What Are We Watching on TV in February?

I viewed a wonderful award winning documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg, what a wonderful woman, she fought for equality in many ways.

Just finished Peacock's American version of The Traitors, which brings 20 contestants to a Scottish castle to play a murder mystery game; hosted by Alan Cumming, camping it up in grand style ("...nothing bad has ever happened in a Scottish castle," he reassures the contestants), wearing a magnificent series of tartans and leaning hard on every "r" in "trrrrrraitorrrrs" and "murrrrrrrrderrrrrrr." The ending packs more genuine emotional punch that you expect from this sort of thing.

About halfway through Netflix's The Recruit, in which a young CIA lawyer gets caught up in international spy intrigue. Not without moments of violence, but also has a fair amount of comedy. The handsome protagonist (played by Noah Centineo) finds a reason to take his shirt off at least once per episode, and I am not above enjoying life's shallower pleasures.

Just beginning Peacock's Poker Face, an old-fashioned case of the week detective show written by Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne as a cocktail waitress who is a human lie detector. The format is the "howcatchem" style of Columbo, in which we see the crime first, then see how the culprit is caught. Lyonne has always had a fair amount of Peter Falk energy, and she's a delight in this.

And on non-streaming TV, enjoying the current season of Food Network's Worst Cooks in America, which really hit its stride a few seasons back when they leaned into the comedy of it, and has now found a perfect balance of cooking show and pseudo-sitcom. With Anne Burrell as the demanding instructor/frustrated-but-lovable "mom," and a new sidekick instructor/harried "dad" each season.

>2 Aussi11: I saw that too and really enjoyed it!

Multiplicity - This was a Harold Ramis film about a man who just doesn't have enough time to do everything and he gets himself cloned. Still holds up today!
I have been re-watching some of Ramis's films after reading his biography by his daughter.

Groundhog's Day
It is the 30th anniversary of the filming of this movie.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/movies-and-tv/2023/2/1/23582071/groundhog-day-bill-...

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/groundhog-day-anniversary-andie-macdowell-bi...

I live in Illinois and my girlfriend and I went up there one day to watch the filming. (I can't believe it has been 30 years.) It was the first time we were on a set and we had a great day!

Happy Groundhog's Day to everyone!

>6 JulieLill: That would have been so much fun. You'll always remember that experience. I loved Groundhog Day. My daughter and I watched it every February 2nd as long as she was home,

The Boatniks
(1970)
Robert Morse stars in this film about a officer in the Coast Guard and who is assigned to duty in the coast guard at Newport Beach. He eventually gets involved in chasing down jewel thieves. Fun movie!

Things Change
(1988)
A delightful film starring Don Ameche as a shoe repairman Gino. Gino, looks like a certain mafia don and the mob wants him to confess even though he is innocent. Jerry, a two-bit gangster on probation has to look after Gino. What happens to them is surprising! What a nice film!

From my DVD collection, The Cathedral in The Great Courses series. Was reading a book on American art (American Visions by the late Australian art journalist Robert Hughes), & the first chapter was on the interior architecture of early American churches & realized I needed to review my ecclesiastical vocabulary, so I dug this up. The lecturer is William R. Cook, State University of NY at Geneseo; 4 discs, 24 lectures, just starting. Useful stuff, it appears, though it looks like a VHS transfer with the jitter. Listening & watching I was reminded sometimes of bits & pieces I’ve picked up over the years, but it’s so convenient to have it all in one place, with pictures. It would be nice if the Great Courses did more architecture (and furniture too, perhaps).

Because I’m mostly reading, video viewing is mostly to relax my eyes. Rewatching Lawrence of Arabia which I haven’t seen since it first appeared in theaters so long ago. It’s via the TCM hub of HBO Max. Excellent restoration, I assume, since it appears to be streaming in ultra HD. Visually ravishing; they’ve just taken Accra – now what? (I’m on pause) Haven’t yet got up the nerve to dip my toes in The Last of Us & on a long pause from Banshees of Innisherin, where I’ve learned so far that people who live on isolated islands can be cranky.

