I forgot my password for this blog. And I forgot about having an image. So now I have just enough time to just key everything in. I thought about doing reviews but there’s so much I’ll be more interested to see if there’s anything here anyone even cares to talk about.
Biggest takeaway? I watch A LOT of TV now. Partly because we’re home more with the baby and also just – so – many – shows.
MOVIES
Interesting to note the year began and ended with Star Wars. I am not apologizing or unhappy for that.
1 – Star Wars – The Force Awakens
2 – The Wolfpack
3 – Attack the Block
4 – Boyhood
5 – Bolshoi Babylon
6 – Rocky – I’d never seen it before
7 – Hail Caesar!
8 – Up
9 – Spy
10 – Maze Runner – Scorch Trials
11 – Becoming Mike Nichols
12 – Big Eyes
13 – Imitation Game
14 – The Avengers 2 – Age of Ultron
15 – 10 Cloverfield Lane
16 – Deadpool
17 – The Lobster – I really liked it
18 – OJ Made in America
19 – Dig
20 – Die Hard
21 – Stanford Prison Experiment
22 – Lucy – didn’t get it
23 – Room
24 – The Big Short
25 – The Insider
26 – Spotlight
27 – Eddie the Eagle
28 – Jiro Dreams of Sushi
29 – The Girl on the Train
30 – Green Room
31 – Highlander
32 – Captain America – Winter Soldier
33 – Joy
34 – Me, Earl and the Dying Girl
35 – St. Vincent
36 – The Witch – sooo creepy and good
37 – Hitchcock/Truffaut
38 – Doctor Strange
39 – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – I really admire JK Rowling
40 – Arrival – a beautiful story about accepting your fate
41 – Keanu – saw it night before George Michael died
42 – 20 Feet from Stardom
43 – LaLaLand – eh
44 – Hateful Eight
45 – Rogue One – I liked it
46 – The Departed
TV
This is new but necessary I think to see where I’m spending my entertainment time. I just listed everything in no particular order.
1 – Fargo
2 – Making of a Murderer
3 – Jeopardy
4 – Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries
5 – Sherlock
6 – Downton Abbey
7 – Man in the High Castle
8 – Family Tree
9 – Angie Tribeca – delightfully stupid
10 – Catastrophe
11 – War and Peace
12 – With Bob and David
13 – iZombie
14 – The Grinder – RIP, truly sad it’s not renewed
15 – Fresh Off the Boat
16 – Elementary
17 – X-Files
18 – blackish
19 – Better Call Saul
20 – The Walking Dead – brutal, I don’t know if I can handle watching psychotic bullies now that we have one as President-elect
21 – Last Week with John Oliver
22 – Chicago Tonight
23 – Mr. Robot
24 – The Americans
25 – Love
26 – People v OJ Simpson
27 – Grantchester
28 – Call the Midwife
29 – The Night Manager
30 – Silicon Valley
31 – Orange is the New Black
32 – Game of Thrones
33 – The Mindy Project – so much better on Hulu
34 – Veep
35 – Late Show with Stephen Colbert
36 – Late Late Show with James Corden
37 – Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
38 – Brain Dead
39 – Dancing on the Edge
40 – The Good Place
41 – Night of
42 – Westworld
43 – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
44 – Poldark
45 – 60 MInutes
46 – BSG – we started rewatching. On S2.
47 – Drunk History
48 – The Crown
49 – Fleabag
50 – Gotham
51 – Search Party
52 – Black Mirror
Shows I started and stopped watching. Why do they all begin with “M”?
Mercy Street
Mozart in the Jungle
The Muppets
BOOKS
I read more than last year but still not up to my pre-baby numbers.
1 – A Swiftly Tilting Planet/Madeleine L’Engle
2 – Home Fires/Julie Simmons
3 – Sketchnote/Mike Rohde (for work)
4 – Call the Midwife/Jennifer Worth
5 – Allegiant/Veronica Roth – I had it and struggled to just finish it
6 – Rose Under Fire/Elizabeth Wein
7 – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child/JK Rowling
8 – The Girl on the Train/Paul Hawkins
9 – Mapping Inner Space/Nancy Margulies (also work)
10 – Grand Canyon – Fodors, Frommers, National Geographic
11 – Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon – Fodors, Frommers, National Geographic
I read enough that they count.
12 – Life Hacks – Dan Marshall
13 – Life of Pi/Yann Martel
14 – Eleanor and Park/Rainbow Rowell
15 – Who Moved My Cheese?/Spencer Johnson
16 – Black Dove, White Raven/Elizabeth Wein
Doris W.
mrlousy
Raúl Zingle
1630revellodrive 
How does The Life of Pi by Yann Martel compare to the Ang Lee film?
Those Divergent books really were not very good, were they? I read the first one when they were a sensation a few years ago, but I couldn’t finish the second one. I found it devoid of suspense largely because the writing was poor.
What do you think of Sketchnote?
Sketchnote is a big part of what I do for work so I don’t really have an opinion about it so much as I’m using it for practice.
