N.B. 1: I mostly enjoyed this movie, except for the parts which made me furious, which I loved, because I really enjoy getting furious.
N.B. 2: This is unrelated but it felt pretty messed up that Captain America would kiss that blonde girl because the one thing I remember from his first movie was how bad he was in love with Peggy and I think it’s super weird to kiss the relative of someone you loved from the past, I hate Replacement Goldfishing and I don’t think that just because Peggy died from time happening too much on her it’s okay to kiss her niece. Also that kiss came out of nowhere and made no sense.
N.B. 3: Do not take my lack of enthusiasm for the kiss with the blonde eulogist for support for a Captain America/Bucky Barnes pairing. Their chemistry was none minus nothing times inert. THIS is the ship you guys invented the Internet for???
N.B. 3: No, I have not seen Winter Soldier, I cannot speak to how dreamy Bucky Barnes was or wasn’t in Winter Soldier, I refuse to agree that I should have seen Winter Soldier before seeing this movie, because it’s not a direct sequel and I’ve already seen, like, definitely SOME Avengers movies, past handsomeness does not excuse his current wig, guys. Also, I do not like sullen men. Men do not have the right to be sullen; they should be cheerful and low-key and eager-to-please.
N.B. 4: In fairness I was semi-distracted the time Nicole showed me Captain America: The First Avenger so I may have missed some good groundwork but I also find it weird and disrespectful that everyone refers to Chris Evans as Cap. I don’t like it. Don’t have a good reason why. Call him Steve or Captain America. I have spoken. Okay, time to criticize the wig they put on Bucky now, here is a partial list of the things I have compared his wigs and choice of facial expressions to:
- The “rag and a bone and a hank of hair” from Rudyard Kipling’s 1897 poem The Vampire
- A sullen teen who hasn’t washed his hair since he learned about urban alienation in the car with his mom who just threw her arm across him because they stopped suddenly
- “Depressed Prince Valiant”
- “A bundle of extensions that Scott Stapp sweated off his head back in 2003”
- Store-brand Joan Jett
- Resentful understudy for Joseph in a regional production of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- “Okay but why is his face like that”
- Gaius Baltar after three weeks without a shower
- A box of apple juice with a dead raven’s wing taped onto it
- “I just hacked into the mainframe”
- The Saddest T.A. at MIT
- “like he’s spent the last year using Colin Farrell-brand dry shampoo”
- Rufus Wainwright with cocaine sweats
- “sullen inability to articulate a worldview like Kylo Ren’s shittier older brother who dropped out of community college to sell weed but doesn’t even sell weed full-time”
- “Listed on a My Chemical Romance webring”
- Guy Who Draws Anarchy Symbols On The Back Of His Hand In AP Statistics Because He’s Too Smart For The Regular Blowoff Stats Class Again But Not Smart Or Disciplined Enough To Get Into Multivariable Calculus, He’s Going To A CSU Next Year
- “You said it was only another three blocks, where is this place, I’m calling an Uber”
- Background hobbit
- like he’s trying to win a bet that he can’t get every single piece of hair on his head in his eyes for some reason
- “Just, like, bangs around his entire head, somehow, like his whole head is ill-advised bangs”
- “what do you mean we can’t get Slurpees“
- Awkward stage of growing out a Dorothy Hamill shag
Oh, Mallory
p sure you’re gonna be the log in this scenario when the rest of the interwebs find this post
Well, except for the bit about the kiss with Sharon being inappropriate and super gross. Just about everyone agrees on that.
Oh yeah, no one disagrees with that. STOP TRYING TO MAKE STEVE/SHARON A THING, IT’S NEVER GOING TO BE A THING
NOT EVERYTHING IN THE COMICS HAS TO HAPPEN IN THE MOVIES. The only reason it seemed less gross there was because of like decades of publishing history between Steve with Peggy and Steve with Sharon. Unlike here, were we have “Wanna make out right after Peggy’s funeral?”
My friend and I dreaded the kiss since the very surprisingly relevant and timely funeral speech took place. We sort of hoped it would just remain in the ether somewhere, an attraction left alone because of the seriously creepy insinuations. But NOPE!
For the Flash TV fans here, I find Barry and iris an equally creepy couple.
I want to like Barry and Iris because I think the actors have a nice chemistry and they’re playing it out in the least annoying way possible, but…yeah. There’s still some heavy squick there.
Barry/Iris gives me the heebies, it’s like the evolution of the nice-guy ethos into a “destiny”.
Steve/ Sharon COULD be a thing. I like Sharon. She’s awesome. But they didn’t sell it at ALL. It was the most #nohomo I’ve seen in a movie in a long time.
Movie Sharon has no her to her her!
Me, during that part, accidentally out loud in the middle of the theater: “Oh, HARD PASS.”
You are a hero 🙂
I definitely went “Nooooooooooooo” audibly in the silent theatre and the person behind me whispered “Right?”
A good moment for audience bonding out of a terrible moment for film.
I went, “Oh, GROSS!” in my otherwise silent theater, and I’m glad to find that The Toast agrees!
Except the reaction shot of Falcon nodding in the front seat. A+ reaction shot made it worth it for me.
Yeah, I did enjoy the bro reaction shot.
SAM WILSON <3 <3 <3
I immediately texted my sister upon leaving the theater “I’m assuming that we both agree on the worst part of this movie.”
Also I am really, really concerned that Steve and Sharon being A Thing is going to set us up for time bullets or something equally stupid.
My response to squeal GROSS THAT IS PEGGY’S NIECE. Thanks to the dude a few seats over who heard my horror and started cracking up.
It’s symbolism!
The log is your heart!
THAT BLONDE CAN GO AWAY NOW.
Also, I saw this movie with my dad over the weekend and he thought it was going to be about the actual American Civil War and then after we got home I found him googling pictures Iron Man in the kitchen and quietly muttering “I don’t like that guy” at the computer. So there’s that.
NOBODY likes that guy.
i like that guy.
I should point out that the only Marvel movies that I have seen all the way through are Thor and this new Captain America movie, so I am no expert. I just found his attitude and facial hair unlikable and my niece and nephew agreed with me.
You are correct. You can now go through life happily and never watch any of the Iron Mans and you will still know everything that is important about them.
You should watch Iron Man 3. It was written & directed by the guy who did Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and it’s got one of the funniest most perfectly excellent bad guy twists I’ve ever seen.
Iron Man 1 & 2 are nothing special at all and 2 especially is dire.
I saw Iron Man 3 after having seen neither of the previous Iron Man movies, and I highly recommend it. I would have watched an entire movie that was just Tony awkwardly babysitting a child.
Iron Man 3 had such potential and I sort of feel like it got pissed away (Here for superheros with PTSD. Not here for endless robot smashing battles, weird side characters and children that can’t act.)
I just watched Iron Man 3 last night for the first time, it was my favorite out of them all.
Iron Man 3 is the best of the Iron Mans but it is also really racist (I found it suuuuuper surprising that the Iron Men movies are generally more jingoistic and broful than the Captain America movies) and I didn’t think the plot twist excused it.
First: I offer no explanation or justification for his facial hair, it is a mystery and not a good one.
This isn’t me trying to convince anyone, Tony Stark is not a character for everyone, I get disliking him, no one has to sell that to me, I really do see it.
That said– One of the challenges in a movie franchise where your guy has been in freaking EIGHT movies is that character arc development gets challenging. if the character is in the heart of the movie…. you need them to be somewhere different at the end, and that’s hard to do believably that many times. It’s been done better in some movies than others.
But, yeah, he’s often not especially likeable. He has done some really shitty things. But as a character, it makes him waaaayy more dynamic than some of the other folks, which makes him more interesting. He’s done shitty things, but he feels the need to atone for some of them. (Ultron bad, but… I understand it. Funding all of the MIT project???? Show me a person in academia, or with good friends in academia, that saw that scene and didn’t love the dude a lot more, even if they ALSO dislike him.) And then sometimes he needs to atone for the atoning. He doesn’t get the happily ever after every time, or if he does, he doesn’t always get to keep it.
I like liking complicated characters.
Also, there was a really great genderbent Tony Stark fic by Copperbadge. I mean, I like normal Tony Stark, I looooovvvveee Copperbadge’s Ironsides Tony.
(I spend nearly all my time when watching MCU properties considering growing out my hair to better look like, in no particular order, Angie, Bucky, Wanda, Natasha, Maria. In the end, I’ll probably keep it as is for a long time and continue to cosplay lady!tony pic here- https://twitter.com/cosetthetable/status/65971264… )
I hate Tony Stark and everything he stands for and his goatee, but yes, the MIT scene made me hate him a smidgen less. He is still awful! He is still not allowed at my table! But idk I guess I wouldn’t go out of my way to kick him in the shin now.
