The Wry Side of Life

 I had read an article and decided to give this docuseries a chance. Boy was I engrossed in the first season. You constantly felt the tug of who is lying? Who is telling the truth? I finished the first season in one day and was looking forward to the meeting of Natalia and her adoptive father, Michael. I have to say that he came across as a douche bag. I didn't believe his story that he was abused. I do think he was manipulated. He talked about Kristen, the mother using sex as a weapon against him. He seemed to want to do a lot to please her as well as turn a blind eye to the abuse. I really wanted both him and Kristen in jail. The second set of episodes were supposed to represent Natalia's point of view. They did firmly establish in my mind that she was really a child at the time of all this and not an adult. We also learned that she was probably sexually abused in the orphanage and that could explain why she came on sexually to men. However, I still feel icky at the idea that...

  I saw a slew of movies recently that are up or will be considered for Oscars. Here is my ranking of the ones I saw. From least favorite to best film. 4. Maestro-Bradley Cooper is riding off of his success directing and starring in A Star is Born. I had high hopes for a film about Leonard Bernstein, but I found that the movie was unfocused. Bernstein's music was dropped into scenes and didn't fit in with the action that was going on. The script was focused on the relationship between Bernstein and his wife. His career as a conductor and his penchant for men were dropped in, but you didn't know how that made him as a person. I felt that either a queer filmmaker or actor should have been in this movie. Carey Mulligan was fantastic though! 3. May December- It had good acting moments, but I really wanted to focus more on Gracie and Joe than Rebecca. It just felt like a tired schtick of an actor who wanted to absorb themself into a subject they were fascinated by. When Joe has ...

Superhero and other franchises struggled this year. I think the answer can be found in a couple of movies that came out this year. The success of Godzilla minus One. Godzilla is one of the longest running franchises in history and you want to know why? Toho Studios knows when to pull back. When the movies aren't doing well or interest wanes they put Godzilla on ice for 5-10 years. Instead of a Star Wars movie and tv show each year, why not do a trilogy and then wait 5-10 years to start another? Instead of doing back to back 10 year story arcs for superhero movies why not do stand alone movies or mini story arcs. I think when Avengers Endgame happen people were like great. We made it through this series! They weren't thinking, "Yeah, I can't wait for 25-30 movies to reach another conclusion". The audience attention spans have worn thin and they are looking for something new. It doesn't mean the era of superheroes is over, it's people are looking for somethi...