![]() Parson, who’d previously collaborated with the onetime Talking Heads frontman on two earlier tours and a musical. “He said, ‘Nice opportunity for a choreographer, because it’s limitless, spatially,’” recalls Ms. His 11-piece backing band would be entirely untethered – no cords, no microphone stands, not even a drum kit – to allow freedom of movement on a bare stage. Byrne envisioned a cubical stage boxed in by curtains of beads. ![]() When David Byrne hired Annie-B Parson to choreograph his cutting-edge Broadway show, he asked her to think inside the box. But I also don’t see them as necessarily damaging to young psyches. ![]() Ultimately, I don’t think all those Barbies shaped my daughter’s worldview in any meaningful way. Barbies are hardly “feminist icons,” no matter how hard Mattel marketed President Barbie or Astrophysicist Barbie. I didn’t buy them Barbies just had a habit of walking in the door. “I just thought they were a little bit much – the body shape, then all the clothes.”My own daughter, now well into adulthood, had lots of Barbies: six, to be precise, recently discovered in varying degrees of disarray in a box in the basement. We were a Barbie-free household.“I didn’t really believe in Barbies,” she said. So, as I often do, I tested my memory in a call to Mom. I remember, as a kid in the 1960s, playing with Barbies at friends’ houses but not having Barbies of my own. “Barbie” the movie – reviewed here by the Monitor – is really an invitation to think about how we raise our children, and about expectations. It also invites introspection about our own childhoods. In cinemas in Australia now.When I tell people a generation younger that I went to the “Barbie” movie, the response is often, “Why?!” To which I respond, “Why not?” What better way to escape the Washington heat – and politics – on a Sunday afternoon in July than with a live-action fantasy about an iconically kitschy, mass-produced doll? Plus, I wanted a good laugh.But I soon discovered there was more to the film than a frothy pink romp through Barbie Land (and beyond) and many jokes at the expense of poor Ken. Streaming on HBO in the US now, and on VOD in the UK Dec 14. Indeed, the only drawback is that it’s such a good gig you really do wish you were there. Then, when all’s said and done, Byrne hops on his bike and rides off into the twinkling New York night. ![]() ‘Most of us are immigrants,’ he says, and I got goosebumps when they all take a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matters, the faces of many slain African-Americans are projected giant-sized behind them, as set to a cover of Janelle Monáe’s Hell You Talmbout. Their slick dance moves are choreographed by Annie-B Parson of Brooklyn’s Big Dance Theater, amplifying Byrne’s silken vocals and playful lyrics. ![]() To assist, he’s assembled a spectacular array of musicians (and instruments) from all over the world, all dressed in the same attire. Lee nimbly shoots the stripped-back but visually theatrical performance, with a shifting set created by nifty lighting design. Part-pop extravaganza, part-poetry slam, it’s a wonder to behold.īyrne appears in his signature slick grey suit, barefoot, capped with that flourish of manicured white hair, and weaves his many spectacular hits, including the anthemic thrill of Once in a Lifetime, with musings on life, love, what divides us and ultimately brings us back together. This new joint from the latter captured the former’s 2019 Broadway show American Utopia (a live version of Byrne’s 2018 album). If we can’t go to gigs right now, then former Talking Heads front-man and supreme solo artist David Byrne brings the band to us, with a little help from Spike Lee. ![]()
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