Right? Like, even if that particular act of generosity isn’t enough to outweigh all of his arrogance and thoughtlessness and all of his other TERRIBLE characteristics, in that one instance, he really Gets It, and the idea of a whole generation of MIT students with enough funding to really honestly try their one thing? After the number of people I’ve known who really want to make the world better and do their thing but are stressing about how on earth they’re going to either get home or find a place to stay over thanksgiving break, and don’t have enough connections or resources to be able to just… spend time on their passion project? That’s….. important to me.
I like fics that address how much of Tony’s…everything…is indirectly tied to Steve. Because maybe Howard would have been a better father if he hadn’t been pouring all of his energy into finding Captain America, and Tony would have grown up into an actual adult.
Agree!
I have a lot of affection for the character of Tony and think the PTSD angle is interesting. The way Tony escalates shit while trying to atone, and to prevent people from making mistakes he’s already made, is just so believable (aaaaaaagh I relate aaaagh) but also really difficult to watch.
I also love that fic <3 <3 <3
YES IRONSIDES!!!!!!!!!
Robert Downey Jr.’s facial hair as Tony Stark is so smarmy and frattish. If that goatee thing he had in one of the Iron Mans I saw could type, it would just say, “U up?” and send dick pics, I swear to God.
I do, too. I like them ALL (except Thor. Thor is boring) and I want them all to be friends and all live together and have shenanigans. No fighting.
My gentleman caller does, and it makes me sO UNCOMFORTABLE BECAUSE WHY WOULD YOU LIKE IRON MAN THE BEST WHEN THERE IS LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE.
Yes, thank you, yes. This shouting is my shouting at two of my gentlemen callers.
Like the week before I broke up with a guy for something else, he was all #teamironman and I was low-key considering if this was the last straw.
Captain America is designed to perfectly appeal to the Dad demographic.
This would mean that my gentleman caller is a Dad.
We are both RAs at our university, so I guess this means that we’re Parents? Despite the angle of his jawline, I don’t think that I am ready for this train of thought.
All Dads are inclined to be Team Cap, but not all Team Cap members are Dads.
I find this revelation to be soothing, thank you. He does say, almost reverently, that I remind him of Black Widow, so I guess we haven’t yet reached Dad stage and are still marauding adventurers.
Dad commentary on Black Widow involves the words “feisty” or “spunky.”
I will add this to my portfolio, thank you. He has referred to me as “badass,” so I think that I can rest assured that we are not trespassing into Dad territory.
I am glad to know that I am, at heart, a Dad.
Great avatar!!!
I was torn between being genuinely pleased that Sharon is still treated by the writers as a real agent doing actual shit (like in Winter Soldier) and being bummed that they (Marvel in general) JUST. CAN’T. HELP THEMSELVES. in terms of forcing relationships where relationships don’t need to be.
I still haven’t forgiven the horrific mistreatment of Black Widow in Age of Ultron, and now this nonsense. MARVEL STAHP.
i’m just here to say gaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
waitwait let me try again
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.
this is never not going to make me furious when i think about it.
HOW HARD CAN IT BE.
They got Peggy and Steve right and Tony and Pepper right (esp. considering Pepper’s part in Civil War hahahaha) so why is everything else so terrible romance-wise?
I choose to believe that it’s because they’re all deeply messed-up people. Steve is overcommitting to the only crush he’s had since he got thawed, even though he barely knows her, because he’s still kind of flailing for some kind of connection to the modern world. Nat went straight to blatantly manipulative oversharing because her past relationships have all been her seducing people for spy reasons, and that’s how the red room taught seduction.
Yes, this.
Sharon is clearly sort of interested but has a lot of stuff going on and is kind of meh about it. Steve is clearly looking desperately for any kind of human connection and is willing to grab any inch he can get from someone he trusts.
It’s a great example of bad decisions made for understandable reasons, and I kind of like it because of that.
I’m shipping Sharon and Sam. I haven’t seen Civil War so I’m sure it won’t work, but I’m holding on to this.
i suppose this is a safe space for me to confess (especially with all of you yelling about tony stark’s facial hair) that i too thought Captain America Civil War would take place during the American Civil War and spent many weeks texting my friend “But how?????” and sharing increasingly outlandish time travel theories until he realised that i was 112% serious about all of them and Did Not Actually Have A Clue what was happening
My (middle-aged, dog-sweater-knitting) aunt took me to a WWII documentary movie, and I went along because why not, and it wasn’t until I saw QUENTIN TARANTINO on the screen that I realized my aunt may have been confused about Inglorious Basterds.
(I didn’t cover her eyes, but she did say “oh my “quietly to herself a few times.)
Bless your aunt.
(Did she like the movie though?)
Her review, if I remember, spoken in a quiet thoughtful way:
“That was a little more violent than I expected.”
this is the most charming story ever!!
“A box of apple juice with a dead raven’s wing taped onto it”
pained wheezing laughter
Through that entire movie I kept going, ‘wait, but if they talked this over for like fiv- oh nvm they punching again. Do you think if that one punches good enough his dead father will love him?’
My general problem with a lot of action movies, and Captain America movies in particular; They set up a great intriguing plot and then get distracted with punching. I do not get why everyone love Winter Soldier (Apart from Bucky hair) because the last 3rd of that movie is just punching with different backgrounds and I still don’t know how it ends because I fall asleep everytime I try to watch it.
So my understanding of these super hero franchises is seriously undercut by never having read comic books and never having seen any of them sober, but their plots seem to be getting increasingly Byzantine. I keep being stuck in the theater hazily squinting at the screen and thinking, ‘who are half you fuckos? Is the mopey cyborg assassin a communist or just a dick? The magic space gem did whatnow to the sassy robot butler?’
“who are half you fuckos” is how i felt watching Dedpool this weekend.
i’m like, why is the x-men house in this movie? and he’s all, because they’re all from the same universe. and i’m all, then who the fuck are these peeps whom i do not recognize but who are living in the x-men house?! and he’s like, other x-men from the marvel universe.
(also: how it was watching antman.)
I JUST WANT TO WATCH A MOVIE WITHOUT HAVING TO LEARN AN ENTIRE COMIC BOOK FRANCHISE GENEOLOGY.
I totally hear you on the complexities of the comics universes (and I did not care for Deadpool at all) but come on, comic books movies are gonna be comic booky! They’re comic book movies!
I don’t think I understood a ding-dang thing plot-wise in The Avengers the first like three times I saw it, but I will absolutely watch handsome people punching each other for ninety minutes and in that respect it was still deeply satisfying.
Now of course I have deeply inconvenient feelings about all the characters, which has actually somewhat ruined my enjoyment of the franchise, but what are you gonna do.
This was also my reaction to Othello. “But…talking? Just a bit? Maybe ask a question or two? Or just going straight to murder, that’s a thing you could do instead, ok.”
Hah right? I know stories need conflict or else nothing would happen, but when the conflict is driven by the most superficial of misunderstandings that everyone staunchly refuses to even attempt to clear up it drives me wonkybonkers. Oh the times I’ve yelled at the TV ‘OMG JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER’ and my friends are like, ‘My dear, you may be a little too invested in this O.C. plot arc.’
By which I mean, Jack Donaghy is right: talking is for lesser beings, like curly haired men and people who need glasses. Murder is a real man’s solution.
“But seriously guys, five minutes of conversation could solve this entire problem.”
i strongly believe tv has gotten better about this. i also HATE the thing where the plot distracts itself with JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER and i feel as though shows i’ve watched recently (though of course now i can’t think of any off the top of my head — i feel like “jane the virgin” may be pretty good about this?) have actually been going ahead and getting the secret/misunderstanding/unacknowledged petty resentment off the table as motivation in order to instead dive into the actual valid emotional CRAP that theoretically underlies the stupid emotion-mcguffin
I recently saw Othello again for the first time in years, and wholeheartedly second this.
But also, some characters do talk about everything, only it’s after the murder happens. I had forgotten how long is spent with a bunch of dudes talking through what just happened with the dead bodies of two women RIGHT THERE. (Also, the plan of the soldiers is basically “oops, this sucks, Othello probably shouldn’t get to be in command any more” not “he KILLED HIS WIFE and should be punished for that.”)
Well, Shakespeare tried a character who talked all the time and thought about everything in Hamlet, and that got pretty murdery too. And he tried a character who talked with one person who truly wanted the best for him, and that turned out to be Macbeth. Basically you’re doomed no matter what.
I went to see a live (professional) production of Othello a couple of months ago and we actually left at intermission because we knew how it ended and all of the men are terrible people and this production didn’t even have pretty costumes/sets to distract me when I was too tired to try to parse out the language.
