MARISA ABELA as “Teen Talk Barbie” Barbie (2023) dir. Greta Gerwig

oliver at the 2024 pre-bafta dunhill filmmakers dinner and party last week.

in case anyone asks, i believe that is actress marisa abela next to him. oliver follows her on instagram and has liked a few posts about her upcoming amy winehouse biopic by director sam taylor johnson, whom he also recently followed. guess he's looking forward to that film : )

“Barbie” has finally been released to theaters.

Multiple Jewish actors appear in the film, including Kingsley Ben-Adir, Hari Nef, Ana Cruz Kayne, Ariana Greenblatt, Marisa Abela, and Rhea Perlman.

The inventor of the Barbie doll, Ruth Handler, was also Jewish.

Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote the script with the film’s director Greta Gerwig, is Jewish as well.

Industry (2020) - 2x04

Cynthia Winehouse » Back to Black (2024, dir. Sam Taylor-Johnson)

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black, 2024

BARBIE SPOILERS bc i watched the movie earlier today and i need to talk about it

first of all, scenes that made me cry;

1. the opening scene where the little girls break their baby dolls and their kitchen sets bc they realize they can become more than good mothers and housewives.

2. barbie seeing an older woman in the real world and telling her how beautiful she is.

3. barbie meeting ruth handler.

4. gloria's monologue about the struggles women face every day.

5. last scene with barbie and ruth handler where barbie becomes human.

my favorite characters;

barbie, gloria, weird barbie, allan

how i connected to this movie;

it reminded me a lot about how, from a child, i became a teenager. in the beginning, barbie has fun with her friends all day and she doesn't seem to worry about anything, kinda how when we're children we just have fun, don't overthink things and obvs we have no idea about the misogyny that exists out there. soon after that, barbie starts experiencing things like morning breath, not having fresh milk etc, which could me a hint at the changes our bodies go through before we get our periods. when barbie goes to the real world, men are staring at her creepily, slap her butt, catcall her. in real life and in my personal experience, men started staring at me at the beach when i was 14 and i've been catcalled numerous times outside my school by men old enough to be my grandpas. suddenly i started becoming aware of what i was wearing, how my body was developing etc. and finally, when she goes back to barbieland, the kens have created their own patriarchy and ryan gosling's ken has taken her house. this reminded me a lot of how i had to watch boys i knew since we were preschoolers, become these sexist jerks. they were the sweetest little boys and then they would call us sluts, make sexual comments about our bodies, spread rumours about having had sex with one of us. the sad thing in the movie is that ken doesn't understand patriarchy, but he's still part of it. by the end of the movie he confesses to barbie that he saw some men riding horses in the real world and thought that patriarchy = horses, and that's why he wanted to bring it to barbieland. ken's motives weren't exactly bad, he just wanted the horses, and yet he was still part of the problem. also, the final scene where barbie goes to the gynecologist bc she's human and she has genitals is such an obvious way to compare it to the fact that when we become teenagers we have to change doctors and finally visit a gynecologist.

bonus;

barbie not being sasha's doll but gloria's because gloria may be a grown up but she stopped being a child way too soon for her liking so when she's stressed, sad etc she finds comfort in her favorite toy. 😭😭😭

Back to Amy

From director Sam Taylor-Johnson and the performance of Marisa Abela, the biopic ‘Back to Black’ will be released this year

Kit Harington and Marisa Abela on the set of HBO’s Industry Season 3

INDUSTRY •  2x08 • Jerusalem

MARISA ABELA as AMY WINEHOUSE Back to Black (2024)

Marisa Abela | Miu Miu ensemble | BRIT Awards | 2024

It's Amy Winehouse, but with female rage. About Back to Black (dir. Sam Taylor-Johnson) 2024

Recently, a film telling the life story of the British singer Amy Winehouse was released. I came here to talk a little about the aesthetics of this film, which, by the way, cannot be accused of poor music (Marisa Abela sings Amy's songs in her own voice and she does it brilliantly!) or ugly shots.

In the film we see the transformation from a rebellious teenager with a guitar into an emotionally and behaviorally unstable woman (without a guitar). Of course, this turn of events could have been reflected in Amy's real life, but one gets the impression that the film is set in a different time. It feels like the 2000s have been filtered, sugar-coated, and embedded somewhere in the 2024 aesthetic of angry girlbloggers on Tumblr.

Romanticizing drinking alcohol and mental instability

You probably know the tendencies related to #just girly things and the explanation of all depressive states and tantrums by just being a girl. It is a kind of expression of the life and consciousness of today's young girls living in the rather unoptimistic times of social media and consumerism. But is this aesthetic good for Amy's story? It seems to me that romanticizing alcohol, drugs and blind love leading to complete self-loss and ultimately death is a poor approach.

And while watching the film you definitely feel that something is wrong, but at the same time you fall into this beautified world. Amy's life was darker and more brutal, and her problems were not only limited to matters of the heart, glass and flashbulbs of cameras. Unfortunately, living with addictions is dirty and disgusting. And you can't put a bow on it. But it seems to be a sign of our times.

You Know I'm No Good (song)

Adding the ending to this song title: but I'm not going to rehab. And here we should ask the question about the level of public awareness in 2008 (the year when Amy received five Grammy Awards) and today. In 2024, acceptance and knowledge about all behavioral therapies, addiction treatment and toxic relationships is much greater. And Back to Black, under the guise of nice outfits, make-up and a few minor falls, gives the impression of being up-to-date.

Will someone watch this movie and say they want to live like Amy (just like it was with Coppola's Priscilla)? This is quite possible, because in the end we get the image of a slightly rebellious femme fatale and a slightly weak girl who is harmed by others. And many of us would fit this description.

Live fast, die young, be wild and have fun (song)

Finally, I have to quote Lana del Rey, because today's girl blogging draws from her in handfuls. Is joining the 27 Club really that romantic? The departure of such young people from the world is primarily a tragedy, which later becomes a beautiful myth. That's why it's worth mentioning Lana's example here. She uses aesthetics very well and, above all, separates moving around motifs and drawing visual inspiration from them from real life.

To sum up, movie Back to Black is really worth seeing. However, it is also worth being aware that this is a colorful fiction for 2024 built around the true story of Amy Winehouse.

Marisa Abela for Harper's Bazaar UK (March 2024)

so the post #MeToo world isn’t going the way it should