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shadowkatIn my quest to find something to watch today, I flitted through various Netflix shows, fell asleep during one (The Crown) and ended up becoming riveted by another (MA Rainey's Black Bottom) - both about real people.
I also reviewed a list of 50 to 100 Netflix series rec'd by internet critics, only to realize I'd tried or watched 90% of them already, and most of them hadn't made it past the first, second or fourth seasons. Some I actually made it to the fifth, sixth or tenth season - but they were also on an ungodly length of time. In short, I think I watched a portion of most of them - and remain uncertain, if I picked them up again - where to start. (The was my difficulty with both the Magicians and Chronicles of Shanara - the Magicians - I'd seen the first season, except for the last ten minutes of the last episode of the last season. Chronicles of Shanara - I'd seen the first season. Both of which about five years ago.)
Perhaps I should just leap-frog over to HBO? Can't quite figure out how to access HBO Max, although Amazon assures me that I have access to it - along with my HBO subscription.
In case you haven't figured it out via the above? I spent most of today watching television, napping, snacking, and not doing altogether much.
Which is okay - considering I've two weeks of vacation or rather staycation in my apartment and nieghborhood to fitter about with.
Yawn.
The prospect makes me tired.
I fell asleep during the first episode of The Crown S5? Or whatever the current season is - I think it's five, it may be six? I informed my mother via the phone (there really is no other way to inform her) of this.
She wasn't surprised. She said it was not the best of seasons, rather slow, and neither actor portraying Charles nor Diana worked. Nor does Gillian Anderson's Thatcher - who feels a bit like a caricature. I'd been told she was rather good in the part - but I found her take on the character annoyingly mannered, difficult to understand, and somewhat jarring. Like watching a marionette. Also, it was hard to care about any of the characters - hence the dozing.
To be fair - to the writers - this season is bound to be difficult, considering a good portion of the audience are a wee bit familiar with the events and characters from actual news reels, and other films. Armstrong has to fight Meryl Streep's take on Thatcher. And Olivia Coleman has to fight Helen Mirren's on the Queen. (And let's face it - Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep were both brilliant and won academy awards for their achievements.) Plus we have the real life Diana and Charles still clear in our heads.
At any rate from the first episode (which put me to sleep), I can sort of see why the Brits were upset by it. It may not help, that I am not a fan of Thatcher. (Kind of despised her - she set my teeth on edge. Britain's version of the Regans or Nancy and Ronald combined, and I despised the Regans.) I also remember Thatcher - better than the other British Primes. The only one who didn't set my teeth on edge was Tony Blair (I wasn't alive during Churchill). I visited Britain during Thatcher's reign. I had a friend who loved Thatcher and Regan, she was a boilerplate conservative with dual citizenship, from wealthy parents, and like most conservatives - not overly empathetic. More than a little homeophobic. And more than a tad narcissistic. Lucy was pretty much all about Lucy, and didn't see much else. She was fun, and kind to me for the most part. We used to debate politics. At one point, she drug me to a Regan rally - and afterwards bemoaned that while she watched Regan appear with tears in her eyes, I was eyeing the protestors and wondering if I should join them. I'd been surprised she noticed - I was trying to be circumspect about it.
I toured the British Museum with her in the space of two-three hours, if that. She had to yank me away from an original version of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice. (I could have spent the entire day in the manuscript rooms). Some day - I'll have to go back to London, and do the British Museum properly.
Later, the next year actually, I went again and spent a lot of time debating politics with a bunch of Labor Party leaning Welsh in a pub in the Gawain Valley, just south of St. David's Head. They thought me wishy-washy, since I didn't seem to have a party allegiance. Oh I did - but US politics and British politics are kind of night and day. I was explaining to my niece over the phone a while back - how the Brits vote for party platforms, and the Americans vote for candidates. In some respects I prefer the British method, it makes more sense. But I know it wouldn't work over here - its not how Americans think. Also, the President is about the closest Americans can come to a royal family - except we place a term limit, and can fire them after four years. I figured out how different the two systems politics were back in 1987 and 1988, when I visited and got into political debates with the British. (I like talking to people with cultural views that are alien to my own or different - I find it interesting. I seek them out. I think it's why Lucy and I got along - I found her point of view interesting and I was attempting to understand it. Also I hailed from conservative Kansas, and before that conservative Pennsylvania - all of my friends and their families were conservative or Republican, while mine was liberal. My friends' when I was a kid supported Gerald Ford and Nixon, my family supported Carter. )
But that was then, this is now. I no longer have the tolerance for the conservative mindset that I did back then - mainly because I think the conservatives around the world have gone bat-shit crazy or rabid. I kind of miss the 1980s, with Thatcher and Regan, Boris and Trump make both look rather decent by comparison.
