vera_j

Mine and society's, I guess.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of movies from the 1940s and 50s. Many of the characters smoked, which looked glamorous to me. I often pretended to smoke with those white candy cigarettes.

Then my parents stopped when I was around 13, and I got to watch first hand the difficulty of breaking an addiction. Also, a health unit at school on smoking showed a picture of a smoker’s lung and ew. Smoking still looked glamorous in movies but the impact in real life very much did not.

I saw The Materialists this week, primarily for my love of Chris Evans. In several early scenes, Dakota Johnson’s character smokes, looking very elegant with how she holds the cigarette. Chris’s character does too, though with less stylistic drama.

And it was so weirdly distracting! I don’t remember the last time I saw a character smoke in a movie set in modern times. All I could think was how nasty those characters must have smelled.

As the movie progresses, both characters stop smoking, like it was just something to give ‘a bit of business’ to their hands until the plot got more intense, but not really supposed to be part of their personality.

I’m very happy attitudes have changed so much toward smoking. I don’t know anyone who smokes. I only smell it when I go to a casino, which always makes me so grateful that California outlaws smoking most places.

I have no clue why the director had those characters smoke, but it seemed like a bad decision to have it and then inconsistent to drop it. I found the movie interesting though a weird mix of jaded cynicism and hopefulness. I don’t know that I’d recommend it, though if you want to watch for Chris, he definitely looked very good. There’s a scene where he has a few lines about love, and the camera stays focused on him the whole time, and I thought: someone must use that in a video. It would be perfect.

Pedro Pascal looks very good too.

So qualified rec. But really, why have main characters smoke? Why? It's a unpleasant habit that kills people.

The Old Guard 2 ends on a cliffhanger.

A. FUCKING. CLIFFHANGER.

There is no confirmation of The Old Guard 3 movie. IMdb lists 21 upcoming projects for Charlize Theron as a producer and 5 as an actress, and none of those are The Old Guard 3.

Multiple people are left in deadly peril at the end and the stupid AI overview says 'the movie leaves room for a sequel.'

The movie REQUIRES a sequel. It is incomplete.

My sister got to gloat because she said, "wow, this really seems to be heading toward a cliffhanger," and I hit the pause and said, "no, look, it's got 23 minutes left, this'll be wrapped up in 23 minutes." Bizarrely, the movie ended with almost 10 minutes left. Maybe the credits were that long. So sis was right.

I normally try to avoid spoiling people for brand new movies that I think many are anticipating, but I'm very annoyed by movies that end in cliffhangers without warning, and I would want to know. So now you all know.

I have many mixed emotions about this country, how its government is acting (actually, those emotions are pretty plain revolted), and the direction we’re heading (definitely swinging between despair, horror, and determination there), but I’m having my normal 4th of July. Spent the morning watching the local parade and listening to the neighborhood band. Ran into my sister and nephews and chatted with them. Will have dinner tonight at my dad’s then everyone will migrate to my house for fireworks (and to watch my neighbor’s, how much he must spend boggles me). The weather is only supposed to be 85, which is positively chilly for us, I’m very pleased.

I hope however my fellow Americans are spending the day, you are able to find happiness. And everyone else a good Friday!

Tomorrow the postcards and protests resume.

Alan Rickman was a WHOA in Die Hard for me. I'd never seen him before, but he was so good at being so bad. Hans Gruber may be my favorite movie villain.

I only recently saw that he'd been in a video, clearly many years ago. Honestly, I'm not crazy about the video itself (so many closeups of the singer, so many) but he looks really good. It makes me think about fanfic with driving through the night (rushing to get somewhere or to get away from something?) and then, a little loopy and half-dead, taking a moment to tango at a gas station. To the muzak coming from the gas station's speakers or from their own car radio?



And then in looking up that video for this post, I saw he'd done another with this same woman. An older Alan but still looking good. His voice is so sexy, but if you pay attention to the words, lay down stay down no one knows you better than me...could be used in a creepy stalker fic! Not normally my thing but in Alan's voice is oddly appealing.



My little black kitty just came and took my computer chair, she likes it for her naps. So I guess I'll go do something else.