Life with a Screen

When I was laid up in the last two years, I always posted about what I was doing for "life in a bed."  Well, now it's Mama's turn.  And when she's not eating interesting take-out (so far, hibachi, Jamaican, Italian deli, and Shake Shack) or playing games (mainly on her iPad, which I don't even know the names of), she's watching tv and movies (and was limited in her choices by the hospital's tv, mainly choosing TLC or Discovery, hence "American Guns!"), often with me at night.  In the last few weeks, we've seen (streaming Netflix or Amazon Prime or DVR'd off basic cable; **asterisks indicate recommendations):

• **"Doctor Who" with Christopher Eccleston--We are completely unfamiliar with any of this series but kept coming across it; we're enjoying it.
• **Between the Folds--a fascinating documentary on origami, starting with traditional artistic forms and moving into more technical/engineered forms, "choreographed" or kinesthetic/motion-oriented forms, abstract single-fold forms, "anarchist" crumbled not folded forms, and engineering/scientific applications and forms like with air bags and collapsible telescope lenses in space. 
• Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Shadows--I think we liked this one better than the first.  Totally different from the BBC series with Benedict Cumberbatch.
• Word Wars documentary on Scrabble--kinda bittersweet documentary of four men who live lives rather restricted by their Scrabble obsessions.
• Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox--like the soap, totally turned off by documentary and not because of the wacky religious views of Dr. Bronner but because of the righteousness of the proselytizing son and the lack of distance/objectivity of the narrative--it's like a bad public access infomercial.
• **"Taste of History"--working our way through 3 seasons of colonial cooking by Chef Walter Staib.
• "Auction Kings"--aka WT-version of "Antique Roadshow"
• "Dirty Jobs Down Under" (Australia)--ugh, snakes and poisonous frogs.  And some ugly condescension to Aborigines.
• "Stephen Fry in America"--not as good as it could have been, at least not the New England episode
• "Moonshiners"--reality tv on moonshiners and cops in rural VA.  Wow, not much has changed.
• "Damages"--she's watching this on her own.  Just to look at Glenn Close.
• "One Car Too Far"--she's watching this alone, too
• "Bering Sea Gold:  Under the Ice" and "Bering Sea Gold"--ditto.
• "Fast n Loud"--don't even know what this was . . . 
• "American Guns"--something about refurbishing old guns--and she likes how they got dents out of old wood.
• "Survivor Man"--mmh, hmm.
• "Encounters at the End of the World" by Werner Herzog--actually just quit watching it, weren't that engaged or interested.
• **Thor--Okay, we liked it.  The Norse mythological influences, the fantastic special effects, Queen Amidala.  I'd watch the sequel.
• "Pokemon"--so she could talk to the kids.  And because she loves it.
• "Ninjago"--another one to keep up with the kids.
• **Black Swan--Queen Amidala again.  Frightening, amazing, enthralling, gross, artistic.
• Captain America--I liked the period feel, the story, and seeing LOTR's "Elrond" as evil Hydra Nazi Red Skull.  Didn't like the ending moving it to the present.
• Transformers 3--Yeah, we're not watching everything in order, just what we can get online easily.  Mama had to fill me in on the backstory, which she knew from childhood.  I liked it, especially that they blew up Chicago instead of NYC!  I was even sad when the old Scottish? transformer died.  They became kinda humanoid.
• **"Poirot"--the modern PBS series--we like it.
• **Several 1970s-1980s Agatha Christie movies, including Evil Under the Sun--love Maggie Smith!!
• Iron Man 2--just like with Transformers, we hadn't seen the first one of this.  We're actually watching it now.  Funny to see Sherlock Holmes as a Super Hero.  And Gwyneth Paltrow as an art historian/curator, I think (well, she was talking art in that last scene--but the Boy Scouts?  Ugh, Iron Man), is so cliche.  Can't tell you why we like the Marvel Comics/action movies now.  Power?  Violence?  Clarity?  We wish we could get the new Batman or Avengers.    Oops, we just got bored and changed films . . . I wonder what's next.

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Update:  Next was "Ice Road Truckers:  World's Most Dangerous Roads" in the Himalayas, with a female truck driver!  And then the BBC's crime-solving duo, "Rosemary & Thyme."  And tonight X-Men: First Class!