December media diet

Happy New Year!  No resolutions for me, but I am as equally pleased that I maintained this media diet for the full year as I am my low-sugar, low-carb one.  If you missed any and are in search of content, I have added a handy label that you can click here or always find over in the right sidebar on the main page.

Avatar — Disney+ | Believe it or not, nobody but me had seen this blockbuster, so we watched it on New Year’s Eve Eve in preparation for seeing the sequel on New Year's Eve.  Cool, for me, to see how groundbreaking it was, beyond the digitally rendered everything.  Did we even use the word avatar in the vernacular before 2009?  And how about Jake’s eyes opening wide at the end?  Twilight, much?  Pretty timeless tale about taking care of our habitats that has you rooting for the Na'vi. 

Avatar: The Way of Water - Regal Cinemas | Worth the extra $10 for the RPX and 3D, but still at least 30 minutes too long.  On the one hand, Cameron loves his digital movie magic, so he just wants to give fans their money’s worth, but story is — or should — still be king when it comes to movie-making.  And in that regard, this sequel doesn’t plow new ground.

The Great Cookie Catastrophe - Hallmark Channel | In the spirit of the season, we gave one of the greeting card company’s sappy Christmas movies a shot and, well, now you don’t have to.

Three Wise Men and a Baby - Hallmark Channel | Because one wasn’t enough this time of year, we watched two Hallmark Christmas movies! This one gets one thumb up. Cuter story, more laughs, but still very heavy-handed and super sentimental.

Dog - Amazon Prime | Not sure how this Channing Tatum movie got labeled comedy by the curators at Amazon, but it was a “fun” enough way to spend 101 minutes. Capsule plot: Army Ranger dies in a car accident after multiple deployments with his heroic canine in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dog can’t be tamed and is set to be put down, but first needs to be driven 1,500 miles to a base where they do that sort of thing. Enter beefcake Tatum, who has is own PTSD that it turns out only a killer canine can cure.

The Usual Suspects - Redbox | Carey picked this one as her birthday movie. I thought the kids might have appreciated it more, but they claim to have pegged Verbal as Keyser Söze (spoiler alert!) about midway through. I don’t remember feeling that way in 1995. Still, given the lack of mystery, it doesn’t hold up that well on a rewatch. And there’s the whole Kevin Spacey ick factor.

Taken 2 - Amazon Prime | Proof that the sequel is rarely as good as the original.  Part of me loved its 93-minute run time, but the other part thought 30 more minutes might have made me care more.  Or perhaps it’s just not worthy of a rewatch.  Once you know Liam Neeson has a “particular set of skills,” you just sort of half watch, knowing that he’s always going to best the bad guys.

Four Christmases - Netflix | We gave this 2008 comedy a watch while my parents visited.  Some funny scenes, but not destined to be a holiday classic, despite what the algorithm may say.  Amusing to see a buff Jon Favreau though.

The Glass Onion: A Knives Out Film - Netflix | Not as good as the first, but not unenjoyable. Daniel Craig went a little overboard with the accent, but it was nice to see Edward Norton and Kate Hudson again.  

The White Lotus, S2 - HBO | Season 2 didn’t excite me as much as season 1, but it’s a tried-and-true formula — write stories about rich people and make them look stupid so the majority of your audience, who isn’t rich, can laugh at them.

Inventing Anna - Netflix | Shonda Rhimes is cashing them checks! This sorta true life story doesn’t really seem all that unbelievable given how much everyone wants to be rich. “Veep” alum Anna Chlumsky is the reason to watch. I wanted to like the title character because she was so awesome in “Ozark,” but I just detest what social media has done to society so much that this limited series turned me off more than it turned me on.

The Marvelous Miss Maisel, S4 - Amazon Prime | A welcome return to form for this dramedy after half of season 2 decamped for a Jewish summer camp in the Catskills.  This time they’re back in NYC, JFK is rising to power, and poor Midge still can’t even bump her head against comedy’s glass ceiling, much less break it.  Lead actress Rachel Brosnahan proves her Emmy wasn’t a fluke and the supporting cast is just, well, marvelous.

Reservation Dogs, S1 & S2 - Hulu | Not sure why I waited so long to watch this Taika Waititi series about a group of young Native Americans struggling after the suicide of a friend and chafing against the boredom of life on an Oklahoma reservation, but it was worth the wait!  At times really funny and at times super serious, but wholly original.  And very digestible with just 22-minute episodes.

Survivor 43 - CBS | Still crazy after all these years! They’ve settled into a 26-day challenge, which honestly doesn’t seem so bad.  Although my recent colonoscopy experience not eating solid food for 24 hours would suggest otherwise.  The casts these days are all super fans, so it’s hard to really shock them, but the producers still manage to suck us in  every season.

The Best American Sports Writing 1991 guest edited by David Halberstam | Picked this up as an Amazon used book to round out my 31-year collection. It was a treat to read old school sports writing, before the dawn of the Internet, when reporters could befriend someone like former heavyweight boxing champ Buster Douglas and share his story with the world. (He knocked out Mike Tyson in his prime, you’ll remember.) Also trippy, a column about the “outrageous” salaries of athletes, bemoaning the fact that the average baseball player’s salary was approaching $100,000 per year. Aaron Judge just signed with the Yankees for $40 million per annum.

The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz | I’d read a few Koontz thrillers, so signed up for this one when I saw it on the AP book review list. Meh. It’s like two books, plot-wise, and neither is that captivating. Koontz completists will put it on their shelves, but for first-timers, there are better Koontz books to try.