Sight and Sound Volume 33 Issue 7 (September 2023)

Sight and Sound Volume 33 Issue 7 (September 2023) Barbie"You could get whiplash reading the trades as this issue went to press. One column announced that the simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer resulted in record-breaking revenues, chalking up the fourth-biggest box-office weekend ever. Other stories documented the shuttering of film sets and studios pulling their most anticipated films from the theatrical schedules. Just when audiences had remembered why they loved going to the pictures, the coming attractions were beginning to vanish.” So writes Pamela Hutchinson in her insightful opening story on Sag-Aftra and WAG’s strikes.We decide to have our cake and eat it, devoting this issue to both of the summer’s biggest stories. In her cover feature, Hannah McGill argues that Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a sharp, funny film with a lot to say about feminism and patriarchy. Completing the ‘Barbenheimer’ double bill is physicist George Iskander, who grapples with Oppenheimer’s legacy