Divergent – I really liked the first one a lot. The second one was a slog but I’d already bought were somehow owned the last one and felt I had to read it. The completionist in me really punished me there. I read the second movie did so poorly at the studio is in a jam. Contractually they have to produce the third book so they are trying to maybe make it into a TV movie.
Life of Pi as one of my moms favorite books. And she doesn’t like money modern books. I’m always interested in the concept of faith. I found the second quarter of the book a bit tedious. And knowing the ending definitely affects the reading of the whole story. I still enjoyed reading it though as you can linger on certain moments and thoughts. I still think it’s an excellent position on religion.
Did we discuss The Man in the High Castle? I can’t recall at all, but I was somewhat taken with the first season. (I’ve only seen the first three eps of the second.) Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa owns the screen even when he’s not in the scene!
I’ve been thinking more about alternate histories because I’ve had the sense that we are in one. Not kidding. Sense of unreality.
We started watching it when it first came out. We haven’t finished the first season and restarted it it beginning of the year so I don’t really remember much. But we talked about going back to it after the election. R read the book, I have not.
Was it a full book or a short story? I might be tempted to read it. PKD does not excite me with his prose, but I enjoy the stories now more than ever, especially since some of his ideas, once so far-out, now seem within the grasp of tech. For better, or I fear, for worse.
There are a lot of moral grey areas in High Castle. There are humanizing facets to the Japanese and Nazi characters, and the rebels sometimes come off as nearly as cutthroat, but without the power to yield.
And there is the question of the people caught between: what they will do to survive, where they will take a stand, and how they view their own roles in a drastically changed/changing society. I may watch another one tonight! (It is cold as fuck all week, so there may be some extra viewing taking place.) It’s no BSG, but it can be thought provoking, and I love the Japanese trade minister!
It was a book. Ryan didn’t remember too much about it. He didn’t love it but he didn’t hate it.
iZomblie: I didn’t know that you watched this. I have finished the second season. While I enjoy it, I cannot comprehend some of the seasonal arc plots. I tune in more for the Murder,-She-Wrote weekly mystery aspect. I do like most of the cast, especially Sark from Alias and Ravi.
We both really enjoy iZombie. It’s just the right level of entertaining and silliness. I adore Ravi. He makes the show for me. And Sark. I don’t take it as anything more than face value – light entertainment as diversion.
But I do like to follow story arcs. It’s the old soap fan in me. I quit watching Walking Dead. No mood for misery with no end in sight. So iZombie is my only zombie action nowadays.
I made it through the first half of The Walking Dead I’m debating on watching the back half. I do like a horror series but I think I’m getting that with The Strain. Did I put that on the list?
I started The Strain, but didn’t finish, even though it has sex bomb Corey Stoll in it (but in a terrible wig.) Should I go back?
I just don’t feel in the mood for the violence, bleakness, and occasional torture of The Walking Dead. Maybe the world seems edging too close to collapse and I don’t want to see a grim possible outcome? At any rate, it’s on extended hiatus and possibly facing my personal cancellation.
It gets a bit silly sometimes but I feel like you feel Guillermo Del Toro’s touch enough to make it worthwhile. As vampires are pretty scary even though they are a direct descendent of his vampire.2 from Blade 2. I don’t remember one but at some point early CS loses the rug. No one was buying it.
TWD good Lord. It is now sometimes ultraviolent, constantly bleak and gruesome torture. Geez why am I still watching this?
Also, I gave up on Orphan Black because I was worn out by all the conspiracy and the circularity of confusing, overlapping secret organizations. I think I started s3 and quickly drifted away. That show really has one attraction: Tatiana Maslany. Well, maybe Felix, too, but not the writing!
Forgot about Orphan Black. I don’t even know if I started season three. I stopped one they revealed the boy clones. I just couldn’t. I’m so glad she finally got nominated though. I think she won last year. Her performances have to be seen to be believed.
Fresh Off the Boat. It’s network, so I haven’t seen it, and I have never heard the kids talk about it. What do you think?
Network comedies don’t bother me. I have no prejudice against them. It’s more the channel than anything else. Or example I don’t think I’ll ever watch a comedy or a drama on CBS.
As a minority focused show, especially Asian, I felt I had to at least give it a chance and support it.
We both really like fresh off the boat and blackish. It’s not to provide, it’s actually pretty specific. With fresh off the boat there are definitely things that resonate strongly for me have a grown-up at the same time, at about the same age. We both really dislike the main kid, both the character and the actor. But I really enjoy everybody else. Do you watch blackish?
I didn’t mean that I was holding my nose in response to something airing on network television. Let’s face it; I am not above garbage. (In the past month I watched and partially enjoyed Judge Dredd AND Jaws 3-D, which was terrifically terrible.)
No, I mean I can’t follow any schedule for “event TV” and I don’t have the means to record anything, nor the will to hunt for it online to download. Also, no patience to sit through commercials! So I watch TV series once they appear on Netflix or Amazon. I got rid of Hulu+ since I was watching too infrequently.
I would watch blackish. I just listened to an interview with the creator and thought I should give it a go. I don’t recall seeing it streaming on N or Prime.