The acting was fine, it’s just a classic case of Shakespeare’s characters doing really stupid things for Plot Reasons
I feel like after Othello’s sexy speech about the anthropophagi, it’s all downhill. The end is just “oh man, it’s so sad for Othello that he killed his wife and everything, poor guy.” Um.
thank god someone is speaking the truth at last. this has given me the courage to stand up to my friends and say I DON’T CARE ABOUT BUCKY BARNES.
Congratulations! Doesn’t it feel so good to finally say it? I HAVE NEVER CARED ABOUT THAT GUY AND I DOUBT I EVER SHALL.
I spent a lot of the movie wanting to care about Bucky, but… it just didn’t entirely take. I cared a little that Steve cared (as that was integral to the plot), and I cared that they grew up together, and I think I cared that Bucky had been framed and mind-controlled by Hydra to do awful things, but the film was so Captain America-Iron Man that Bucky just felt like he was there to make things happen.
I theoretically care about him, but I don’t find Sebastian Stan remotely physically attractive, and I find the fannish monofocus on Steve/Bucky to be stifling.
See also: Jeremy Renner (and also back when Clint/Coulson was a thing, why was that a thing, that’s rhetorical I know why it was a thing, I just ugh).
Can you enlighten me as to why Clint/Coulson was a thing because I am still baffled. I may be the only person who liked AOU more than the first Avengers movie though, so maybe I am just not set up to get it.
Because they were (1) white (2) dudes (3) who interacted (in _Thor_, for like three lines, not that they actually shared a screen) and therefore filled the minimum requirements of fans who don’t like incest ships (not to mention het)?
Oh dear, that is a low bar. I love fandom, but we really need to be better sometimes.
If you don’t want to despair of fandom any further, I suggest being very very selective about how you approach Star Wars: The Force Awakens stuff. Very.
THIS! Why is all the fanfiction about Hux!!!
So I was all ready to throw down on Clint/Coulson, but I think for me it’s all about an amazing story. I read slash fic on them before ever seeing Thor or Avengers.
When fanfic is done well, I will love a pairing until the end of time (or until the next one pulls me in). It’s been 15 years of reading fic, and I can still get excited by a good Remus/Sirius, Jack/Ianto, Sherlock/John, and more.
For some reason I can’t explain since I don’t watch the show, I’m currently obsessed with Tony/Gibbs on NCIS. It’s all about the story with sometimes no other rationale.
I sort of cared in Winter Soldier but even then I was thinking “what a terrible situation that guy was in. I’m sure in the next film we’ll see a lot of his pathos-inducing reactions to this.” But we really didn’t.
I just feel like he should have cared that he had killed a lot of people? And was still killing people? (THOSE GUYS IN THE ESCAPE SCENE THAT HE HIT WITH A BREEZE BLOCK/STEVE THREW DOWN THE STAIRS ARE NOT FINE) A good, “Oh they’re coming to get me and possibly kill me WELL FAIR ENOUGH I GUESS”/ “Bucky noooo,” scene would have helped me hugely. I know it’s not his fault, but he never seemed to consider guilt/no guilt as a point worth even thinking about. As it was he didn’t seem to have any views on *anything* that happened. Oh, people are fighting to the point of life changing injury/possible death over me? I’ll just stand here. Oh, I killed your parents as they pleaded for their lives/each other? I’ll just stand here. He just lumped about and looked gormless and when they needed to show that he was Steve’s Friend, you guys, he remembered something from the 30s. Okay, but what about NOW, Bucky, what are you contributing NOW?
Like, he LOOKED all angsty but never bothered to do any actual angsting, I mean, if you’re going with that hair then put the work in, son.
Thank you , thank you, thank you! This bothered me so much in the movie, and I got shot down by almost all my friends for it. The whole “brain-washed by Hydra” thing could have been an excuse in some parts of the movie, but when he is trying to escape, he is perfectly aware what he is doing, and he is attacking people who believe him to be a terrorist. Just parkour your way out of that place, son, we’ve seen you do crazier things. I also kept muttering “Steve, stop helping!” under my breath in that scene.
I KNOW. And, look — I thought when Steve said he wanted to be the one to take Bucky in because he’d have less chance of getting killed, that was a REASONABLE POSITION. But when he got shot down (unfortunate!) HOW did he decide that PRE-EMPTING their arrival and adding more emotional and superpowered volatility to the situation would help? You alone or with other superheroes who can take a vibranium-armed punch– good! Normal soldiers — not so good! You AND normal soldiers — WORST OPTION WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
Oh, I know, he decided they were just going to shoot Bucky in the head on sight. (why? I don’t get it! especially as everyone seemed perfectly happy to try and contain Bucky even AFTER he, cough, “defeated” all those guys) But I just found his decision to get Bucky even more keyed up and dangerous and Bucky’s total okayness with getting out of there no matter whose body he had to smash to do it really off-putting.
I thought the “shoot on sight” thing was there to show us that people are getting really scared, in which case, boy, did these two make everything so much worse. At this point, they are not even fighting to protect a city or a country, they are doing it for personal reasons! This is especially weird from Steve, because he just got accused of being a vigilante, shouldn’t he be a bit more careful with what he does? Also, wouldn’t his behaviour cause trouble for those who also refused to sign the Accords? I just… I mean… why? I’m used to screeching “NO TONY!” constantly, but this movie was just one big “THE HELL, PEOPLE?!”.
Steve has always been a vigilante, though. Even when he was tiny he’d get into fistfights with people because he didn’t like their manners, remember? And then he went AWOL and got rewarded, rinse, repeat. He’s always done exactly what he wanted regardless of laws or sense, and until Civil War he mostly skated by because he genuinely wants to do good things and people recognized that.
Based on Daredevil, I think that the MCU kind of handwaves the effects of blunt force trauma, so those guys that got slammed into walls and dropped off of staircases are all totally fine. And they did kind of make an attempt at Bucky Angst with him saying that he remembers everyone he killed/even if it isn’t his fault, he still did it. But yeah, overall, too much punching, not enough hugging.
And it really feels sometimes like Captain America would love to solve a lot of problems with awkward, yet heartfelt hugs. Or at least a gentle shoulder pat.
Which is why he’s the best.
I was a bit of a stick in the mud and refused to watch the first Captain America film for a while, because I thought I would hate it. And then I totally didn’t and felt like an idiot. Very much Team Captain America now.
I guess so, and I am normally pretty good at nodding along “got thrown twenty yards; is totally fine” violence onscreen but I just *couldn’t* in this one. You can’t make your superpowered fight look impressively gritty and real AND say it doesn’t hurt anyone! I ended up sort of inwardly muttering “FINE but are any of them ever going to WALK again, though?” That Steve yelled out “you’re going to kill someone!” was I guess, supposed to help, but it really didn’t. Yes, Steve. Those are lethal moves he’s throwing around. AS ARE YOU.
I have to say I’d completely forgotten Bucky saying that … which sort of speaks to how underpowered it felt. It’s not just the consciousness of what he’d already done, it’s the lack of intensity of desire to not hurt more people. Which I was expecting and waiting for and it never really arrived.
I think Bucky’s freakout when he hears his trigger words and his decision to refreeze himself to prevent him from being turned into the Winter Soldier again were the moments you were looking for, but I can see them getting overshadowed by all the fight scenes.
Ehh, I saw it more as fear of losing HIMSELF — which while very legitimate! And consistent with not wanting to hurt people!– does not necessarily include fear for other people. And as he’d never really said anything on the subject…
The decision at the end certainly did imply he was worried, but it was at the end and it came out of nowhere.
If only the menfolk would stop grimly clenching their jaws and spend some actual time talking about their feelings…
NO WHERE NEAR ENOUGH HUGGING
I disagree a lot, actually. Before this past week, I was unfamiliar with the Captain America franchise (I saw this film on a whim with a friend, then saw the others), but I thought Bucky Barnes was handled remarkably well. I was tortured and brainwashed in a very similar way–I even have cue words, much like Bucky, though I’m not an assassin–and this was honestly one of the best portrayals of brainwashing I’ve ever seen. His reactions were admittedly a bit understated, but I found them completely believable and very similar to what I’ve seen in real life.
Like, to me it didn’t seem like he didn’t care about the harm he’d done and might continue to do–he seemed to me to have basically lost any sense of personal power and agency to change anything or make choices. He seemed very numb inside, like he didn’t really have a full range of emotions back yet. Which is normal, to me. In my experience that takes a lot more time than Bucky has had. It took me more than four years to begin feeling even so much as moderate dismay or slight amusement.
