The Velvet Café

I’ve fallen behind in my writing about movies I see. It’s been more than a month since I saw Guardians of the Galaxy and admittedly this is a little bit long to wait before you put your thoughts together in a post.

My more disciplined fellow bloggers write about the films they watch right away after they’ve seen them. Some even take notes during the screenings, just so they won’t forget any detail. I have a more laidback, not to say lazy attitude towards movie blogging: I write when time and enthusiasm are available in equal measures. And here’s no particular order in my writing. I write about whatever comes to my mind. Sometimes it’s the movie I watched yesterday. Sometimes I watched it months ago.

The Guardians of the Galaxy is one of those movies that have been scrambling around in my to-write-about-list for far too long. And now I barely remember a thing about it. And actually this fact per se, probably says something about what impact it had on me. Which is none.

There are a few things about it that I remember:

• Explosions
  As I remember it there were lots of them. Too many if you ask me. I love science fiction and I love movies that take place in space, but only if they come with cool, mind bending ideas. If it’s all about explosions, it’s not much of science fiction to speak of. Not in my world.
• “I am Groot”
  There was a character who had the form of a tree, a midge version of an ent, who kept delivering this one line over and over and over again. Thinking about it, it was probably the only line he had. Somehow it stuck with me and it gave me some giggles. I assume the actor did a good work in the timing and delivery. If you only have one line you can put your energy into performing it well, I guess.Hooked on a Feeling. Oh, that song brings so much nostalgia for someone who grew up in Sweden in the 70s. Björn Skifs made it to the top of the billboard back then, and now he’s apparently done it again. He’s not my favourite artist by any means, but he seems to be a genuinely nice guy and hearing the song again makes me smile.
• The struggle to stay awake
  I know there are a lot of fans of this movie out there; basically I’m the only one who didn’t fall in love with it. It must sound ridiculous to all of you, but I need to be honest with you: I was bored and disengaged to the extent that I was close to falling asleep throughout the movie. I had to slap myself constantly not to. That’s something I usually only have to do with slow, bloodless art house movies. It shouldn’t happen watching this kind of film. But it did. Not a good sign.

Since my memories of it are so scarce and vague I’ll refrain from giving it a proper grade. But it’s not an overly wild guess to say that it wasn’t for me. If it had been, I should have remembered something more about it shouldn’t I?

To all of you out there who loved it – and I know there are many of you, basically everyone except me – congratulations on a fun, exhilarating movie going experience!

I was bored. [takes cover]

Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014) My rating: ?