Category: Friendships

My series New Year; New Types of Friends now moves to examples of friendships in television starting with the quintessential pairing of two opposite personalities in The Odd Couple: Oscar Madison and Felix Unger. These roommates show how opposites can form a friendship that is greater than the sum of its parts. In this case, each gives the other something he lacks. They watch out for one another. Their friendship shows that having a male friend who is different than you, may actually make you a better man.  About The Odd Couple The Odd Couple started as a Broadway play by Neil Simon about two mismatched roommates: the near-OCD, uptight Felix Unger, and the slovenly, easygoing Oscar Madison. The 1965 play originally starred Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Art Carney as Felix Ungar. The characters were revived in a successful 1968 movie starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon as two divorced men

This summer’s blockbuster movie, Top Gun: Maverick shows why every man needs a wingman and a mentor, even if you don’t fly a Navy fighter plane!  As I wrote in the Introduction for this series New Year; New Types of Friends, every man needs several different types of friends in his “inner circle.” These include a Mentor, a Wingman/Bachelor, a Handyman, a Fitness Buff, a Work Pal, and my personal addition: the GodBuddy.  The long-awaited sequel to the 1986 original Top Gun, finds Tom Cruise reprising his role as ace fighter pilot, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Still haunted by the death of his best friend, co-pilot Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw, Maverick carries around the events of his past and survivor’s guilt. But a request by his former nemesis-turned-friend, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (played by Val Kilmer) reinvigorates Maverick. Read on to find out how a wingman and mentor apply to a GodBuddy friendship.

My series, New Year; New Types of Friends continues with examples of friendships in the movies. In my last post, I wrote about having friends who loved to have fun, like the two buddies in Wayne’s World. This next example of the types of friends every man needs also comes from a Saturday Night Live skit that turned into a popular movie. The Blues Brothers were “on a mission from God” which is a great metaphor for how godly men – what I call GodBuddies, live their lives. Additionally, the real-life relationship between the movie’s two main actors shows us another important characteristic of great friendships: carrying on your friend’s legacy. About The Blues Brothers  The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical comedy directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as “Joliet” Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his blood brother, Elwood. The film, based on the screenplay written by Aykroyd and Landis, is set in