Binging Netflixs, TV Habits and a Trip to Memory Lane

I don't watch a lot of television which is a stark change from my viewing habits before moving to this continuum care campus in 2021. Back in my other life I had three TVs---one in the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen---and often they'd all be turned on to mostly CNN from morning to night. To say I was a news junkie would be an understatement. And I loved the freedom of not having to sit in one place to watch something. I could do my housework, work on my computer or hobbies, be at the beck and call of my disabled husband and take care of life's other requirements without missing a thing on TV. 

There are several reasons why I no longer watch TV as much as I used to do. Aside from there being a lot of things to do on campus, liking going to a staff retirement party this afternoon and a Memorial Day presentation tomorrow, I hate the fact that we only have one TV hook up to the free cable aka they didn't wire the building so people can have cable TV in the bedrooms. If we want to pay $145 we can get an exterior cable strung around our living room and through the wall to the bedroom but I'd hate the visual of a cable going along the baseboard and up around the door frame. It seems too ghetto to me. So in the bedroom I have a TV with a modern version of the old rabbit ears but it has limited channels to watch and try as I might there is no way to set both TVs to the same program at the same time. At bedtime in my old life, I always watched the late night comedians but I can't do that here. So my bedroom TV has morphed into a binge-watching Netflix box. Question: Is it just me, or has Netflix been offering fewer new choices in the last couple of months? 

Currently I'm binging a show with four seasons and I'll polish off the last season this coming week so I’m looking for suggestions for another binge worthy series. I like political stuff like Madame Secretary and Designated Survivor, crime stuff like Black List, White Collar, The Recruit, Night Desk and Ozark. I love law series, too, like Suits and Your Honor. Sci-fi like Roswell and Lost. Quirky stuff like Shameless, In the Dark, Loudermilk, Hab and Lenard, Six Feet Under, North of North, This is Us and Dead to Me. I've also binged on more "normal" choices like Grey Anatomy, Bridgeton, Outlander, and Downton Abby. I say 'more normal choices" because, with the exception of Downton Abby, I've yet to find any of my fellow residents who have the same tastes in Netflixs that I do, and with regular TV I've only found one person who likes American Idol and Shark Tank which are the only shows besides cable news that I currently watch.

Though, it goes without saying that my Liberal Ladies, Tuesday night dinner companions and I all consume a lot of the same news shows. I love our Tuesday dinners. There are twelve of us with three others who would love to join us but we can't make reservations for more than twelve, so they fill in when someone can't make it. Speaking of large groups there are sixteen Catholics living here and recently I landed at a lunch table with five-six of them. They were bashing the new pope. It seems that before becoming the pope he criticized the moral fiber of the president. I had to bite my lip from asking how they can justify accepting a different standard of morality for 45/47 than they do for the common man on the street. Aren't we all supposed to do our best to follow the Ten Commandants and do on to others as we would have them do on to us? "The pope needs to stay in his own lane," one of the ladies said and I came close to saying, "I personally think the pope was voted in for precisely the reason you don't like him." The Catholic hierarchy sees the evil that Trump is spreading around the world and they want a pope who isn't afraid to challenge him. I doubt that all the Catholics living here are MAGAs, but at least six are. How they can admire 45/47 and bash the pope is beyond my understanding---all the while thinking of themselves as good Christians.

Back on Topic: My current binge worthy show is Good Girls. It reminds me of Ozark because the three women who are the lead characters find themselves getting dragged deeper and deeper into a life of crime only the show is billed as a comedy so it's lighter viewing than Ozark. My favorite character is Rio played by Manny Montana---a porn star name if I've ever heard one which I'm quick to admit that that's an area I know very little about. Linda Lovelace is the only name I can come up with and she must be as old as dirt by now. And dare I say our First Lady did her share of soft porn before she hooked The Donald. Anyway, there is something about Manny's gravelly voice or the way he moves that gets to me. He's a crime boss in the series so it's not the character he plays that I like and he's not what I'd call good especially looking either. God only knows why I like the guy but if you watch the video below and have a theory let me know. 

There's no smooth segway I can use to change the subject so I'll just do it. I've been walking down Memory Lane this past week. It all started when a great-nephew on my husband's side of the family reached out to me on Facebook. He wanted my address to send me an invitation to his daughter's graduation party. Mike was one of the few people who offered to help after Don's stroke and who actually followed through in a very real and meaningful way. He took on the volunteer role of being a 'personal guide' in a wheelchair hunter's group that I got Don involved in. It freed me up from doing it and it let Don do a 'guy thing' with other guys. Along with my address I sent him a couple of hunting related stories that I originally shared in a blog posts. He loved them and asked for more so I've been binge-reading old posts and feeding them to Mike who asked if he could share them with his older brother. Don was their favorite uncle and it's been nice, having Don come alive again.  ©

                              Short pool scene from Good Girls.

