Corona Chronicles: Media Roundup
I spend an ungodly amount of time in front of this monitor, but I thought I'd make a list of the other ways I'm passing the time. I don't play games of any kind. flywoman can vouch how terrible I am at games.
Television:
We've plumped for Netflix and Amazon, even though we still have cable.
The Crown My spouse is a rabid Anglophile and I miss London so much I can taste it. We started with Season 3, when it starred Olivia Colman. I'm a huge fan of hers, having seen The Favourite (you need to see it if you haven't). She's marvelous, although I had a hard time believing her as Elizabeth. There's no resemblance whatsoever. As usual with this kind of thing, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman are more conventionally pretty than the real thing. We're now watching Season 1. Both Prince Philips are well cast. I've never seen Matt Smith in anything, not being a Doctor Who fan. Watching Philip being castrated in slow motion is really agonizing. I wonder what British viewers who weren't monarchists think of it. (I had a fascinating conversation with my pal brainwane on DW about monarchies the other day.)
Unfortunately, my spouse is not a binge watcher! So I have to wait until he feels like it to watch another episode. Sometimes he has to work too much and is too exhausted. I'd really love to just plow through Seasons 1 & 2.
The same goes for The Great British Baking Show. We both find it so soothing. It's completely unlike American cooking competition shows, with all of their bells and whistles. We're both in love with Mary Berry, and Paul Hollywood cracks us up. We've watched one season all the way through and have just started on another. Again, living with a non-binge-watcher is maddening.
What We Do In The Shadows I love this show with an unholy passion. Last year I watched the entire season 1 overnight. It's on Hulu so I can't rewatch yet. It's insanely funny. Four vampires living in a run-down mansion in Staten Island is exactly my cup of blood. My favorite character, after Guillermo, is Nandor. He's such an enormous dork. Jeff started watching reluctantly, and he still won't admit how much he enjoys it. His favorite character is Colin Robinson, the energy vampire who wears beige and feeds off people's negative energy. So he annoys humans, mostly at his office job. I never cared for The Office, but vampires talking to the cameras cracks me up. Plus, the show acknowledges them. When Najda is writing songs with her husband Lazlo, she sings, "Documentary crew, I want to eat you so bad". *snort*
Star Trek: The Next Generation I'm watching this every now and then when it's on BBC America. The writing is excellent and most of the stories are quite thought-provoking. My favorite character is Data, but I like all of them.
Escape At Dannemora We briefly subscribed to Showtime and then canceled it. I had to see this miniseries because my beloved Paul Dano co-stars in this with Patricia Arquette and Benicia Del Toro. Based on a 2015 true story, Dano plays the opposite of his usual sensitive characters, a tough con who, in his youth, shot a cop and then ran over him with his car. Del Toro is his co-conspirator, an opportunistic murderer who masterminds their escape, which took months, carving through walls and unused pipes in the bowels of the prison. Patricia Arquette is the prison employee who has relationships with both of them and helps them with their escape. All three of them are great, but Arquette is simply amazing. She finds so many layers to her character, it's like watching a real person. Otherwise, Showtime has lousy programs.
All of my other shows are on hiatus and/or stopped by the pandemic.
Movies:
The End Of The Tour Fucking FABULOUS! I remember how blown away I was with My Dinner With Andre. This was the same feeling. Lights going off in my brain when the two characters talking about writing. It's based on a memoir by Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky, who spent five days with David Foster Wallace at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest. Jason Segel gives the performance of his career as Wallace. He does so much with so little, barely changing his facial expression at times. Jesse Eisenberg plays Lipsky. His character is also multilayered. He's jealous of Wallace, having had his own novel published to a modest reception. Plus there's the uncomfortable jockeying between friendship and interviewer/interviewee.
Almost everything else I've watched have been film noirs from the 1940s and 50s, as well as pre-Code movies from the early 1930s. I have a bunch of noirs lined up in my DVR.
Reading:
Right now I'm in the middle of The Splendid And The Vile: A Saga Of Churchill, Family And Defiance During The Blitz
. Jeff bought it at the height of the pandemic. He wanted to read the story of another dark time and how people coped. It's by Erik Larson, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Devil In The White City. Larson is phenomenal at creating historical non-fiction that read like novels. This criss-crosses between Churchill, German officials, English military professionals, including Lord Beaverbrook. It's very long, so I have to read in short sections before my brain overloads.
Pride And Prejudice Hideously boring. I've never liked Jane Austen. We saw the 1940 movie with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. I thought it would make a funny Literary Society fic, since Bertie would get the whole story completely backwards. So I reread the book, and what a slab of flavorless nougat it is! Give me the Bronte's novels any day.
