This summer I watched a lot of baseball (night games only) with a $10 monthly MLB pass. The only team I follow is Baltimore which is having a terrific year.
This time of year it becomes dark early enough to begin using the big screen (projector lit) evenings and so movies / TV series come more into play. After hearing a Norman Lear interview recently, I thought it would be fun to watch his old “Mary Hartman” series from the 70s. Not available for streaming anywhere - so bought a set of used DVDs from an Amazon reseller. The show’s a hoot in terms of the wonderful character development and acting. Some wry humor. But I’m sure most found what passes for plot dull and uninteresting. (We shift seamlessly from a family’s mass murder to Grandpa being arrested for “flashing”.) The series was dropped after a couple seasons. A bit of overreach by Lear who had earlier produced the highly successful “All in the Family” series.
One nice takeaway, even if you don’t like the show, is the iconic early 70s styles and fashions. Yellow corded telephones / Avocado colored refrigerators / dated hair styles leap out from the screen. A striking trip backward in time.
Inflation? A woman is “shocked” by a 31-cent price on a jar of pickles!
Here’s a link to a Sony promotion for the show. Not much. But provides a short summary of what the show was trying to accomplish.
https://www.sonypictures.com/tv/maryhartmanmaryhartmanMy craving, however, is AppleTV’s highly successful “The Morning Show.” I’d kill to spend an hour in the company of star Jennifer Aniston. Adore her. But the entire cast is terrific. Season 3 airs on September 13. Can’t wait.
PS - If you haven’t seen
TMS, Season 1 is by far the best. Back stabbing, self-promotion and cunning at its best. Season 2 is good, but becomes more “soapy” as if the writers were struggling to get the scripts finished in time.
Comments
I know exactly what you mean. We have a complete set of the Colombo TV series, and get the same deja-vu feeling. Especially the avocado colored refrigerators. That was a good show also.
How old am I? My first home in the early 70s came furnished with an Avocado refrigerator & range. . And, I quickly added a bright yellow corded wall phone to that kitchen wall. For unknown reasons, the phone made a great AM radio antenna. The cord was half mile long. So nights I’d take the receiver down off the wall and lay the line across the back of an AM radio. Pulled in WBZ Boston loud & clear!
”watching UK channel Sky News on my Samsung Smart TV so I can avoid discussions of American politics”
Thanks Carew - Yes. Like riding a speeding sled down a dark mountain side with no bottom in sight. Probably good business for the psychologists.
Late 80's moved into duplex, the phone & frig were of this color & still functional !
https://lockupprops.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/LU026377.jpg
Karol Kane is always marvelous.
Bess Armstrong? I wanted to have her children. Delicious. ...Yes, I see it ran only in 1986. I was in Spokane at school, still. Professional student. In and out of school until I was about 40.
Currently: I guess my tv is what you'd call "smart." The most recent Netflix film I watched was "Hunger." Thailand: young woman dreams of better things than slinging noodles for customers at her family's walk-up stand. Of course, there's a romantic thing with a guy. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone: it's ALMOST worth watching. The young (female) lead I find to be smashingly beautiful, but then again, I have a thing for Asians. No way to remember her name. It's got about 49 letters in it. She gave a very good performance, I'd say...Netflix is cracking down on password sharing. Sometimes it catches me, sometimes not. Weird.
I do hate commercials, but with so many channel options, I can't complain much. And I'm not even paying for cable. A lot of stuff on Tubi takes my time. Occasionally there is an oldie there that I'll enjoy, or one of the documentaries. It was either on Tubi or on Netflix that I watched Keanu Reeves in "Siberia." He played a sort of an anti-hero. It was gritty.
"The Usual Suspects" won awards for its script and some of the performances. One of my all-time short list selections. I saw it again, lately. Tubi, I think.
On my laptop, I can dispense with the commercials with my trusty ad-blocker. Lots of good 2nd-rate films and first-rate oldies. I like the war films. Currently, on YouTube and Tubi, for FREE, they are offering a bunch of gooders: "The Last Days of Patton." G.C. Scott, Eva Marie Saint....."In Harm's Way." Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Burgess Meredith, Brandon DeWilde.... "Eye Of The Needle." Donald Sutherland as the Bad Guy! (From the Ken Follett novel.) Others:
The Longest Day.
At Eternity's Gate, re: Vincent Van Gogh.
The Last Waltz, 1978. Final "goodbye" concert of The Band. With a host of fabulous musical guests. (And we lately just lost Robbie Robertson. Now, only Garth Hudson survives. He lives in a retirement apartment complex not far from Woodstock. That fact makes me smile. Danko and Helm are buried in the same cemetery, very near each other, in Woodstock. Daughter Amy Helm keeps things hopping with the Midnight Rambles, and there's a recording studio there now, at the old farm property. I saw her perform---elsewhere--- twice. What a talent! Looks just like her father.)
Guys & Dolls. (1955.)
The Shoes Of The Fisherman. Anthony Quinn. All of the Roman Church traditional dress-up junk is everywhere you turn in the film. All the guys are dressed-up in their "Sunday best" cassocks and capes and junk. Just overlook that. Just consider that it dates from 1968, from the novel a few years before, by Morris L. West. The ending is a killer. A marvelous story.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090393/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063599/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_shoes%20of%20the%20fish
Show features a long established cast of unprincipled back-stabbing characters working at USB TV News. Viewers have grown to know them intimately during Seasons 1 & 2. Early in Season 3 the lights go out at USB - literally - during a live broadcast. Chaos quickly ensues. Soon these mean, but enjoyable, SOBs are confronted with paying a $50 million dollar ransom or having all of their prior personal communications disclosed publicly!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_Dickens