Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

A few weeks ago I watched the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. It had been in the back of my mind since not long after its 2001 debut. Back in 2002 a coworker told me he'd sat down to watch the first episode with his wife. They found it engrossing and wound up bingeing all 10 episodes in a single weekend.

I tried that with my spouse 20 years later. She got bored after the first 5 minutes and left. And while I didn't find it exactly engrossing at first I stuck with it, expecting great things. I binged the 10 episodes in 3 or 4 days over the New Year break.



Band of Brothers follows the men of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, of the US Army's legendary 101st Airborne Division, from their basic training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, in 1942 through their combat in Europe, to the war's conclusion in 1945. The series features a large ensemble cast. Not all of them appear in every episode. The narrative structure, though, centers around one person who rises through the ranks of the company, Richard Winters, played by Damian Lewis. The executive producers are Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Band of Brothers fits well within the genre of war movies. It hits several of the genre's common themes without seeming derivative. For example, there's the "Sadistic Drill Instructor" trope in the first episode. The episodes about the invasion of Europe beginning with D-Day show several subplots of "Men on a Mission". That combines with "War is Hell", as pretty much every victory comes at a price. The "War is Hell" theme reaches a climax during the Battle of the Bulge, . There are even a few examples of "Soldiers lose sight of the mission and serve themselves" in the final few episodes.

Two things set Band of Brothers apart from much of the rest of the genre of war movies. One, for all the other themes the miniseries checks in its 10 episodes, the overriding theme of the series is how the men band together like brothers. That's the show's name! Virtually all other war movies/series focus on the action or the morality play. This one has scoops of those but also the building of relationships, which makes it enjoyably different.

Two, this series is true. Okay, many classic war movies are true. They're true in the sense of portraying battles or campaigns that really happened. But Band of Brothers is also true at the level of the individual soldiers. While the screenplay is obviously dramatized it's rooted deeply in the actual experiences of the soldiers who were there. The characters are (almost, I think?) all real-life people. And every episodes starts or ends with interviews of some of those real-life people describing how they remember the action and how they felt being in it.

Update: Keep reading with my blog about Ep. 1, "Currahee".

A few weeks ago we watched "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story". It's available streaming for free on the Roku channel. How was it? Well, it was... just too weird. I hated it.

I know that's a strong statement. You might think, "Well, you just don't 'get' parody." (BTW, if you think that you have no clue about me.) Let me contextualize it.

I loved Weird Al's music since 1984, when "Eat It", his parody of Michael Jackson's hit "Beat It", came out. I heard it on the radio, and it was like a revelation to me. Music could be funny! And not just slapstick or bathroom humor funny, but poke-fun-at-things-that-people-hold-sacred funny. I.e., satire.

I told all my friends at school about it. At first nobody knew what it was. They all cracked up laughing when I repeated some of the lyrics, though. Soon more of us heard it on the radio— but not very often. I got bold and called a DJ to play it so my friends and family could all hear it.

I remained a fan of Weird Al's parodies for years. I bought a few of his albums. I eagerly watched the movie UHF (1989) as soon as I found out Yankovic wrote & starred in it. I think when I rented it on VHS I watched it 3 times in one weekend, then rented it again 9 months later.

Thus I was pretty primed to see "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." Perhaps because of the title (which I took literally) I expected it to be a biography. A funny biography, to be sure; and likely parodying the biopic genre, as parody is at the heart of what Weird Al does. And that's where my dislike for the movie spawned.

You see, Weird is not a biography. It starts out as a sort of parody/biography, taking satirical liberties with the truth— which is exactly what I was expecting— but then gradually becomes completely unmoored from reality. Pretty soon it's a Weird Al self glorification fest on LSD, and it's not amusing.

Among the run-on jokes I found tedious:

• Al's parents hate him, like sadistically hate him, and treat him as a failure even when he's objectively successful


• Al insists repeatedly that he wrote Eat It as an original song, not a work of parody, and Michael Jackson wrote a little-known parody based on it


• Madonna threw herself at Al, made him an alcoholic, and tried to turn him into a murderous drug cartel leader.

Let me reiterate: these gags were funny at first, but like too many jokes Saturday Night Live runs into the ground in their many bad seasons, they were made unfunny by excessive repetition.

