The Friday High Five
Impossible missions, nerdy customs, and feeling the need for speed
Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High Five. 🙏🏻My Favorite Thing
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
Evidently, 2024 is shaping up as the year I catch-up on summer 2023 blockbusters. Two weeks ago was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and this week I tackled two more action flicks I somehow didn't get to see last year.
Dead Reckoning is an incredible piece of action filmmaking. Obviously everyone knows about the madness of Tom Cruise putting his body on the line in pursuit of verisimilitude or nirvana or immortality. That's part of the Tom Cruise experience, in the same way that you expect Adam Sandler to make mostly unfunny movies with the same circle of friends. The stunts are better than they've ever been; everyone makes a big deal about John Wick but I was honestly bored with the last two. Meanwhile, somehow Mission Impossible keeps getting better with each iteration, which shouldn't be happening but absolutely is. It's the inverse of The Fast and the Furious franchise.
Dead Reckoning is also the funniest Mission Impossible. There's a bit with a tiny car that was a total riot. More of that, please.
I imagine most of you have already seen this, but if you haven't, what are you waiting for?1 Dead Reckoning is the best of Hollywood's big budget filmmaking. I only wish I'd seen it in the theater.
Ranking the Mission Impossibles:
Dead Reckoning (7)
Fallout (6)
Rogue Nation (5)
Ghost Protocol (4)
Mission Impossible (1)
Mission Impossible 3
Mission Impossible 2
Other Things I Enjoyed
True Detective: Night Country
In the end, Night Country wasn’t as good as I’d hoped or as bad as I feared. It fell somewhere in the wide middle ground that characterizes 80% of everything. Which is really too bad, because the premise and the atmosphere are extraordinary. Maybe that's just another way of calling it pretty but dumb. It's not, but neither is it as smart as it tries to be.
It was great seeing Jodi Foster in a horror thriller again, so for that I'm happy it exists.
The Broken Sword
There's something in D&D circles called Appendix N, which is a list of fantasy and horror books that served as inspiration for the first version of D&D. The Lord of the Rings is on the list—naturally—as are things like Cthulhu.
I've always felt drawn toward the old world fantasy aesthetic of classic D&D (as opposed to the superhero antics of 5th edition). In that vein, this week I started reading The Broken Sword, a fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. Published in 1954—the same year as the first book in a little known-trilogy called The Lord of the Rings—The Broken Sword feels sweetly archaic. Elves are not galantly sparkly but instead otherworldly fey that abduct human infants and swap the original with a changeling, the bastard offspring of elf and troll. The gods are cruel and capricious. And men? What can men do against such reckless hate?
I finished this book in less than a week. It's not amazing, but it's timeless in the way Stonehenge is. Recommended for D&D nerds and fantasy freaks.
D&D Preparations
Most of my free time this week went toward an upcoming marathon D&D session thrown by yours truly, in honor of my name day.2 If that sounds self-congratulatory or egotistical or something, I assure you it is not. It's just how we throw down here.3
The menu includes bbq pulled pork, potato salad, chips, plenty of snacks, and 100% homemade chocolate cake. We'll be playing for 7 hours and it won't be enough.
Several of the players read this newsletter, so I'll leave off with any juicy details for now. I'll most assuredly be talking about the game next Friday!
Gran Turismo
This movie sounds like a terrible idea. The premise: Based on a true story in which video gamers compete to drive real-life race cars in real-life races. It's one of those “stranger than fiction” stories you'd write-off as too farfetched if not for the real world stamp of authenticity.
But it's really good! I was honestly tempted to make it this week's favorite thing. Gran Turismo is fun and heartwarming, and laugh out loud funny at several points. But the highlight has to be the racing scenes. They're gripping and I don't even enjoy racing.
Gran Turismo is streaming on Netflix so you have no excuse not to watch it.
Perhaps you're waiting for enough free time to accommodate the nearly 3-hour runtime, like I was.
A name day is a nerdy way of saying birthday. I'm already in the zone.
And by “we,” I obviously mean “me.”
Dead Reckoning was so good! I appreciated seeing Sauron get more work in Hollywood, playing another Dark Lord visualized by a giant eye who can only be destroyed by casting the Ring into the volcano...er, I mean the Key into the Source Code.
I love reading about your D&D love affair. My brother played and I would always insinuate myself in the games (being the younger sibling) and that had mixed-to-terrible-results...for me. Read: There was nothing cool about being cast as a cleric in the 80s versions of these campaigns. ANYWAY...D&D was such a specific part of a certain type of growing up in the 80s--I wonder if you'd consider writing more about it..maybe a memoir in essays kind of format that also delves into the history, culture, and significance of the game? Yes, I did just give you homework! You're welcome. Regarding Night Country: I loved it. I think it maybe needed one more episode in the middle as it sort of rushed to the conclusion, but overall I thought it was one of the more satisfying True Detective pieces. And yes, more Jodi Foster please!!!