The Apple TV Peanuts Selections Are My New Comfort Watches

Obviously, everyone loves Peanuts. A Charlie Brown Christmas is part of our holiday tradition, as well as the Thanksgiving and Halloween specials. I think the rest of the Peanuts canon is just starting to get lost to time, because until Apple TV became their new home, I forgot that there were other television specials and movies featuring our favorite beagle and friends. So when I discovered a bunch of the old Peanuts on Apple TV, I was filled with joy. 

Read more »

journal, the telly

I Want to Be Someone Who Lounges in a Park

Spring is finally here! It was such a brutal winter, and I worked outside for all of it, I know who brutal it got. Now that it’s nice to be outside again, we can all go back to the park.

I love going to the park. My preferred form of exercise is walking through the park and finding new paths to take, and new places to sit while I take my breaks just to extend my time outdoors. But, as I go on my walks, I see all these people with their picnic blankets, and books, and whatever else they've got with them to pass the time.  

I wish I could be one of those people. I tried. I bought a very nice picnic blanket that has a very cute patchwork floral pattern. I brought a book with me and my very nice water bottle, found a spot in the shade. But I just could not relax. I kept putting the book down, readjusting my position. In retrospect, I should've brought something to make some sort of pillow, that maybe would've helped that part. But even then, I couldn't relax and turn off the outside world. I felt the same way laying on my blanket in the park the last time I tried to take a bath to relax. 

But it’s something I want to able to do. To turn the brain off and feel the fresh air and take a deep breath. So this season, I’m gonna try to lounge in the park, let go and relax. Maybe pick up some food, bring my book, maybe listen to some music or a podcast, just be.

journal

I Want to Bring Life and Soul Back to Disney

Bob Iger is stepping down as Disney’s CEO, again. (We’ll see if it sticks this time.) Disney is entering a new phase and it feels like they really need to turn the page. All seems to want to do is make Marvel movies, sequels, live action (“live action”) remakes. They’re missing that Disney Magic, and they need to get it back. And I have some ideas. 

Read more »

cinema, the telly, thoughts

Sports Broadcasters, Please, Shut Up

With the Australian Open wrapped and the Winter Olympics about to begin, it’s got me thinking. Not just about the athletes and who I want to win, but the broadcasts itself. I know less is more is such a cliché, but I feel like sports broadcasters should really use it as a guiding principle. They do not stop talking!

I know that they have to throw a lot of information at you sometimes. Though I would argue they share too much, sometimes, because some of that stuff could be left to the sports talk shows the next day. But it’s not like the sports talk shows these days are reliable for more than shouting and the same old questions. That’s a rant for another day.

It would be different if they were narrating the action and giving relevant background information or statistics to explain any significance of a game or moment. It just turns into story time, or worse, incessant rambling (*cough* John McEnroe *cough*). To the point where they’re not even talking about the action in front of us. 

I wish they would embrace the art of silence, and letting the action speak for itself. The good thing about sports on television is that we can see what is going on. The TV broadcasters don’t have to narrate everything that happens like radio broadcasters have to so the listeners can follow the action. They can task advantage of us seeing the players and hearing the crowd reaction. Take last year’s French Open final, for example. From my memory of watching it, it felt like the broadcasters laid out, and from time to time Brian Anderson would chime in with something we would need to know or an exclamation after a big moment, but mostly let the drama of that final speak for itself. 

Sol sports broadcasters, sometimes the best way to do your job is to say nothing at all.

sportsball, the telly

The Best Movies I Watched in 2025

 Here are the best movies I watched in 2025. As always, there are things that came out in December that I probably won’t watch until later this month, and unfortunately I’ll have to add those movies in the “Movies I Caught Up On” section in next year’s list. Looking at you Wake Up Dead Man.

• Blue Moon
• Hamnet
• Jay Kelly
• Marty Supreme
• My Mom Jayne
• Nouvelle Vague
• One of Them Days
• Sinners
• SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)
• Superman
• Wicked: For Good

Read more »

cinema, lists

For Some Reason, I Made a List of All of the Christmas-related Things I Watched This Season

I don’t know why I did this. But as I was going, it was nice to see which classics I watched and what I saw that was new to me. 