Similarly, in the scene with the video of the car crash, I read him as being paralyzed by really deep shame–I actually felt nauseous on his behalf. I found his small acts of agency genuinely believable, like, when we first see him, he’s buying plums at a fruit stand. They were something, and he was still a person, but they weren’t so much that I couldn’t believe it of a real brainwashing survivor. I just really thought he was handled remarkably well–in a lot of other movies, I think there would have been a jump to have him instantaneously feeling a full range of emotions surrounding his actions, when in real life I really don’t think he’d be there yet. I’ve honestly never seen a brainwashing survivor who was portrayed with such accuracy and humanity in a film before, and it means so much to me that I’m probably being incoherent. But his line to Steve “I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that any more.” legitimately made me tearful, and it’s been running in my head all week–I even painted it on a canvas I’m hanging on the wall.
This is an amazing comment. You make a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing.
I’m staying out of the rest of it but NB 2 on every SINGLE POINT. I almost couldn’t contain myself from commenting in the theater.
That kiss was so weird and random, thank you thank you thank you. I was just going off about this last night, while watching the latest Flash and being squicked out by the Barry+Iris relationship. Super heroes – look beyond the women with whom you have weird, familial relationships! Join Tinder! Take a class! Meet new people! GOD.
and it’s utterly ridiculous because within in the first two minutes of Winter Soldier my friend leaned over to me and was like “I wasn’t aware that this was a gay rom com.”
GET OVER YOURSELVES MARVEL. MAKE STEVE/SAM A THING.
I will give Marvel all my money to make nothing but awkward Steve/Sam/Bucky threesome roadtrip movies for the rest of time.
i need this in my life immediately
i’ve read fanfic that’s a Natasha and Steve and Bucky and Darcy roadtrip, but I need a movie of the BrOT3 road tripping ASAP
I need that roadtrip fic in my life, AND I cosign your roadtrip brOT3 movie idea. In fact, i’m enthusiastic about and invested in just about any marvel OT3 ideas they wanna film, BrO or otherwise. Tony/Pepper/Bruce excepted*
Sam/Steve/Natasha or Bucky/Steve/Darcy, though? PERFECTION.
(*No idea why, this one just feels wrong to me. )
Yessssss. The look on both their faces at the end when Steve comes to bust Sam (and those other guys but c’mon, mostly Sam) out of jail sealed it for me. I ship it
Ppyajunebug, we live in a world where the powers that be STILL won’t acknowledge the big, gay elephant in the room that is Prof X & Magneto’s epic romance. Trying to move these superhero exec fools forward in time is like pulling teeth.
If I don’t see an actually gay X-Men movie within my lifetime, I will be so upset that I’ll have to become a ghost and haunt every movie exec I can find.
Considering what the X-Men are supposed to stand for, it’s really disheartening how crappy the movies are about gender, race, sexuality, and Judaism. The day we finally wrest the X-Men from Bryan Singer’s (or any white man’s) stupid hands will be a good day, indeed.
But I thought that’s what the last one was. Surely somebody noticed that Prof X was acting like he and Magneto were in the aftermath of a very contentious divorce there for a while.
(Okay, yes, the ptb could acknowledge it with actual words.)
the biggest laugh in my showing of the movie was when a small child exclaimed a spontaneous, disapproving ‘eeeeeeeeeeeee’ at the kiss.
WERE YOU IN THE SAME THEATER AS ME?
A grown man in my theater loudly booed the kiss and I had hope for the future of mankind.
this is everything and i love it.
(I haven’t even seen Civil War yet but his hair is SO BAD)
So my best friend texted me a picture of Sebastian Stan this morning saying ‘He’s yummy’ ‘Still don’t know who he is.’
To which I replied:
‘He’s in Captain America’
‘He has sexy hair’
AND THERE IS ALL THE CHARACTER DESCRIPTION YOU NEED.
Although Winter Solider had peak sexy hair and added eye liner.
Sebastian Stan can get it. He’s starting to give my HiddlesCrush a run for its money. HAVE YOU SEEN HIM FLIRTING WITH SHARON STONE.
I just audibly swooned at my desk.
Bucky with the good hair.
HOW IS EVERYONE RESPONDING TO THIS PICTURE OF A GUY WEARING THE WORST VERSION OF A SWEATY “RACHEL” I HAVE EVER SEEN AS IF THEY WERE LOOKING AT SOMETHING SEXUALLY AROUSING??
Its the feathering.
We’re all just jealous of his beautiful scruffy feathering and wish that when we asked the hair dresser to feather our hair we got this instead of the sleek newsreader bob we end up with.
I’m bemused? I have seen all Captain America and feel like I want to be attracted to brooding floppy haired superhero? But that is just objectively not attractive and it makes me sad that I can’t play too?
And I say this as someone who has lovingly tended an all-encompassing crush on Christian Kane through several tv shows worth of inexplicable hair choices. BUCKY YOUR HAIR IS BAD AND YOUR STYLIST IS NOT DOING THEIR JOB ATTEND TO THIS PLEASE.
(I did think he was attractive in the first movie before he got all beefy and grew murder hair. But then again he was dressed like a 1940s man and I do generally like that)
It’s the eyes.
i really hate his hair but there was a moment when i looked at Bucky the Face instead of Bucky the Hair and realised, with a jolt of confusion/excitement, that he is actually very handsome. that was the second thing i texted my best Marvel friend about while walking out of the theater (first being how perfect tom holland is as spiderman obviously), who was confused until i told him to stop looking at the hair and look at the face instead
I’ll be the first to admit I have a thing for sullen men with scruffy hair, so I enjoyed Winter Soldier. But I didn’t really look at Sebastian Stan beyond the hair until recently, he was far to objectively handsome in Cap 1 that my eyes just glossed by him.
But yeah. Sebastian Stan has game and is beautiful.
OH MY GOD HE DOES LOOK LIKE GAIUS.
Sullen Slavic hotties want to ruin YOU(r life with their drama).
I just don’t know if that knowledge makes it better or worse?!
Scarlett J. is pretty much the costar of Winter Soldier, which TOTALLY makes it worth watching (for me, anyhow). Bucky, whatever.
I just want all the movies to be Widow/Cap buddy adventurer movies from here on out.
Also, you can’t talk smack about Steve/Bucky if you haven’t seen the previous Cap movies. You just can’t.
Truth.
I can do ANYTHING, this is my website for another six weeks and I call BULL SHIT on the requirement of making me see eight other movies or whatever just to make a call on the bad chemistry in this one
Can we get slurpees? -because Barnes is so unmistakably dreamy, that we ultimately need to cool down with slurpees?
Get rid of that blonde chick please, she didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I wasn’t on board for Bucky/Sam ever in my life before but now I’m 1000% here for it. MACKIE AND STAN HAVE SO MUCH CHEMISTRY I’M JUST
ALSO I feel like they cut a lot of Steve/Bucky interacting scenes from all three movies so their relationship would have a very wide-berth, plausible-deniability “straightness” factor. Because y’all those two are HELLA GAY in the comics and I will fight anyone who tries to convince me otherwise.
(For hot pictures of Sebastian Stan and/or Chris Evans, come visit me at the linked embarrassing Tumblr in my profile)
I also think this is 100% the reason for the Steve/Sharon kiss and its timing. “Guys we accidentally made our Captain America movie kinda gay, what do we do?” “Uh… have him kiss a lady, I guess? Aaaaand make sure any dudes you’ve heavily implied he might be in love with are watching when he does it. And then they smile approvingly so it’s super clear they’re not jealous.”
That said, while I think a) Steve and Sharon being a couple under these circumstances is frankly weird and also b) the movies have done a crappy job of selling them as romantically interested in each other in the first place, I am bummed to see some talk about The Kiss that brings to mind crappy old misogynistic fandom tropes around erasing female characters in the service of a slash pairing. “Why is she even IN this movie,” etc.
Honestly, there were so many characters in this movie that the presence of pretty much every non-super character seemed superfluous to me. This is a fight between superheroes, and it was so overstuffed that any relationship that I wasn’t already invested in didn’t matter to me. I’m hoping that Sharon will develop into a real character, because God knows the MCU needs more ladies, but I did have that “why is she even IN this movie” feeling from this one.
Sure, I mean, “this movie is severely overstuffed of characters” is one thing, and if we’re starting from the argument that there are way too many people whose names we’re supposed to remember in the movie — WHICH IS TRUE — I think it’s reasonable to say that Sharon might be one of the ones who could/should be cut. But I’d like to see that conversation be about story and character development reasons, not alllllll about her role as Steve’s love interest.
She did a lot of very important stuff, like telling Steve where Bucky is and keeping him up to date on the manhunt, getting him resources before he flies off to the Arctic (or wherever that base was), etc. Sharon is the single person who enables Steve to do the things he does in the movie!
But sure, she disrupted our favorite slash pairing so lets wonder why she was in the movie.
Yeah, I really dislike the “why is she here” stuff, because I really like Sharon as a character! I like that she turns out to be Peggy’s niece! I’m just really creeped out by her dating the same guy as her now-dead aunt and am disappointed by the awkward compulsory heterosexuality vibe of the whole thing.
