My Favorite Things This Week #87
The Friday High 5: The Best Glen Powell Rom-Com Is One You've Probably Never Heard Of
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. 🙏🏻2024 has been the Year of Glen Powell.
Anyone But You enjoyed a cultural resurgence when it debuted on Netflix in April. Hit Man released in theaters in May and on Netflix in June. Twisters stormed into theaters in July. For 4 months straight, you couldn’t avoid Powell. He was seemingly everywhere, all at once. It started to feel a bit like, “like it or not, this guy is going to be the next big thing.”
I don’t like being force fed, but I do like Powell. What’s not to like? His everyman energy balances out his leading man aesthetics. He’s the Matthew McConaughey of his generation—stupidly handsome, would be fun to have a beer with. Maybe it’s a Texas thing?
Though I was thrilled to see two of my must-see movies from this summer—Furiosa and Horizon: Chapter 1—had landed on HBO, my wife and I were both feeling a certain kind of way last weekend. You know how some weeks just take everything you’ve got and then come back for more? It’d been one of those. So when it came time to pick a movie for movie night, I skewed lighter.
Sometimes the algorithm giveth.
Set It Up wasn’t on my Netflix watchlist. It wasn’t even on my radar. I’d never heard of it, probably because it was a Netflix-produced movie that didn’t merit a theatrical release, which is the modern version of ‘straight to video’. A Netflix Original movie is the opposite of a Spike Lee joint. Usually. There are a few gems amid the crap.
Set It Up is not the second coming of When Harry Met Sally; that was Sleepless in Seattle. It’s not in the same league as Long Shot, which is both a great rom-com and a movie of some substance. The best thing about Set It Up is that it knows exactly what it is, and it plays into that.
The premise involves two overworked executive assistants (Powell and Zoey Deutch) who conspire to setup their demanding bosses with each other, with the very scientific reasoning that people are happier when they’re boning. It probably wouldn’t spoil anything to suggest the bosses aren’t the only ones who find love. You walk into a movie like this fully expecting that. But even if you know how it ends, it’s the journey that makes the story memorable.
Deutch is appropriately adorable and is fully one half of the movie. She’s not just the prize Powell gradually realizes he wants to win. Powell does all the Powell stuff he does so well. Both characters work individually and collectively. Like many films in the genre, Set It Up leans more rom than com, but it’s also genuinely funny.
I couldn’t help but compare Set It Up to Anyone But You, Powell’s other, much more hyped rom-com. It’s not a fair comparison. Set It Up is actually a good movie. Anyone But You is a prolonged commercial that exists to show us how beautiful Powell and Syndey Sweeney are. I honestly don’t understand why people went so nuts for that movie, other than for the sex appeal. A rom-com based solely on sex is the lowest of bars, but still sells tickets.
Set It Up didn’t sell any tickets.
Netflix probably made the right call by skipping the theatrical release. Nothing about this movie screams “watch me.” But you should.
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Logan
I have a soft spot for the Fox X-Men movies. Probably because I loved the X-Men comic books, and especially the 90s X-Men cartoon. But there’s also the fact that the 2000s X-Men movies were the first true superhero team-ups, predating The Avengers by 12 years. It was a great time to be alive.
For me, Wolverine was always the main draw of those movies. His powers are cool and incredibly iconic. He also played the role of the audience surrogate, gradually acclimating us to this world of mutant powers and mutant schools and rival mutant factions. And, much like how Han Solo’s weary cynicism grounded the original Star Wars films, Wolverine’s snark added much-needed levity to the story; he’s responsible for the most hilarious line in the entire X-Men saga, which is still repeated around my house to this day.
The centrality of Wolverine to the X-Men saga was always something of an open secret; First Class is the only X-Men film that doesn’t feature him—though his cameo steals the movie. Days of Future Past is my favorite mainline X-Men movie, in large part due to how it plays with the mythos of the character.
But my overall favorite X-Men movie is the one with no other X-Men.1 Logan dispenses with the costumes and the background battles over mutant rights, and instead tells a story about a man of regret at the end of his days who gets one last chance at redemption. It clearly and intentionally evokes Unforgiven, and like that film, is bleak and unblinking in its depiction of a fallen man with a lot of red in his ledger. The R-rating allowed for a more visceral and accurate depiction of adamantium claws. The PG-13 films declawed Logan; here, he's Logan unchained.
Logan is not a super hero movie in the traditional sense. It's a drama that happens to involve super-powered individuals. It's a reminder that comic book movies can aspire to be something more.
The Detroit Lions
This spot was originally going to be about fantasy football, but my team imploded coming out the gate. I’ll spare you the details because nobody cares about someone else’s make-believe team, and just say 4 of my top 7 players either missed the game completely or were injured during it, and are now out for an undefined length of time.
So yeah, don’t wanna talk about it. Though it’s ironic and also kinda funny that I released a podcast this week gushing about my love for fantasy football. We recorded before the games began, and thus, I was still safely cocooned in ignorance. I believed I had a chance at the championship. A good one, even. Oh, sweet summer child. You dumb bastard.
