sfcityduck

How many Westerns have won best Director? Amazingly, John Ford, the Director with the most wins in Oscar history and also widely considered the greatest Western Director, never won an Oscar for a Western. The Westerns I know which won a Best Director were: * Power of the Dog (Jane Campion) * The Revenant (Innaritu) * No Country for Old Men (Cohen Brothers) * Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee) * Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood) * Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner) Any others? Most of those movies are not what I'm looking for in a Western but to each their own. I'd rather have seen Howard Hawkes, John Ford, and Sam Peckipah.

Greatest westerns ever?:

I hope you mean hot wheels.

Churches are quite popular in the U.S. And some are really raking in the cash, at least in Northern California.

Probably less folks than you think. The political objection is a fringe view. The numbers don't lie. Barbie will be a top 50 all-time box office movie.

I'm not getting defensive about that. Once you made your point clear, by disavowing terms like "inherently" and "from the ground up," I think we are largely in agreement. I suspect that most men who attend Barbie (unless of a strident fringe political view) will be pleasantly surprised.

In this post, I was keying off your statement that "Barbie however is firmly and unabashedly female from the ground up." Folks that are unwilling to break out of their preconceptions are likely to miss some cool stuff. My point is simple: Barbie will entertain men. It is not just "female from the ground up."

I was keying off your use of the term "inherently." It appears we are in agreement that's not the case.

Barbie the doll is a little girl's toy. Barbie the movie is not. It is aimed at an older audience with a PG-13 rating. A well made movie is going to satisfy a mixed audience. Don't doubt that women steeped in Barbie influence will have nostalgia that might drive them to the movie, but if there's a reason why men would not appreciate a well-made movie (other than some sort of political issue - and that's not about gender) it escapes me. Lots of women love LOTR and superhero movies.

"Inherently male genre"? No. A lot of women would be surprised by your comment. Mary Marvel, Wonder Woman, Black Cat, Ms. Fury, etc. all did well with readers back in the day. I do think that comic collecting as organized back in the early 1960s was overwhelmingly a male pursuit, but lots of women were readers of Marvel SA comics which, let's face it, had a heavy soap opera and romance element.

Or winning the Oscar is not the same as mass popularity. I have been talking about audience connection. Clearly, Barbie is a magnet.

I would not call the Oscars the touchstone of cultural relevance. What superhero movie has won a best picture Oscar. That LOTR won was more than a bit of a surprise, but its cultural relevance cannot be underestimated. I'd say Westerns hit their Apex in the 1940s and 1950s, both the movie theaters and tv were saturated with westerns. That turned in the 1960s. But this has nothing to do with Barbie, a movie that is generating huge buzz and a big gate.

The censored word is not advocating for discrimination or intolerance. It's misuse as a false right wing political tag line is probably the reason it was banned. The point was to get politics out of this thread. Something that many seem to be resisting.

He's a major character. Why would this be unusual or funny? All movies can be nominated for male and female acting awards. And I've seen Oscar buzz for Barbie for best picture. I certainly don't think that Gosling doing a great acting job is somehow diminishing of women.

What irony? Equality of opportunity is a two way street. No irony when the male supporting character in Everything won an Oscar. I suspect the female director and writers for Barbie also have a strong shot. This Western talk on a Barbie thread suggests a bigger irony: Barbie is threatening.

It may get an academy award for something (I would not think acting, but Gosling is getting rave reviews), and I've heard the -script is quite clever as the direction must also be. But who can say? The awards season is a long long way away. Ever since LOTR cleaned up, my view of what kind of movies can win awards has broadened considerably. Successful movies can win these days.

