barbie the album
You can already stream a few songs off the official soundtrack on Apple Music including the main theme with Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice (which is to the original beat of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” from 1997 which like HELLO! *The* best!); I can imagine the forthcoming tracks being absolute bangers as well (Rolling Stone says the soundtrack is about to take over the world after all). I’m mostly excited for hearing what Tame Impala, Charlie XCX, and Ava Max put together for us with their new songs. The official release for Barbie the Album is July 21, 2023 (same as the movie).
Everything Pink
Maybe it was the fact I had an all-pink bedroom growing up or obsessively nagged my mother into buying me a bunch of pink clothing all the time, but there’s something nostalgic about the color that just makes me so happy, and seeing a movie whose palette is almost entirely fuchsia and hot pink might be the best thing I’ll experience in cinema history to date. Also: *how* sexy is this pink Chevy Corvette? Apparently so sexy that it has caused an Internet frenzy and searches for “Pink Corvette” have skyrocketed.
Seeing Greta Gerwig’s Completed Vision
I’ve been a fan of Gerwig for over a decade after her earlier low-budget indie films including Greenberg and Frances Ha, and seeing that Barbie had a $100M budget according to The Numbers, I hope she knocks it out of the park with this one as she deserves all of the best (not to mention, we need more strong female directors in Hollywood killing it!).
Revisiting Childhood Memories
Just like the Super Mario Bros. Movie did for us back in the spring, I’m hoping Barbie does for us in the summer. It goes without saying owning a Barbie was iconic for a lot of girls growing up (and whether or not you cut all the hair off of all the dolls is another story!).
The Barbie House (And the Barbie Mobile!)
Don’t lie. You want to see inside the Barbie dream house. Who wouldn’t? Inspired by Palm Springs and designed by Sarah Greenwood, the house has no walls and no doors—someone is always watching in this luxurious Barbie World pad. Greenwood says in an interview with Architectural Digest (you can also take a fun video tour) that “[i]t’s very definitely a house for a single woman[.]” There’s even a Barbie Mansion in Malibu in honor of the film that was recently listed on Air Bnb. Bonus: it’s hosted by Ken.
The Outfits (and shoes!)
Along with everything pink comes a certain aesthetic of Barbie that at this point in my life I would literally only trust Gerwig to decide on rendering, so when I dug deeper on the costume designer she chose was I was like OK, this is going to be epic. In an article published recently on June 12 in Vogue, Barbie’s costume mastermind Jacqueline Durran did an exclusive interview highlighting how the Malibu Barbie was “key” and how they even had a “rigorous chart of color combinations to refer to throughout the process”.
Ryan Gosling, Obvi
Who doesn’t have a crush on Ryan Gosling? I mean, come on people! I’m pretty sure I’ve been openly in love with him since Drive and Place Beyond the Pines; there’s just something about this guy that gets me extra excited when I see he’s going to be starring in a film, let alone as Barbie’s boyfriend Ken.
The Feel-Good Moral of the Story
Everyone loves that feel-good moment in a movie where everything suddenly makes sense and all moments leading up to the ending has one feeling some type of way (God forbid you be human and shed a tear); I am dying to see what types of feels Barbie brings for us.
The Cameos
Looking at the IMDb and from the recent trailer we can get excited for the always funny Michael Cera, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Dua Lipa, Issa Rae, America Ferrera, John Cena. I’m willing to bet this will be a fun cast especially with Ferrell in the mix.
The Writing
Noah Baumbach, famously known for Squid and the Whale also co-wrote Frances Ha with Gerwig (they are also partners since 2011 which makes it even more cute); this will be their second film writing together and I look forward to the dark humor (see: trailer where Barbie asks her fellow Barbie friends if they ever think about dying). And according to Indie Wire, Gerwig committed Baumbach to writing Barbie without actually running it by him first, all because she had a “feeling” about it (and mostly because she loved Margot Robbie).
