Four years later, I’ve made peace with HIMYM.

Ted, rain dancing – maybe there really was something to him and Robin?

I’ve spoken before about getting obsessed easily – having grown up surrounded more books than people, I’ve grown really attached to fictional characters and situations. How I Met Your Mother is only one in the line of about ten Big Things. I know I started watching it around the time Season 7 was airing, as I was searching for something to fill the hole Two and a Half Men left in my heart.¹ I’ve seen every episode more times than I dare count.²

Yet I went from watching at least a couple episodes a day to cold turkey a day or two after the finale. I felt betrayed (as I’ve previously expressed). Here it was – the show that taught me so much about the value of friendship throwing all of it away in 42 minutes. I was a lonely kid and always quite okay with that – until watching these five come through for each other, time and time again, slowly made me realise whatever you do in this life, it’s not legendary, unless your friends are there to see it.³

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) — “No one talks to my friends like that.”

Ooga chaka, ooga ooga ooga chaka, Rocket is the coolest racoon ever!

I didn’t really know what to expect from Marvel’s latest. I don’t read comics, so all I know about Marvel is from all the Avengers, whom I really and truly love.¹

What those films really won me over with, was the humor. Guardians takes it to a whole new level, though — I’ve never heard the theatre laugh so loud, and so much. Halfway through the scene where all the Guardians meet, I leaned over and told my friend, “this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”² I guess that this threw some³ people off, but I had so much fun with it that I don’t even mind. It was actually kind of cool, to have a film that is all kinds of epic but has unconventionally many laughs.

Another great thing are the characters. Rocket is in a whole league of his own, but his relationship with Groot and the rest of the world is wonderful; Zoe Saldana lands one of the greatest female superhero roles there are, which I’m eternally thankful for, and Drax has unexpected depth to him. Star-Lord is a talking and walking cliché, but he’s a lot of fun and doesn’t cross any borders. His playlist is awesome, by the way!

Guardians hits and misses with two things for me — gets a bit too messy and hard to follow, which is easily solved by just accepting that there is a whole loud background noise going on; but harder to ignore is that at times, it becomes enormously cheesy and sappy, and it’s not fun to watch. Long, emotional speeches and stories of past? Get out. Not interested.⁴ It distracts, but in the end, the time spent laughing tops that, and that’s what I will remember from this film. And the characters.

Rocket wins, though.

___________________
¹ I used to think Iron Man is really hot and the PTSD made him even more admirable. You want mature opinions, you come to this blog, right?
² Alright, I was exaggerating, but only a bit. It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen ever since the Lemmons scene in The Wolf of Wall Street. I almost pissed my pants — had this scene come in half a coke cup later, I would’ve done it for real.
³ weak
⁴ But damn, how sweet was “We are Groot”? Almost made it worth the sap.

Suits 4×01 One-Two-Three, Go…

Five minutes in, I felt something squeezing me. This was the first time I realised how much I had missed Suits ever since season 3.2 wrapped up in April, and how glad I was to have it back on my screen. Suits is probably not going to win awards as it is often written off as a guilty pleasure, yet it is one of the most enjoyable shows to watch. If you are looking for something to lighten up your summer, this is it.

Endless Love (2014)

I see how Endless Love could have been a good film. Not happening, though.

Something always feels off. It’s hard to pinpoint, because the film is full of flaws: the characters should have graduated from college given the actors, there was no chemistry between our endless lovers, interaction between supporting characters is more interesting than the main story, there is a horrible boxing scene, the dialogue is ineffective and did I mention that they should have graduated from college?