Read more »

cinema, the telly, thoughts

I Miss the Annual Live Television Musical

I miss the live television musical. My musical theater loving heart would look forward to it.

Read more »

the telly, the theatre

My First Experience at the New York Film Festival

I've been living in New York a few years now and I had never been to the New York Film Festival. I can fully blame it on my working schedule for most of it, but I also think to check for screenings of movies I'd like to see way too late and they'd all be sold out. 

But this year is the first year where I heard about their trivia nights. I love trivia, and I know so much useless stuff, a lot of which is pop culture related. Now, I'm not a bar person, so I don't go to bar trivia nights, which is a shame. Mainly because I've never had the chance to compete in a public forum and put my trivia brain to the test. 

There were a bunch of different trivia games played, and the one I volunteered for was a game called Filmography. You and your opponent go back and forth naming films in an actor’s filmography, and you go until one of you blanks and then the other person has to name one more to seal the win. The actor I got was George Clooney. And lucky for me, I spent this past summer watching ER, and sometimes when I’m watching a new to me show, I go to the actor’s Wikipedia pages and look at what else they’ve done and look for future recommendations, so I had looked at Clooney’s filmography quite recently, on top of me having actually seen a bunch of his movies. As the game was going along, I felt like I was getting non-obvious picks in. I remembered Good Night and Good Luck, which I have seen, thanks to the new play, and Midnight Sky, again thank you Wikipedia. I also got in Return of the Killer Tomatoes because I've seen enough interviews of him bringing it up, and my brain stores information like that for seemingly no reason other than trivia. So, I ended up winning this game. And the prize for this round was a free ticket to the first screening of Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney, at the fest. 

Then the final game of the night, where everyone who wanted to could compete, was a game of Movie-Actor. You're given a card with an actor's name and a movie of theirs, and then the next person has to pick another actor in that movie, then the next person has to pick another movie of that actor's, and the line keeps going until someone breaks, that person is eliminated, and you keep going like that until only one is left standing. I managed to make it to the last two people, and I had to name an Elle Fanning movie, and just went blank. Somewhere was my lead in for her so I couldn't say that, and then I kept seeing two different characters of hers but I just could not pull out a title. So I came in second place. My consolation prize was a free ticket to a screening of Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague. 

And then going to the screenings and getting to go to the actual festival was so cool. To be in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and see all the NYFF signs around, it felt like more than just seeing a movie at my local AMC. It felt like it was a special thing. I loved it. I can't wait to go back next year.

cinema, journal

Haven't Listened to the New Taylor Swift Album and Feeling Smug About It

I also haven't listened to The Tortured Poets Department. And the -more albums. It would be dishonest to include Midnights, because I did listen to a few songs when it came out, but then never listened again. So I’ve been pretty out of Taylor Swift for the last five years. This is something I am perfectly okay with. I don’t feel like I’m missing out, because what she does is so pervasive in the culture, I feel like I get the gist of the music. 

The fact of the matter is, she’s just not doing anything interesting. She’s not taking big wild swings musically. She’s writing about the same old things she’s been writing about since she was 16, with seemingly no new perspective. Frankly I’m bored.

But the worst parts of the Taylor Swift Experience, especially of the last few years, are her fans and her seeming greed.

Her fans are no longer a fan base, it is a cult. The way they mobilize around her, talk about her, and defend her against anybody who dares say anything negative about her, is wild. They have no concept of pop culture out side of her and relate everything can back to her. I’m sorry but Taylor Swift is not the center of the universe, and it’s fine if people don’t like her. Chill out.

The thing that really kills me is the greed. Just the amount of different variant covers of albums, and certain songs only available on certain additions. And because her fanbase is a cult, they buy it all. Not to mention all of the merch. I know trademarking is important for art ownership, but I remember when she tried to trademark “1989”. Just the number. There was no art or image as a part of it, she tried to trademark the year 1989. 

So yeah, feeling a bit smug not listening to her.

earworm

These Shows Could Have Been on Television

There are so many shows on streaming that I wish we could go back to the days before these platforms took over television. And there are some shows I see on streaming that just scream to me, "this should've been on real television". And I'm gonna take a pretty good stab at what networks they should've been aired on.

Read more »

the telly