As I sat through to the end of the movie I was reminded of what a writing teacher said to one of my classmates years ago about his absurdist comedy story written in the fashion of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "John," he said— I think his name was John— "Your story is like a hot air balloon with no ropes. It rises and it's beautiful. But it's not moored to the ground of reality. It starts floating away, further and further away from reality, until the audience can't make sense of it anymore."

"Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" is that untethered balloon floating farther and farther away.

What kind of a show do you call Chernobyl? The 2019 HBO miniseries isn't a documentary. It's not as... dry... nor does a narrator recite facts while a camera pans over photographs. Its Wikipedia page (external link) calls it a historical tragedy. That non-category includes too wide a variety to be meaningful. Chernobyl is not a costume drama. It's about something that really happened and it sticks relatively close to the facts. I think the best term is docudrama.

In the podcast made about episode 1 showrunner Craig Mazin talks about why he took the docu- part of that term seriously. He sees accuracy as a matter of respect for the people who died. And he noted that, stylistically, the first episode also matches another genre. Horror.

He's right. The first episode, 1:23:45, is very much like a horror film. There's a monster killing people. Worse, it's an invisible monster. But like in a horror movie, we know it's there even when (most of) the characters in the story don't. Worse than that, the monster kills its victims slowly. They absorb deadly doses without realizing it. They become dead men walking. Again, we know that before they do. We watch in suspense as people go around corners and open doors— and we're like, "Don't go there! The monster's there! It'll you!" But as is the trope in horror flicks, they do anyway. And the monster tags them for death.

The later episodes are different. The "monster" is still present but its dangers are better understood. But even a week later episode 1 haunts me. As it's quiet during the day at home, or quiet late at night, little creaks and groans around the house startle me. I know they're ordinary things like the thermostat switching the heater on, or pipes expanding with the heat. But every sound is creepy. My animal hind-brain asks, "What if something's going to blow up? What if the air we breathe is poisoned?"

In many ways knowing as much as I do makes it better. But in some ways knowing as much makes it worse.

Keep reading: Please Remain Calm

A few days ago we watched the movie Krull from 1983. It's streaming on HBO Max.

My motivation for watching Krull was an online review I read a week or two ago. The author noted that Krull was a box office and critical flop in its time and opined that failure was for three reasons that also make it a cult classic. One, the movie was a crossover fantasy/science fiction at a time when audiences were not ready for f/sf. Two, the movie is dark, and audiences didn't like movies that were dark. The smash hit f/sf movie in 1983 was Return of the Jedi, and what everyone liked best about it was the Ewoks. The annoyingly cute, so-bad-they-almost-ruined-the-plot Ewoks. Three, the movie's use of cliched tropes and over-the-top dramatics is actually a parody of the tropes and dramatics overused in swords-and-sorcery movies of the era.

Within a few minutes of starting the movie it was obvious why it was a commercial and critical flop. The movie has some redeeming qualities, but ultimately the storyline makes no sense. It's full of cliches and contradicts itself every 5 minutes.

To summarize the plot: Space aliens in a ship that looks like a rocky mountain spire land on the planet Krull. Their soldiers, called Slayers, easily decimate the sword-wielding people of Krull with laser blasters and shock-spears. They kidnap the princess and bring her back to their leader, The Beast, inside the mountain/ship. The prince, who narrowly survived the attack, assembles a raggedy band of followers and helpers to rescue her and destroy the aliens.

So, what are the redeeming qualities? Well, the movie was ambitious with its staging and special effects. Sitting here in 2022 it's easy to laugh at how primitive some of the 1983 vintage effects look, like the scene where the protagonists are navigating quicksand in the swamp. But for 1983 technology that was actually pretty ambitious. Indeed, that's part of why it was a commercial flop; they spent tens of millions (in 1983 dollars) on special effects, and the film didn't earn back its cost.

The other redeeming quality is the movie's imagination. Yes this is ultimately a good news/bad news thing. Imagining an f/sf crossover was thinking outside the box. The idea of aliens with blasters vs. swords-and-sorcery has so much potential. But the movie completely squanders that potential with a storyline that makes no sense. It's like it's a D&D adventure written by a 12 year old.

• The aliens killed almost everybody, what do we do? Oh, wait, there's a wise old man who says a magical weapon will stop them. But what does it do? Shh, you'll find out in time!


• We've got to find where the villains are hiding! Wise old guy says there's exactly ONE way to find out, it's this old seer. Oops, the seer failed his roll. Well, luckily there's exactly TWO ways to find out, the other's in this swamp. Oops, we were attacked there. Well, luckily there's exactly THREE ways to find out, the third is from this spider-queen, if she doesn't kill us all first...


