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Posted: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 3:54 PM | 4 comments |

Barbie, Hollywood Movie Star

Carrie Rickey, Inquirer Film Critic

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Should "Barbie: The Movie" base the screenplay on Presidential Barbie?

Now that movies based on kiddie toys are demomstrated box-office smashes (see Transformers), it was only a matter of time that a certain doll who has gone through more transformations than Optimus Prime would be the basis of a movie. Yes, Barbie: The Movie is in development . But on which of her many personas will the screenplay be based? Fun-loving beach girl in the striped strapless swimsuit? Presidential candidate with the Hillary Clinton bob (pictured)? Who should play her? And didn't Reese Witherspoon already play a reconstructed and adorably accessorized Barbie in the Legally Blonde movies? Should Barbie be an entrepreneur, a homemaker, a politician? What conflicts should she encounter?

Posted by Carrie Rickey @ 3:54 PM Permalink | 4 comments

Comments

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:10 PM, 09/24/2009

I'm sorry, but i don't understand why anyone would make a Barbie fillm after Todd Haynes' masterful SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY, and the hilarious TEAM AMERICA.

— garyk

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:12 PM, 09/24/2009

Too bad about this. Can't they leave ANYTHING alone? The animated children's movies they've been turning out based on fairy tales and well known stories have been pretty good and directed toward right audience. Obviously this doesn't qualify as Armageddon Awful, but can't they just control themselves.

— ccjroberts

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:44 PM, 09/24/2009

I'm with Gary K, Todd Haynes' SUPERSTAR is a moving and marvelous use of Barbie to tell a very American story of fame, loneliness, dysmorphia, bulimia and death. So fitting that this beautiful, inhumanly shaped doll stands in for a fragile woman who (like the toy in the film) is whittled away trying to achieve some kind of perfection.

— Amy Heller

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:03 PM, 09/24/2009

Thanks, Amy and Gary, for invoking "The Karen Carpenter Story," an unnerving movie that has to be better than any scenario cooked up by screenwriters.

— carrierickey

4 comments

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