My Favorite Things This Week #82
The Friday High 5: A different kind of hope, coming in hot, and late trumping never
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. 🙏🏻Much of the world is currently enamored with the Olympics. I’m sitting this one out, but have heard tell of many interesting things.
You may be thinking: “Eric, what are you doing that’s more important than watching people you’ve never heard of and will as soon forget compete in activities that only casually resemble sports?”
I watched Star Wars.
I’m not even joking!
I didn’t exclusively watch Star Wars. This column exists in part to share the things my eyes feasted on in the past 7 sleeps. It just so happens that Star Wars is on that list.
I only watched one Star Wars. The one that can rightfully be called ‘Star Wars,’ without any colons or clarifying subtitles. The one some people older than me stubbornly refuse to call anything but ‘Star Wars,’ as a way of signaling their allegiance to minimalism, or honoring the auteur George Lucas used to be, or maybe to show they were there first, before any of us really understood what ‘Star Wars’ even meant.
BTW, I’m referring to Episode IV: A New Hope, in case you’re lost.
I rewatched it this week in preparation for next week’s podcast. Good movie. More on that in the pod.
I’m fascinated by the years immediately before and after A New Hope, in which George was sorting out for himself what Star Wars was. The Star Wars of A New Hope feels so endlessly large and full of promise. But subsequent films—every subsequent film—have only made the universe smaller and smaller, which can be traced back to a decision made between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
To go from this:
Ben Kenobi: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.
To this:
Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough! He told me *you* killed him!
Darth Vader: No. *I* am your father.
This pivot made Star Wars a familial saga. Suddenly everything had to do with Skywalkers, otherwise it wasn’t worth filming.
It’s hard to feel bad about the retcon. It gave us The Empire Strikes Back and one of the most shocking moments in cinema history. But fresh off a viewing of A New Hope, a film in which Vader’s first name is Darth and he’s little more than Tarkin’s lackey, I can’t help but feel like something was lost in the decision to make Star Wars mean Skywalkers.
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Vince Vaughn on Hot Ones
I’ve talked about Hot Ones in this space before. In summary: It’s my favorite interview show.
I’m also a huge Vince Vaughn fan. He’s on my list of my-guys (actors I’ll follow anywhere). Somehow I’d never realized Vaughn hadn’t done Hot Ones, until this piping hot serving was suggested by YouTube’s helpful algorithm.
There have been a ton of really great episodes of Hot Ones; a partial list of my favorites includes Paul Rudd, Jon Bernthal, David Harbour, and Dave Grohl. But Vaughn’s episode is my new favorite.
I think what I like best is it confirms my sense that Vaughn would be a great hang. Like the best, most fun hang. The fact that he also plays D&D is just a cherry on the sundae.
Are you a fan of the show? Drop your favorite episode in the comments and I’ll check it out. Pinky swear!
The Wire: Season 2
Season 2 has been a slow burn. It didn’t grab me right away, which was kinda surprising. Maybe I was just tired of seeing Ziggy’s fricking penis.
And then all at once it got super interesting!
I think I’m about 7 episodes in and it’s reached the tipping point where it feels like we’re going downhill, all gas and no brakes. It’s propulsive. I gotta see what happens next.
Omar’s appearance in court is my new-favorite Omar moment. When he puts the lawyer on blast… it was a thing of beauty.
I said in the Season 1 pod that D’Angelo was probably my favorite character. The scene of him breaking down The Great Gatsby in the prison book club is an all-timer. And now I’m bereft.
The dock workers and the Greeks still aren’t nearly as interesting as Stringer, Avon, and crew, but I want to see the story play out. It seems so obvious that Ziggy is going to end up in a bad way—maybe dead, with his wang shoved into his mouth—that I have to think that’s not going to happen, because The Wire doesn’t do obvious.
Receiver on Netflix
I’m of two minds about Receiver, a sports documentary / reality show that followed certain players—in this case, wide receivers—during the previous season.
More football is always good in my book, and I especially enjoy any voyeuristic peeks behind the proverbial curtain. But watching Receiver, I can’t help but compare it to HBO’s phenomenal Hard Knocks, which is deeply unfair.
Let me put it in terms maybe only I will understand.
Hard Knocks is like the original Star Wars trilogy. Revolutionary, masterfully-constructed, timeless. HBO makes it basically impossible to watch old seasons—guessing it’s an NFL licensing issue—but I totally would, if I could.
Receiver—and Quarterback, its predecessor—is like the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Fun, sometimes surprising, but ultimately derivative. Receiver even includes a scene taken directly from Hard Knocks. I’m not even joking.
I’ll probably keep watching. Sometimes good-not-great is enough.
I do wonder if next year we’ll get Running Back, or perhaps Linebacker. Maybe with enough seasons we’ll see Long Snapper, Towel Boy, or Guy Who Rubs Bengay On Aching Millionaire Muscles.
Keeping with the Hot Ones theme—to promote Receiver, NFL players Amon-Ra St. Brown and Davonte Adams filmed a spin-off called Hot One Versus that I enjoyed.
Deadpool 2
I borrowed Deadpool 2 from my brother two years ago because I’d never seen it. As of last week I still hadn’t seen it (sorry bro). I have finally righted this wrong now that Deadpool 3 is in theaters.
I can’t explain exactly why I put this movie off. I enjoyed the first one quite a lot. I like the MCU. I enjoy a good dick joke.
I guess I’m not a huge fan of Deadpool’s schtick, specifically the 4th-wall breaking bit where he talks directly to the audience. I also find his general “look at me” vibe tiresome. Which is why I kept putting this off. But it’s quite good, actually. And hilarious. Fully recommend if you too have been sitting on a copy you borrowed from your brother.
I did have a hard time getting over the fact that Belsnickel from The Christmas Chronicles is the film’s MacGuffin / antagonist. He’s just goofy. Maybe that was the point? But if they were going to cast a former Belsnickel, there was a far better option.
That’s it for this edition of the High 5. What are you digging at the moment? Drop a comment and let me know!
I'll need to check Vince on Hot Ones; My favorite one was Conan's earlier in the year. It was unhinged and chaotic.
“Darth” as a first name is low key one of my favorite parts of episode 4.