• Oh, and the aliens, who flew across the galaxy in a space ship? Well, their whole ship teleports around the planet once a day. So why was the whole opening scene about it flying through space? Why not just teleport to the planet? Shhh, you're ruining it!


• That fancy weapon (5 bladed star) that it's in all the artwork does nothing until the climax, when it basically flies out of the hero's hand and then does everything while the protagonists stand back and watch. As a friend of mine quipped, mockingly, "I AM THE ALL WISE AND ALL POWERFUL. AND I HAVE NO LEGS. CARRY ME, MORTAL."

Krull does worse than simply not making sense. It tries to make sense, throwing details into plot and dialog every scene, only to contradict half those details 5 minutes later. It's like a D&D adventure written by six 12-year-olds, each one writing a different part of the adventure.

Several weeks ago I bought some US Savings Bonds. Yes, the tool my grandparents used for savings is still around! And it's still relevant, too.

Just how old-fashioned are savings bonds? Consider that in the movie Captain America the third act (using a Shakespearean 5-act model) is all about the title character hawking savings bonds in, like, 1943:



Yes, as I bought my bonds I hummed, "I'm the star-spangled man with a plan!" 🤣

What I bought, though, are Series I Savings Bonds, or I-Bonds for short. They're a newer creation, dating to only 1998, that work a bit differently than the classic savings bonds created back in 1935. Here are Five Things about I Bonds:

1) I Bonds pay a variable rate that is indexed to inflation. That's created renewed interest in the them as inflation spikes to high-single-digit rates not seen in 40 years.

2) The rate on I Bonds is set every 6 months, in May and November. Smart investors rush to buy them in late April and October, when they can still lock in the current rate for 6 months and can also estimate, based on published reports about inflation, what the rate for the next 6 months will be. For example, the rate in April was 7.12%. In May it jumped to to 9.62%. These are phenomenal, risk-free rates in the current investment market!

3) Once purchased, an I Bond cannot be redeemed for 12 months. There are some exceptions for specific hardship cases, but basically the money's locked up for 12 months. This makes it a tool that's not for everyone.

4) After 12 months an I Bond can be redeemed, but doing so forfeits the last 3 months of interest. At 5 years a bond can be redeemed anytime without penalty.

5) There's a limit of $10,000 per year, per individual, on buying I Bonds. That's a clue that there's something special there. Treasury bonds, for example, can be bought by the billions by institutions. They pay a way lower rate. There's a low limit on I Bonds because their high rate, at times of inflation like now, is the government doing a solid for middle class savers.

Last night we watched S1E6 of The Book of Boba Fett. The episode is entitled "From the Desert Comes a Stranger", but it might as well be entitled "The Mandalorian S3E2" or "Boba Fett Writes a Book About Somebody Else". In this episode, like in the previous, the title character basically doesn't appear. He's on screen for all of one scene, where he speaks, I think, two throwaway lines. Space Orc #2 has a bigger part in this episode than Fett.

Seriously, what's with this? This kind of situation, where a TV show nominally about one character (Boba Fett) gets taken over by stories about another character halfway through the season, usually indicates a major production problem. Like, the star had a bad motorcycle accident and couldn't film scenes for 3 months, or had a big fight with the director and walked off the set, or died. Yet the takeover storyline with Din Djarin of The Mandalorian is just so good that it doesn't seem plausible it's anything less than Plan A.

In this episode, which is effectively S3E2 of The Mandalorian, we see:
( Episode spoilers (tap to expand) )

And, of course, the titular character of this episode:



I practically LOLed when I saw this scene begin because it's such a trope of classic Western movies: the tall, thin stranger dressed in a long coat and broad brimmed hat, walks purposefully in from the empty desert. I swear I could practically hear the space-spurs clanking at his heels.

Such clearly Western tropes are another way in which season 1 of TBoBF is effectively becoming season 3 of The Mandalorian. Recall that Mando was basically a Space Western. It made extensive use of these tropes, particularly in early episodes. While it was fresh there it feels too derivative here. It feels like TBoBF was trying to become its own show but the writers gave up after 4 episodes.