The show that did not put me to sleep and I heartily recommend is Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - although it is rough going. It's adapted from an August Wilson play - and it is not a pleasant story. But it is riveting at times - and there was a moment that surprised me - and I saw coming, worried about, but was still surprised by. It really encapsulates black rage - and depicts Northern White Prejudice and Discrimination - and how the musicians have to navigate it. In the South - they have their own businesses, own people, own areas, but in the North - they have to navigate the prejudice and discriminatory practices.
Chadwick Boseman is almost unrecognizable in his final role - and mind-blowingly good. We lost a true artist this year. He lost a long-term fight with cancer back in the spring. It's so sad. He was so young and so talented. Watching this just drives it home.
As is Viola Davis - who is amazing in the role of Ma Rainey. The play is based on a true story. And takes place in a white recording studio up North in Chicago or thereabouts, where Ma Rainey and her band go to record their music. And she has to navigate her way. Pushing and fighting for her rights and her band's rights, the whole time. And the rage building within her and her trumpter is palpable throughout - with both handling it differently.
The ending is a painful one, that elicits rage in the viewer in its own uniquely powerful way. Happy go-lucky or uplifting - it's not. It's brutal and painful and issue oriented.
The filming, direction, and cinematography are stellar all around. You feel like you are inside the hot suffocating confines of the recording studio.
And the music vibrates through the bones.
***
Last night I'd watched "A California Christmas" - as did Mother, and we both had the same reaction - it's basically a boilerplate Hallmark Christmas movie. About a rich playboy who is tasked with getting a gal to sell her family's ranch, but falls in love with her instead. Predictable and kind of bland. The best thing in it is the male lead, who is on a soap - mother and I watch. And the only one in the cast who will get many roles. My father tried to watch it and left the room - according to mother, stating that it was a 100 ways of pointless. True. But also fluffy like cotton candy for the brain.
I'd recommend you skip it and watch Ma Rainey's Black Bottom instead.
***
In other news? I baked pumpkin muffins today - which are okay. Breads by Anna. The best by far were the banana muffins. The pumpkin ones seem a little denser - of course I did put walnuts in them. I don't know - only had one so far - so we shall see.
Apparently Brooklyn Botantica had a Winter Solistice Walk tonight - which people who have cars and families were able to do. (It's a bit far for me to do it safely. Two friends posted pics of themselves doing it on FB. Regarding FB - why people feel the need to continuously post pictures of "themselves" and "their families" is beyond me. Granted it is called Facebook - so kind of the whole point of the platform.
I think I'm going to do a winter solistice walk around Greenwood Cemetery tomorrow when it is a bit warmer.
[I'm ignoring the news today. I'm tired of it. I need a break. There doesn't appear to be any good news...just more and more and more of the same.]
Note, if you made it thus far, and have a really good and compelling television series to recommend - feel free. Can't promise I'll try it.
I did flirt with the following:
* "Spinning Out - a competitive figure skater falls apart, and after being injured is traumatized, so gets back in the game as a pairs skater",
* "Tiny Pretty Things - murder mystery at a ballet school",
* "Soundstage - which reminded me of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist - except not quite as well written and produced",
* "When Calls the Heart - a school teacher travels to a coal mining town out west.",
* "Ava - a movie about an assasine with addiction and family issues starring and produced by Jessica Chastain, also Geena Davis (I'd hoped it was a sequel to The Long Kiss Goodnight, but no such luck]",
* "The Good Witch - the quintessential fish out of water small town story with a Good Witch. Kind of like Virgin River, but not as well-written or acted, which uhm...is saying something. It's the Hallmark version. And it offended me. ["New York City is overpopulated, riddled with crime and pollution" - says a white girl, who is supposed to be sweet and likable and magical. I just wanted to smack her. And sorry, crime and pollution are in rural and suburban areas too - I know, I've lived in them. It's a very cliche, very small town, very anti-city, and not diverse at all.]