On Britbox subscription via Amazon Prime, episodes from seasons 12 of Vera and Death in Paradise. Like Prime's Three Pines series new episodes are released weekly. The wasted lives that Vera seems to turn up can be a bit much; Death in Paradise is kind of like Rian Johnson movies without the big budget, and about as deep. Thanks to my cable subscription I have access to the Peacock streaming service, so in turn I have access to Poker Face created by hitmaker Rian Johnson; caught the pilot, but haven’t seen later episodes; too early for an opinion. I did like Natasha Lyonne in Russian Doll on Netflix, though, so will keep it on the backburner. On Amazon Prime itself there’s something called Spoor which (just checked on IMDB) is based on the Polish novel Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, a book I read a year ago & which is not bad – kind of an environmental novel; I’m reading the same author’s Books of Jacob but it’s pretty long, and there are so many books crowding around … early days. Amazon Prime also has another movie based on the book, A Man Called Ove (the original Swedish not the forthcoming Tom Hanks pic), which I’ll try to catch, though I don’t plan to read the novel.

DVD Netflix rental. Finished the concluding episodes 9-10 of the Danish/Swedish TV series The Bridge aka Bron/Broen. Hard not to have some fondness for functioning autistic detective Saga (Sofia Helin), though my favorite version is probably still Diane Kruger in the American series. Don’t know if the Scandinavian series is available in libraries, but recommended; might be on one of the smaller stream services.

On cable, BBC America is doing Frozen Planet 2, new episodes weekly, though it’s on the verge of becoming Melting Planet (time lapse photography of shrinking glaciers is pretty unnerving). Grizzly bear eating musk oxen calves it separated from the main herd is not for the kiddies, though one is reunited with mommy.

I also need to catch up on a number of TCM cable films I’ve DVR’d – a couple of Godards & Fellini Satyricon.

I don’t subscribe to Hulu; I’m making my way slowly through The 1619 Project book on my Kindle. Anyone seen the documentary on the streaming service?

PS: On HBOMax, season 4 of C.B. Strike, is based on the novel Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling, exec. producer of the series). HBO has streamed episodes 1 & 2 of I believe 4. I read the book years ago & found it satisfactory, as have all the other books in the series; Strike’s family life issues I remember. Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) is the Afghanistan war vet who lost a leg & now makes a living as a PI; his business partner is an upper middle class younger woman, Robin Ellacott (Holliday Grainger). They make a good, if incongruous team, surprisingly fulfilling the roles set by the novels. I don’t remember the detection plot from the novel, a mother who went missing in the 1970s.

I skipped The Magicians when it originally aired on Syfy (2015-20), mostly because I hadn't much liked the books on which it was based. They struck me as an uninspired mix of faux-Hogwarts and faux-Narnia, and I gave up early in the second volume of the three-book series. But enough people told me that the TV version was worthwhile that I finally gave it a chance, and I loved it, making my way through all five seasons in about three months, which is crazy-fast binging for me.

The premise does indeed combine familiar elements: a group of college students discover that magic is real when they are invited to attend Brakebills University; they also discover that Fillory, the fantasy world of their favorite childhood novels, is real. But the actors bring more depth to the characters than I ever found in Lev Grossman's books, making them more than just whiny emo brats. Most important, the TV version has a sense of humor that I never got from the books.

When you binge the show this quickly, certain repeated elements do stand out. There's an apocalpyse to be averted in almost every season, and the quests to save the world take on a sort of "House That Jack Built" rhythm, in which our heroes have to find magician A to get artifact B to placate goddess C so that she'll save magician D who is the only one who can cast spell E. (The most repeated line of dialogue in the show: "I think I might know someone who can help...")

But even as the apocalypses get bigger and bigger, the show steers into its own silliness; messages are sent between universes by talking bunnies, and almost every principal character has been temporarily dead at least once at some point. By the end of the third season, we start to get occasional musical production numbers.

The actors are impeccably cast, from leading players like Summer Bishil as charismatic badass Margo and Arjun Gupta as multiple versions of telepathic teleporter Penny, to supporting players Rick Worthy (an always reliable, much underused character actor) as Brakebills' dean and Mageina Tovah as the head librarian of the magical world, whose transformation from comic relief to menacing villain to hero is one of the show's highlights.

If you've enjoyed SF/comedy hybrids like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Eureka, this one should hit the spot.

>11 KeithChaffee: Is The Magicians available on Netflix? I liked the first season on SyFy but lost track during the interval between season 2. Now I'd probably have to start over again if it's on the streaming service.