Of course, with how the writers of this show were struggling for traction until they added Mando to the story, it might as well be called:



Update: Read how Episode 7 finishes a stumbling season with a crap-tastic *plop*. 😡

The past few weeks have been tough. With active Covid-19 infections at all-time highs and even our boosted vaccines not as effective against the now dominant Omicron strain as their 90+% shield against Alpha and Delta, we've cut back on even the modest social outings we were engaging in in November and early December. We've paused having friends over (fully vaccinated friends) and visiting friends' houses. We've almost entirely stopped dining indoors at restaurants. We mostly cook at home, and when we do go out a few times a week it's to sit outdoors— which depends on good enough weather— or take it home. For me, especially, with a work-from-home job, I feel closed in. There are many days I don't even leave home

As I was feeling bored— actually not just bored, more like at wits' end— a few days ago I stumbled across this gem from an old text conversation with a friend.



This totally describes January 2022... but it's from May 2020!

Sigh. The fact that I've been here before doesn't make it better. Part of what drives my frustration now is the fact that it's actually worse. It's worse because in May 2020, as much as we sacrificed, we also had hope. Hope that the Coronavirus might be over in a few months (it's wasn't). Hope that a vaccine would rescue us (it arrived sooner than expected!). Now we're over a year past the rollout of the vaccine, and it's like we've gone backwards to near Square 1. And it's all because of the stubborn, deeply misinformed 30% of the country who refuse to get vaccinated. Their personal "freedom" to foolishly put their health at risk also puts everyone else's health at risk. I'm not just bored but also angry because it didn't have to be like this.

Last night I watched The Many Saints of Newark. It's a 2021 feature-length film that's a prequel of sorts to the TV series The Sopranos that aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007.

One question many people ask is, "Will I enjoy the movie if I haven't seen the TV show?" Critics, by-and-large, answer in the affirmative. Their reviews argue that yes, it's a good movie even if you haven't seen the TV series, thought people who've seen the whole series will appreciate the movie more. Having watched most of the TV series now I'm going to disagree strongly with that characterization. The movie does not stand on its own. I consider it more of a fan service movie than a legit prequel.

Here are Five Things why:

1) The movie opens with a major Sopranos spoiler

The Many Saints of Newark opens with a voiceover than gives away a major plot point from the finale of The Sopranos. Fortunately this didn't hurt me. Even though I'm only about halfway through the last season— I couldn't wait until I'd finished it because yesterday was the last day the movie was available for streaming on HBO— I'd already had this plot point spoiled elsewhere. If you intend to watch The Sopranos later and don't want a series-finale spoiler, don't start with this movie!

2) The story begins in a strange place; no character development

One big reason this movie fails to stand on its own is that the plot sputters between different story lines. Nominally it's supposed to be about how young Tony Soprano grows under the mentorship of his uncle, Dickie Moltisanti— whose surname means Many Saints in Italian, an apparent reference from the title— to develop the skills that will eventually make him a crime boss years later. Tony's development turns out to be one of three stories the movie tells... and of those three it's the weakest.

The first scene in the movie showing the critical uncle-nephew relationship has Tony accompanying Dickie to meet Dickie's father upon his return from a trip to Italy. The elder Moltisanti arrives with a young second wife/fiancée from Italy. She is attractive and younger than the man's children. Dickie, who is married, is immediately infatuated with her. Dickie's competition with his own father and his romancing of his step-mom (eww) become one of the major storylines of the movie. In fact it's arguably the primary storyline as it's the only one with a clear beginning, middle, and end in the movie.

Interspersed between scenes of the love story are bits about Dickie being a gangster. He lies, steals, takes advantage of people, beats people, and murders people. He's not a sympathetic person at all. And through all of this he doesn't really grow. He doesn't become a better person at all, nor does he rise particularly much in the gang hierarchy. There's no character growth, for good or evil, there.

Meanwhile an impressionable young Tony Soprano is trying to tag along.... But why? we viewers are left wondering. There are parallels here to the character of Henry Hill in the classic gangster film Goodfellas— not the least of which is that Ray Liotta, who starred as Henry Hill, plays dual roles as Dickie's father and imprisoned twin uncle in this movie. Like Henry Hill, Tony Soprano  envies the respect and financial success the mobster enjoys.