Fortunately, my Detroit Lions gave me something to root for. Sticking with the Game of Thrones references—I was laid out like a bloated, dying Robert Baratheon and they gave me something for the pain. No, not milk of the poppy, which I’m 99% sure is actually heroin. But the Lions’ thrilling overtime victory made me forget my own problems, however briefly, which is all you can really ask for.
BTW, big fan of the Lions’ postgame celebrations. Frankly, it’s just nice having things to celebrate as a Lions’ fan. It’s a new experience.
Old Man Logan
Fresh off my Logan viewing, I decided to re-read this graphic novel. If Logan is Unforgiven by way of the X-Men, Old Man Logan is Unforgiven by way of a fever dream. Here’s a few highlights:
All the heroes are gone, killed in a single night of violence when the bad guys finally did the sensible thing and joined forces.
Hawkeye survived, presumably because even the villains think he’s a joke. He’s blind but drives around in Spider-Man’s car, shooting people with arrows.
Bruce Banner turned into a redneck degenerate who produced a small country’s worth of green monsters via his first cousin, She-Hulk. The Hulks rule California as hillbilly slum lords.
There are dinosaurs roaming the U.S. for purely world-building aesthetic reasons.
At one point, Venom possesses a T-Rex and chases the heroes, which really has no bearing on anything but happens because it’s a comic book.
That’s actually my main annoyance with Old Man Logan—it’s just too comic book-y. There is great pathos here, which is as much Wolverine’s kit as adamantium claws, and a lot of nice character work. But it’s all undercut by the need to be gonzo.
Joe Abercrombie’s Red Country is a far superior take on the same premise, and not just because Logen Ninefingers is an analogue for Wolverine. (BTW, all of Joe’s novels are bangers. Highly recommend.)
The Wire: Season 2
I did it! Several months after starting season 2, I finally finished it.
I’ve been trying to articulate exactly why I found this season lackluster. Most of the characters return from season 1. Tonally it’s no different. The writing remains tight, the plot surprising, the characters flawed in all sorts of interesting ways.
Season 2 also added a bunch of new faces—the Greek mafia, who collectively evoke a kind of old-world respectability even as they commit the most heinous crimes; the Sobotka clan, blue collar dock workers skimming a little (or a lot, as it happens); a blind barkeep who’s part of the drug game (of course) but also acts as an advisor to Omar, despite the clear conflict of interest.
My favorite addition is Beadie Russell, played with a kind of wary innocence by Amy Ryans (who you might better know as Holly Flax from The Office). Beadie is a Transportation Authority officer who spends her days driving through thousands of stacked shipping containers, looking for broken customs seals. In other words: Hella boring.
She gets called up to the big leagues after bodies are discovered in one of the containers, and that begins a legit hero’s journey. We quickly learn that the thing holding her back wasn’t talent but opportunity. There’s a joy in seeing her surprise herself, that recognition that she can do this job, actually, and do it well. Other than Omar’s court appearance and the jail book club, my favorite moment from the entire season was Beadie’s small smirk of satisfaction after she successfully tailed one of the Greek honchos on foot, which sounds like no biggie but required some Jason Bourne shit.
Love Beadie. She can stay.
But my prevailing sense of this season is that all the new stuff watered down what I loved from season 1. Because it turns out that what I love most about The Wire is the street level stuff. The dealers, the users, the police. Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale, Bubbles, D’Angelo… they all return, but in much reduced capacities.
My understanding is each season tackles a different area of Baltimore. The Wire is going to get more crowded, not less. Which is fine. From the beginning, it was a show in which Baltimore is the main character, and she has many different facets. But as someone who loves urban-focused stories, I feel like I’m drifting from why I started watching in the first place.
I’ll keep watching. At this point, I love enough of the characters to want to see how it all plays out. I may just drag my feet on it a bit.
That’s it for this edition of the High 5. What are you digging at the moment? Drop a comment and let me know!
Unless you want to call the shrunken husk of Professor X an X-Men.
Love the thoughts on the X-movies and Days is also my favorite. But...
Wolverine only has an uncredited cameo in ‘Apocalypse’ too, and doesn’t show up at all in either ‘Dark Phoenix’ or ‘New Mutants’! The first two Deadpools don't count either.
Regarding the Wire S2... it has a weird reputation, because it mostly tackles a side story about the death of the working class. Personally, I love it, as I love the tragedy of Frank Sobotka, who in trying to save his own union wound up destroying it, and how it shows another facet of the city with its minute attention to detail. But if you really miss the streets, you'll love S3.
S4 was for me the series at its unequivocal best.
Agree with this “Anyone But You is a prolonged commercial that exists to show us how beautiful Powell and Syndey Sweeney are” But it’s still infinitely better than “Set it Up”
Zoey Deutch was the standout in that movie and it made me want to watch more of her but less of him! It’s ok. Since then I’ve loved Powell’s choices.