Anyone seen Derry Girls? It’s a pretty funny series about (mostly Catholic) teens living in Derry (or Londonderry) in the 1990s. Mostly played up for laughs, even with the interaction with British troops. They address it mostly in humor… like when an IRA guy hides out in the boot of the family car when trying to get across the border to the republic. One of the funniest bits is the father of the wife being a constant dick to his son in law. But that’s mitigated at the end of the first season, while the kids are doing a ridiculous performance at school their parents are watching the news which is reporting the Shankill Road bombing, and the dad puts his hand on the son in laws shoulder.
Anyway, it’s a fun comedy of self-involved teens set in North Ireland during the Troubles.
I finished Bojack Horseman Season 5 and besides the occasional Grey’s Anatomy hitting Hulu I’m fresh out of good streaming ideas. I have Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix. Thoughts? I tried to get into El Camino but couldn’t get past how they changed the characters of Skinny and Badger at the start of the show to be more organized and together than they ever were in Breaking Bad. It didn’t draw me in.
I am waiting for Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 3 to drop.
In the meantime I saw Judy at the theater and I was really not all that impressed. My main interest for going was that I had seen the later era Judy Garland on the talk shows back in the day when I was a kid, and of course I’ve seen Wizard of Oz and a few odds and ends of her remarkable singing. But I really didn’t know a lot about her life otherwise. And I still don’t.
It focuses on her last performances and on her early life, and has a really simple theme that she is stuck performing as its the only real love she knows and she is sad and separated from your young children.
There’s been a lot of talk of Renee Zellwegger getting an Oscar nod for this. I’m sure she will because it was a ballsy choice given her career to take on the role and she does do a nice enough job with inhabiting Judy Garland without going full on impersonation. However, her singing - hey, I’d kill for her voice, right? I don’t have a great voice. BUT she is no Judy Garland. And what made Judy Garland so so so special was that never to be repeated or repeatable voice. They should have lip synced this one. I was disappointed with the movie. I was looking forward to it. There was no character development or plot much beyond watch a train wreck be a train wreck but isn’t she lovable all the same.
While I paint, I’ve been blowing through all the Law & Order I missed while I was in college, and noticed that Briscoe and Curtis do it ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
I’m on season 7, where they’ve had their first “jump the shark” moment, with the cast all traveling to L.A./Hollywood to try and extradite a murder suspect and keep the court venue in NY.
i’ve been kind of hooked on these “reaction” videos lately. these guys are great – i’ve watched too many of them, but they are really thoughtful in their discussions of the songs. there are these “two college guys” who listen to a lot of classic rock and (SOMEHOW) have never heard a lot of Rush, Boston, etc. and their reaction videos for them are super fun to watch. if they are faking it, they are good at it.
EDIT: also, i forgot to mention, if you look up Beth Roars, she’s a vocal coach who listens to various things her followers recommend, and then critiques them from a vocal coach’s standpoint, which is super fun and educational to watch, too. she’s scottish, i believe, and just her speaking voice is a pleasure to listen to. my favorite “reaction” video of hers is where she listens to Iron Maiden. Bruce Dickinson really impresses her.
This one popped up in my feed a while ago… I generally like Steam Powered Giraffe, but her take on it was cute. “I wanna kinda rub my face up against his face” indeed.
I thought the show jumped the shark when they sprung a surprise witness from Ireland in a NYC court (for the purpose of impeaching the defendant’s character and testimony) and the judge was all, like, “I’ll allow it.”
I would love to see their reactions after this take on “Dreams” to learning the circumstances of that album.
Also the “not really noticing the lyrics” to “Sultans of Swing” is hilarious to me, because it’s just about a bar and a band, neither one making it big. Unnoticeable is kind of the point.
WTF was I saying? It’s never too late to go to college. I simply had several gap years because I couldn’t afford a satisfactory Studio Arts school for what I wanted, and dad wouldn’t help me out like he did my brothers. While he was “proud of” me and my talent, I wasn’t pursuing a “real job”.