They smile approvingly because they are in a polyamorous relationship! Just because Sam and Bucky are okay with Steve kissing a lady doesn’t mean that they are not also dating him!
Yeah, I read an interview with one of the directors where he was like “It’s a love story! But between brothers? But… I know about the shipping! Interpret it how you want!?!” I was just imagining him being all darty-eyed and covered in flop sweat trying to please everybody. JUST LET THEM BE GAY, MARVEL!
lol I saw that quote too and I was just like… buddy, saying that they’re brothers isn’t going to stop ANYBODY.
The.. “Can you move your seat up?” “No”.
D E A D
I laughed so hard and loud over that scene.
OMG his wig is so bad. He looks like a barbie doll that some child practiced cutting hair on.
That is EXACTLY what it looks like. Well, I’d say like a sibling some child practiced cutting hair on might also work as a description.
Smdh… its not a wig…
So this was great.
I’m torn – I like to be sullen but I also need to be liked.
I feel like Mallory just told me to smile, because I’m prettier when I smile.
And I did, because I’m eager to please
I thought the internet was mostly into Steve/Sam?
oh no, the fandom is ALL about steve/bucky (or steve/tony)
Boo, guess I luckily picked the right 20 people to follow on tumblr…
Well, I’M all about Steve/Sam. But it’s definitely a minority ship.
Is this an acceptable place to ask for Steve/Sam fic recs? Ones in which they do not also sleep with Bucky? Because I could really use some help on that front…
Totally. Will dig up recs when I’m home tonight.
Okay then.
First of all, you want Astolat’s fic. My most favoritest of her Steve/Sam fics (my most favoritest fic pretty much ever) is Maybe Home is Somewhere I’m Going: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1756387 But read all of hers.
Also, these two stories from thingswithwings: On Your Right http://archiveofourown.org/works/1421092 and
between our bodies there’s a battlefield: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1458625
And the Vade Mecum series by wintergrey:
http://archiveofourown.org/series/111932
I was trying to figure out how I knew that name (astolat), and then I remembered her long, angsty/hot Merlin fics. Ah, good times.
It’s always such a joy when she’s writing in fandoms I like.
I wasted, like, half of yesterday re-reading her Merlin fic, and then checking out her Avengers fic.
Bless
Thank you!!! Glad I don’t have work tomorrow because I can tell it’s gonna be a late night 😉
That would be a better Internet, or at least one that made me much happier. But no.
Sadly, no. (But the rest of the internet is wrong!)
Sorry, Ortberg. Bucky doesn’t even rate in the top 100 saddest TAs at MIT.
If he is a representative sample though, that is a calendar I would buy
Um…. well… it depends on how “representative” you want this sample to be. I can definitely find you 12 sad MIT grad students with that hair, probs by the end of business hours.
But, after that, which characteristics are a priority for you? Do you need quite so many muscles? How do you feel about utility kilts?
I just realized that I don’t think I’ve seen a utility kilt since leaving MIT and I am 100% okay with that.
I went to Stitches West (a knitting/crochet/spinning/yarn stuff convention) and there were probably 8? men there. Seven were wearing utilikilts and one was Stephen West.
Why do the utilikilt men travel in packs? Do all of them knit? I have many questions.
Came here to post this exact thing. I mean, not only is he not the saddest, but normal (i.e. non-Hollywood) TAs are not that muscle-y and attractive, either.
Wait… is Civil War *not* a direct sequel to Winter Soldier? Aren’t they both Captain America movies?
Winter Soldier
then
Ultron
then
Antman
then
Civil War.
So, on one hand, yes, Captain America 2 was Winter Soldier and Captain America 3 is Civil War…… but at this point MCU is one big messy pile of “well… who’s in this one?!”
I never saw Antman – still debating whether or not i want to bother, but although I liked the 10 minutes of Antman I saw in Civil War I also feel like 10 minutes of Antman is all I need?
Your instincts are dead on. Don’t worry about the Antman movie because it doesn’t really move the MCU behemoth along plot-wise. You’re good.
I watched Antman the night before I went to see Civil War because I am a completist at heart. You really don’t *need* to see it, it’s not required for continuity’s sake, and it’s not one of the better ones.
But it was MUCH MUCH better than I expected, I enjoyed watching it. It was basically a corny heist movie with strong Edgar Wright influences (he worked on the script).
Indeed, (the genius) Edgar Wright was to be director as well, until he couldn’t handle the demands of the Marvel/Disney overlords. If you want to see how much better Ant-Man might have been, watch the Every Frame A Painting (on YouTube) directorial analysis about Edgar Wright.
i really liked Ant-Man!!! i thought it was charming and the fight scenes were v. entertaining. like, it doesn’t impact MCU very much but it will impact your heart 100%
Correct. I watched Antman on a plane and it was the perfect amount of entertaining for a plane, but the 10 minutes in CW is really all you need.
10 minutes is definitely all you need. I hated Ant-man. Even more than I hated the first two Iron Man movies….which is saying a lot. Suffers from the worst Trinity syndrome ever and the reasoning makes absolutely no sense whatsoever except that a bland mediocre white man is somehow always superior to the most talented and capable woman and in a movie that’s ostensibly about two father/daughter relationship, it’s totally the relationship between the two dudes that gets far and away the most screentime.
But oh hey, Marvel has no issues with women. It’s not like they changed the villain in Iron Man 3 or anything because it was originally a woman and lady cooties mean toys won’t sell. http://uproxx.com/movies/shane-black-the-nice-guy…
Ant Man would have been amazing if Edgar Wright had gotten to direct it. As it stands, it’s dumb and not essential but still a fun watch. Michael Pena is reliable as ever and Evangeline Lily was good as well (I think the MCU will treat her better than the Hobbit franchise did).
I totally had the same thought, but it’s actually a pretty OK movie. Funny, generally fun, and totally not heavy at all. It’s an enjoyable experience, and if you enjoy Paul Rudd it’s worth watching, but not necessary to the overall MCU plot (so far).
Yeah, it is literally CAPTAIN AMERICA 3.
You *CAN* argue that the MCU’s decades-long plan isn’t banking on everyone seeing every single movie, but they do expect fans of a particular character to see the movies with their name on it.
…I have dated all of those guys. Well, this explains a lot.
I mostly enjoyed this movie, except for the parts which made me furious, which I loved, because I really enjoy getting furious.
Same. All of my friends said the movie made them so emotional but the only I emotion I felt was rage at everyone and everything (including the people in the theater). I still think I enjoyed the movie though? The more I think about it the more confused I get
His hair was seriously gross though. Just shave it off, Bucky
That list was so funny overall that I’m going to pretend that I didn’t see the Scott Stapp thing, because comparing anyone or any part of anyone to anything having to do with Scott Stapp is beyond the nuclear option, it’s like the antimatter option. I too don’t really buy Steve/Sharon.
I feel VERY PROTECTIVE of Bucky and all I wanted was for him to find a quiet place and eat those damned plums in peace.
(NB I am Romanian and so at least 50% of my Bucky-feelings in this movie are because 1) SebStan is also Romanian and fills me with patriotic fervour like nothing else 2) he bought those plums in Romanian at a market in fake-Bucharest awwwwww)
What really angered me about this movie was Martin Freeman. Why was he there? Why was he cast as a character who’s meant to be even a little bit intimidating? At the end where he’s threatening Zemo it’s like, is anyone really supposed to be scared of you, you are a HOBBIT. Why were there TWO characters in this movie who were US government employees with the last name Ross?
Why would you cast Martin Freeman and then have him do an American accent? Were zero Americans available? It was extremely distracting.
Oh my god, same! And I just cannot see him as an uptight, government official. That casting just did not work for me at all.
I feel very protective of Bucky tooo! I over identify with him (in a Problematic way I fully acknowledge) due to various brain problems and I really just want him to have a hot shower and write in his notebooks and eat his dang plums in peace.
I also don’t really for a second believe that Steve would be so calm about Bucky’s decision at the end.
I also hated Martin Freeman being there.
I’m wondering, among other things, if they’re supposed to be related.
ALSO, Freeman’s American accent doesn’t sound quite as bad as Cumberbatch’s does in the Doctor Strange trailer, and I am really quite nervous that Doctor Strange is going to be an unmitigated train wreck. I’m not *excited* about a single MCU film until 2018.
Two separate characters (in the comics at least). Everett Ross figures into the Black Panther comics and Thunderbolt Ross is from Hulk
*googles*
Huh, they really have two Rosses in canon and apparently they’re actually not related in any way.
Isn’t it possibly way more interesting if they’re related? Or if there’s at least some sort of running gag about people asking if they’re related? Whatever, I’m sure fanfic will cover this for me even if the movies don’t.
