Screenings in the Sickroom

I’ve been sick for 10 days now, and I improve day by day.  I am only rarely doubled over with coughing.  Occasionally my eyes will uncross and I can read and even plan ten or fifteen minutes into the future.  Kathy’s illness is about three or four days behind mine, but then hers isn’t as severe, so she’s doing well too.

I don’t think we’ve got COVID, and now that I’m almost over it, I’m almost sorry it’s not.  If I were recovering from COVID, I could relax a bit right now, because my immune system would be primed and ready.  As it is, my immune system is defending me with weapons pointed all in the wrong direction.

Being both sick and in self-isolation are double the reason to watch TV, so that’s pretty well what I’ve been doing.  Here are my recommendations for wasting away in Coronaville.

MR RIGHT— It’s like a Lifetime romance with lots of guns, blood, and violence.  Anna Kendrick has just dumped her cheating boyfriend, and goes to New Orleans with a girlfriend in order to, basically, stay drunk the whole time.  There’s a meet-cute with Sam Rockwell, and a proper romance ensues until it’s revealed that Rockwell is a world-class assassin who’s decided that he really wants to kill all the people who hired him, which cheeses off former boss Tim Roth, who decides to kill him right back.  The revelation sends Kendrick into a tailspin until she’s kidnapped by a large gang of targets gangsters, after which a whole lot of vengeance happens until our lovers get their well-earned HEA.

This movie has the potential to go wrong in so many ways that it’s a major miracle that it doesn’t.  The movie can’t possibly work unless the romance works, and it can’t possibly work unless all the action works, and miraculously enough it all comes together.   Kendrick and Rockwell are so strong that they bulldoze any objections, moral or otherwise, clean out of the frame.  Call me a soppy sentimentalist if you like, but I really enjoyed this one.  (On Netflix, I think.  Or maybe Amazon.  I don’t remember, I’ve been ill.)

zerozerozero— Speaking of blood and violence, we have here an Amazon original about the effort to transport $50 million in cocaine from Mexico to southern Italy.  It consists of three stories, one about the Mexican narcos, another about the ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria, and the third about the American shipping family charged with moving the cargo.  The narco story is one we’ve seen before, and so is the Italian gangster story, but the American transporters are new, and held most of my interest.  Very well made, but you have to be willing to swim through many oceans of blood to watch it.  Why did Scorsese have to be so damned influential?

Locke and Key— a young adult series on Netflix, based on a graphic novels series by Joe Hill (not the labor martyr, but Stephen King’s son), about some siblings who have access to keys that open doors to places, memories, times, and their own brains.  Be prepared for lots of teen drama amid all the eldritch doin’s.  I’m enjoying it, but it’s not exactly brain surgery.

I particularly enjoyed the postmodern wink given to the explanation of why it’s mere children who have to solve the mystery, not the adults.  “It’s just like Narnia!  Grownups don’t remember anything!”

The Irishman— Speaking of Scorsese.  God, this thing dragged on forever, and worse, you know right from the start how it’s going to end.  De Niro mugged his way through his worst performance ever.  I gave up halfway through.

Marriage Story— gave up on this one too.  Excellent performances, but man, could I see it coming.  The worst date movie since Scenes From a Marriage.

Cadfael— I saw only a few of these back in the 90’s, and now we’re going through them one by one.  Excellent production values for the period, a great performance from Derek Jacobi, and though some stretch credulity past the breaking point, the mysteries are mostly pretty solid.

Episodes— Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan star as the writers/creators of a successful British TV series about an urbane school headmaster.  When they sell the rights to an American network, they fly off to Hollywood only to find their series wrecked on the shoals of their American star, Matt LeBlanc.  Soon the series is about a hockey coach and is renamed Pucks!  LeBlanc plays himself, sort of.  Really funny, in that painfully embarrassed British way.  On Netflix.

Time Team— on Britbox. Sir Tony Robinson, who most of us remember as Baldrick, hosts a show about archaeology, with real archaeologists digging real stuff up ranging in period from the Mesolithic to Celtic to Roman to Medieval to Victorian to World War II.  I find the sight of grown people grubbing around in the dirt for bits of broken pot very satisfying, and I completely understand why it ran for 18 seasons.

Walking Through History— Britbox again!  Tony Robinson again!  Sir Tony takes long walks and point out objects of historical interest along the way.  For those of us self-isolating, the lovely countryside is a perfect tonic.

QI– Britbox, though for some reason earlier episodes are found on Acorn.  Stephen Fry, and later Sandi Toksvig, host what is ostensibly a quiz show, but which in reality is an excuse for five really sharp comedians to be hilarious about whatever topic is on offer.  There were times when we were so helpless with laughter that we had to rewind the episode in order to find out what we were laughing about.

So, fellow isolators, what are you watching?