Well That's A Bummer

They arrived.

Thank you so much @birthdaysandwich for these awesome stickers! They crossed the ocean for me ;)

Not because something important happened. It's purely for my mental health.

I'm genuinely GRIEVING that creators seem to be afraid of this level of epicness nowadays. It's always "haha, see, we just subverted your expectations". No. Give us the epic hero speech. Give us the epic final battle. Give us the "together we are strong" bulls*it. Why the f*ck are you so afraid of it? It's in our nature. We want to be part of a group and we want meaning in our lives. We don't need everything to be a quirky MCU smartass joke. It's not easy to make it work, I know. But irony and quirky jokes get boring after a while, and people are starving for something more, even if it means watching a bunch of idiots sing metal to scare away evil, without being mocked for it.

Isn't the world s*itty and depressing enough already? A dumbass show from 2006 did it so well and you keep wondering if this one little joke is okay. And I mean DUMBASS, this is a show about five guys so out of touch they don't know that they are supposed to take their groceries with them after shopping. I can't f*cking believe this idiotic s*it turned into an absolute EXPERIENCE. I know it's probably part of the joke, but still. I'm so f*cking depressed, boring and grim that I doubted anything would affect me at all, yet this s*it did. Give it a chance.

So, apparently, according to Disney, this is a Scandinavian prince.

Millions of mouths in Turkey, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine just opened and laughed emptily into space.

Despite looking absolutely atrocious, this outfit is definitely a vague, weird attempt at Central-Eastern Europe/Ottoman fashion. The Ottoman Empire used to clash a lot with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and it largely influenced the fashion and weaponry used in Central-Eastern Europe. I am sure my fellow people from other countries in this region will agree that this looks familiar, just not in a good way.

Making a movie that is a "fantasy mash-up" of different cultures is one thing. Claiming to be respectful of different cultures while taking elements from one culture and shoving it elsewhere is another. Let's not act like we're all blind and delusional for a moment - if you have a fictional state in your movie that is obviously based on some real country (down to its name, which is actually Norwegian), don't hide behind "oh but it's not real". You're not being subtle.

Also, can't talk about the elements of Arab cultures in this movie, simply because I am not familiar with them. But if you dig into it, it shows that despite all the yapping about being respectful, Disney still messed up. There are plenty of people born and raised in these cultures who instantly saw all the BS and put a lot of effort into pointing it out.

Call me overly sensitive, but Central-Eastern Europe is already overlooked enough. People fetishize the "Russian doll" beauty, treat the Soviet, dull, depressing buildings as an "aesthetic" instead of a remnant of a dark time in our history, enjoy the stereotype of a dumb Slav who drinks vodka, doesn't speak English and fights bears in the street.

But sure, let's make these countries with hundreds of years of rich history completely interchangeable.

Also, long-a*s post.

Kind of ashamed to admit that only recently did I watch this movie for the first time. A sin, yeah, I know. Calm down, folks.

I've watched it and I find myself in a bit of a rabbit hole now. Because I can't shake off the impression it made on me, and I can't help but feel completely enchanted by it. Not in a "oh, it's so beautiful" way. Rather "I don't know what to think and somehow I love this feeling".

A lot of people complain about the movie's slow pacing, the lack of a final showdown, and the fact that the evil man gets away with his crimes. Fair criticism, to each their own. I personally love it. Not because I'm cheering for a psychopath, but because it felt refreshing and painfully real.

The story wants you to root for Llewelyn Moss and it succeeds - he's a decent guy, competent, brave, definitely not some pathetic wimp. And it's ironic how it's actually his kindness that usually gets him in trouble. Not really taking the money, or running from the cartel. It's the one decision he made based on kindness.

Because Llewelyn decides to go back to the spot where he found the cartel members to give a dying man some water. Sounds illogical and reckless, to be honest, but it also really says something about Llewelyn. Beneath the tough, pragmatic exterior there is a human being who can't completely turn off empathy. And it's exactly what continues to haunt him throughout the story, until his demise.

Small detail, too, maybe I'm looking too deep into it - but the scene with a cartel guy asking for water, and Llewelyn going through stuff in the abandoned cars... Doesn't it look familiar? Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time (or arguably right place and right time), in the middle of a desert, expecting to find money or gold, and the single surviving man asking for water. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Then there is Anton Chigurh. Boy, did Javier Bardem do a good job. And boy, did they do him dirty with that absolutely atrocious haircut. All his other crimes pale in comparison (calm down, it's a joke).

