Watch List Weekly Recap 7/21/23

Reviews of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," plus the Watch List turns two, prompting a small fit of contemplation.

Watch List Weekly Recap 7/21/23

This is the Friday recap of Ty Burr’s Watch List postings for the week. If you’d like to cut down on in-box clutter and receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “Weekly Digest.” If you’d prefer to not receive it at all, uncheck just “Weekly Digest.”


Watch List Year 2: The Author Thanks You

Ty Burr • Jul 18, 2023

Two years ago this week, I left The Boston Globe, my place of employ for 19 years, to jump off a cliff and start a newsletter. I had a very good idea what I wanted to do with Ty Burr’s Watch List back then. I have somewhat less of an idea now. I think that’s probably healthy.

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Good Movies 📽

"Barbenheimer" Weekend Part I: "Barbie" (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2)

Ty Burr • Jul 19, 2023

It's a silly-serious Pilgrim’s Progress through what James Thurber once called The War Between the Sexes, one that extends a comically profound empathy to the living doll at its center, the girls (and boys) who have played with her over the decades, the people they grow up into, and, yes, the men with whom they share the playroom and life’s stage. Even Ken. Sweet, dumb, conflicted Ken.

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Good Movies 📽

"Barbenheimer" Weekend Pt. II: "Oppenheimer" (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2)

Ty Burr • Jul 21, 2023

Christopher Nolan has set out to make a moral epic, and he succeeds for the most part, or, rather, for the first two thirds of “Oppenheimer,” which contains some of the finest, most galvanizing moviemaking of his career. He captures the rapture and dread of perhaps the most critical moment in our species’ journey toward apotheosis and/or annihilation.

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