That's everything I can think of off the top of my head. The odd episode of House or Supernatural here and there.
Television:
We've plumped for Netflix and Amazon, even though we still have cable.
The Crown My spouse is a rabid Anglophile and I miss London so much I can taste it. We started with Season 3, when it starred Olivia Colman. I'm a huge fan of hers, having seen The Favourite (you need to see it if you haven't). She's marvelous, although I had a hard time believing her as Elizabeth. There's no resemblance whatsoever. As usual with this kind of thing, Claire Foy and Olivia Colman are more conventionally pretty than the real thing. We're now watching Season 1. Both Prince Philips are well cast. I've never seen Matt Smith in anything, not being a Doctor Who fan. Watching Philip being castrated in slow motion is really agonizing. I wonder what British viewers who weren't monarchists think of it. (I had a fascinating conversation with my pal brainwane on DW about monarchies the other day.)
Unfortunately, my spouse is not a binge watcher! So I have to wait until he feels like it to watch another episode. Sometimes he has to work too much and is too exhausted. I'd really love to just plow through Seasons 1 & 2.
The same goes for The Great British Baking Show. We both find it so soothing. It's completely unlike American cooking competition shows, with all of their bells and whistles. We're both in love with Mary Berry, and Paul Hollywood cracks us up. We've watched one season all the way through and have just started on another. Again, living with a non-binge-watcher is maddening.
What We Do In The Shadows I love this show with an unholy passion. Last year I watched the entire season 1 overnight. It's on Hulu so I can't rewatch yet. It's insanely funny. Four vampires living in a run-down mansion in Staten Island is exactly my cup of blood. My favorite character, after Guillermo, is Nandor. He's such an enormous dork. Jeff started watching reluctantly, and he still won't admit how much he enjoys it. His favorite character is Colin Robinson, the energy vampire who wears beige and feeds off people's negative energy. So he annoys humans, mostly at his office job. I never cared for The Office, but vampires talking to the cameras cracks me up. Plus, the show acknowledges them. When Najda is writing songs with her husband Lazlo, she sings, "Documentary crew, I want to eat you so bad". *snort*
Star Trek: The Next Generation I'm watching this every now and then when it's on BBC America. The writing is excellent and most of the stories are quite thought-provoking. My favorite character is Data, but I like all of them.
Escape At Dannemora We briefly subscribed to Showtime and then canceled it. I had to see this miniseries because my beloved Paul Dano co-stars in this with Patricia Arquette and Benicia Del Toro. Based on a 2015 true story, Dano plays the opposite of his usual sensitive characters, a tough con who, in his youth, shot a cop and then ran over him with his car. Del Toro is his co-conspirator, an opportunistic murderer who masterminds their escape, which took months, carving through walls and unused pipes in the bowels of the prison. Patricia Arquette is the prison employee who has relationships with both of them and helps them with their escape. All three of them are great, but Arquette is simply amazing. She finds so many layers to her character, it's like watching a real person. Otherwise, Showtime has lousy programs.
All of my other shows are on hiatus and/or stopped by the pandemic.
Movies:
The End Of The Tour Fucking FABULOUS! I remember how blown away I was with My Dinner With Andre. This was the same feeling. Lights going off in my brain when the two characters talking about writing. It's based on a memoir by Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky, who spent five days with David Foster Wallace at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest. Jason Segel gives the performance of his career as Wallace. He does so much with so little, barely changing his facial expression at times. Jesse Eisenberg plays Lipsky. His character is also multilayered. He's jealous of Wallace, having had his own novel published to a modest reception. Plus there's the uncomfortable jockeying between friendship and interviewer/interviewee.
Almost everything else I've watched have been film noirs from the 1940s and 50s, as well as pre-Code movies from the early 1930s. I have a bunch of noirs lined up in my DVR.
Reading:
Right now I'm in the middle of The Splendid And The Vile: A Saga Of Churchill, Family And Defiance During The Blitz
. Jeff bought it at the height of the pandemic. He wanted to read the story of another dark time and how people coped. It's by Erik Larson, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Devil In The White City. Larson is phenomenal at creating historical non-fiction that read like novels. This criss-crosses between Churchill, German officials, English military professionals, including Lord Beaverbrook. It's very long, so I have to read in short sections before my brain overloads.
Pride And Prejudice Hideously boring. I've never liked Jane Austen. We saw the 1940 movie with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. I thought it would make a funny Literary Society fic, since Bertie would get the whole story completely backwards. So I reread the book, and what a slab of flavorless nougat it is! Give me the Bronte's novels any day.
That's everything I can think of off the top of my head. The odd episode of House or Supernatural here and there.