a rickety bridge of impossible crossing

are we done with "movie stars"?

I don't watch a ton of new movies, but I get the impression that none of the up-and-coming young actors are interested in being the new Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. Or when they are, no one in the audience seems that interested. There have been a few attempts in the last couple decades, you've got your Channing Tatums and Bradley Coopers, but they didn't stick around the way you might expect if you're used to how 90s movie stars worked. The biggest names were actors who essentially played themselves in every role. You had Pitt and Cruise, you had the other Tom (Hanks), Will Smith, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, Melbert Gibson, Keanu Reeves, Leo DiCaprio (although he's started trying to act in his later roles, which I respect even if the result isn't always convincing); people for whom the role they were playing is irrelevant. No matter who Ben Affleck is playing in a movie, your brain sees him and wonders why the film expects you to believe it's some guy who's not Ben Affleck, when it's clearly Ben Affleck

It feels like audiences and actors are both sick of this, and that's very good news. We still have big Hollywood brands, because of course we do, but it seems like they're all actually interested in acting in addition to being famous. I guess the closest we have to the 90s movie star is the Chris crew (Evans, Hemsworth, Pine and Pratt) but thankfully they seem to be strictly relegated to superhero movies, which no one expects people to actually act in anyway. If they try to let Chris Pratt star in a serious dramatic role, no one's going to fall for it. I'm pleasantly surprised the culture is moving forward this way, it gives me a little hope

The other side of this coin is the rise of the social media star/influencer, which is good because that's a category of entertainment I can completely ignore. I get an occasional glimpse of it from people I watch on youtube, and no thank you. I don't want any of that. I'm sure there are cigar-chomping Hollywood execs who see the numbers Jake Paul gets and their face starts dripping little dollar sign-shaped sweat drops, but thank god there are enough people in the business who care enough about movies to protect them from the Jake Pauls of the world

Movies are pretty cool 🦝

#currents