My reading campaign continues but a friend gifted me a TV (I can never write the word gift without thinking of Dina Martina and her jifts) so it's been fun to watch stuff on a screen that's not 14 inches wide.
Recently:
- "The Mitchells vs the Machines": I truly enjoyed this, mostly for the visuals and meme-related jokes. I worry it'll feel dated in about 5 years and it was about 20 minutes too long what with all the reiterations about family and a tedious rehash of a popular Rhianna song. The dad could have been more nuanced. But, visually it's a lot of fun and the winks at pop culture, with robot humor and a dog meme, made me laugh.
- Re-watched "Master of None" on Netflix. I wasn't sure if Aziz Ansari was cancelled after some articles about him being a d-bag to a woman he dated. I always enjoyed the camaraderie he captured with his friends, Denise saying what up dummies to the guys, Arnold's sort-of-knowing enthusiasm, the love letter to Italy. It was worth a re-watch although the last few episodes of season 2--the will-they-or-won't-they of chemistry-free Dev and Francesca--dragged. But season 3 will be all about Denise!
- I started "The United States vs Billie Holiday" and I don't disagree with the reviews that disliked the pain/porn aspect of it. I really like the luminous Andra Day and wish I had more of a sense of Ms. Holiday as a person, not a caricature of a performer. It reminds me a bit of "Ma Rainey" and how frustrated I was by Viola Davis's performance. Still, I'll finish the movie soon.
- And I'm about halfway through "The Innocence Files," a Netflix series about the famed legal network trying to get wrongfully-convicted people--usually black men--out of prison. Each episode brings with it a renewed sense of how terribly broken our criminal justice is. And I wonder what I could be doing to help fix it.
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