The other black show I want to see is Atlanta. It’s the Donald Glover – from Community – project. I imagine that will turn up before too long. I can’t keep track of where everything airs.
What resonates with Fresh Off the Boat?
You should go back on Hulu, maybe the cheap version? Blackish, fresh off the boat etc. are on there.
Blackish has really great characters. I think you’d appreciate it. We both like Deon Cole because he always seems to play goofy characters and this is no exception.
I like that fresh off the boat has a likable tiger mom that is not dancing on the edge of stereotype. And there are plenty of other plots and threads that have nothing to do with being Asian. There are some things specific to the 90s and being Chinese though, that are fun to look back on or for me, realizing it was a thing and not just with my family and their friends.
I need to figure out how to watch shows without commercials. What I’m finding about myself – and what I’ve been noticing for several years – is that I don’t seem to care what is on at this exact moment. I am content to wait for it to arrive for my consumption at any later date. So FOTB and blackish will be there at some point for me. I’d also like to go back to The Mindy Project, and I never even watched the final season of Community. Plus that Rob Lowe comedy that you sang praises of. Lots to look forward to.
I totally understand what you’re saying but I do think blackish tries to be and succeeds at being timely. The Mindy Project on Hulu is so much better I think. It makes me wonder a fox was making her water it down. There are a couple of genuinely down or episodes. There is also a new character which I find a hilarious concept. It took me a little while to pick up on it. It is a white male stereotype. First I thought he was so ridiculous and then I figured it out, it could only be one thing, intentionally ludicrouslike so many ethnic stereotypes.
The Grinder! So under appreciated! Not fair that it got canceled while Lethal Weapon continues on
Boyhood. At first I found this a fascinating conceit, but about 4/5 through, I realized that it wasn’t so different from multi-season TV storytelling, except that it was too uninteresting for me to stick with as a series. Still love Richard Linklater, though, and appreciate the effort that this took.
Agree
For me, The Lobster worked more as political allegory than a more direct statement on the pressures of conforming to a romantic/societal pairing norm. I wondered what they were getting at in the woods during the second half, and decided it might as well reflect my own alienation from progressive politics as an alternative to conservatism/conformism. Life in the woods unpaired turned out to be just as crushingly dogmatic and oppressive as life outside/in the hotel. I enjoy the hotel scenes much better, but on reflection, I made my own personal sense of the woods.
I saw it in the theater so things were quite so crazy politically. I was looking at more from the dating standpoint. It made me think of online dating and personas. I did like that life in the woods was just as if not moe rigid. Stupid hippies.
Catastrophe. I mostly enjoyed the first season, though I grew to dislike both leads. I don’t have to like everyone, though, so I kept watching. The first episode seemed to take the dare and make them even more difficult to like, at least for me. Maybe you can relate to their post-child world better than I. At any rate, I didn’t finish the second season.
I can understand the dislike. But there are still enough moments that ring true for me. And I like that they are not the standard issue couple. Real relationships are very messy and have their own logic. I will say the second season finale has a whopper at the end.
I also faded away from Mr. Robot. I actually liked this one, but I think I am weary of conspiracy and teasing plot lines. I could go back. Should I?
It got pretty damn dark and a bit convoluted. I think this last season is less about global conspiracies and more about his own sanity. If you have a totally unreliable narrator, how do you construct an engaging story? We were on our guard from the first but there we were still surprised by the details. It may not be worth it for you as “reality” is revealed.
BSG re-watch? How is it the second time around? I have toyed with the undertaking, but I wasn’t sure enough time has elapsed since my initial viewing. I seem to see so much through a political prism with a greater appreciation for a grey area with the question of compromise ever present; it seems that BSG would give me a feast on that count.
I this is the third time for R. I am surprised by how quickly it moves. We skipped the mini-series intro episodes. Things I thought happened later in fact happen much earlier. I can appreciate how people must have felt watching it real time during the Bush years. I certainly cannot help but make comparisons to what’s going on now and my struggles to make sense of things.
Difficult decisions and even more difficult alliances. Questionable motives for admirable- or even honorable-appearing acts. Distrust of the unknown. Mistrust of the known. I am tempted to follow your lead.
In other rewatch news, I actually got rather lazy and watched a couple of BtVS episodes. I don’t have the energy to do a write-up for each one, but I might continue a bit further. We’ll see.
Better Call Saul: your verdict? I have not watched it yet. Somehow, I don’t want to re-enter the BB universe, though I loved Saul. Also, there is something off-putting about prequels for me. I would need to move past that.
Speaking of prequels, I may yet post on Rogue One. Lots of thoughts. I enjoy it more after the fact than while I was watching it.
Wow, so many comments. It’s probably gonna take me a while to reply to all.
BCS – excellent. Not really like BB although it rewards people who have seen it. It will make you appreciate Bob Odenkirk as an actor. Also it gives the backstory for Mike. That should be reason enough. And it’s a different tone. Not so tense. And Michael McKean is great.
I’m a huge Star Wars nerd from way back. Empire is my favorite and I felt that Rogue One had a similar sensibility.