Web Search powered by YAHOO! SEARCH
share
email
font size
options
 
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Barbie, Hollywood Movie Star
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   
Posted 04:10 PM, 09/24/2009
garyk
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.
Posted 04:12 PM, 09/24/2009
ccjroberts
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.
Posted 04:44 PM, 09/24/2009
Amy Heller
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.
Posted 07:03 PM, 09/24/2009
carrierickey
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.
4 comments
About Carrie Rickey

Carrie Rickey has been The Philadelphia Inquirer’s film critic for 21 years. She has reviewed films as diverse as Water and The Waterboy, profiled celebrities from Lillian Gish to Will Smith, and reported on technological breakthroughs from the video revolution to the rise of movies on demand. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide and she is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly. Rickey’s essays appear in numerous anthologies, including The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll, The American Century, and the Library of America’s American Movie Critics.

ARCHIVES

All blog items posted before May 23, 2008, can be accessed at http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/flickgrrl/.

Advertise Here