Movies I’ve seen that I thought were great: Anora, A Real Pain, Conclave. Also, A Complete Unknown is fun to watch especially for the music of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.
Series I loved that were nominated or winners: Slow Horses, Bad Sisters, Disclaimer, Shrinking (AppleTV), Day of the Jackal (Peacock), Ripley, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, A Man on the Inside (Netflix), A Gentleman in Moscow (Paramount +).
My college roommate from almost 50 years ago turned me on to this show on Netflix called The Extraordinary Attorney Woo. Attorney Woo is a junior attorney for the second largest law firm in South Korea. She is a young woman with autism and a fascination with all things whale and dolphin related. The tone of the show is light and the characters delightful. In addition to interesting courtroom cases, there is love, intrigue, betrayal, and friendship. There is a bit of a telenovela vibe and watching the show reminds me of the enjoyment I experienced watching Jane the Virgin. There are two seasons of the show. See what you think. It is in Korean with English subtitles. I think you can choose to watch it dubbed in English but I wouldn't recommend it.
Here's a quick post to list some of my all time favorite shows that have been around for a while. If you haven't seen these, I highly recommend them:
Broadchurch on PBS is a wonderful crime series starring David Tennant and Olivia Coleman (I love her!) investigating the death of a teenager.
The Wire on HBOmax is a flawless series with several seasons about drug crime in Baltimore.
Only Murders in the Building on Hulu is the most fun to watch. It stars Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez who become in involved in a murder in their high-rise apartment building in Manhattan. The chemistry among the main characters is fabulous. Martin Short is hilarious, and Selena Gomez is like the rug in the Big Lebowski. She ties the whole room together.
The Durrells in Corfu on PBS is a quirky family dramady with perfect casting, a gorgeous setting (Corfu) and hilarity ensues.
I'll stop here. There's something for everyone on this list. Enjoy!
Big Sky is a show by David E. Kelly about private detectives set Montana (hence the title.) The casting is great, the characters ridiculously compelling, and the setting is gorgeous. While it is a drama, the tone is not gritty like The Wire. Nor is it family-friendly like Murder She Wrote. It sits in that space in between. It is great fun to watch. It is currently on it's third season (the crimes change each season with some carry over). It airs on ABC on Thursdays at 10:00 p,m. I watch in when it is streamed on Hulu. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
One of my all time favorite movies is Inside Man, directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington (who doesn't love Denzel?) It also stars Clive Owen (who doesn't love Clive Owen?) It is a taut story of a bank heist where is begins to appear that the robbers do not actually want to rob the bank of its massive amounts of cash. It is told out of time sequence by interviews with all the hostages who were ultimately released. While it is completely effective as a film about the heist, a more nuanced interpretation reveals much that Spike Lee has to say about racial and class issues. You can watch this amazing movie on HBOmax, Hulu (with premium subscription), and Amazon Prime Video (with premium subscription).
So, that was the "great." Now on to the "not so great." The new 4 episode series on Netflix of the same name has an enticing cast. It stars two of my other favorites, Stanley Tucci and David Tennant. Tucci plays an inmate on death row for strangling his wife. He's the inside man. Tennant is a Vicar in the UK in a separate story. The stories intersect because Tucci, a former criminology professor, takes unsolved criminal cases while incarcerated (like that is a thing). This is how the two stories intersect. As absurd it is that Tucci moonlights as a detective, the story in the UK is equally, if not more, absurd. So, while is is watchable since the casting and pacing is good, in the end, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Obvious conclusion: if you can only watch one "Inside Man" in your life, please, please, please choose the Spike Lee masterpiece. If you are bored and looking for something absurd to distract you from anxiety about the end of democracy, watch this new offering from Netflix.
Well, apparently it has been some time since my last post. My last post was in February of 2019. A lot has happened since then 😉. Quite an understatement. Of great deal of relevance to this blog, I think I have only seen 3-4 movies since the shelter in place days of the pandemic. This is a significant deviation from my pre-pandemic movie viewing habits. In those days I would typically see 3-4 movies a month! But I have not been deterred from indulging in my passion for visual/virtual entertainment media. While I cut the cable cord approximately 6 months ago, I am in streaming heaven. I primarily watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Apple TV, PBS Passport, BritBox, Acorn and HBOmax. Somehow between all the streaming channels I have access to, I can usually find something to watch or rewatch. So given the state of my change in viewing habits, I have updated my blog to include reviews and recommendations from tv streaming. I hope my friends find my suggestions helpful in navigating the sea of offerings. Look for more posts in the future. I will put the link on Facebook but feel free to follow me here. As a teaser, I will end this post with a recommendation to watch "Under the Banner of Heaven" on Hulu. It is a dramatization of a true crime event where there is a murder being investigate which implicates members of the Mormon Church based on a book of the same name. It's the one series I have watched recently that really stuck with me. Give a look-see and let me know what you think.
