Asteroid Barbie (Stoop Chat🎙)
Catching up on a couple of modern classics 🎬
We’re back on the bench at Pete’s Tavern, discussing two of Hollywood’s most significant summer releases, Barbie and Asteroid City. Why now, after all the think pieces, hot takes, and even careful anthropological studies concerning these two films have already been published? Well, for one thing, we didn’t want to crowd the field. If you’re a budding cultural critic and you hear that an S.D.I.R. Stoop Chat about Barbie just dropped, you throw up your hands and write about the effect of A.I. on climate-based Covid in zillenials instead. And also, until this last weekend, Keith hadn’t seen Barbie and Chris hadn’t seen Asteroid City.
Note: This conversation contains… not really “spoilers”? But it won’t make very much sense if you haven’t seen the movies under discussion.
Mentioned in this chat:
The Barbie movie.
Asteroid City and Wes Anderson’s CV.
Our doomed Indigo Girls covers album.
Modest Mouse and The Pixies: under-discussed early influences on W.A.S.
Not discussed:
What effect A.I. may be having on climate-driven Covid cases in the zillenial population.
Talk dirty to each other, if you can,
Chris & Keith
This is a top notch review of “Barbie”. My love affair with Greta Gerwig is ongoing. I’ve yet to watch “Asteroid City” but wonder if it is hard to follow? My friend went to see it and had literally no clue what was going on, but I don’t know if that was more down to her or the film.
Great way to sign off btw as Hallmark movies suck, unless they are set at Christmas when they become the best form of entertainment known to man - don’t know how to explain this phenomenon. It’s just true!
How timely! I just watched "Asteroid City" on Peacock two days ago! It is not my favorite Wes Andersen film (that's "The Royal Tenenbaums"), but I liked it at least as much as "The French Dispatch." I enjoyed "Barbie" very much too. Sadly, my husband is one of those men who thinks it's anti-man, so he refused to see it with me. My two adult sons really liked it, though. Keith, perhaps the ending would have resonated more with you if you were a woman. I thought the Billie Eilish tune was a tad manipulative, but I saw aspects of my experience in pretty much every scene of the montage.
An amusing (to me, at least) story about Pixies - they played in Philadelphia about five or six years ago and the local "alternative" station got them to come in for a Studio Session, which is a live acoustic-y performance for about 20 people in a tiny little performance room. Traditionally there is a meet and greet and photos after the performance. I got a pass to it and wondered how the famously reticent band would act in a meet and greet. When we were gathered in the room before the band came out, the DJ who was hosting the event came out looking all apologetic and said that the band had asked if instead of "standing around awkwardly for pictures" they could just play a couple of extra songs. The audience - mostly on the older side and clearly familiar with the band and their ways - laughed and said that would be great.