The Friday High 5
Crushing sadness, boys will be boys, and offensive yet funny stereotypes
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. 🙏🏻I’ve got like 8 million things going on right now. Not really, but it sure feels that way.
We are preparing to send our eldest off to college and I’m not handling it well at all. I started writing about it to process and also because sometimes writing is a form of exorcism. But it’s also too fresh, so I’m having a hard time articulating. It’s mostly just localized despair and generalized ennui.
Which is why my piece on the surprise cancelation of The Acolyte is currently a mess of verbs and run-on sentences. I’ve been working on a ranking of all the live-action Star Wars things for about 3 weeks, and although it will be a substantial read, it’s not that many words to require such a time investment; I’m not writing a book here. Even writing this High 5 felt uncomfortably dry.
The biggest excitement for me this week was preparing for this weekend’s Fantasy Football draft. This is our 20th year, and 10 of the 12 players have been in it since the beginning. We were in our early 20s when this thing started. When we get together, it feels like we can faintly touch that time in our lives again.
Typically I drive down Friday morning for 18-holes of golf with my brother and 1-2 other league mates. More golf on Saturday, lots of trash-talking, and then the main event around 7 PM. But this year I’m just going for the draft. Which is sad, but the alternative is worse.
Tonight is my son’s last night at home. I just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving while he’s still here. It’s gonna be hard enough coming home to his empty bedroom Sunday.
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Top Gun
I covered Top Gun somewhat at length in this week’s pod—even for a short episode, I talked about the movie for 30 minutes—but I still have a few things to say.
Val Kilmer
Iceman is one of the great antagonists in 80s movies, an era which is basically ground zero for cinema bullies. What sets Iceman apart is that he’s not actually a bad guy at all. He’s the responsible one, the one who calls bullshit on Maverick’s whole deal. It’s only because Maverick is the protagonist—but definitely not a hero—that Iceman gets villainous shade thrown his way. But there’s a huge difference between him and someone like Johnny Lawrence or Biff Tannen.
One of the interesting things rewatching this as an adult is realizing how right Iceman is. Maverick is dangerous. He shouldn’t be within a mile of a fighter jet, yet here we are.
As an actor, Val Kilmer makes some interesting choices in this movie that I can’t explain, and also can’t get over, which adds something indescribable to the film.
There’s the decision to deter Maverick’s gaze with a show of penmanship.
There’s the aggressive chomp flex.
And perhaps most baffling of all, the sharp inhale when expressing his condolences.
Val was in the zone on this movie.
The other pilots
I’ve always been a fan of Hollywood and Wolfman. They don’t get much screen time and don’t really impact the story in any meaningful way. I just find them delightful. They’re happy settling for 3rd place while Iceman and Maverick jockey for the top spot.
It might surprise you to learn this, but I am not an alpha male. Not a top dog, or top gun, for that matter. I can’t identify with Maverick or Iceman. But Hollywood and Wolfman? Two guys laughing at their own failure? Them I understand.
Bromantic or gay?
I’m working through some thoughts about the divide between the movie’s much-vaunted homoerotic elements, and guys being dudes while glistening in their underwear. My half-formed argument has to do with masculinity, toxic or otherwise, as it relates to the competition and affection between the men in this movie. I don’t read it as gay, even if the camera lingers and the shots are gratuitous. Though movies in which men are overly chummy are sometimes interpreted through a queer lens.
However. I think this movie is kinda gay?
Apart from the volleyball scene and all the sweaty eye candy, there’s a “come again?” scene at the beginning of the movie I always forget. Goose bets Maverick that he can’t have sex with someone at the bar, and feels it necessary to clarify that the sex needs to be with a woman this time, to which Maverick smiles in a knowing and reminiscent fashion.
Is this why Maverick kisses Charlie like kissing a woman is a completely new experience? For that matter: Are we to read anything into the love interest having a man’s name?
Apropos of nothing, I was today-years-old when I realized the line in Take My Breath Away isn’t, “watching every motion in this foolish love is gay.” Take from that what you will.
A Trip to the Library
I’ve shared my library trips previously in this space. I think seeing what people are reading is always enlightening. A person’s interests are a reliably good way of learning about them.
Per usual, I entered the stacks with no objective and just wandered until I found 5 or 6 books. I never made it out of the nonfiction section. I think there’s an obvious theme to these selections, though I picked each solely because they looked interesting.
The theme, if I had to summarize it: Becoming better at what I’m already doing.
Gran Torino
My son picked this one for movie night. I tried to talk him out of it. I remembered the movie as a somewhat heavy drama, and I was hoping for something decidedly lighter. But the choice had been made and the die cast.
I totally forgot that this movie is quite funny. Yes, 90% of the humor comes from the utterly crass and unrelentingly racist comments Clint Eastwood makes. If he’d had any fucks to give, he’s been out since the 1970s.
It always feels a bit weird laughing at something like this. In real life, an elderly white man calling his neighbors vile nicknames wouldn’t be funny at all. And even though the movie clearly wants you to laugh, it still feels wrong to do so. It reminds me a bit of the humor in Kim’s Convenience; when are stereotypes funny and when are they just offensive?
The Karate Kid (1984)
I started watching this for a possible pod and article, in light of its 40th (!) anniversary this year.
I love this movie. It, along with The Goonies and Back to the Future, are the quintessential 80s movies. The ones that are indelibly part of the decade.
There are lots of things I want to say about this movie, but I’m gonna save it for the pod. I’ll just offer a handful of quick observations:
The tournament montage is the greatest in sports movie history.
Mr. Miyagi is very reminiscent of Yoda.
Elisabeth Shue is way too hot to be slumming with Ralph Macchio.
Johnny Lawrence is the best high school bully.
The circumstances of Mrs. Laruso’s move to California are highly sus.
What is Lamar from Lambda Lambda Lambda doing fighting for Cobra Kai???
“Cruel Summer” by Bananarama is an absolute banger.
That’s it for this edition of the High 5. What are you digging at the moment? Drop a comment and let me know!
1) My full thoughts on Top Gun are well-documented elsewhere, but I still think the gay subtext thing is not intentional. Not that one can't read that into it, of course.
2) The Karate Kid is great fun, and Cruel Summer by Bananarama is one of my all-time favourite pop records.
3) I'm a big fan of Gran Torino. A great tale of tough love mentoring. The racism stuff is funny because it's absurd, not because the film endorses racism. But that's a nuance some people today either can't see or refuse to see. I also think the film makes a clear point of showing Clint Eastwood come to respect his neighbours and overcome prejudice in a realistic and plausible way (albeit still within the character's leopard-can't-change-his-spots grumpiness). Plus (spoiler alert) the Christlike sacrificial metaphor late in the film is actually quite moving, I think.
Howdy, any chance you have a transcript of your pods? Gen-xer who doesn't like listening to people talk. Thanks