If they’re related then their parents had an absurd naming policy with their kids. You can’t have named a child “Everett” and then decided to go with “Thunderbolt” for the second one.
I think, at least in some versions of canon, his nickname is Thunderbolt and his actual name is Thaddeus.
Thunderbolt’s real name is Thaddeus, which I think kind of goes with Everett. I would also go by Thunderbolt if my parents had named me Thaddeus.
Martin Freeman was supposed to be threatening? Really?? I thought he was just nondescript government guy. Is he coming back?
It was strange. There’s evidence Freeman can be either more bureaucratic (Hot Fuzz) or more threatening (Sherlock- there’s a certain “don’t push me past this line” thing he’s got going on there)————— and he really didn’t go in either direction, and it was a little weird.
His character is Black Panther related in the comics. I’ve lost track of casting gossip.
I got the impression that they were going for “obnoxious bureaucrat attempting to be threatening” more than “actually threatening”
Which he conveyed extremely well!
HELLO FELLOW ROMANIAN holy shit I cannot believe I would find the one other Romanian in the comments on a Toast article. I’ve been living abroad for 10 years now and I thought I was all jaded and hardened about Romania (I have sort of a hate-love-hate relationship happening with it), and then Sebastian Stan came along and made me soft again, and then THIS MOVIE HAPPENED.
I actually teared up in the cinema as I was watching that scene and listening to SebStan speak Romanian (I don’t even know if the scene was subbed because I didn’t need subs, I wasn’t even paying attention to anything but Bucky buying plums), and it’s making me tear up now, as I think about it. Like, what were the odds of a Romanian-born actor making it big in comic book films, that I am coincidentally into, and then speaking Romanian for one of their roles? Isn’t it weird, what sort of things can just click with you? (What is the universe trying to do to me?)
Sorry for unloading a bunch of deep-seated semi-patriotic feelings on you, I literally have no one else but my bff (who’s also a Romanian living abroad) to talk to about this and it’s making me ridiculously emotional. If I wasn’t part of the Bucky Barnes Defence Squad before, I sure am now (though I’ve been in the BBDS for a good while now).
Sorry I didn’t respond to this sooner, IntenseDebate decided not to email me a notification of this comment for some reason!
I’m 27 and haven’t lived in Romania since I was 7 (we emigrated to Canada). I know what you mean about the love/hate relationship. I went back a few years ago with my husband and we hit up a lot of the cute touristy places (Sibiu, Brasov, Sighisoara, Constanta, etc.) and he was all “Romania is great! Why did you and your whole family try to warn me off the place?” and it’s like… well… because when I think of Romania I think of my parents having to bribe hospital staff so my grandmother gets decent care, and the godawful Bucharest traffic, and stray dogs everywhere. I don’t think of the Brukenthal palace or winsome Transylvanian villages or whatever. (Okay, and I think of covrigi a lot, but you know.) Which I guess is unfair… but it is what it is.
Wow I just…hahaha my eyes may have gotten a little weird while reading your reply, oh-it’s-just-dusty-in-here style. It’s so surreal to actually sort of speak to someone who can relate to all this stuff I’ve internalised and never really told anyone about. I’m turning 27 this year (coincidentally), and we emigrated to Australia when I was 16.
I remember all those things you mentioned, all of the bad stuff in Bucharest, and the small-mindedness of people, and having to bribe people left, right, and centre just to get treated like a human being. Here, the Romanian community is mostly made up of people who came over to Australia to escape communism, and yet they still somehow miss it, and they hate it here, which is so absurd.
My stepdad’s been to Romania a few times and it’s always been peachy for him because he’s a clueless Australian, and he was with me and my mom and we also did the cute touristy stuff, and it just made me horribly sad every time I went. My parents are going back this fall, because my mom is still so keen on the country but I don’t plan on going back again any time soon, just to spare myself the heartbreak when I get there, and then when I leave.
Sometimes I miss it, but I think that what I miss is what I could have had in Romania, if Romania was the idyllic country my compatriots here think it is. It disappoints me that the country is the way it is, but I wouldn’t care about it if I didn’t still love it in some measure. I guess that deep, deep, DEEP down, I’m a patriot.
I feel you so much on covrigi. I work at a bakery and we’ve been trying to make bagels recently and it’s like, hey!, this is one step away from soft pretzels!, so I’m trying to convince the head baker to make me some. I feel like some covrigi would go a long way in alleviating this inner turmoil.
BAD USE OF YOUR MARTIN FREEMAN, MOVIE
I can’t see Martin Freeman as anyone other than Arthur Dent. I just can’t.
Also I think this really sums up his sullen teenager oeuvre:
Love. It.
omfg YES
Dirtbag Bucky Barnes
I wish I could like this 10 more times
I don’t give a shit about the Avengers movies (I get that people love them, but if I’m watching a superhero movie it’s gonna be X-Men and even then only if that’s the only thing on HBO when I’m at my parents’ house that didn’t start a half an hour ago because I’m not so invested in the X-Men story that I feel unhappy about coming in halfway through [whaaaattt did I just say??].)
But this line: “Also, I do not like sullen men. Men do not have the right to be sullen; they should be cheerful and low-key and eager-to-please.”
THAT IS THE GOSPEL. That is how I have always felt but I never knew how to say it.
X-Men is how I came to superheros and comics and no amount of BUT CHRISTIAN BALE sputtering will ever make me love or care about DC as much as I care about Marvel.
I do love the Batman movies — Michael Keaton and Christian Bale, not so much George Clooney or Val Kilmer or Ben Affleck (like I’ll ever pay money to see that schlock) — but I didn’t even think to connect that to DC or Marvel universe. Which is an interesting oversight.
However, I will always make room for Jessica Jones, but that’s a TV show not a movie so it’s different.
And now James McAvoy is single (which makes me sad, too) and that makes X-Men even better because I dream about marrying that tiny Irishman.
Scottish. He’s Scottish.
Magneto is the tiny Irishman
Oh shit, you’re totally right! Damn. I’m normally so much better about not confusing the Irish and the Scottish. I’m ashamed.
But I definitely didn’t confuse McAvoy with Fassbender. There is nothing tiny about Fassbender. I’ve seen Shame.
I watched a lot of X-men cartoons growing up, but I don’t remember them consciously. Also I got a lot by osmosis from old friends talking about it. So when I’m watching modern X-men movies I get to explain to friends who know nothing about mutants, and it feels like I’m explaining that magic is actually real, and I love it:
“that’s the weather witch, also she can fly”
“that’s the mind reader, she’s like Deanna Troy but can kill the world with her brain too”
“that dude has laser beams come out of his eyes and can’t stop it without that magic shield”
“oh he’s not teleporting, he going into Hell very quickly and coming out somewhere else”
My roommates look at me like “who ARE you??”
To be fair I could be making it all up and they wouldn’t know the difference, so
The 90s X-Men animated series is on Hulu and it is really, really enjoyable to revisit as an adult.
This is exactly the type of running dialogue I keep up when watching a shakespeare movie with my sister, who says she can’t get it without an explanation.
“He’s sulking because he doesn’t like his new stepdad”
“He’s going off to college so he has to get a bit of slut-shaming in on his sister first.”
“Okay that whole bit was basically white dude being white.”
I haven’t seen the movie yet but be careful what you say about Sharon, or she will have her REVEEEEENNNNNGGGGGGE!
Just like Ken in A Fish Called Wanda!
Wasn’t it Maria who was going to have her revenge?
Must rewatch…..
Bucky’s haircut is the saddest possible iteration of The Rachel.
yessssss, he probably went in and asked for The Rachel but the person didn’t really know how to cut it right, and even if she had, he wouldn’t have known how to blow it dry right to make it work, and then he just got sad and stopped taking care of it entirely…..
I’m trying so hard not to burst out laughing at work. The saddest Rachel. You guys are 2 much.
Depressed Prince Valiant is exactly what’s going on with Bucky’s hair (and I’m into it)
Oh, and I think it’s really striking that the plot of this movie hinges on both Iron Man AND Captain America getting help from people whose aunts they were hot for.
How To Recruit For the Avengers: “Your aunt is/was super hot. Come fight with us.”
Bucky just looks like he would smell really bad. Like… New York City on the first really hot day in June bad. This is a guy who has probably not showered regularly since before WWII. Think about that for a moment.
Also, I 100% agree that both Steve/Sharon and Steve/Bucky weird me out. (But I love Steve/Peggy. And I will go down with the Steve/Sam ship like the total trash I am. Winter Soldier could alternatively have been titled Steve Comes On Really Strong Sometimes.)
Maybe it’s like how you’re supposed to put your jeans in the freezer, opposed the washing them, to get rid of odor. Bucky get’s frozen not to suspend him but rather to stop the stink.