In this story arc young Tony actually seems to turn away from organized crime. Oh, there are hilarious scenes where emulates gang crime at the kid level. He runs a low-stakes numbers game in school and mugs the ice cream man to take his ice cream truck for a joy ride. But then he recognizes that getting caught for serious crime means he won't get into college or be able to hold a legit professional job. As the movie reaches a climax he throws out a beloved gift from Dickie he knows was stolen. Given that this movie shows Tony repudiating crime, how is it a sequel for him becoming a crime lord?

3) Minor characters are entertaining... if you know them already

Another reason why I consider this movie a fan service is that many parts of it are vastly more enjoyable— and understandable— to people who've already seen The Sopranos. For those of us who know characters like Silvio Dante and Paulie Walnuts well, seeing the portrayal of their younger versions is a hoot.

Paulie is a simpering fop. In one scene he's painting his nails at a gang sit-down dinner. He can barely pass the peppermill across the table because his nail polish is drying. In another scene, he insists of switching positions during the beating of a rival gang member because he doesn't want to get blood on the fancy suit jacket he just bought.

In the portrayal of a young Silvio we see the definitive answer to a question many Sopranos fans have wondered about: is his magnificent pompadour hairstyle his real hair or a wig? Silvio circa 1970 looks like he's already 45 years old as his hair is thinning, badly. In the first half of the movie he wears it in an awful comb-over. By the later scenes his rich pompadour appears— and gets partly torn off (because it's a wig) during a scuffle.

4) Uncle Jun is (and always was) a pissant fool

Also in the vein of "minor characters that don't mean much unless you know them already" is another of Tony's uncles, "Uncle Jun'". His portrayal as a younger man here shows him to be a jealous idiot. I already wrote about how he's a proud fool in the season 1 wrap-up. This prequel movie portrays that he was always like that. He's a trifling person, isn't very smart, and perhaps most importantly for a person trying to rise up through the ranks of organized crime, doesn't have the respect of his peers. When Tony's father gets sent to prison, Junior haughtily tells the other soldiers, "While my brother's away everything goes through me." "What, you have diarrhea?" one quips. His peers all laugh.

5) A shocking reveal at the end!

While The Many Saints of Newark begins with a spoiler for the series it ends with a shocking revelation about an important plot point that happened in the middle of the series. In the penultimate scene ( movie spoiler )

The final scene shows a different explanation for why this event happened than is provided in the TV series. In a brief, coda-like scene, ( more spoilers )

Earlier today I blogged that The Sopranos has hit a slump in the middle of Season 4. Part of the reason I'm powering through it is I know it gets better (a benefit of watching it years after its original broadcast). The other part of it, and why I'm still semi-bingeing, usually watching 2 episodes at a time when I spend an evening watching TV, is I want to be able to watch The Many Saints of Newark soon.

Many Saints is, of course, the movie prequel to The Sopranos. While the movie is written so that it can stand on its own it's also written with a primary audience of Sopranos fans in mind. Reviewers have noted that to appreciate a lot of the references in the film you need to have watched the series. So why do I hurry? There's a ticking clock. Many Saints is only available on streaming through the end of October. After that I'll have to pay to see it in a theater— and risk Coronavirus exposure, too!— or wait for some kind of re-release.

Many Saints is also a play on words. One of the main characters in the series is Christopher Moltisanti, whose Italian surname means many saints. In the movie, young Tony Soprano is taken under the wing of Dickie Moltisanti, Christopher's father.

As an example of how watching the series first is relevant to understand the prequel, in the opening episode of season 4 there was a major plot point revealed about Dickie Moltisanti. He was killed when Christopher was a baby, and in that episode Tony tells Christopher who the killer was. That scene and the next have two of the most cold-blooded lines of dialogue exchanged.

( Spoiler: Tony reveals to Christopher who killed his father )

The second cold-blooded exchange of lines comes when Christopher visits the killer at Tony's behest.

( Spoiler: Christopher avenges his father's death )

Update: I don't know if Dickie Moltisanti's murder is part of the storyline in Many Saints and I don't want to know. No movie spoilers!

Today actor William Shatner, best know for playing the iconic Captain Kirk in the ground-breaking Star Trek TV series (1966-1969) and 7 subsequent Star Trek movies, travels into space for real. He is a passenger aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard space craft. Traveling alongside him are two paying passengers. Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, has long been a fan of Star Trek and comped Shatner the ride.

The rocket will travel about 62 miles above the surface of the earth, reaching the Kármán Line, broadly agreed to be the boundary between the upper atmosphere and space. At age 90 Shatner will be the oldest person to have flow to space.