If you are already a fan of Good Girls, you'll like this longer mashup titled The Hotness of Beth and Rio

After Thanksgiving Netflix Binging

I've been writing some dark and depressing stuff since the election so I'm turning over a new leaf and vowing that this post will make us all want to poop glitter and grab moon beams to wipe ourselves. Scratch that visual. I don't know where it came from. What I meant to say is I plan to write a throw-away post that doesn't make anyone think beyond sugar plums and candy canes and other stuff that should be occupying our minds this time a year and since Netflix holiday movies falls into that category I'm going to share some reviews of films I've been watching in my planned attack against the holiday blues taking up residence inside my head. But before getting to them I want to review of a limited Netflix series I saw this week called Man on the Inside. Not a holiday movie but appropriate in an old person's blog. 

It was recommended by a fellow blogger, Donna, over at My View From Here and it stars Ted Danson as a man who moves into an independent living facility like mine, only we don't have the happy hour craziness shown in the series or have guys who walk around in suits---not even our CEO wears one. Donna wrote that she was worried the series "might be full of offensive ageist jokes." But instead she found it was full of "realities that were funny, but never mean-spirited or stereotypical. People were portrayed as PEOPLE," she said "with all manner of gifts and gaffs, all just trying to find love, friendship, and connection. It's funny and poignant and always respectful." I admire Donna and love her blog but I was not as impressed as she was by this eight episode series. Okay, maybe I'm jaded but it bothered me that the director of the place was portrayed as a gossip whose character lacked professionalism. I get that the writers were using her for many of their laugh lines but the staff where I live don't tell tales out of school. 

Donna also commented about Ted's character trying to help a person on the edge of getting moved into a dementia wing and how she couldn't understand why the other resident's pulled away from the woman. To me, that was spot on to what happens. Since moving to my continuum care campus I've known four or five people who had to move on down the line and those who rally around someone dealing with dementia number about the same as those of us who pull away. And it's not always the same people who rally around or pull away in the months leading up to the downward spirals. I've done my share of avoiding getting deeper involved with needy people---people I didn't especially like before their mental decline became obvious. But I also go out of my way to help a few others here who are trying to hang on to reality. Whose to say why any of us pick and choose who to rally around (aka end up 'babysitting' when their spouse needs a trip to the store) and who pulls away (aka guards our time because we got burned out caring for loved ones when they crossed over to needing 24/7 supervision. I chalk it up the the Law of Universal Grace i.e. you give it when you can and you get it back when you most need it. According to the Artificial Intelligence "thing" that seems to be popping up in my searches lately 'giving grace' is defined as "to give grace to someone is showing kindness, understanding, and forgiveness, even when they may not deserve it. It is an act of compassion and mercy." Grace is big part of the culture at the continuum care facilitates in my limited experiences.

Now on to Christmas movies: As I've mentioned in an earlier post I've been watching a holiday movie every night for about ten days now. Along with a little Black Friday shopping/beat the tariffs shopping, the movies are part of a "Find my Christmas Spirit Project." I wrote and deleted four reviews of holiday movies that I thought were too outlandish and stupid, the kind I'd give two thumbs down on if Netflix let us. In the spirit of season I'm passing up bashing them and will---as the song says---accentual the positive instead.

One movie I like I also wondered if it's like Die Hard ---the movie people argue about every year---"Best Christmas movie ever!" says fans of this action/adventure films while others say it's a movie set on Christmas Eve and that's its only relationship to a holiday film. El Camino Christmas was released in 2017 but it's a new one for me. The premise of this movie is a young guy goes on "an impulsive journey to find the father he never knew, his search takes him to the remote desert town of El Camino, Nevada" where he gets trapped in a liquor store on Christmas Eve during an alleged robbery and a police stand off. He bonds with a few strangers in the store, one of which he eventually falls in love with, and another character (played by Tim Allen) turns out to be his father." The main characters all had some depth to them and while it had almost as many bullets flying as in Die Hard I'm adding it to my list of holiday movies I want to see again. Why? Because in addition to liking the characters Tim Allen has some lines referencing old Christmas movies that I think will be funnier the second time around.

The other holiday movie I liked this season was Feast of the Seven Fishes, released in 2019 but also new to me. My reasons for liking it might not appeal to others. It caught my attention because it follows a large Italian family living in a coal mining community as they prepare for a catholic tradition of only eating fish on Christmas Eve. My dad grew up in a coal mine town where his Italian, immigrant uncles and aunts also lived and the way the uncles in the movie interacted as they cooked together brought back a few ancient memories of my great uncles. My dad also had an anchovy dip recipe in his head that he'd try to make from time to time that came from Christmas Eve dinners of his youth. As I watched the movie I kept thinking this family could have been my extended family. The story, the characters and the subplot romance in the film felt totally authentic to me. And this year, especially, I need that in my entertainment.

