irish bag
last night i eventually watched black bag (you alrady got the title don't you?), the 7936809th movie of steven soderbergh, and omg i believe michael fassbender is word-for-word the only actor i've ever been a hardcore fan of. i constantly find it quite tricky to establish a powerful connection with actors. it's easier when it comes to singers/rappers since i assume the kind of association you establish with them is more personal based on the type of product you consume and the intimacy shaped by a song (like someone is directly talking to your ears ffs). on the other hand, it's much more complicated to feel close to actors. you might push a parasocial relationship with the character they're representing in a movie or show, but that character is not strictly based on their real personality, while the common opinion about singers/rappers is they're singing what they believe in. take kanye west as an example. he went through christianity, blasphemy, christianity part 2, alt-right, and ultimately nazism phases while displaying the same ideological progress in his two-decades-long music career. the only actor who might come close to kanye is perhaps mel gibson but you should also remember that not every actor can direct a movie to demonstrate their very profound wisdom of the political or social climate of the world.
but how i fell in love with mr. fassbender? first of all, this man is one of the hottest people i've seen in my life. he has this extremely fascinating mixture of childish innocence, feminine sentiment, nazist agitation (i mean he had fun in inglorious basterds after all) and standard irish masculinity (can't forget about mcqueen's hunger). but more than that, he played some of my favorite characters ever. i don't know if you have watched his other collaboration with mcqueen or not, and i'm not talking about portraying an average andrew tate fan in 12 years a slave, but shame is perhaps my favorite movie of all time. his characterization of a sex addict crippling with the unbearable darkness of being is the best performance i've ever seen and i don't care if you call me biased. this man made me cry and smile while going through an existential crisis and questioning my decisions. i watched shame for the first time when i was 16 and to be honest, while i certainly enjoyed it, i didn't understand the character development. nonetheless, it took me 6 years and a diverse set of unsuccessful relationships to understand brandon sullivan and it's something i'm not very proud of.
truthfully, i used to date a girl who once asked me who are the character you sympathize more with and after my answer (shame's brandon, llewyn davis of inside llewyn davis, her's theodore, and finally igby from igby goes down), she literally called me a walking red flag which i found it slightly odd since we had this conversation while we were laying on my bed and none of us was walking. the other odd thing was the fact that she hadn't watched igby goes down but i guess kieren culkin doesn't get cast as a green flag.
i can't also overlook my favorite superhero: magneto. frankly, i've never seen magneto as a villain. i suppose when it comes to him vs professor x, it's just a white+heroic version of martin luther king vs malcom x which is funny how professor carried the x while magneto is more radical. he is possibly the most charismatic comic character (in very close competition with doctor mf doom) with an infinite aura and come on, he is played by ian mckellen and michael fassbeneder and nobody can get anywhere near him. they literally cast gandolf, steve jobs, and macbeth for the same role you know how legendary it is?
regardless, like every human being, fassbender made some mistakes in the past including not acting for 6 years (i'm trying to forget about dark phoenix) and a very bad 2016 (how you can be awful in the same year we got the last frank ocean and rihanna project?). but i'm very delighted he decided to return even if it means he had to work on the most boring movie from david fincher or joining Taika Waititi. nevertheless, black bag was a decent spy thriller that might be soderbergh's best output in a while. the chemistry between fassbender and blanchett is wildly brilliant and even though i'm not the huge fan of the finale, i think overall its fassbender's best work in a while and i expect fassbender himself cares more about his acting career and stops chasing that racing fever dream.