It's Friday. Have a High Five

🖐 The Friday High Five #129

Netflix

It’s been over a month since the latest High Five. I thought I’d dust off the format, mostly to check-in with you guys.

This is the only real time I speak directly to you, without the guise of a movie or similar. The High Five tends to be a bit more personal, or at least more illustrative of what I get up to on the regular. According to Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do. I am a writer because I write. But, also, I’m apparently a pop culture junkie.

The time away from the High Five has been restorative. I didn’t realize how much stress I felt every week until the yoke was removed. Stress isn’t quite the right word. We talk about fun stuff here. But in a real way it was a burden. Finding five unique things every week to share and write on semi-eloquently was often trying. I can’t tell you how many Fridays I sat racking my brain, thinking, “I only need 2 more things.” It always worked out in the end. That’s the magic of writing.

But as I said when I decided to take a break, I knew the hours I put into the High Five could instead be deposited into efforts that would yield greater fruit over a longer period. Evergreen posts. My long-running effort to release a book of essays. Fiction, even. As I get ever older, I’m more aware of the passage of time and how easily it is frittered away on things that don’t move the needle.

The giant caveat to all this is the High Five is a fan favorite. You guys love it. I hate to disappoint people, especially those who like reading my work. Writing without a readership is a very lonely thing. So I’ve decided to seek a middle ground, and do a High Five semi-regularly, perhaps monthly. It’ll be the usual list of 5 things, and also a more general update.

The interesting thing about taking time away from this column is that I also almost totally unplugged from the content treadmill. One isn’t necessarily related to the other, but I can’t help but think that absent the pressure to find five things, I was able to just sort of follow my whims wherever they’d lead me. I spent less time watching TV than I have in a long time. I read a lot. I gamed. Saw several movies. But most excitingly—for me—I started writing fiction again. It’s been something I’ve wanted to get back to for years, but I always found a way to put it off. Often through productive procrastination, like the High Five.

As fun as it is to write about movies and TV—as necessary as it is for me to write about those things—there is a purity to writing that can only be tapped when you’re inventing new possibilities. It requires a deeper and fuller creativity. And it’s so joyously fun! I try to only write about things I actually like, but at the end of day, I’m commenting on someone else’s art. It’s past time to make some of my own.

My absolute favorite thing from the past month is something I can’t share. Not that I don’t want to! It’s literally all I want to talk about. But it’s not the time. It’ll be November before I can share what I’ve been working on. It’s fictional, but channeled through my pop culture sensibilities. It’s a collaboration. It’s hilarious. More to come.

Onto the High Five.

How do I even kick this thing off? I honestly don’t remember. Let’s try this:

5 Things I Loved In The Last Month

1. Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs

I know what you’re probably thinking.

I checked this out from the library last month. I fully expected it to be an academic text on Egyptian history. But what a pleasant surprise! The author (Barbara Mertz) writes with wit and good humor. She editorializes frequently, which energizes what could easily be a dry subject. I’ve read a ton of history books and this is by far the most entertaining one.

The subject matter is also highly interesting, at least to me. Not just the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, but how those beliefs created monuments that were ancient even at the time of Christ. Can you imagine growing up surrounded by ruins thousands of years old? It’s like a D&D campaign brought to life.

2. Helldivers 2

I’ve already written at length about this game. Apart from reading and writing, in the last month I spent the most time with Helldivers 2. I’m looking forward to spreading democracy again this weekend.

3. Wednesday: Season 2

I loved season 1 and have been impatiently waiting for more Wednesday ever since. I was more than a little concerned that too much time had passed between seasons. Not that the magic would be lost, but that the show—which stars adolescents, or actors who present there as—would feel somehow incongruent with actors who are now 3 years older. Not quite Steve Buscemi “how do you do, fellow kids.” But a possible tremor in the Force.

How would the show address the time gap? Would it, even, or would it pretend only a season had passed, and our heroes were only a year older? It ended up being the latter. I think. They don’t exactly show a calendar.

Despite my slight reservations, S2 has been a total delight. It’s the same, but also better. The show has pivoted in directions I didn’t expect, and resolved plot lines in ways I never anticipated. It’s surprising, is what I’m saying, in the best possible way. Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) is just as bleakly droll as ever, but even within those seemingly narrow confines, the show continually finds ways to humanize her.

Oh—and Steve Buscemi is in season 2. Not as an adult masquerading as a high schooler, alas.

4. Punisher: Season 2

Even though Jon Bernthal is a perennial my-guy, I never got around to watching the second season of Punisher when it was on Netflix. Looking back, I can’t exactly say why. Bernthal’s rendition was the second-best thing from the Netflix wing of Marvel Comics (the first being Charlie Cox / Daredevil). I think after slogging through so much of the Netflix shows, I was just burnt out.

But then Disney+ released a new season of Daredevil, and in order to watch that, I first needed to finish Punisher. So here we are.

S2 is a different vibe, and not necessarily in a good way. Bernthal remains incredible as Frank Castle, and I like the addition of a teenage girl as his ward / costar. Allows us to see a different side of the character. I’m less thrilled about anything to do with Billy Russo (Ben Barnes). Just no.

Frank’s war buddy Curtis (Jason R. Moore) is easily my favorite character this season. He’s the voice of reason and often the only human onscreen. But he wins my vote on the strength of one incredible line: “How long do you think it's gonna take them to figure out who Frank Castle's one-legged black friend is?”

Chef’s kiss.

5. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

I was genuinely pleasantly surprised by Fantastic Four.

Going in, I wasn’t sold on the retro-futuristic look and feel. And I fracking hated the theme song, where an opera bellows, “Fantastic Fooooouurrrrr.” As though we might confuse this movie with the other movie that has a giant guy made out of rocks. Fortunately, those elements faded to the background, or perhaps other stuff came to the fore, because the movie is far better than the trailers would lead you to believe.

There’s a clear and obvious level-up in terms of cinematic competence. I liked Thunderbolts more, but Fantastic Four feels like it was hand-crafted. Does that make any sense? It feels like a quality film. It was my third-favorite superhero film this year (out of 4), so it’s not the best. But solidly enjoyable.

Couple of quick things I just thought of, because I’m me.

1. We learn The Thing can grow hair and has to shave. What’s he got going on downstairs? Is it a shrub situation?

2. Related—was the Thing’s penis rockified in its resting state or at attention? Or was it fused to his body, Ken doll style?

3. There’s an obvious joke to be made about Mister Fantastic’s ability to stretch. I’d rather zag: do you think Sue Storm busts out her invisibility in bed? Or are they a vanilla, no powers in bed couple? I actually think it might be the latter.