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Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather tie a bow on 2023 by revisiting a couple of movies and TV shows they haven’t been able to devote a full podcast to. For Mark, it’s the Barbenheimer phenomenon, a marketing miracle whose like we shall not soon see again; for Pete, the Korean reality competition Physical 100, which is the real Squid Game game show, and not just because it’s streaming on Netflix; and for Matt, Poker Face, an anthology of lovingly-crafted mini-movies featuring the creative talents of Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne.
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Seems incomplete to have a discussion of the difficulty of choosing a good final event in the Squid Games imitators without mentioning the Mr. Beast one, which came out way before the Netflix reality show. That one had musical chairs as the final challenge, which strikes me as quite a good solution to the problem: Familiar childhood game, mix of physical skill and luck, not too brutal or brute-strength but still hands-on, can winnow any number of finalists down to exactly one.
I don’t think dude bros created/promoted Barbieheimer to justify Barbies success. They created/promoted it to justify seeing their man crush Ryan Gosling. “I gotta complete the duology. My hands are tied”. The outcome being only dudes saw Oppenheimer, and gals and dudes saw Barbie, making it more successful.
I look forward to swoll Matts spin off podcast OverliftingIt.