Because of Capitalism, I Now Operate My Own Digital Library and It's Great

🖐 The Friday High Five #126

Welcome to another Mullet edition of the Friday High 5.

• Business in the front: The 5 things I enjoyed this week, free for all to enjoy.

• Party in the back: A deeper exploration of something on my mind, for supporters.

Business in the front

Passenger 57

Warner Bros.

Vibe: Always bet on black!

My brother and I were huge Wesley Snipes fans in the 90s. He was the best part of a slew of great movies: Major League, New Jack City, White Men Can’t Jump, and Demolition Man, to name some personal favorites. Wesley was easily in my top 5 favorite actors at the time.¹ He was effortlessly cool, to the point that even though he was a terrible basketball player, he still made White Men Can’t Jump work. Now that’s talent.

Passenger 57 came out in 1992, during what’s probably his peak. I rewatched it this week for the first time since 1990-something. Wesley absolutely holds up. The rest of the film doesn’t. Still had a great time.

Wesley plays a former airline anti-terrorist specialist (as well as former Secret Service agent) whose plane is hijacked by a dollar store Hans Gruber. You can probably guess what happens. Novelty isn’t the point of this movie. It does let Wesley cook though. This exchange with the villain is one of his career highlights:

Snipes: Charlie, ever played roulette?

Bad Guy: On occasion.

Snipes: Well, let me give you a word of advice. Always bet on black!

My brother and I have been saying that catchphrase for 30+ years! Even though we’re pasty white dudes from Michigan. Doesn’t matter. That’s the Wesley Snipes effect.

There is some crazy casual racism in this movie, as well as some other head-scratching things. Probably going to write about it next week.

Jurassic Park: Rebirth

Universal Pictures

Vibe: People-eating dinosaurs are harmless fun.

I sorta posted about seeing this movie already, but that was largely an exercise in gently poking fun at the franchise. I actually enjoyed Rebirth. It dispenses completely with the ‘park’ part of the equation and more or less immediately gets to the ‘dinosaurs rampaging’ sequences. The prologue comes straight out of a horror movie. It involves a careless scientist taking no precautions at all despite the fact that they’re doing all kinds of messed up stuff.

Rebirth adds a new, mutated dinosaur—I believe every Jurassic Park has added a fearsome new creature, bigger and hungrier than the last, but they also can’t quit the T-Rex because it’s clearly the best man-eater.² The new dino on the block looks like a T-Rex had sex with a Rancor. It’s ugly and terrifying, and also a bit silly. Fits right in.

I don’t quite know where the franchise intends on going from here. The title Rebirth suggests a new beginning. But the movie is about mercenaries slowly getting picked off. I’m all for a pivot in that direction, but I also don’t think that’s what the plan is.

Mortal Kombat II trailer

Vibe: They’re making a sequel?

Mortal Kombat (2021)—not to be confused with the campy 1995 film of the same name—was a surprisingly fun watch. Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, with a tragic backstory? Umm, okay! I remember basically nothing of the story, which is fitting. One does not play the game for the plot. It’d be weird if the adaptation was any different.

The surprise sequel—am I the only one who didn’t realize this was happening?—adds Karl Urban to the mix. Urban has yet to meet a nerd property he couldn’t immediately make 100 times better. The trailer is hitting all the right notes. Johnny Cage was never my favorite character—I preferred playing as Sub-Zero, Scorpion (of course), or Raiden—but it looks like Urban nails his douchey vibe.

I fully expect this film will be stupid and ridiculous, and I can’t wait.

Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ Music Video

Vibe: Great song, hilarious music video.

I had so much fun writing about Danzig’s ‘Mother’ music video, I decided to run it back. It’s too early to say there’s a formula, but so far I’m interested in great songs with crazy music videos. If I keep this going, ‘November Rain’ is absolutely getting the treatment.

So ‘Beat It’ is coming to an inbox near you, possibly this weekend. Just a heads up: The vibes are all very much gay. Which I kinda knew going in, but also caught me by surprise. Even though it was staring me in the face the entire time. After all, the main character breaks up a gang war by dancing.

Oh! In researching, I discovered that Michael cast actual Crips and Bloods in the video. My new favorite game is trying to guess which of the men dancing around is a gang member.

Here’s an unrelated teaser:

The Bear S4, Episodes 1-2

FX

Vibe: Carmy has finally chilled the F out.

Since season 1, The Bear has intentionally broken storytelling rules and done whatever it damn well pleased. The brilliance of the show has meant it worked more times than not, but often the experience of watching felt uneven or at least scattered. You never really know what you’re gonna see. Flashbacks are sometimes entire episodes. We’ve gotten long scenes that look like magazine photoshoots, all artistic and abstract. The show isn’t interested in a traditional through line, which is both a strength and weakness. It feels like real life, but also like nobody is at the wheel.

Season 3 felt like the writers lost the script, or indulged themselves too much. It was not my favorite.³ I’m thrilled that S4 feels cohesive, like we’re actually going somewhere. Once again, I’m looking forward to watching new episodes instead of bracing myself for psychological shrapnel. And we haven’t even had much time with the Faks yet, who remain my favorites. Though Francie Fak is lurking in the shadows and I cannot wait to meet her.

The show has often felt like a manifestation of Carmy’s psychosis. I think that’s clearly intentional. It’s a neat trick, but not always super enjoyable to experience. I’m enjoying S4’s all-around chiller energy so far and hope it continues.

Party in the back

I have been an eBook enthusiast for a very long time. For much of that time, that was synonymous with the Kindle. But thanks to greed, no longer.

The first eBook I bought was a novel called Best Served Cold in January 2011. Since then, every eBook I’ve bought—and it’s been a lot; I have over 1k eBooks in my Kindle library and the majority were purchased—was for Kindle. I bought Kindle books even before I had a Kindle device. Amazon captured the eBook market so thoroughly that they were one and the same.

It was an arrangement I was quite happy with. I love reading, and even more love buying books. But I dislike accumulating stuff. eBooks are perfect because I can own a book but not have to find a place to put it. Even better, it goes everywhere I go, without the inconvenience of forethought. More than once I’ve downloaded a book to read on the toilet while on the toilet. If that’s not living, we clearly have different priorities.

Alas, Amazon is run by a bunch of greedy mother fuckers.