Well, most recently, it's been pretty simple things. I watched Dracula, Dead and Loving It with my dad the other day because it's the only Mel Brooks film he never saw. I watched the horror comedy "Man's Bet Friend" with Lance Henriksen partly because I got to meet him at a con recently and wanted to watch a few more of his odd little monster movies. And I did go to the theaters to watch Legend of Ochi last week, which was a solid attempt to be a slightly edgier Amblin-style "a kid and their monster", if a bit too slow and dreary for nits own good at times.
>>1190900Yeah, that was bad. Which is why there's a whole damn scene in the movie addressing it directly and calling it out.
He straight up says that he didn't think his daughters wanted him to contact them at all. She didn't come to him until the start of the film, either, and didn't actually properly communicate why she dropped by, remember? Both she and Natasha kept him at arms length pretty much her whole adult life, which they had their own good reasons for.
Buts far as he could tell, he was trying to respect her wishes even though it left HIM equally alone to deal with his owb grief. Yelena wasn't the only one who lost someone in all of that. And the instant she actually did open up to him emotionally - in the middle of a crisis situation where people seemed to be dying in droves around them, mind you - he dropped everything to hear her out and reassure her.
A huge part of the reason why he's a full on bumbling dad whenever he actually is working with Natasha or Yelena is, aside from missing his glory days, because he is trying to overcorrect their horrific past and re-earn his dad card.
Him being an interesting character and loving father is not equal to not making mistakes, not even pretty grave ones, as a result of his own issues . He flat out admits he's "not good at this".
He'd just be some rando wearing a red helmet that we'd have absolutely no reason to pay attention to if he flawlessly navigated his own social life at all times. They all live extreme lives - their victories and their messes are going to be pretty big, too.
The movie's core theme was the way depression, whether it's something you struggle with chronically or something that comes to you I'm bursts at rough times in your life, warps your perception and traps your head in the worst version of reality it can conjure up for you. Yelena's is one where her past makes her too much of a monster to deserve love. Alexei's is one where his family won't let him love them and all he has to cling to for admiration is a superhero persona no one cares about anymore.
Thunderbolts may not necessarily be the masterpiece some people like to paint it as, but it's pretty bad faith to claim it expects us to just completely ignore his mistakes.
