My Favorite Things This Week #86

The Friday High 5: 'Legally Blonde' Walked So 'Barbie' Could Run

MGM Distribution Co.

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 5. 🙏🏻

A bubbly, irrepressibly joyous blonde with a major pink fetish sits atop a hierarchy of similarly enthusiastic young women. Their’s is a world of music montages and ostentatious plumed pens. And if they seem fickle and consumed by superficial things? One even might say a bit shallow? We overlook it because this is clearly a dreamscape, an impossibility, a place where the real world isn’t welcome.

Our heroine is forced to leave this candy land when the real world cruelly bursts her bubble. She crosses over into the ‘desert of the real’ in a convertible. She’s accompanied by the love of her life, who is unfailingly loyal and desires only to be with her; she dotes on him but mostly he’s an accessory.

There are several fish-out-of-water scenes in which our heroine is ridiculed because she clearly ain’t from around here. The real world is ruled by the patriarchy and governed by misogyny, a fact she slowly awakens to. Her innocence shattered, she’s forced to make a choice: go big or go home.

She gradually assimilates, ditching her flamboyant dress for more sensible attire, which mirrors the inner change she’s undergoing. It’s a hero’s journey without lightsabers or wands. Through it all, she retains her inner spirit, that intrinsic quality that makes her special. That is her superpower.

In the process, she subverts the dumb blonde stereotype she superficially seemed to engender and up-ends everyone’s expectations. A new normal is established, one that promises a gentler, pinker future.

I’m not implying Barbie stole anything from Legally Blonde, intentionally or otherwise. But the similarities are too many to entirely discount. Everything I wrote above could be applied to either Barbie or Elle Woods. That’s the point.

They are different movies with different goals, but thematically similar. Barbie was a big deal last summer, but Legally Blonde is the better movie. It’s funnier and less on-the-nose preachy. Barbie clearly was made with young girls in mind and that’s great! My daughter is one of those. I’m glad she got to see it, and that I got to see her seeing it. If that makes sense.

I’m just saying: While everyone was caught-up in Barbie fever, we collectively forgot that Elle Woods got there first. And arguably did it better.

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The Suicide Squad (2021)

Warner Bros. Pictures

I finally got around to watching this DC quasi-superhero film, which everyone said is “good, actually.” It’s only because we’re talking about DC that faint praise couched in mild surprise can be construed as endorsement. Though I did really really like The Batman, the 2022 film starring an emo, heavily mascaraed Robert Pattinson; I was less enthused they were recasting and rebooting yet again, but I guess DC has to stick to their strengths.

The Suicide Squad is not to be confused with Suicide Squad, the 2016 film starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Jared Leto. By all accounts that film is a train wreck, but I guess Warner Bros. liked the premise enough to soft reboot the concept with a mostly-new cast.

The Suicide Squad—the necessity to include ‘the’ is killing me because I drop such articles on the regular; it’s Karate Kid, Goonies, and Empire Strikes Back—is a flashy, R-rated comic book romp with enough bloody splatter gore that it feels like something Quentin Tarantino might’ve been involved with. But if you’ve seen any of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, you quickly recognize writer-director James Gunn’s signature elements. For one, he cast his brother. But more so the overly comedic tone as death and destruction rain down. It works for the genre and the premise of the movie, but I also have to wonder what Gunn’s consistently flippant depiction of violence says about his worldview.

These purposefully aren’t the kinds of movies that make any kind of statement, at all, except those of a commercial nature, but they’re also the only kinds of movies Gunn makes. Similar to the Deadpool films, there’s a certain mad glee in wallowing in the bloody carnage and totally skipping over anything that smells like consequences. Empathy is a foreign country. The deaths of named characters feel more like punchlines to bad jokes than something to be mourned, however briefly.

Tarantino’s films are similarly blood-soaked, but even if life is cheap, death still has a weight. Nothing in this movie feels grounded, which works hand-in-glove with the gonzo premise. But it also strangles the emotional resonance Gunn is clearly gunning for. (sorry) The lesson, I think: What works in a PG-13 comic book movie feels crude in an R-rated one. It’s the same problem I have with the Deadpool movies.

I don’t care about the DC superhero experience, but it’s super interesting that Gunn is the architect for their newest attempt at replicating the Marvel formula. He’s also writer-director on the new Superman movie, due out next year. I think we can safely assume it will be unlike any other take on the character.

A Game of Thrones

Bantam Spectra

I randomly decided I wanted to re-read the books that are better known as Game of Thrones, even though George R.R. Martin shows no sign of ever working on the 6th book, much less finishing it. Dude is safely in his 70s and rich beyond belief. He’s had senioritis for over a decade.

