penguin who is a fat Italian mobster sterotype which adds a little bit of lightness to the movie at certain points, and is convincing in the role.

And, sort of a forgotten character in Batman movies is Gotham itself. The Batman's Gotham falls somewhere in the middle of Tim Burton's Fantasy Expressionist Dystopia and Nolan and Snyder's ultra-realistic generic US City. Gotham in this movie has this quality to it where parts of it feel almost fantastical and larger than life, a sort of gritty nightmare city exemplifying the worst qualities of urban America, but it also still very much feels like a real city that could exist. It strikes this perfect balance against which the story feels like it fits narratively and tonally. My only real problem with it is that it feels very small sort of. Lots of locations are consistently reused throughout the film which lends this feeling that you're only seeing a very small part of Gotham throughout. Everything in the movie has this very brooding atmosphere which just fits so perfect for Batman, the lighting, cinematography, even the music striking this very fine balance that's kind of been lost since Batman Begins. The Dark Knight is a very fine movie for certain, but it's just lacking that general tone and atmosphere that scream Batman like this movie does. The action bits were consistently good, very fluid, cleanly shot, nice punchy sound design, there's lots of creative stuff going on, everything feels very brutal and reactive as it should, just generally well done.

At nearly three hours, the movie is frankly too long. It's not an editing or pacing problem, because it never feels like it's dragging on, it's just sort of doing too much at once. Now, it's doing all of those things very well, and they all come together in a mostly cohesive picture, but it's just too much going on all at one time. It's exploring so many things in terms of character development and narrative all at once that it starts to feel a little cluttered. Everything is so fully developed and explored that it ends up burning through an extensive amount of time in the process, and I feel that the main plot ultimately ended up suffering a bit for it. It starts to get a bit convoluted and messy and the finale of the film was a bit dumb so this is where I will start talking about spoilers to outline these grievances more clearly but I'm pretty sure I've otherwise said everything I want to about this movie.

So as the movie goes on and the investigation starts hitting all these dead-ends and the Batman/Catwoman sideplot is going on and stuff I feel like the actual details of how the investigation goes from Point A to Point B starts getting muddled. It really isn't until the moment that Gordon and Batman catch the Penguin and they basically explain the entire situation for the benefit of the audience that it starts to become more clear. This isn't telling the audience new information, is this is all information the audience already knows but has gotten so bogged down and complicated that it has to be explained again for everything that happens after to make sense. The whole mystery and how it ties into Falcone and the Catwoman subplot as a result feels increasingly convoluted as it plays out though it's simple on paper. There's just so much going on in the background to drag it out and make it feel more complicated than it really is as a result.

Once the Riddler is captured that's where the movie sort of starts to go downhill a bit for me. I feel like Dano was chewing the scenery a bit too much at the start of the interrogation scene, but when the actual salient dialogue started happening things sobered up so to speak. At the end of it though when he just started singing Ave Maria was just a bit too cringe. His overarching plot is fine, the details make sense and aren't retarded like Bane from TDKR, but I think that introducing a bunch of radicalized internet Riddler incels to go shoot up the Mayor-Elect on election night was like, too much. It just feels a bit silly, out of place. It's just goofy for a movie that's been taking itself very seriously up to this point but I suppose that might just be my perception of things as an Internet Gamer. I had similar feelings towards Catwoman's white privlege line that literally just comes out of nowhere and feels incredibly forced. Both of these things tie in thematically to the movie sure and what it's doing with Batman's place in society but they just come across as just kind of out of nowhere and unsubtle. They end up sticking the landing with the radicalized incels in this regard at least, but this doesn't change the fact that the finale of this movie is Batman fighting a bunch of would be mass shooters and that's a big miss for me.

Oh and the Joker tease was dumb stop making everything an instant franchise/cinematic universe/spam a million sequels and TV shows PLEASE.

Well that's it for The Batman! It was pretty good, go out and see it if you get the chance and have three fucking hours to burn. I'll see you next time when uhhh

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Man there's like nothing else coming out is there? The Northman? NOPE? I dunno.