Barbieheimer, the crafty, endearing portmanteau of Barbie and Oppenheimer, the two biggest blockbusters of the summer, became mainstream weeks months before the dual-day release of each movie. Moviegoers flocked to the theaters in greater fashion than even 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. This ultra-successful and undeniably popular film has become universally accepted as bringing people back to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some would say that it saved movie theaters entirely. As someone who sees two, three, or sometimes even more movies in the theater in any given month, and often being one of a small handful of patrons, I am in that camp.
Category Archives: Rami Malek
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
As is the case with many biopics (since being hosed over by, what I believed to be, a movie based entirely on a true story in Remember the Titans), I like to read about what parts of the movie were truly true and which parts were fictional to tell a better story. A good biopic often becomes a great biopic when you learn that what you saw on screen happened in real life. A good movie that bases its claim on being a true story or inspired by true events but one that you later find out has been predominantly fictionalized loses a lot of its original appeal. And, honestly, there is no bigger dagger to a movie that I love when I learn that what I thought was a true story turns out to be not nearly as much as I thought? Truthfully, how can you call a movie a biopic which, by definition, is a biographical movie when parts of the movie are either made up or sequenced in ways that weren’t truthful? Is the goal to honor the true story or to tell a better one and call it true? In the real world, that’s called fraud. So after learning that Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, one of the most influential rock bands of all time, wasn’t actually diagnosed with AIDS until 1987, two years AFTER Live Aid, despite telling his band members BEFORE Live Aid in the movie that he had contracted the virus, a lot of the movie’s credibility was shot out the window. However, despite many of its historical inaccuracies, I’m not going to trash a decent film that tried to do a lot right. If I did that, then I feel I would have to go back and scrutinize some of my other favorite biopics with the same fine comb. First of all, I have no desire to do that. Secondly, I don’t want to learn that some of my favorite movies I thought to be true 100% true was not (i.e., Remember the Titans). As you can see, this movie took a lot of liberties.
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Papillon (2018)
Had I have known what the 1973 original had truly been about, I don’t think there is any way I would have gone my entire adult life without seeing Franklin J. Schaffner’s cult classic Papillon. With that information stated, I am actually glad I never saw the original before watching Michael Noer’s (Nordvest (Northwest)) remake of the film of the same title. I went into the film fresh, with no expectations. Nor did I know a single thing about the story other than it was a prison movie. But after watching just 30 seconds of the trailer and understanding my own self that prison backdrops are often the set of some of my favorite movies, I knew I would see the film and that I would see it in the theatres. The only problem was that the critics and the lack of moviegoers were shortening my timetable. While this movie has a 76% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it has only a 54% critic rating, and its gross after two weeks is less than $2 million. Long story short, when I went to look at the possible times and theatres for when and where I could see this movie, my choices were few and far between. If I had waited even a week longer, I’m not sure that this movie would have still been in the theatres. And I have no idea why. This movie was absolutely riveting and had me engaged throughout its 133-minute runtime.
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