‘He’s been active too long, we better put him under again’
‘Yeah he’s really starting to stink out our underground lab. Our noses need a break. Or like some air conditioning might be nice?’
Haha! Exactly! And the problem by the time Civil War rolls around is that he has been out of the ice a while, guys, come on. That dip in the river at the end of Winter Soldier was totally his only major interaction with water in the meantime.
(Poor Bucky. I am so sorry for what’s been done to you, bro, I just want you to stand downwind.)
I realize that fandom has taken “trash” into unexpected connotations but STEVE/PEGGY AND STEVE/SAM FOREVER, I AM NOT ASHAMED
(sorry for yelling)
YES GOOD
Both of those pairings are perfect because they’re full of respect and mutual affection and they make me feel all soft and squishy. Also, Winter Soldier destroyed me thanks to both. I LOVE THEM AND AM GLAD YOU AGREE.
Have we discussed Natasha’s hair yet?
Because Natasha having new and interesting hair each movie seems to be their… thing, and I was very underwhelmed with her hair this time, and I get that until they’re willing to give her an undercut or pixie, they’re sort of out of new things to do, but this was not even great hair.
Also Sharon’s hair was fucking annoying. Those two half assed curls in the front? No, gross, either do the standard TV hair or whatever.
At least it wasn’t as bad as her Winter Soldier hair. I still think that was the weakest of the Romanova hairstyles.
I didn’t mind Winter Soldier hair. Once or twice I’ve spent enough time with a friend with a hair straightener to have that hair. It’s utterly impractical, but I get the aesthetic. Ironman 2 hair, on the other hand, seemed more like she was always on her way to a prom.
That center part was SO DELIBERATE and ANGRY. I was not a fan.
I was just glad they didn’t give Natasha that horrible Winter Soldier hair. This one was impractical but at least she didn’t look like a character from Antz.
SHARON’S HAIR WAS THE WORST. The only thing I could come up with was maybe they were trying to go angelic with “wings” because…she’s at a funeral (???) but also very serious with the straight hair. I have no idea
I assume they keep her hair long so it’s less obvious it’s ScarJo’s stunt double in the fight scenes.
Agreed. And there’s also keeping her sexually appealing to the heteromanfolk.
I think they could pull off an undercut and keep the stunt double benefits (just mostly keep her hair down during fight scenes), but they’d probably be worried it would be too gay? And, sure, that’s part of why I’d like to see it, but they’re just… running out of hairstyles.
But short-haired dudes have stunt doubles all the time, don’t they?
Yes! My understanding, though, is that it’s more annoying to work around, and it’s easier to find great guy stunt doubles that look reasonably close to your male actors than it is to find great female stunt doubles that look like your female leads.
So, yeah, they could make it work, but it is something they actively have to work around, and when they want to keep her hair long for other reasons anyway, why make their job harder?
There is something to be said for an undercut being more memorable so she probably wouldn’t do it, too. (on the other hand, they’ll remember the hair and not the face? I could argue with myself on this for days)
A lot of them have costumes that cover part or all of their faces, now that I think about it. Of course there’s no reason the women couldn’t also have face covering costumes, but here we are.
A lot of the dudes are also primarily CG once the mask is on
Sharon’s hair was, indeed, the worst hair in this movie.
Natasha is a former ballerina/assassin. By all rights she should be rocking the bunhead look more often than not for the sake of practicality.
I support this.
All I know is I’m fighting my usual Black Widow-induced hair dying urges.
I’ve found that the amount I like her hair is inversely proportional to how much I like her movie.
Best hair/worst movie? Iron Man 2
Worst hair/best movie? Captain America 2
Let us all enjoy this gif of dancing!Sebastian Stan at his peak hair
Dat tongue tho
He is *so* much hotter in this gif than the entire movie.
catching up on Toast after being gone for the weekend and just wanted to tell you you’re doing the Almighty’s work here.
His hair game was not as on point as in Winter Soldier but what I really take issue with in this one is the costuming. I get that Bucky probably isn’t super into the strappy leather number he wore while murdering a bunch of people for the comic book Nazis but couldn’t we have kept the basic silhouette? Something nicely fitted around the whole torso perhaps? For some reason everything he wore in this movie made him look like he was wearing George Michael’s fake muscle shirt under his clothes.
Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer is what the hairdo makes me think of.
So…Captain America?
I just came out to have a good time and ogle Sebastian Stan and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.
…I may be too protective of Bucky Barnes. Just let him eat his plums, damnit!
I tried to read this but I hardcore ship steve/tony so every time im reminded of this movie i have to fall on the ground and flail my arms and legs around haphazardly and im at work right now so
I saw Sebastian Stan at a Q&A for The Bronze a little bit ago. His real-life hair, when it’s clean and he’s running his hands through it every nine seconds or so, is a thing of beauty. Every time he was onscreen in Civil War, I’d think to myself, “When are they going to wash it?” Eventually, I came to the realization that it would never be clean. Reader, I did not weep. But I could have.
Also, he was posing for pictures afterward. We tried at least seven times to get one together, and my phone’s camera failed me every single time. It would’ve been mortifying if he weren’t an extremely patient man (who also accepted hugs from crying teenage girls with such grace that I will never not like him).
Apparently that is his real life hair or at least was during filming (can’t find the interview where he talks about it alas), which makes me very annoyed because it was mostly his real hair in winter soldier too and it looked the right degree of sad and unwashed there SO
Happy to be in support of this potential unpopular opinion post — I have not liked Bucky since his appearance and while I’m not super emotionally invested in the franchise in general, it’s nice to have Mallory lay out why it is I’m not super fond of him because I do love Chris Evans/Captain America and couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like Bucky when eeeveryone else seems to?? The sullenness and the wig, that’s it!
It was super creepy and inappropriate of Uncle Steven to kiss Peggy’s niece. If I were ever to find out that my hypothetical enhanced human being sort-of boyfriend was hitting on my sister’s daughter just because I croacked, I would reach out to him from the other side (if there is one), just to smack him on the head and tell him to go fish in another pool.
Evidence points to the mop being Sebastian Stan’s real hair: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/6a/58/4…
About which I have no complaints, having imprinted on Lord of the Rings at a pivotal “sexual awakening” moment in my life.
Also, the hair tie.
THAT is some great, great hair.
I totally get this. Just sub in (unfortunately) Madmartigan from Willow (a sullen stringy-haired antihero turned good). I finally broke the spell of the long-haired sullen man by marrying a balding dude who does HR for a living and is the nicest man on the planet.
Just here to say you are not alone in this.
Ah. I believe you have now illuminated why I do not hate this hair and in fact tend to love shoulder length greasy hair on dudes. Thanks Aragorn/Viggo Mortenson.
Ffffffffff, he looks cute there.
I fully share your sentiments, but blame them on the metalheads I grew up around. Long hair, moppish or not, is a crucial aspect of Men, and not to be dismissed.
Store-brand Joan Jett
daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
(my new favorite burn)
I, too, can’t stand sullen male characters. Can this be a place where people recommend media with genial, pleasant fellows?
Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) in White Collar was pretty much always the cheerful, charming con artist. And the hair, the eyes, the abs….
Sorry, but it’s time for Dude Watchin’ With the Brontës.
I recommend Channing Tatum’s entire filmography, really. He doesn’t really do sullen all that well.
That’s true. Even in Jupiter Ascending he mostly comes off as “distrustful rescue dog that deep down still wants to love.”
(Dog jokes 5ever)
I have a visceral negative reaction to anyone insulting Bucky.
sorry to hear that jules
I need to assess my fatal attraction to sullen males. I suspect it is not serving me. But I’ve never met a low-key, cheerful, eager-to-please male that wasn’t also a 10 year old golden retriever.
Does Mad Max count or are we limiting this category to real people?
What is “real people”, and why should we be interested in them?
I have met some who were shelter cats! Excellent for cuddling and general companionship, a bit hard on the carpet.
I hadn’t seen winter soldier yet either. I rented it last night and watched half of it, and already most of that weird stuff makes sense, even the apparently random agent 13 interaction. Turns out civil war IS a direct sequel.
Huh.
To be honest I’m a lot more worried about whether SebStan’s actual hairline is receding.
ok, I will also say that this longhaired superhero muscle-y SebStan really doesn’t do it for me at all, but I pine for those halcyon days of young, pretty, angsty SebStan (which often came with the corollary of gay & sad about it)
see, I’m the opposite – young sad “looks like he wants to call someone daddy in bed” trust fund baby SebStan does nothing for me, he looks like a thousand other young sad pretty boys just like him. Fucked up unshowered superhero SebStan is where it’s at. This is some kill the boy and let the man be born coming of age thing, you know what i mean? I want tumblr to make a million gifsets of him and Snowpiercer-era Chris Evans being all ridiculous and broody and looking dead inside.
this is fair!!
