SummaryWhy did the world suddenly treat stuffed animals like gold? Ty Warner was a frustrated toy salesman until his collaboration with three women grew his masterstroke of an idea into the biggest toy craze in history. The Beanie Bubble is an inventive story about what and who we value, and the unsung heroes whose names didn't appear on the he...
SummaryWhy did the world suddenly treat stuffed animals like gold? Ty Warner was a frustrated toy salesman until his collaboration with three women grew his masterstroke of an idea into the biggest toy craze in history. The Beanie Bubble is an inventive story about what and who we value, and the unsung heroes whose names didn't appear on the he...
The movie is more nuanced than I anticipated and while it doesn’t completely get into the psychology of why, as Robbie puts it, America lost its mind over Beanie Babies, it is a cuddly, enjoyable and often humorous edition of the American dream gone awry.
It’s marked by a polished balance of humor, searing emotion, all the information about the toy business you’d ever want to know, and cautionary advice concerning investments in something silly like stuffed animals — or, by extension, NFTs.
I dunno, I really enjoyed this and Zach's performance, for me it felt like this movie was quite interesting and compelling throughout, but maybe I just like such movies for some reason more than others.
IN A NUTSHELL:
At the very beginning of the film, we see these words on the screen: “There are parts of the truth you just can’t make up. The rest, we did.”
It’s about Ty Warner and the three women that played a role in creating the legendary Beanie Baby explosion in the 1990s.
The film was directed by Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash. Kristin Gore also wrote the story with Zac Bissonnette.
THINGS I LIKED:
You’ve never seen Zach Galifianakis like this before! He plays Ty Warner, a frustrated salesman who grew his idea into the biggest toy craze in history with the help of three women. He was one of the executive producers of the film and did an excellent.
Others in the cast include Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, Geraldine Viswanathan, Tracey Bonner, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Kurt Yaeger, and Rowan Delana Howard.
Maya Kumar’s character is based on Lina Trivedi in real life who was played by Geraldine Viswanathan.
Limited editions…pretty genius.
It’s fun to hear conversations about the internet in the early days.
Energetic soundtrack.
We see a lot of clips from the 1990s.
We learn about metrics for supply and demand. It’s fascinating to see the role eBay played in the strategy for Ty products.
It’s fun reading on the screen at the end of the movie about what happened to the three women involved in the making of the company and what they did next in their lives. So inspiring. THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:
Sadly, the timing of this corporate biopic is unfortunate, as it follows a bunch of other ones like Air, Tetris, Blackberry, and Flaming Hot.
Viewers might get confused by the timeline that bounces around back and forth. It’s a creative telling of the story but VERY confusing.
The film takes a fluffy look at what could have been a deeper version of a film that looks at capitalism.
It’s not as much fun as it should be. I mean it’s about toys! TIPS FOR PARENTS: Profanity, including F-bombs
Kids will probably be bored due to all of the business talk.
Unmarried people “sleep” together
Sometimes the storytelling can feel like a stretch, but this is mostly a lively, well-told account of a bizarre toy craze gone wrong, and the big personalities behind it.
The Beanie Bubble eventually runs out of steam. The snappy pace and colorful style — so attractive at first — later become alienating, keeping nearly all the characters locked into one dimension.
Despite building their adaptation around the cyclical predictability of American capitalism, Gore and Kulash can’t help but twist history’s biggest toy craze into a hollow and half-invented corporate fantasy about three women who bought low, sold high, and reinvested all the profits in themselves. If only it were that easy.
Shallowly entertaining but the opposite of insightful, this film repeatedly hails the clever USP that Beanie Babies were understuffed on purpose, so they could be “posed” better. As a piece of malleable, threadbare, plasticky content with a plum destiny as digital landfill, their biopic is certainly in a position to know.
I watched this movie with my best friend of 20 years last weekend! We collected Beanie Babies growing up so this movie took us on a stroll down memory lane. All of the actors were great and the lingo in the movie was perfect for that era! We had a wonderful night and the movie was all around a great experience!
Zach Galifianakis gets a chance to go dramatic for this pivotal role and considering that the character isn't very likable, he does a decent job (with some of his own **** personality showing thru). He plays Ty, a toy salesman who collaborated with 3 women to create the Beanie Baby phenomenon. When dealing with this powerful trio, he alternates between brilliant, charming and diabolical. Elizabeth Banks is the smart first partner, Sarah Snook plays his love interest and Geraldine Viswanathan is the online marketing brains. They all turn in strong performances. While things start with a bright comic tone, it often veers into drama, especially when Ty gets frustrated. Overall, it's an incredible story of an entrepreneurial success tempered with the reality of the personalities involved.
Inoffensive but completely ineffective, there are no themes or performances to really talk about here. Definitely a disappointment, a slog to get through.