>12 featherbear: Yes, it's at Netflix.

>13 KeithChaffee: Thanks, will check it out; hope it sticks around.

>12 featherbear:
I decided to read book 1 of The Magicians. i did not really care for it. Started promising but the devolved into a mess. Perhaps the series is better?

Ruthless: Monoply's Secret History
This aired on PBS and told the history of the game Monopoly.
Quite interesting.
https://schedule.wttw.com/episodes/593943/American-Experience/Ruthless-Monopolys...

>16 JulieLill: There's a New Yorker article about the show: Simon Parkin, 02/20/2023: How Monopoly Became America’s Cruellest Board Game.

>17 featherbear: Also a very good book by Mary Pilon, The Monopolists.

Watched on TV Love and Friendship by Jane Austin, wonderful casting and costumes. A real gem.

Finished catching up with another from my long list of shows I missed the first time around. Hustle is a delightful British series (8 6-episode seasons, hourlong episodes, originally aired 2004-2012) about a team of conmen. Each week, they pick some rich businessman who deserves to be separated from his money and run an elaborate con. The cast includes the fine British actor Adrian Lester as the team leader, and Robert Vaughn (as suave and debonair as ever) as the guy who knows everyone and usually makes the first connection with the mark.

The first few seasons were broadcast in the US on the AMC cable network, which co-financed seasons 3 and 4, getting broadcast rights to seasons 1 and 2 in the bargain; the later seasons, though, hadn't been seen in the US until they came to streaming. (Probably a coincidence that the American-financed seasons are the weakest; season 3 suffers from Lester's temporary absence, and season 4 brings the team to Las Vegas, where they are somewhat overwhelmed by the glitz and neon.)

Clearly a major influence on the American series Leverage and its recent continuation Leverage: Redemption, and if you like those shows, this one should also make you happy.

Streaming at Tubi and Amazon's Freevee, both with ads. I watched it at Freevee, and I found the ads to be less obtrusive than I'd feared, and mostly well-timed to scene breaks.

Catching up on Pokerface, where the cast is just having way too much fun.

>21 sdawson: Loving every minute of Poker Face. This week's episode, with Cherry Jones and Nick Nolte, was especially good. (And my lord, the level of guest stars Johnson is able to get for this show is impressive!)

I have just finished viewing a fascinating three part documentary series about
Agatha Christie, the narrator was the very English Lucy Worsley, most enjoyable.

Spoor aka Pokot (2017) 2 hr 8 min, Polish w/English subtitles. On Prime Video & Criterion Channel. Directors, Agneiszka Holland & Kasia Adamik. Screenplay Olga Tokarczuk (based on her novel, translated in U.S. under title: Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead & A. Holland. Excellent cinematography, Jolanta Dylewska & Rafal Paradowski. Excellent film score by Anton Lazarkiewicz. Takes place in rural Poland, near the border with the Czech Republic. I’ve mentioned reading & liking the novel on which the film is based. Film could be read as making a case for eco-terrorism, but seems more about the brutality of a degenerate, sadistic culture where the remote rural locale allows men to have free reign on their worst instincts on women & animals, or whatever in their theology lack “souls.” (The scenes with the priest are particularly hard to take) Uncomfortably reminded me of the Painted Bird film of 2019, where the time period was during WWII; don’t know if Spoor was an influence, but does suggest that times hadn’t changed post-war. Hope it isn’t this bad in the rural U.S. Haven’t read the Tokarczuk book in a while, but I think she & Holland tacked on a kind of fairy tale pastoral afterword. I’ll be on the lookout for other Holland films; she’s also done episodes from The Killing and The Wire.

Hello Everyone. I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that there are more of you using this site!!! I apologize to each of you for being such a lousy admin. I have added Julie as an admin so maybe it will survive. As I have said before, I don't watch TV at all and very few movies anymore...so I would have stood a better chance of building a working spaceship or an atomic bomb than admining a movie/TV group. I inherited this site 2 years ago when the admin "disappeared". If it wasn't for Julie and featherbear I would have drowned long ago. I do read what you post...so please continue.

>25 Carol420: Now I know how you manage to read so many books Carol! I thought that I was a reader until I started to read your reviews. I must admit that I can get lured away by a good TV programme or film although I avoid the streaming services- too much choice does my head in.