TV: Behind Her Eyes (2021)

I heard about this show on a podcast and thank goodness, they didn’t say anything except watch it until the end. I’m glad I listened.
Behind Her Eyes comes off as one of those shows where people, usually women, make a series of decisions showing bad judgement, or being too nice, crossing their own boundaries. Other than the disclaimer to watch to the end, there was some other intrigue that hooked me along through the whole series.
It was worth waiting until the end. I really enjoyed the show. Good writing. Good production. Good acting. This was a Netflix original, British and has some speculative elements. Things I like.

Spoiler below. I’m warning don’t read until you watch.**********
The end was a mind-blowing reveal, which I still won’t spoil (for you greedy readers!) But I love, love, love the dip in the speculative fiction pool! Astral travel?! Wasn’t that fascinating and amazing? I would never participate because of all the possible terrifying situations pointed out in this very series! The dumbest part of this show was when she decided to astral travel into the house, which was on fire, instead of calling 999 for help. What can you do during an out of body experience to help someone in a burning building?
When you take over another person’s body, you lose access to all “institutional knowledge” and have no idea how to care for that body. I thought it was pretty unrealistic that a White person occupying a Black woman’s body would have any clue about how to do her hair, so it should have been a mess or at the very lease an ugly, messy bun.

Movie: Buck and the Preacher (1972)

The Civil War was over and by law the slaves were freed. But when the promise of land and freedom was not honored, many ex-slaves journeyed out of the land of bondage, in search of new frontiers where they could be free at last. They place their hopes in the hands of the few black wagonmasters that knew the territories of the West. None of this came easy, for not only did they have to overcome a hostile wilderness, but nightriders and bounty hunters were hired by ‘persons unknown’ to hunt them down and turn them back to the fields. This picture is dedicated to those men, women and children who lie in graves as unmarked as their place in history.

So begins the film Buck and the Preacher, an excellent western movie starring, directed, and produced by Sidney Poitier and Harry Bellafonte. Production started in 1971 and it’s only 117 minutes long. What can you do in that amount of time? You can tell a really good story with Black western antiheroes riding horses, chasing, and being chased in the chaparral. There’s also a little romance. 

I had never heard of this movie before this year. I listened to or read a Harry Bellafonte retrospective after his death (April 25, 2023) and heard that he and Sidney Poitier made a western! While I was never steeped in Sidney Poitier or Harry Bellafonte films, I feel like I should’ve heard of this one. Not only is it a good western movie, but it highlights some important historical facts like the newly freed slaves heading west to flee The South and the lack of opportunities of the east, while being hunted by former slave catchers turned “field hand recruiters” trying to scare them back to The South. Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier both gave excellent performances. Ruby Dee shows up in it too, and makes a third to the pair of Buck and the Preacher. The Native American characters, I believe are played by Native actors, which, in the 70s, is not that common. If you want to see a pre-woke-BLM, feel good, western with a cast full of people of color, you should watch Buck and the Preacher.

I checked out the DVD from my local library!

Photo by MikeGoad 

Movie: Palindromes (2004)

I first watched this movie at least 15 to 20 years ago. I suspect I watched it on Palm Pictures channel, which is where I caught a lot of obscure and weird movies at the time. I enjoyed it’s oddness and quirkiness. I enjoyed the fact that the same character is played by a collection of actors. Aviva, a girl, you never know how old she is, decides she wants a child/children because she always wants to have someone to love and she thinks a baby is the way to go. So, when she gets a little older, she goes about trying to getting pregnant, runs away, and in the process encounters people in different extremes of functional-disfunction. Re-Watching this today, in this post Roe v. Wade world, with so many battles over the right to an abortion, how social media has affected the mental health of teens, the ultra conservative movement’s success, Palindromes is perfectly appropriate for 2023. Seeing Aviva played by six different girls, different ages, races and sizes, is so affective and disturbing.
“People always end up the way they started out. No one ever changes. They think they do, but they don’t.” -Mark, not a pedophile.

TV: Cedar Cove Seasons 1 and 2

Cedar Cove is a Hallmark Channel series that centers on a County judge and her friends in a small coastal northwestern town. Cheesy and predictable is fine. Sometimes it’s exactly what you need. So season 1 is fine. Nothing great about it. Season 2 started off fine, but then it turned into a commercial for Jimmy Dean. The product placement was so blatant, at one point, the camera closes in on a shot of a plate of Jimmy Dean sausage next to the box. No. I do not want to participate in these shenanigan.

I watched Season 1 with a free preview through Amazon. I checked out Season 2 on DVD from the local library. 

TV: Sanditon Seasons 1-3 2019-2023

Jane Austen’s unfinished book was brought to the screen and completed in this three season light drama. Ms. Charlotte Heywood, an ingenious and out-spoken farmer’s daughter, visits Sanditon, an up and coming seaside resort town and becomes entwined in the lives of the key players, including visionaries and investors in the town and a rich heiress who’s the daughter of a plantation owner and his slave. Along the way, Ms. Heywood (and everyone else!) finds, looses and finds again romance and love. The show wraps up a little too perfectly and a little too modern, but obviously still worth watching. Andrew Davies, the writer/producer of some excellent British series, is responsible for the quality acting, writing, and production that make Sanditon an enjoyable and fulfilling watch.
I watched this on PBS Passport.