* "One Tree Hill - a late 1990s/early 00s teen soap, which is kind of dated and doesn't hold up at all well - yet has people in it that I saw as teens in movies in the 1980s playing parents.",
* "Northern Rescue - about a family who loses a mother, and moves into an aquarium in a small northern california town - it's nowhere near as good as advertised, one season and kind of bad" [ie. We don't see much of the aquarium or them fixing it up. And the dialogue is stilted.]
* "Emily in Paris - a marketing gal moves to Paris to help a magazine - an attempt to do Sex in the City in Paris, but it feels more like a weak cousin to Devil Wears Prada".
* Also tried Heartland - which was much better, but kind of...predictable. About a girl who loses her mother trying to save a horse during a storm. (IT never makes much sense why the mother is doing it during a major storm and hadn't waited. Also that bit takes place in the first five minutes, the story is about handling the mother's loss and saving the horse ranch.]
I need something higher quality than Hallmark, which is a shame - there was a time in which Hallmark was high quality, now, it feels like the television equivalent of Harlequinn Romance novels that one buys in grocery stores.
I may go back to Tiny Pretty Things and Spinning Out - because I have a very strong story kink for "Entertainment" workplace relationship drama - and in particular dance, music, and figure skating. Also may try Ghost Bride - I read the book, so may hunt down the television series - which I think is Chinese. The book took place in China. I'm tempted to try Korean Dramas again - I like Korean Dramas. I think I may be burned out on anime and cartoons, however.
Or just jumpt to HBO and watch His Dark Material and the Undoing. The problem with too many content choices - is it makes it hard to commit to and choose things.
If you have rec's, I'm open to them. I can't do anything too violent though. And I'm burned out on cartoons. I skipped away from Hannibal for example, and Mindhunters. And while I keep flirting with Kipo, I couldn't get all the way through She-Rah, I'm stuck in the third season. And I'm stuck in the first season of Steven Universe. There may be a return during the winter months, we'll see.
I also reviewed a list of 50 to 100 Netflix series rec'd by internet critics, only to realize I'd tried or watched 90% of them already, and most of them hadn't made it past the first, second or fourth seasons. Some I actually made it to the fifth, sixth or tenth season - but they were also on an ungodly length of time. In short, I think I watched a portion of most of them - and remain uncertain, if I picked them up again - where to start. (The was my difficulty with both the Magicians and Chronicles of Shanara - the Magicians - I'd seen the first season, except for the last ten minutes of the last episode of the last season. Chronicles of Shanara - I'd seen the first season. Both of which about five years ago.)
Perhaps I should just leap-frog over to HBO? Can't quite figure out how to access HBO Max, although Amazon assures me that I have access to it - along with my HBO subscription.
In case you haven't figured it out via the above? I spent most of today watching television, napping, snacking, and not doing altogether much.
Which is okay - considering I've two weeks of vacation or rather staycation in my apartment and nieghborhood to fitter about with.
Yawn.
The prospect makes me tired.
I fell asleep during the first episode of The Crown S5? Or whatever the current season is - I think it's five, it may be six? I informed my mother via the phone (there really is no other way to inform her) of this.
She wasn't surprised. She said it was not the best of seasons, rather slow, and neither actor portraying Charles nor Diana worked. Nor does Gillian Anderson's Thatcher - who feels a bit like a caricature. I'd been told she was rather good in the part - but I found her take on the character annoyingly mannered, difficult to understand, and somewhat jarring. Like watching a marionette. Also, it was hard to care about any of the characters - hence the dozing.
To be fair - to the writers - this season is bound to be difficult, considering a good portion of the audience are a wee bit familiar with the events and characters from actual news reels, and other films. Armstrong has to fight Meryl Streep's take on Thatcher. And Olivia Coleman has to fight Helen Mirren's on the Queen. (And let's face it - Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep were both brilliant and won academy awards for their achievements.) Plus we have the real life Diana and Charles still clear in our heads.
