Double Features

By Gordon Hopkins I have not seen the movie, “Oppenheimer.” I have not seen the movie, “Barbie.” Yet, thanks to an overblown, overhyped media campaign, followed by an, inescapable, almost suffocating internet presence, I feel like I have. In fact, it feels like J. Robert Oppenheimer and Barbara Millicent Roberts (yes, that is her full name) took turns beating me with baseball bats.The movies were released at the same time. As far as I can tell, they have nothing else whatsoever to do with each other. They could not be more different, both in terms of subject matter and tonally. Yet, somehow, they have become indelibly linked in the minds of our collective consciousness.Thus, the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon was born.And make no mistake, it is a phenomenon. Those two films have become the weirdest, most improbable double feature ever, either in spite of or because of the fact that they could not be more different.And, yet, maybe there is something more linking these two films. Oppenheimer was a physicist and director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, thus earning the dubious honor of going down in history as “father of the atomic bomb.”That technology he helped facilitate did not just create a new weapon. He irreversibly altered the entire face of human civilization. For the first time, it was possible for a small group of people or even a single person to end the human race. It is not hyperbole to claims society's entire relationship with technology, each other and the world drastically changed. There is not a single aspect of human life not indelibly altered by Oppenheimer's creation.Honestly, the same can be said of the Barbie Doll.That molded hunk of plastic first went on the market in 1959. Though less instantaneous and overt than “The bomb,” the Barbie was a technology that equally altered our society. Detractors accuse Barbie of inflicting serious body image issues on generations of young girls. Defenders, on the other hand, might point out that Barbie was never the “happy homemaker” that was the ideal woman of the decade she was born. Instead, she has been everything from a doctor to an astronaut to a NASCAR driver to a Supreme Court Judge. While clearly a marketing plan and not done with the intention of empowerment, one could argue Barbie gave permission to move on from the 50s June Cleaver mold.So, yes, both films, though at first blush not just unrelated but unrelatable, could in fact occupy the same cinematic universe.Which got me to thinking. Are there other possible double features out there? Are there other pairs of films that seem totally inappropriate as a pair, yet could be set in the same universe?Obviously, I think so. That's the real reason for this column, not all the sociological bunkum above. So here goes.A Nightmare on Elm Street & The Wizard of OzOkay, I'm going to warn you up front. The whole premise of this column requires some spoilers. In most cases, though, if you haven't seen the films in question by now, you probably never will.The short explanation of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is that child killer/stand up comic Freddy Kruger is burned to death by the parents of his victims. Kruger then comes back and haunts the children of his victims in their dreams for revenge.So, that's straightforward enough. What does that have to do with that perennial children's classic, “The Wizard of Oz?” I am talking now about the 1939 musical film and not the books by L. Frank Baum.If you recall, Dorothy's adventures in Oz turned out to be a dream. A dream in which she is pursued by the malevolent Wicked Witch of the West. There is a reason that the iconic Margaret Hamilton played both the Witch and the fabulously named Almira Gulch, who wanted to put down Dorothy's “little dog,” Toto.My theory is this: Almira Gulch is killed by the same tornado that resulted in Dorothy getting conked on the head and entering the dreamland of Oz.In other words, the Wicked Witch of the West is a dream spirit, just like Freddy Kruger, seeking revenge in Dorothy's dream.Maximum Overdrive & Cars“Maximum Overdrive” is the story of machines coming to life and trying to kill the humans that created them. Those machines are mostly vehicles, although a few lesser contraptions get the chance to spill some human blood, like vending machines and lawn mowers.It is the only film directed by horror juggernaut Stephen King, who was reportedly so coked out of his mind when he was making it that the author barely remembers making the thing.Widely regarded as one of the dopiest movies ever committed to celluloid, it is too ridiculous to be scary but too unpleasant to be funny.The theory offered by one character for cars and trucks coming to life (aliens) is dubious and vague enough to be disregarded. The movie ends with cars and trucks still alive and still running amuck. Yes, there is a title card epilogue claiming that a UFO was shot down or Earth passed thought he tail of a comet or some such gibberish and the reign of living trucks and cars ended. But we never see that, which makes it easy to disregard.If you disregard that tacked-on, unshown ending, then we can assume humanity was wiped out by living cars and trucks.Who then took over our world?In 2006, Pixar Animations released the annoyingly adorable “Cars,” a cutesy Disney flick about a world populated by anthropomorphic cars and trucks living in a world without any sign of the humans that must have made them.Yes, “Cars” is a direct sequel to “Maximum Overdrive.”Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom & The Flintstones“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” is the second movie in the Jurassic World franchise and the fifth in the Jurassic Park franchise. Like every prior movie in the franchises, it is about scientifically resurrected dinosaurs in a confined space, running around and occasionally eating people. It is a great idea for a book or a movie. After two or three or four, the concept wears a little thin.Unlike those prior movies, this one ends with the dinosaurs finally escaping and promising chaos to the entire world. The official sequel is “Jurassic World Dominion.”However, the real sequel is “The Flintstones.”Yes, I know, “The Flintstones” was a long-lived cartoon series, but there were a few animated movies, mostly direct-to-video, plus a couple of ‘live-action’ movies, about which the less said the better.I've always liked the internet theory that the “The Flintstones” takes place not in the distant past, because we know for a fact that humans and dinosaurs did not exist at the same time, but in some sort of post-apocalyptic future where genetically-engineered dinosaurs roam and humans have rebuilt their society using animal analogues of now lost technology, one.This theory also explains the Flintstones Christmas special. How could the Flintstones be celebrating or even know about the concept of Christmas millions of years before the birth of Christ?I could probably go on with this whole double feature idea but the publisher is wondering where the heck my column is, so I probably better stop for now.

Richard Lewis Schoen

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