SNL 50
Saturday Night Live is one of the core pop cultural tentpoles that helped mold the person I am. From when I was first able to watch its prime time specials in the late Seventies, to when I started watching the show live in the early Eighties (along with the Seventies re-runs that played after midnight in Kansas City) it…
January Media
Movies, Shows, etc Rebel Ridge Movies like this are hard for me to watch these days. The moments of injustice seem far too real and common in the real world. That said, this was a good, old fashioned action flick. Not too complicated. Amazingly, despite a lot of gunplay, there’s not a ton of bloodshed nor are there any deaths…
December Media
Holiday Shit Elf Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story Die Hard Assorted SNL holiday sketches A’s all around. Band Aid – The Making Of The Original ’Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ Not a true documentary but rather a collection of the raw film shot on November 25, 1984, the day the vocals were recorded for this holiday classic. A remarkable view…
November Media
Movies, Shows, etc The Americans, season 6 Why re-watch something I’ve seen before when I have so many unwatched shows on my list that I need to get to? Because this is my favorite TV drama ever made, it never had a subpar season, and its final 10 episodes were as good as any concluding season ever filmed. Each season…
October Media
Kind of an odd media month. There was some baseball early, but not much after the Royals were eliminated. A lot of reading The Lord of the Rings. A fall break vacation. But not much long-form stuff. That should shift in November. And there was a changing of the hobbies, a switch that is reflected below with a new section.…
September Media
A few changes prompted a new sub-section. Movies, Shows, etc US Open, week two The non-stop action of week one is more fun, but week two still dominated our TV. A- The Americans, season four In general The Americans is a bleak show. I forgot how beyond-bleak season four was. Thirteen episodes of crushing negativity, applied a little heavier each…
Weekend Notes
As has become standard so far this fall, Friday night was jam-packed with sports action from the couch. Things were ratcheted up a notch this weekend, as KU was playing, meaning I couldn’t casually watch tennis, baseball, or basketball while listening to high school football. No, this week I would be yelling at the TV while listening to the radio.…
August Media
Movies, Shows, etc 2024 Summer Olympics Already much discussed in this space. A The Americans, season 3 The re-watch continues. Season three was a tight, excellent set of episodes: I believe every show fell between 43 and 48 minutes. Even in 2015, that was rare in the prestige TV realm. The last four episodes, especially, were crackling with intensity as…
July Media
Posting this early as we head off to Florida for vacation this weekend. Movies, Shows, etc Tour de France A good first two weeks became a rather boring final week as Tadej Pogacar destroyed the field for an easy win. Luckily, that last week was when I barely watched, between travel basketball and the British Open. As always, the Peacock…
June Media
Movies, Shows, etc The Americans, seasons one and two I’m finally doing it: devoting this summer to re-watching one of my very favorite TV shows. My original plan was to try to knock all five seasons out in June. But as I can’t watch more than a couple shows a night, even if I love something, and there were a…