Watching

It feels a little bit weird to say I've wanted to increase the movies or TV I watch. I guess I figure it beats scrolling endlessly through news sites and social media in search of uplift (hah, as if) or even stimulation (boring). So I've been increasing my time on the bigger screen. Here are some of the things I've watched:

Movies

I found a fun new app: "Letterboxd". I don't understand the name, but I found it by searching "Goodreads for Movies" and that is exactly what it is. It allows me to keep track of what I want to watch and what I have watched. It has a social aspect - anyone else want to get it and track each other's movies? (Doesn't do tv).

Radioactive: about Marie Curie. Really interesting and well done. I watched it over two nights.

The Trial of the Chicago 7: written by Aaron Sorkin, it makes a coherent narrative about events that resonate with today. I'm just barely old enough to remember this in real life - I was a freshman in high school in 1968, just awakening to a political conscience. 

The Glorias: really entertaining movie directed by the always unusual Julie Taymor. Striking use of color in the direction. The women's movement has come under a lot of justified criticism recently for having been the white woman's movement, but this shows Gloria Steinem as having been brought into the movement from the beginning by people of color. Split over two nights. Loved the end.

Enola Holmes: very disappointed in this not very entertaining bit of fluff. Didn't even meet my low standards for fluffy type of show.

Under the Tuscan Sun: catching up on things I didn't see the first time around (2003). Entertaining enough, and totally removed from today which was the goal for the evening.

Ocean's Eleven: I've rediscovered that a caper movie, beautiful thieves deceiving each other, is my favorite form of movie. I inherited this from my mother who loved them too. Scarce today, but I do have the rest of the series to watch. From 2001, some things are eerily different than today - big chunky cell phones, anyone?

Battle of the Sexes: Billy Jean King in context. I really liked it. 

Television

It turns out that Netflix and Amazon Prime are the easiest streaming channels for me to watch on my tv. (I still have basic cable which also gives me on-demand networks.) So my TV watching is heavily geared towards those outlets. I don't actually watch any current network shows.

The Queen's Gambit: Just finished it last night, took me three nights. Las Vegas and Europe and the midwest in the 1950s and 1960s. So very stylish, clothes and interiors, the coloration of the cinematography helps evoke the period. It makes you feel good. I read the original book decades ago and this is a different feeling. Very well done, enjoyed immensely.

Mrs. America: I've watched a couple of episodes and want to watch more. Covers in detail and with shifting points of view events covered briefly in The Glorias. 

Occupied: Such an interesting premise. Norway goes all green and shuts down oil production in the North Sea. An energy starved Europe stands by while Russia moves in and takes over "temporarily". Focuses on compromises one makes to survive. I'll watch more of it.

Snowpiercer:  Stars my beloved Daveed Diggs. It's a little weird and hard to follow, but I think with another episode I'll be hooked.

The Good Wife: Seven seasons, started in 2009, I hadn't watched any of it. Classic network drama. Sucked me in the way Grey's Anatomy did. Good sympathetic but flawed characters trying to get by in the world. At least one good legal case per show, with longer term plot threads moving between the shows and through the seasons. I'm only part way through season three, so I've got a lot to go! I play it in my basement while I'm doing chores or sewing, because it doesn't demand all my attention.

Piccard: Star Trek. Not the best, by a long shot, but fun to catch up with TNG characters, in the "whatever happened to ol' ...." sense.

Schitt's Creek: I waited for the last season to come on Netflix for free. Stevie is my style icon! So sweet to the end.

Away: I love a good space yarn, and here they are off to Mars. It's ok, I'll watch more than the 3 or 4 I've seen so far, but so far not so engrossing as some of the others. 

Madam Secretary: If only I lived in that universe, where reasonable people try to behave well. I finished it this summer.

Grace and Frankie: I finished it on Netflix, sigh. But are there more seasons coming?

Below Decks Sailboat: I haven't watched reality TV (except for HGTV) until this. It was my guilty pleasure, the single season I watched this summer, being a voyeur to good looking young people hooking up and breaking up, in a fantasy setting, trying to do their jobs serving badly behaved rich people. I tried another season, and it didn't work as well for me.

Want to watch: Little Fires Everywhere for escape.