The Friday High Five
Stuff I'm into, for March 10, 2023
This week’s High Five comes from the 1990 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was a big Ninja Turtle fan—Raphael was my guy—and loved this movie to bits. I haven’t seen it in probably 30 years so I can’t really vouch for it being a quality movie. It’s certainly better than something like Street Fighter. Maybe on par with the original Mortal Kombat? It has the same B-movie vibe anyway. Anyone who’s watched this movie more recently than me—pipe up in the comments and let me know if it’s trashy-good or just trash.
I just learned Corey Feldman—star of Gen X favs like Stand By Me, The Goonies, and The Lost Boys—plays Donatello in the movie. He’s just providing the voice, but still. Mind a little blown over here. Furthermore, Feldman reprised the role for TMNT III, but not TMNT II because he was in drug-related trouble at the time. And I’m just sitting here thinking: They made three of these movies?!
Have a great weekend! High Five!
In this edition:
Cobra Kai 🥋
Joe Manganiello’s Celebrity Dungeons & Dragons Game 🤩
Michael Scott in Mass Effect 🤣
The ‘Silo’ Trailer 😲
Point Break 🤙🏻
Cobra Kai
I am watching 3 shows at the moment: The Last of Us, Shrinking, and The Mandalorian. All of these release on a weekly cadence and I have therefore reached the regrettable phase known as being Caught Up. Which is why I was browsing Netflix recently for something to watch. I rediscovered Cobra Kai and realized there’s been two additional seasons since I finished season 3.
Let’s be honest—Cobra Kai is not good TV. It’s hokey and cheesy and very melodramatic. But something about seeing Johnny Lawrence again just makes me so happy. I actually prefer the early seasons, when it focused almost exclusively on Johnny. Why does Daniel LaRusso need to be on this show at all?
Joe Manganiello’s Celebrity D&D Game
Most of you probably know Joe Manganiello from Magic Mike or True Blood, or maybe because he’s Mr. Sofía Vergara. But while he is all of that, to me he is the most famous celebrity fan of Dungeons & Dragons. (He’s also included in this article I wrote on the 10 best celebrity D&D players.)
I have been low-key obsessed with Joe’s D&D game for years. When I was growing up, D&D was something you did in private, mostly because the only people that played were nerds and it was painfully disadvantageous to out yourself as such a person. That has all changed, thanks to stuff like Stranger Things and Critical Role. Joe is an unabashed fan and ambassador of D&D. He runs a weekly D&D game that includes a bunch of recognizable Hollywood names.
I want to be Joe Manganiello when I grow up.
Here’s a handful of my favorite YouTube videos that shed light on his game. Warning: Consuming the videos may inflict you with a burning desire to play D&D.
This is short video shows how his crew came together, and includes people like Vince Vaughn and the Big Show talking about the game.
This video visits Joe’s game space—I have so much nerd envy—and includes Joe’s thoughtful insight into why this game matters so much.
This video shows Joe’s $40,000 custom table being built and delivered to his new game space. It’s a long video but I watched the entire thing.
And if you are curious for Sofia’s take on all this… she doesn’t get it. LOL
Michael Scott in Mass Effect
I hope you are sitting down, because I discovered the single greatest achievement in history.
Mass Effect is a space opera RPG video game. The games are really great. But putting Michael Scott into the cutscenes while he narrates is chef’s kiss perfection.
A second video released just today and it sent me. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve never played the games. This is really ingenious.
I didn’t set out to include so many YouTube clips this time around. It really do be like that sometimes.
The ‘Silo’ Trailer
I devoured Hugh Howey’s Silo series years ago but somehow slept on the fact that Apple TV is making a series out of it and it starts streaming in May!
Silo is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about people living in subterranean silos hundreds of years after nuclear armageddon destroys the world. To say any more would ruin the surprise.
I gotta say—Apple TV has been knocking it out of the park with its programming. Apparently paying talented people is a good business practice. Who knew?
Point Break
Yes, again. It feels like all I do any more is talk about Point Break. The movie is good, but it’s not that good. It’s not Star Wars, or something.
In fact, I’m increasingly of the opinion—after watching it 3 times—that Point Break is a good bad movie. It’s terribly cliched and tropey, and expects the audience to blindly follow some huge leaps in logic, but you go along with it because the movie is just so damn fun.
Case in point: After Johnny spends 2 weeks undercover, he becomes so indoctrinated to the whole surfer vibe that he brings his giant pink surfboard to a meeting with his FBI supervisor. LOL what?! Why is he carrying this thing around? Is he a method actor or something? The Daniel Day-Lewis of undercover work? It just makes no damn sense.
These thoughts are a byproduct of spending pretty much all my free time hanging out with surfer bank robbers for the past month. I’m in the early stages of writing and am still sorting out exactly what to write, and how to frame everything. There’s a ton of work to do. In other words, probably expect to see a bit more Point Break from me before it’s all said and done.
What are you into at the moment? Leave a comment and let me know!
If you enjoyed this, please like it and share it with someone. It’s the best way to show your appreciation and it would mean a lot to me. :)
Very happy to see that Silo made the cut! I hope it’s as good as it looks, and (unpopular opinion) that it differs enough from the books that it’s not entirely predictable for me, someone who has read the series at least twice and maybe three times.
Also. Cobra Kai. This one is train-wreck good for me at this point, and I completely agree with you about Daniel vs Johnny even though the first episode just had me rolling my eyes at what an insufferable dick Johnny was.
Here are some of my unsolicited opinions about Cobra Kai:
William Zabka is a better actor than Ralph Macchio, but the kids are better than the adults across the board. Xolo Maridueña, in particular, aside from having the most amazing name on the planet, has the best teenage boy pout I’ve ever seen, and I used to look at pouty teenage boy faces for a living.
The show pogo-bounces back and forth over the shark multiple times per season, but if you can suspend your disbelief and be ok saying “Oh, come on,” at least once an episode, it’s entertaining enough to watch.
I won’t spoil anything, but there are a couple of characters that I just really don’t like, but they’re the ones you’re not supposed to like, so I guess - good casting and directing? 😂
"What are you into at the moment? "
Watching: The Wire- and only 20 years behind everyone else! I think we're almost done w/Season 3? Some seriously good writing/character arcs. All those people that used to rave about the show? The mees about chess? I get it now.
Listening: Graham Parker & The Rumour's "Stick It to Me" record. It was in the cutout bin. That should be a felony.
Reading: "That'll Be the Day" by S.W. Lauden. You might recognize him from Medium. He's got a Substack now, too. It's called "Remember the Lightning."
He's releasing a chapter of "that'll be the Day" each week, and I thought it'd be fun to just read them as they came out- a nice antidote to bingeing everything else.
I made it 7 weeks before just buying it. It's fun, light reading (said as praise).
P.S. Zabka has a reputation of being a genuinely nice guy. After seeing him spend the 80s as the guy we loved to hate in movies, I can't wrap my head around it.