Stuff I've Been Watching

I said I was going to drop my Amazon Prime subscription after they announced that their videos would have ads included (unless you want to pay not to have them), and I followed through and dropped that service earlier in January before Bezos could get in my pockets again for the next billing cycle. I don't miss it at all either. I have more than enough to watch on other services. 

Speaking of those other services, I've been watching the new season of True Detective on HBO/Max. It's okay, but not great. It is holding my interest enough to continue watching it. I had seen the previous seasons of the show except for Season 2, so I watched that over the past couple of weeks. Oy vey, what a mess. I enjoyed Season 1 when it came out and Season 3 was good also, but Season 2 was no bueno. Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams were miscast. I didn't buy either of them in their roles. Colin Farrell was good. I saw him in New York at a Dunkin' Donuts once. True story! I was waiting for my coffee and donuts and he came in with a woman. I thought, That guy looks like Colin Farrell. Then he opened his mouth and spoke and I realized, That IS Colin Farrell! But, back to True Detective Season 2. Too much sleaze and bad dialogue and not enough of a decent plot. Season 4 has an interesting mystery, but Kali Reis isn't working for me and I don't think she can hold her own against Jodie Foster. (Another case of an actor being miscast for the role in this series.) I'm going to see it through to the end (like I did with the awful Season 2), but I'm watching with lowered expectations.

I went to see the movie The Zone of Interest earlier today because I'd heard it was good and I wanted to see if I could understand any of the German dialogue since I took 16 weeks of German lessons last summer. Yeah, I can safely say that most of my German has gone out the window. Other than recognizing basic terms like children, hello, thank you, goodbye, and some numbers, I didn't remember jack. I watched this movie and walked out of it wondering, Who is this movie for and what was the point of it? It was ghoulish. That's the best word I can use to describe it. Was the filmmaker just trying to let the audience know that some Germans went about living their normal lives while the Holocaust was going on? Duh, I think we know that. I didn't get it.