I think for me it’s not actually the hair or the showering, I just think that much bulk doesn’t look good on him, like his face and body aren’t meant to do that. If he was only at “Aragorn” levels of buff instead of “supersoldier” I think I’d appreciate what you’re getting at a lot more.
&& in retrospect, as much as I enjoy SebStan in his sad&gay roles, the SebStan that really actually got me is all those dumb early magazine photoshoots where he looks like he could be the frontman for a mid-2000s indie band. Which… is my own particular cross to bear.
How have we gotten this far without a “Bucky with the bad hair” reference?
Bucky with the bad hair.
It’s true.
I am far from an authority on good male hair, but I meekly admit that I (a gay lady) have consistently admired Timothy Olyphant’s hair in Justified.
That man has truly lustrous locks and it is borderline criminal to hide them under that hat so much. Every episode I watch, I catch myself murmuring “he has such *lovely* hair”.
I dread that I may be turning into the sort of person that ignores the content of a news broadcast in favor of loudly announcing that they disapprove of the newsreader’s tie (i.e. my mother).
I fully believe Sebastian Stan could have a Timothy Olyphant mane if the stylists would have stepped away from the flatiron.
See, I guess his hair would have maybe been an issue if I hadn’t seen Green Room (killer movie BTW) a few days earlier, which featured Imogen Poots (also fantastic) sporting this thing on her head.
Yes to both Green Room being awesome (I saw it yesterday and couldn’t stop thinking about it hours later) and Imogen Poots’ hair being… something.
I like Sharon just fine but good lord why would you bother making Steve kiss her?
This reminds me of when I saw Winter Soldier, and at the soldier’s reveal I nodded thoughtfully, then turned to my husband and said “who is that?” His look of horror was one for the books.
That was when I realized just how distracted I had been while watching the first Captain America…
Mallory is the only person I’ve seen express my exact level of vague interest in l’affaires Marvel. eta: which is why I watched Deadpool this weekend and still have to think for a minute to remember which is Deadpool and which is Daredevil.
Also this:
Men do not have the right to be sullen; they should be cheerful and low-key and eager-to-please.
needs to be conveyed in as many forms of craft as possible. Embroidery, knitting, decoupage, spelled out in pasta and shellacked, burnt into wood. . .
“Also, I do not like sullen men. Men do not have the right to be sullen; they should be cheerful and low-key and eager-to-please.”
Help I already miss the Toast and Mallory and the Toast, where else can I get casual misandry with my movie reviews
It’s not actually a wig! The actor grew his real hair out for it.
the internet has slowly warped my vague interest in bucky barnes from neutrality to seething frothing dislike
and the fact that steve uses his STRONG FEELINGS to justify interfering in the investigation of international terrorism is fucking banana bread like LOL GOOD THING YOU ENDED UP BEING RIGHT STEVE WHAT IF BUCKY *HAD* ACTUALLY DONE THE BAD THING
MY FAVOURITE PART IS WHERE BUCKY GOES: “i DON’T KILL PEOPLE ANYMORE [SIC]” OR WHATEV. DURING THE APARTMENT SCENE AND THEN IMMEDIATELY SLAMS A A CINDERBLOCK INTO A MAN’S CHEST
i know that superhero movies are ridiculous when it comes to keeping track of actual lethal vs. non lethal injuries but like. the man is dead. he has just been killed. you just killed him. he has just died from the act of killing which you committed, BUCKY BARNES. he has massive internal bleeding and he is dead.
( and not even mentioning that CRAZY act of airport destroying (??) which must have genuinely fucked up the entirety of europe air travel. Where were the planes landing??? how quickly can they evacuate an entire major airport?? where were the incoming planes landing? what “terrorist” has ever fucked up air travel as much as the avengers have, hmm?)
Thiiiiis.
And I mean. Okay. Let’s pretend he survives. (He’s dead.) But if he survives … that’s not going to be “oooh, I stayed at home in my jammies watching bad movies and going ‘ouch!’ for a week and now I’m FINE” survival, that’s “Well, I can’t walk, and I only have one lung, and they couldn’t save very much of my intestine after the impact ruptured it, and I’m in chronic pain, and probably a load of other things you non-doctors can’t even imagine, wow I’m lucky, although obviously I lost my physically demanding job” survival.
So I was clinically depressed for a whole and it turns out even if they didn’t mean for Bucky to seem clinically depressed, all the awful things about him make me go “IT ME.
Like… I feel SEEN by the portrayal? And transitively by these S-Rank burns.
Bucky hasn’t washed, much less cut his hair in 60 years which also, was probably the last time he left the house before noon or answered a text. In my time: SAME.
In each wounded fiber of my heart I feel it must be true that HYDRA had to implant a trigger word to get him out of bed for punch-training and then they probably just hosed him off after because what can even be the point of showers when there is no point to life?
Which I am ready to stretch to my own xp of when my doctors finally got my meds right. All I did was work out resentfully 5 days a week. Bucky’s sweaty glower? EXTREMELY ON POINT.
I was in my early 20s when it got to me. I went in as a kinda androgynous alt-twink and came out some random dude who could grow a beard. I was not really there for the change. I came back and it was just something that had happened.
People link pics of Sebastian Stan from the first movie and earlier when talk about how busted he looks in civil war and I uh… wanna fight them.
I know it isn’t real! But like if someone compared two pics of me, one from before and one from now 6 years later, and they went”what happan u were so pretty”… like aging happened you ASS there’s nothing wrong with my face now.
WHEN THEY SAY IT TO HIM IT IS LIKE THEY ARE SAYING IT TO ME AND THEY ARE NOT I AM MAKING THIS WEIRD.
Identifying with Bucky is probably 95% that he is a broody dirtbag with unwashed hair and also that I would’ve liked it if Chris Evans fought all his friends and Robert Downey Jr to protect and keep me, no matter how awful I was or felt.
Seeing the movie was completely inadvertently a little bit healing and so was this.
Hey buddy I just want you to know that I really feel you on this 100%, like 1000%. Thanks so so much for putting some words to my intense Bucky/disability feels.
I think there is a point to be made here that sometimes joking misandry intersects with ableism in a really painful way.
Where are the cheerful, low-key and eager to please men? Is there a map to this mythical place that I have to pass a series of gruelling physical and mental puzzles to get a hold of it?
I went, "Oh, GROSS!" in my otherwise silent theater, and I'm glad to find that The Toast agrees!
haha, I came in here just because I knew it was his real hair. I haven't seen the movie and don't care about Bucky much at all, but internet osmosis is a powerful thing.
Also, once someone pointed out how to spot wigs to me, I can't stop seeing bad wigs in things. It's a curse.
THANK YOU with that kiss making no sense. It was very silly.
Dear Gods, Mallory, if you’re insulting poor precious Bucky and his backpack now, you could as well close down this whole website. Just go watch Winter Soldier, dammit. (There are theories that that movie was Too Gay for the studios, so they told the director to dial it down for the next instalment.)
I kept waiting for Black Panther and Captain America to make out for, like, the entire film. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but a girl can dream.
If you find any fic about this, please to share.
That’s his actual hair though. Not a wig. Which I suppose makes this even more funny even if its basic premise is incorrect. I saw a random interview with SebStan where the interviewer asked about his wig and he said he’s refused to wear a wig and always grew his hair out for the role bc it felt more real or something.
haha, great post…. Great movie too
I have never seen any Captain America movie and I’m probably not going to, but I feel very sad that one of the things people keep mentioning about the new movie is how much the Steve/Sharon thing sucks and I wanted Sharon to be very important and amazing in said movies because Revenge was one of my favorite shows and I want Emily Van Camp to conquer the world
Bahaha! Rufus Wainwright with coke sweats!
Bucky Barnes looked more like Jack White in Winter Soldier, but he still looks more like Jack White than anyone else in Civil War.
Very unhappy Jack White. VERY unhappy Jack White.
Bucky Barnes looked more like Jack White in Winter Soldier, but he still looks more like Jack White than anyone else in Civil War.
Very unhappy Jack White. VERY unhappy Jack White.
Actually this was his real hair. As for all of the films bucky has appeared in. If you watched all of the captain america films you would see that it is his hair all the way through. Not only this but he has no real expression because he is meant to not feel anything. Compared to wonder soldier he has way more expression as he is starting to get his memories back, and is becoming more like Steve’s old bff from the first avenger. I believe sebastian stan done a great job of preparing for the role and actually being bucky / the winter soldier in this film.
“like he’s spent the last year using Colin Farrell-brand dry shampoo”
Rufus Wainwright with cocaine sweats”
this side-by-side combo nearly killed me