Still, the books are great. I’ve been thinking about returning to fiction a bit myself, and thought this was a good way to prime the pump. Martin is obviously a master of the epic fantasy, but what I really love about his work is his characterizations. His point of view characters include men, women, and children, and they all feel authentic. That’s real skill.

The best thing about the books is the surprising turns they take, in part because in Westeros plot armor is as rare as mithril. Major characters die on the regular. That, too, feels authentic. Martin’s ability to depict the vast sweep of history, of centuries of cause and effect informed by flawed characters, rings true.

Dude also has an incredible ear for naming characters and places.

Barristan the Bold. Bronze Yohn Royce. Daemon Blackfyre. Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning.

Summerhall. Eastwatch by the Sea. Sunspear. Winterfell. Dreadfort.

Just so evocative.

So, yeah, I’m a bit of a fan.

Once, like 15 years ago, long before most people knew his name, Martin was an instructor at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, a 6-week program. At that time, Clarion West was held on the campus of Michigan State, which is like an hour from where I live. I was a huge Martin fan and exclusively wrote speculative fiction—fantasy, sci-fi, some horror.

I had the chance to apply for Clarion but didn’t. Our kids were young and I couldn’t imagine taking 6 weeks off to go live my dream. There’d be other chances, I thought.

As far as I know, that was the last time Martin did anything like this. He got too big. His time became too valuable to spend it teaching aspiring writers. You could argue that’s also why he hasn’t finished the books; it’s far more lucrative developing series for HBO. And probably more fun.

I’m not even saying I would’ve made the cut. But to not even try? To pass on the possibility of soaking up his knowledge for 6 weeks? I don’t have many regrets but that’s one of the biggest.

Tetris 2

Nintendo

My wife and I attended the same college—I’m not gonna say she followed me, but she did enroll after finding out I was going—and we usually drove home together. We played a lot of games when we hung out at her house. One of those was Tetris 2 for the Super Nintendo.

The 2-player mode is part classic Tetris, part puzzle. Both players start with the same starting board, which is pre-arranged with a set number of blocks that have to be eliminated through the clever application of falling Tetris pieces. The boards are generated randomly. The first to eliminate all the pieces wins the round, and each game is best of 3.

We were addicted. Games were very competitive.

We kept this up for years. After marriage. After graduation. After kids. Anytime we went home, we fired up the old SNES and battled it out. But eventually that stopped like everything else—one trip we didn’t play, and eventually that became the norm until we kinda forgot we’d ever played at all.

We recently rediscovered this gem and it’s like we’re in our 20s again. Most nights we’re battling it out, and some lunch hours too. We generally play 3 games, and since each is a best of 3, many of our sessions go the full 15 rounds. Sometimes it takes an entire hour.

Couples that game together, stay together. That’s just real life.

Untold: Sign Stealer

Netflix

I’ve been a Michigan fan my entire life.

It hasn’t always been fun. Like losing to Ohio State something like 8 years in a row. Or the Brady Hoke experience, who is mostly memorable for losing lots of games we should’ve won, and his stubborn, childish insistence on not referring to Ohio State by name. (They can GTFO with that ‘The’ Ohio State business though.)

Last year was different, a return to glory for the first time since 1997. A team actually good enough to win the National Championship. And then all this signal stealing stuff broke involving some shady dude with an awesome name. Connor Stalion.

This new Netflix documentary delves into the story, explaining exactly what happened, and why many consider Michigan’s college football title tainted. It also raises all kinds of questions, most notably: Why in the world does college football employ intricate systems where plays are signaled from the sidelines—and can be seen by the opposing team, and ‘stolen,’ which really means cracking the code and is actually legal—when wireless headsets are a thing? While there is something wonderfully archaic about signaling, it’s also incredibly inefficient and leaves the door open to stealing shenanigans.

Stealing signs is part of the game, if done during the game or deciphered using TV footage. What isn’t kosher is attending other games and recording the signals, or employing a team of recorders, two things Connor Stalions is accused of. Frustratingly, the documentary doesn’t answer the big questions—did Stalions cheat? did Michigan know?—but even as a Michigan fan, it’s obvious Stalions broke the rules, and Michigan benefited. One thing that’s changing due to the scandal: The NCAA is finally allowing teams to use headsets.

The frustrating thing about all of this is last year’s Michigan team was exceptional. They didn’t need any help, probably. They won many of their toughest games after the scandal broke and Stalions was removed from the team. But the damage was already done. The black mark earned.

I enjoyed the documentary, but it raises more questions than it answers.

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That’s it for this edition of the High 5. What are you digging at the moment? Drop a comment and let me know!