At any rate from the first episode (which put me to sleep), I can sort of see why the Brits were upset by it. It may not help, that I am not a fan of Thatcher. (Kind of despised her - she set my teeth on edge. Britain's version of the Regans or Nancy and Ronald combined, and I despised the Regans.) I also remember Thatcher - better than the other British Primes. The only one who didn't set my teeth on edge was Tony Blair (I wasn't alive during Churchill). I visited Britain during Thatcher's reign. I had a friend who loved Thatcher and Regan, she was a boilerplate conservative with dual citizenship, from wealthy parents, and like most conservatives - not overly empathetic. More than a little homeophobic. And more than a tad narcissistic. Lucy was pretty much all about Lucy, and didn't see much else. She was fun, and kind to me for the most part. We used to debate politics. At one point, she drug me to a Regan rally - and afterwards bemoaned that while she watched Regan appear with tears in her eyes, I was eyeing the protestors and wondering if I should join them. I'd been surprised she noticed - I was trying to be circumspect about it.
I toured the British Museum with her in the space of two-three hours, if that. She had to yank me away from an original version of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice. (I could have spent the entire day in the manuscript rooms). Some day - I'll have to go back to London, and do the British Museum properly.
Later, the next year actually, I went again and spent a lot of time debating politics with a bunch of Labor Party leaning Welsh in a pub in the Gawain Valley, just south of St. David's Head. They thought me wishy-washy, since I didn't seem to have a party allegiance. Oh I did - but US politics and British politics are kind of night and day. I was explaining to my niece over the phone a while back - how the Brits vote for party platforms, and the Americans vote for candidates. In some respects I prefer the British method, it makes more sense. But I know it wouldn't work over here - its not how Americans think. Also, the President is about the closest Americans can come to a royal family - except we place a term limit, and can fire them after four years. I figured out how different the two systems politics were back in 1987 and 1988, when I visited and got into political debates with the British. (I like talking to people with cultural views that are alien to my own or different - I find it interesting. I seek them out. I think it's why Lucy and I got along - I found her point of view interesting and I was attempting to understand it. Also I hailed from conservative Kansas, and before that conservative Pennsylvania - all of my friends and their families were conservative or Republican, while mine was liberal. My friends' when I was a kid supported Gerald Ford and Nixon, my family supported Carter. )
But that was then, this is now. I no longer have the tolerance for the conservative mindset that I did back then - mainly because I think the conservatives around the world have gone bat-shit crazy or rabid. I kind of miss the 1980s, with Thatcher and Regan, Boris and Trump make both look rather decent by comparison.
The show that did not put me to sleep and I heartily recommend is Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - although it is rough going. It's adapted from an August Wilson play - and it is not a pleasant story. But it is riveting at times - and there was a moment that surprised me - and I saw coming, worried about, but was still surprised by. It really encapsulates black rage - and depicts Northern White Prejudice and Discrimination - and how the musicians have to navigate it. In the South - they have their own businesses, own people, own areas, but in the North - they have to navigate the prejudice and discriminatory practices.
Chadwick Boseman is almost unrecognizable in his final role - and mind-blowingly good. We lost a true artist this year. He lost a long-term fight with cancer back in the spring. It's so sad. He was so young and so talented. Watching this just drives it home.
As is Viola Davis - who is amazing in the role of Ma Rainey. The play is based on a true story. And takes place in a white recording studio up North in Chicago or thereabouts, where Ma Rainey and her band go to record their music. And she has to navigate her way. Pushing and fighting for her rights and her band's rights, the whole time. And the rage building within her and her trumpter is palpable throughout - with both handling it differently.
The ending is a painful one, that elicits rage in the viewer in its own uniquely powerful way. Happy go-lucky or uplifting - it's not. It's brutal and painful and issue oriented.
The filming, direction, and cinematography are stellar all around. You feel like you are inside the hot suffocating confines of the recording studio.
And the music vibrates through the bones.
***
Last night I'd watched "A California Christmas" - as did Mother, and we both had the same reaction - it's basically a boilerplate Hallmark Christmas movie. About a rich playboy who is tasked with getting a gal to sell her family's ranch, but falls in love with her instead. Predictable and kind of bland. The best thing in it is the male lead, who is on a soap - mother and I watch. And the only one in the cast who will get many roles. My father tried to watch it and left the room - according to mother, stating that it was a 100 ways of pointless. True. But also fluffy like cotton candy for the brain.