* "I do not think anyone here has said Barbie should not have been made, that it has not done extremely well, and it obviously has an audience." Some folks on this thread do appear to feel Barbie should not have been made because they are offended by its content. * "They are just saying they personally like Westerns better, and do not have a desire to see Barbie." And the point of harping on that in a Barbie thread is? Seriously, what's the point of derailing the thread with Westerns talk? Create a Western's thread. It seems a bit passive aggressive to say the least. Especially when what is being championed is one of the most underrated or ignored comic genres - especially given how many such comics were put out. * "You are on a COMIC BOOK site, I think it is a very logical to think people here are not this movies target audience." Generally, toys and comics go hand in hand. Barbie was one of the most successful toys ever. That may be the reason why Dell gave Barbie and Ken a run in 1962-1964 and why Marvel put out two comic series 1991-1996 (63 issues and 53 issues, respectively). She did better than Hot Wheels in the comic market (6 issues). Personally, my view is most comic fans have wide and eclectic tastes. We like a wide array of genres, including toy comics and Westerns (neither of which are the most popular with most collectors). And there are more women who have read comics than you think. So the notion that people on this site aren't the target of this movie makes as much sense to me as saying comic fans only like superhero movies. Neither is true.

If you watched it, maybe you wind find yourself surprised. I'm not sure why multiple people here think it is credibility enhancing to bash Barbie without even seeing it. I don't think it is at all controversial to view Westerns as a fringe genre these days. They ruled the roost long ago, but now many other genres are far more popular. It never occurred to me there were folks who thought Westerns were still a dominant genre. You guys have identified one guy's Westerns as an exception to what I see as a rule. The highest grossing movie list is incredibly strong evidence that audiences aren't being drawn to Westerns the way they are to superheroes, SciFi, spy movies, war movies, adventure, fantasy, etc. The Netflix chart has no Westerns, and that's telling. The guy on Peacock may be getting some traction, but apparently few others are. RomComs have multiple tv channels these days and are a mainstay in movies. The derailment of this thread about Barbie with nostalgia for Westerns is incredibly strange given Barbie's very high critic and audience reviews, what appears likely to be over a $1B gross (twice any Western, right?), and the fact that we all know that Westerns have been on the descent since the 60s. Heck, the best movie I've seen related to Westerns was QT's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but that touched on the decline of Westerns.

A different view: Most Popular TV Shows, Movies on Streaming in 2022 - Variety

For audiences it sure seems to be. Our current culture seems obsessed with superhero movies. So they are getting the biggest audiences. Westerns no so much.

I'm not seeing any of his shows in the Top 25 right now. https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/popular-tv-shows/ Or any other westerns. Nor do I see them in the Top 15 All-Time shows streamed on Netflix: 1. Squid Game season 1: 2.2 billion hours 2. Stranger Things season 4: 1.83 billion hours 3. Wednesday: 1.71 billion hours 4. Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story: 1.03 billion hours 5. Bridgerton season 1: 929.3 million hours 6. Money Heist part 5: 900.7 million hours 7. The Night Agent: 803.2 million hours 8. Bridgerton season 2: 797.2 million hours 9. The Queen's Gambit: 746.4 million hours 10. Stranger Things season 3: 716.1 million hours 11. Money Heist part 4: 710.2 million hours 12. All Of Us Are Dead season 1: 679.3 million hours 13. The Witcher season 1: 663.6 million hours 14. Lucifer season 5: 569.5 million hours 15. Queen Charlotte: 520.6 million hours Which does not mean you can't make good westerns that people enjoy. Just that it appears to be a much tougher genre to sell than superheroes, bodice rippers, SF, weird/horror, and many other types of shows.

Movies have long been a proper place for politically charged entertainment. From the very beginning with Birth of a Nation (1915). Lots of really great political movies. But here's the thing, recognizing that the world is not composed just of white people or straight people is not political at all. That's just reality. Not sure why folks get upset when minority actors and characters start popping up in movies, or when <gasp> the movies treat folks equally. That's not politics. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Exodus, Dr. Strangelove, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, All the President's Men, etc., those are "politically infused" movies because they are actually about political controversies.

These days it takes $1B plus to break into the top 50. Inflation adjusted maybe some classic era westerns would be top 50, but I doubt any would in the the last 40 years. Barbie is a phenomena! I think we may be seeing the beginning of the end of comic book movie dominance. Looks like ticket buyers are open to more intelligent films like Barbie and Oppenheimer.