Random thoughts of a teenager

Hey, tumblr, long time no see. I honestly have no idea what is even going on on this site anymore, but let’s try it:

I am trying to find a Merthur fic I read years ago, unfortunately I only barely remember it. It was relatively long and the whole point was that Arthur and Merlin are already in a relationship and sort of ruling together in secret but they decide that Arthur needs a queen. The only scene I remember clearly is that they call Gwen into their room and have her sit at the table and offer her marriage but Arthur says something along the lines of “Let me be very clear, this will be just political, Merlin is my spouse in every real way”.

There are times when a movie is such an incredibly lovely surprise, that you just sit there with a hand to your chest and remind yourself that this is why you love movies. That was Brigsby Bear to me.

The synopsis is certainly interesting enough: After 25 years raised in captivity a young man is rescued and returned to his biological family, but cannot get over the only life he has ever known and the TV show that thought him everything he knows. 

I was expecting it to be funny with a side of thoughtful, because I knew it was produced by The Lonely Island, and Popstar was really better than it should have been, not to mention the quality of their SNL content. I did not expect to be moved to near tears at one scene and then be smiling from ear to ear at the next one. Certainly the movie is elevated by the great performances, led by Kyle Mooney, who plays James with an innocence that is as endearing as it is heartbreaking. The young cast was really good as well, but the MVPerformance was definitely Matt Walsh as the dad, who could have very easily turned out unlikeable and unsympathetic, but was instead the emotional core of the story, the earnest heart to James’ wide-eyed confusion.

This is a an incredibly charming, incredibly sincere and lovely movie, that packs in itself explorations of artists’ creative drive and how art influences us, while also dealing with family and friendship bonds, with what is normal, what is healthy and what is just passion and love.

Just.... what a brilliant episode this was!

I love Brad Pitt. I think he is unfairly underappreciated and underrated as an actor, because of how famous he is. There is no argument that he is one of the most famous people on this planet, but it seems like that fame that started and grew with his career, at some point made people forget he is in fact an actor. And what an actor he is. I truly believe he is one of the most diverse, talented and interesting actors of his age group. He makes interesting choices both as an actor and as producer - with his company Plan B he has made possible some of the best movies of the past few years and 12 Years a Slave even brought home a Best Picture Oscar. As an actor, he is superb 85% of the time, and the other 15%, he is still really good.

My point with all of this: I was looking forward to this movie. Because it’s Brad Pitt, it’s Plan B and it’s Netflix, who have been giving unprecedented amounts of money and creative freedom to filmmakers to bring their vision to a truly staggering audience.

Here is the thing though. Nothing works in this movie. Pitt is over the top twitchy and “eccentric“ and not in a lovely Chad-from-Burn-After-Reading kind of way. He completely abandons his inherent charisma in favour of hand-waving and eye-scrunching, which I honestly did not think possible.

The “satire“ is ham-fisted and on the nose. There are about 20 minutes towards the end where we devolve into the most generic, slow-paced and boring war movie footage I have ever seen. The film overall is way too long.

Sir Ben Kingley is wasted. He has one interesting line, which is criminal. Not to mention Tilda Swinton who doesn’t even get the one line and is relagated to an accent.

At no point did I care for any of these characters even a little bit. Not one of them. I learned nothing about any of them at any point; why would I care?

There was one single moment at the very end of the film where I genuinely smiled, because of the combination of the voiceover and the appearance of Bob. That was it.

I honestly did not understand what the whole hate was about. I didn’t hate it at all. Yes, it’s nowhere near the quality of Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but neither was Luke Cage. Seriously, the abysmal reviews are a bit excessive.

I agree that there were NO likeable characters in the whole show, sure. But at least the action was moving along! Luke Cage had a ton of likeable, awesome people in there, but the action was so glacially paced I could barely stand it. It took me months to finish Luke Cage, and I binged the whole Iron Fist in two days.

I actually really appreciate Iron Fist because they made The Hand like semi-interesting to me, which were THE WORST parts of Daredevil season 2, like I did not care at all then, I only watched for Elektra. Now I got it and I really like the idea of the Hand. Although, I think that that is the biggest problem of the show, which was the same for Luke Cage after Cottonmouth died - the lack of a good villain is detrimental to these shows.

I did not have any problem with the corporate subplot that many people seem to find boring, but maybe its because I have watched a lot of shows that take place in boardrooms and shit and I didn’t mind it. I also think that Harold was an intersting character throughout, but he never feels like a real threat unlike Kilgrave and *blanking on the name, quick pause for google* Wilson Fisk.

And Finn Jones is fine. He’s cute. Let him be. DO NOT RECAST the poor boy.