I'd recommend you skip it and watch Ma Rainey's Black Bottom instead.
***
In other news? I baked pumpkin muffins today - which are okay. Breads by Anna. The best by far were the banana muffins. The pumpkin ones seem a little denser - of course I did put walnuts in them. I don't know - only had one so far - so we shall see.
Apparently Brooklyn Botantica had a Winter Solistice Walk tonight - which people who have cars and families were able to do. (It's a bit far for me to do it safely. Two friends posted pics of themselves doing it on FB. Regarding FB - why people feel the need to continuously post pictures of "themselves" and "their families" is beyond me. Granted it is called Facebook - so kind of the whole point of the platform.
I think I'm going to do a winter solistice walk around Greenwood Cemetery tomorrow when it is a bit warmer.
[I'm ignoring the news today. I'm tired of it. I need a break. There doesn't appear to be any good news...just more and more and more of the same.]
Note, if you made it thus far, and have a really good and compelling television series to recommend - feel free. Can't promise I'll try it.
I did flirt with the following:
* "Spinning Out - a competitive figure skater falls apart, and after being injured is traumatized, so gets back in the game as a pairs skater",
* "Tiny Pretty Things - murder mystery at a ballet school",
* "Soundstage - which reminded me of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist - except not quite as well written and produced",
* "When Calls the Heart - a school teacher travels to a coal mining town out west.",
* "Ava - a movie about an assasine with addiction and family issues starring and produced by Jessica Chastain, also Geena Davis (I'd hoped it was a sequel to The Long Kiss Goodnight, but no such luck]",
* "The Good Witch - the quintessential fish out of water small town story with a Good Witch. Kind of like Virgin River, but not as well-written or acted, which uhm...is saying something. It's the Hallmark version. And it offended me. ["New York City is overpopulated, riddled with crime and pollution" - says a white girl, who is supposed to be sweet and likable and magical. I just wanted to smack her. And sorry, crime and pollution are in rural and suburban areas too - I know, I've lived in them. It's a very cliche, very small town, very anti-city, and not diverse at all.]
* "One Tree Hill - a late 1990s/early 00s teen soap, which is kind of dated and doesn't hold up at all well - yet has people in it that I saw as teens in movies in the 1980s playing parents.",
* "Northern Rescue - about a family who loses a mother, and moves into an aquarium in a small northern california town - it's nowhere near as good as advertised, one season and kind of bad" [ie. We don't see much of the aquarium or them fixing it up. And the dialogue is stilted.]
* "Emily in Paris - a marketing gal moves to Paris to help a magazine - an attempt to do Sex in the City in Paris, but it feels more like a weak cousin to Devil Wears Prada".
* Also tried Heartland - which was much better, but kind of...predictable. About a girl who loses her mother trying to save a horse during a storm. (IT never makes much sense why the mother is doing it during a major storm and hadn't waited. Also that bit takes place in the first five minutes, the story is about handling the mother's loss and saving the horse ranch.]
I need something higher quality than Hallmark, which is a shame - there was a time in which Hallmark was high quality, now, it feels like the television equivalent of Harlequinn Romance novels that one buys in grocery stores.
I may go back to Tiny Pretty Things and Spinning Out - because I have a very strong story kink for "Entertainment" workplace relationship drama - and in particular dance, music, and figure skating. Also may try Ghost Bride - I read the book, so may hunt down the television series - which I think is Chinese. The book took place in China. I'm tempted to try Korean Dramas again - I like Korean Dramas. I think I may be burned out on anime and cartoons, however.
Or just jumpt to HBO and watch His Dark Material and the Undoing. The problem with too many content choices - is it makes it hard to commit to and choose things.
If you have rec's, I'm open to them. I can't do anything too violent though. And I'm burned out on cartoons. I skipped away from Hannibal for example, and Mindhunters. And while I keep flirting with Kipo, I couldn't get all the way through She-Rah, I'm stuck in the third season. And I'm stuck in the first season of Steven Universe. There may be a return during the winter months, we'll see.