What on earth possessed so many of us to think pink on Monday night? Admittedly, many of us were in a playful mood, myself included, because Warner Bros Discovery was hosting a series of multi-screen Barbie screenings across two multiplexes in central London.
Tom Cruise’s turbo continues in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
Nice folks from WB’s UK corporate communications and majors presided over a pre-screening night at the W Hotel. From an upper-floor window, the queue of people waiting to enter Cineworld Empire could be seen snaking across Leicester Square like a string of candy-flossed pythons.
The screening in London of ‘Barbie’
Baz Bamigboye/Termini
Dresses, jackets, pants, T-shirts, something fascinating, the nails (and yes, the toes too) glittered in shades of cerise, fuchsia, magenta and raspberry.
If you must know, I had pulled out an old Armani shirt that I hadn’t worn on my back in at least a decade. It was still wrapped in cellophane and cardboard from the last time it went through a hotel laundry.
Do you understand that this is not my usual color of choice?
There was nothing in the BM invite that indicates I should blush pink. [I do blush on occasion.]
I never show up in Marvel gear when I attend an MCU movie, although I did momentarily consider renting a battered fedora for the Cannes world premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny .
OK, I wear a tuxedo to world premieres of James Bond movies. always have
Why the pink shirt though. What is this?
My wife had something to do with it. We bet each other to put some pink for Barbie. Mrs B’s silk striped blouse had a touch of peach and coral.
We enjoyed laughing at ourselves. Clearly others felt the same way. There was a lot of cheering and clapping at our screening.
None of us have ever owned a Barbie doll, but we were fooled by WB’s phenomenal marketing campaign for a movie inspired by Mattel’s billion-dollar polyvinyl doll.
But I did want to see the movie. Eager as mustard to see what Greta Gerwig would do as director and co-writer with Noah Baumbach of this fairy tale pink thread.
Margot Robbie was third on my list of wanting to see it.
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It made me think of something Quentin Tarantino said to me during a long conversation we had in Cannes.
We had come to the subject of movie stars.
Tarantino said we still have it. “Sometimes movie stars make themselves, but usually the studios invest in an actor. They gave them a few opportunities because they saw something in it. And sometimes it didn’t work out, right?
“But there was a reversal,” he told me that day.
Now, not so much. “I don’t think there’s just a giant investment in different actors to be movie stars. And once they become movie stars, “Oh, okay, now we can use them for the next 10, 15 years to help sell our products. I think there’s an investment in popular leading men and women, but they are popular.
“They won’t bring an audience to see a movie themselves,” he argued.
As mentioned, this conversation took place in May, when our main topic was Tarantino’s appearance in Cannes to announce a special screening of John Flynn’s 1977 film Rolling Thunder at Directors’ Fortnight .
There is a chapter on Flynn in Tarantino’s splendid book of film speculation.
At the time, there was no time to include this segment of our chat in my Cannes columns.
And of course, Barbie wasn’t uppermost in our minds back then.
But Tarantino’s point sticks.
Robbie’s goal as Barbie is to help sell “products”.
This is not to diminish Robbie’s star power.
Good for her for creating a million buzzy news and features after hitting the pink carpets in Los Angeles, Sydney, Toronto, Seoul, Mexico City and London. Robbie certainly did yeoman’s work for Barbie.
Margot Robbie
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Warner Bros
All these appearances were supported by a toy doll in its seventh decade.
Barbzilla has conquered.
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Robbie earned her movie star stripes for Tarantino, who directed her in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. “I think Margot has become a movie star,” he declared.
“I think Bradley Cooper has become a movie star,” he continued.
“Julia Roberts will always be a movie star,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are movie stars, Tarantino claimed.
He nodded as I stuck with Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington and Harrison Ford.
“Well, I’m not saying guys who are movie stars aren’t movie stars,” he stressed.
What about George Clooney, I ask?
“Well, I don’t think George Clooney has attracted anyone to the public for a long time,” he replied somewhat unkindly.
“When was the last time you had a hit in this millennium?” he protested.
I let out a cry of surprise. “Well, I ask you, when was his last hit where he drew an audience?” he demanded.
Ticket to paradise, I coyly exclaimed, but before I could blurt out Gravity, Tarantino had crossed his arms.
We were on the clock. There’s no time to really get into the greatest movie stars of all time, although Barbara Stanwyck deserved a quick mention.
“I’m not making a blanket statement,” he cautioned.
This column has deliberately decided to bury the lead.
There is one contemporary actor that Tarantino values above all others.
“Charlize Theron still single,” he intoned.
“Not only is he a movie star, but he’s probably the best action star we’ve got,” he said admiringly.
“Much more than the boys,” insisted the director.
The titles Mad Max: Fury Road, Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard quickly come to mind.
Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Warner Bros./Everett Collection
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, just his action movies,” he agreed.
“She’s always giving the best performance in action movies, whether it’s Fury Road or the one where everyone dies and gets back up. Oh yeah, what you said: The Old Guard. Or Atomic Blonde. Her bring these movies.
“She’s a presence. You like her. You think she can do the things she does,” said de Theron as personal publicist Katherine Rowe ushers her away from our table, eager to get him suited and booted. for the Directors’ Fortnight event.
Theron sure carried these movies.
Meanwhile, Barbie is carried away by a child’s toy.
It’s not the first time. Not the last one.
We are in the age of the industrial toy complex.