You've heard it 1579 times already, but Anton is universally named as one of the most realistic portrayals of a psychopath. His smile never reaches his eyes, and these seem like two dark, bottomless wells. He looks unsettling and wrong, even though the actor playing him is very handsome. He's eerily resilient to pain, to the point of appearing inhuman. Because who in their right mind acts this calm with a bone sticking out of their body?

There is a certain heaviness and exhaustion to this character that I find very captivating. It was a great choice to never explain who he is and why he acts the way he does. He seems like someone unapologetically confident and convinced that he's doing precisely what he was meant to do, even if it means committing utter monstrosities. He's almost like a ghost, with no passions, no intent of his own, just an agent of fate - or so he wants to believe.

And finally there is Ed Tom Bell. An aging sheriff and - as I choose to see it - one of the titular "old men". Seeing such extreme violence happening for no reasons, or ones that seem utterly unfitting for the scale of it, he becomes convinced that he's no longer capable of doing his job. He doesn't understand people like Anton, and thus he doesn't feel that he can successfully fight them. And it's a very relatable feeling. Violence and death have been around as long as mankind. But it's almost like the more we're advancing, the more abstract it becomes. With people hurting others just because they can, completely detached emotionally and devoid of compassion. I can't blame him for feeling the way he does. But I also don't think he's entirely right. Violent, cruel people hurting others for no reason existed centuries ago. I don't think it's really about the world changing - it's about YOU failing to catch up with it. And I don't mean it as an insult - it's something very natural that most of us will face anyway.

I don't see many people mentioning this, but what I love about this movie is also the landscape. It's quiet, vast, unwelcoming, but also undeniably beautiful. Combined with the lack of soundtrack (save for a couple very subtle moments when some melody is used), it creates a truly unforgettable atmosphere.

And don't even get me started on the coin toss scene at the gas station. That poor guy's guardian angel was really working overtime. It was so tense, and it really explained Anton's personality better than any long flashback sequence ever could. He's a man with principles - very twisted ones, but he follows them rigidly. He's also paranoid, cold and predatory. He toys with his potential victim like a cat. Throughout this encounter he maintains almost aggressive eye contact, intimidating the hell out of that poor old man (also, Gene Jones - what a great performance, the scene wouldn't hit the same had someone else replaced him). And, interestingly, the shopkeeper "calling it" correctly doesn't annoy Anton. In fact, Chigurh seems quite impressed, even happy. Definitely it's not the sign of compassion, though, but something else entirely. It tells us that he indeed sees himself as an extension or tool of some higher power. The older man winning means fate doesn't want Anton to kill him. A truly messed up and strange way to reject responsibility for your own actions.

Jadwiga of Poland. She was of a Hungarian dynasty, approximately 11 years old when crowned as the king - YES, that's correct - of Poland. Because in our language, the queen ("królowa") was merely the wife of the king ("król"), and the king was the rightful ruler.

Jadwiga was a well-educated, intelligent monarch. She had to deal with immense responsibility very early in her life, but many historians claim she was a capable and mature ruler. She valued knowledge and genuinely cared about the well-being of her subjects. It was mainly Jadwiga who contributed to the revival of the Jagiellonian University, one of the oldest universities in Europe.

Her fate wasn't easy - apart from becoming a ruler at such a young age, she also got married very early (by modern standards). Apparently her marriage with Jogaila was a respectful one, but we can only imagine how difficult it was for her to marry a man so much older than her, one she'd never met before. That marriage, however, reshaped Central and Eastern Europe.

She died due to complications after childbirth. She was approximately 25 years old.

Throughout the movie there isn't much action or obvious drama. There is little to no explanation either. But you are GLUED to the screen. And damn, Zamfir's pan flute makes it even worse.

So many things work perfectly in this movie. The landscape is practically a character on its own, too. It's all eerie, a bit whimsical, sad, and so much more - this movie makes me feel things I have no name for.

I've seen it years ago. Once. And recently I came back to it. It hits hard. In so many ways.

Also, a small moment, but I found it very telling - the thing that Mrs. Appleyard says about Greta McCraw near the end? It's a bit shocking. Not surprising. But it says a lot about how women were perceived.

Basically, what happened was that she gleefully made a move on him (with pretty obvious intent), but he refused to proceed, seeing that she clearly had no idea what the hell was going on and what reality she was living in.

He actually reacts like this to her attempts at seduction a lot, even though it's clear that he's catching feelings for her.