Until Next Wednesday. ©

 

 

 

 

Netflix Favorites and Flops and other Entertaining Things

I just finishing listening to one of my all-time favorite books, West with the Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. My book club will be discussing it November forth on my recommendation and I'm anxious to see if others like the story as much as I do. It's probably my forth time listening to it and I enjoyed it every bit as much this time as the first, maybe more. Multiple exposures to favorite books or movies are like that. You pick up on nuances you missed the first time around and you are more apt to enjoy the build up to the the climax in the story, knowing what's a head. I won't bore you with a full-on review of the book. I did that back in 2021 here in an entire post devoted to the giraffes.

But before I leave that book behind I can't resist sharing one of my favorite passages. It speaks to me and about me every time I try to come up with something meaningful or at least entertaining to write: "In a long life, there is a singular moment when you know you’ve made more memories than any new ones you'll ever make. That’s when the moment your truest stories---the ones that made you the you that you became---are ever more in the front of your mind, as you begin to reach back for the you that you deemed best…[but] what I hadn’t noticed was that my mind was wearing out, too. Even the memories a body holds most dear become like scratchy old phonographs records played too long, fading in and out with little sound and even less fury.” 

Today when I sat down to write I knew I wanted to do a post about some of the Netflix fare I've been consuming. I binge watch about an hour and a half every night and I'm running out of stuff that holds my interest. One of the better binges I've done this month, though, was Your Honor. IMDb says this about it: "A judge confronts his convictions when his son is involved in a hit-and-run that embroils an organized-crime family." If ever there was a series that is a cautionary tale against lying this is it. One lie quickly mushroomed into bigger and bigger lies and bigger and bigger crimes until just about everyone involved was either dead or in jail by the closing episode. I like stuff with strong cliffhangers that keep you guessing from one episode to another and for that reason Your Honor held my interest. 

On the lighter side a ten episode binge called No One Wants This was a good 'palate cleanser' following the mayhem in the above mentioned Netflix series. The trailer labels it as: "An agnostic sex podcaster and a newly single rabbi fall in love; discovering if their relationship survive their wildly different lives and meddling families." The viewer is left at the end to be a little dissatisfied, not knowing if they will get their happy ending. Or maybe it just hinted at happy ending to leave the door open to another season?  Whatever the case, with its quirky characters and half hour episodes I binge-watched it in three evenings. Another series I tried for a total of nearly five full minutes before I knew I wasn't into gross, creepy, sick crime stuff was Dexter. If you watched it and liked it don't tell me. I don't want to judge you.

Another night I watched Netflix movie called No Pressure, filmed in Poland and it's about ten years behind in what American audiences are used to in terms of acting, etc. A reviewer called it "Old Wine in a New Bottle" and I agree. Fans of romantic comedies have seen this storyline of a big city girl who comes back to the country to save the family farm and ends up falling in love with a neighboring farmer/chef/wealthy man---whatever---a million times. I'm sorry, every time I try a foreign made movie I get either bored or hypercritical. 

Not that American film makers have left that tired plot behind. Hallmark Christmas movies have a giant portion of big city lonely people spending their holidays in small, mid-western towns where they find their forever person. I say 'person' rather than guy or gal because in 2022 Hallmark went woke and featured one movie with a gay couple finding-love-over-the-holidays. One movie out of their 170 Christmas movies that year.  The Holiday Sitter was the first ever Hallmark movie where a gay couple was the center of the action.  In 2023 Hallmark added two more LGBTQ movies to their Christmas/love lineup and I'm quite sure this turtle-slow trend is giving the Karen's of the world ulcers and contributing to their sky-is-falling dance against 'the gay issues' in our political arena. I'm so sick of Karens and Kens who want to ban books and movies. And if they insist of doing that why not start with banning the ones that give murderers tips on how to get away with their obsessions? Prioritize love over violence for crying out loud! If a teen or younger kid accidentally sees or reads about someone making love to someone they truly care about that isn't going to scar them for life like watching or reading about a psychopath dismembering a person they've been torturing for weeks in an underground cell. <Rant off.>

Yes, it's Halloween today but the Hallmark Christmas movies have been making their presence known for a few weeks already but I generally don't watch Christmas movies until we get our first snowfall. Then I'll pig out on their sweetness and goodwill toward mankind and the memories of finding love they churn up inside me. It's the only time of the year I consistently select the Hallmark Channel. I am nothing if not a creature of habit. ©

Until Next Wednesday...