The Friday High Five

Time travel done right, done wrong, and other time-related epiphanies

Hulu

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. 🙏🏻

My Favorite Thing

11.22.63

I read 11.22.63 years ago (Goodreads tells me it was in 2016) and I absolutely loved it. I used to be a big Stephen King fan, mostly on the strength of The Stand, Salem’s Lot, and the Dark Tower series. I drifted away at some point, though I still greet the news of a new book with great interest.

Here’s what I said about the book in 2016:

As per usual, King is a master of characterization and making the implausible not only possible but believable. The Kennedy assassination takes center stage here but it isn't truly what the book is about. It's a wonderful study of life in simpler, gentler times. But not necessarily better times.

King traditionally writes weak endings, but he bucks tradition here. The ending is both inevitable, surprising, and powerful, the kind that sticks with you, haunting your waking thoughts. Highly recommended.

I was excited when I heard Hulu was creating a series about the book, but then I forgot all about it. That’s the problem with this era of peak streaming—there’s just too much to keep up with everything. I happened to notice 11.22.63 is going off Hulu in the next week—I don’t know why, or where it’s going—and realized it was now or never.

Man, this show is great! At this point, my memories of the book are vague, so I’m just able to enjoy the adaptation for what it is. And that is: propulsive, intriguing, heartrending.

If you have Hulu and haven’t yet seen 11.22.63, I highly recommend it.

Other Things I Enjoyed

Queenpins

Probably just me, but I get ‘Bridesmaids’ vibes from this photo. STXfilms

This one popped up on Netflix a few weeks ago. It’s loosely based on a true story and it’s also hilarious. Queenpins is about a couple of extreme couponers who realize the best coupon is actually fraud, and become filthy rich thereby.

Kristen Bell is the star of the proceedings. I don’t think I’ve ever not liked her in something. She’s just reliably great. Kirby Howell-Baptiste plays her literal partner in crime. I haven’t seen any of her other projects—one day, The Sandman, one day—but she’s an absolute delight in Queenpins. Vince Vaughn plays a Postal Service detective because of course he does. The guy who plays Stingray in Cobra Kai is also in this movie—the actor obviously has a name, but Stingray probably means more to you than Paul Walter Hauser—and he totally steals the show.

Word to the wise: Don’t bother googling the fate of the characters. Just don’t. It’s not awful or anything, just vaguely disappointing. Go with the ending the movie gives us.

Fight Club

I know there are a lot of people who adore Fight Club, I guess either because they’re a fan of Gen X nihilism or Brad Pitt’s abs. I fall into neither camp, and thus, think the movie is just okay. Frankly, watching it with 2024 eyes is a little too real. What seemed crazy in 1999 has more or less happened and continues to happen. The world is full of Tyler Durdens and the people who will unquestionably follow them.

I do like the statements the movie makes about consumerism (more on that in a minute). “The things you own end up owning you,” sounded revolutionary the first time I heard it and it has become even more true the older I’ve gotten (which, coincidentally, has also meant owning more stuff). I cannot deny a voyeuristic thrill in watching Edward Norton untangle himself from the rules that define modern life and just sort of blaze his own trail. Even if he’s certifiable.

I watched Fight Club for a piece I’m working on, perhaps coming to All the Fanfare next week.

Vagabonding

Vagabonding is when you basically jettison everything and travel indefinitely, or at least until the money runs out. Such a prospect holds zero appeal to me because a) I like having a house that I live in, as you do; and, b) I hate the travel part of traveling, and vagabonding is endless amounts of that.

Whoever coined the saying, “it’s the journey, not the destination,” clearly has never been stranded in an airport for 12 hours. I don’t even like road trips. My butt is built for speed, not comfort.

Vagabonding: The Book, is ostensibly about how to obtain a lifestyle I have zero interest in. But it’s also about the perils of consumption for its own sake, and just generally being mindful of how and where you spend your money, and thus, your life. It’s about learning to become time-rich. And I very much groove to that beat.¹

Superman: The Movie

We threw this on last week to watch with my son, who recently turned 20. I don’t know exactly why or how I let him get out of childhood without watching the original Superman movies. Meanwhile, he had his first Star Wars action figures when he was 3, and probably watched A New Hope about the same time.

I enjoyed rewatching Superman, but it’s also kind of rough? It starts with a long, rather cheesy sequence on Krypton I can only assume was a rider on Marlon Brando’s contract, because nothing happening here is worth the runtime. He waltzes around in tinfoil PJs, chewing scenery that looks suspiciously like styrofoam, and delivering his dialogue as though this is a Broadway performance of Hamlet and not a movie where the central conceit involves a guy wearing his underwear outside of his pants.

Mercifully, after like 20 minutes, Krypton finally explodes. General Zod and his cronies get sent to the Phantom Zone in the opening minutes and let me tell you—they got off easy.

From there, the movie picks up but never really takes off. The best part is the John Williams soundtrack, which remains timeless. Also, Christopher Reeve is a legit actor.

Even though I knew it was coming, I giggled when little Superman climbs out of his crashed interstellar crib, nude as the day he was born. Yep, that’s a winky.²

It’s funny. I have all these memories of the Superman movies, but as I was watching I realized 99% of those are from Superman II. That’s the good one, in my opinion. This one was just okay. I actually prefer superhero movies where the conflict is resolved without two guys in tights punching each other, but watching Christopher Reeve try to defeat an earthquake wasn’t the most exciting.

It’s also crazy that the only consequences are quickly Uno Reversed. If you establish in your first movie that the hero can time travel—by flying really fast around the earth until it starts spinning backwards, which makes no sense but whatever—then how can you ever again maintain any tension whatsoever?

Anyway, that John Williams guy is freaking amazing.³ You know what? Instead of rewatching the film, enjoy this clip of the highlights backed by the legendary theme. Everything worth seeing is here.

1. True story: Whenever my wife and I are presented with a decision involving money, my answer invariably is ‘your time or your money.’ As in: I want to do whatever saves me time, and I care less about the money side of the equation. But that argument isn’t actually valid, because your money IS your time. So I guess you’re screwed either way.

2. My wife had somehow never seen Superman and was a bit scandalized by the sight of his itty-bitty weenie. It is shocking, if you don’t know it’s coming. It reminded me of the Nirvana album cover, which I heard the now-grown kid is suing over. (Whether it’s over money or consent, I like to think the guy just wants to get an official statement on the record: “It’s much bigger now, your honor.”)

It’s interesting re-seeing what was once considered normal even in my own lifetime.

3. I share a birthday with John Williams. That probably means nothing to anyone, but let me tell you something, brother—it matters to me. He scored my childhood and he’s more responsible for Star Wars’ success than George Lucas.