Back in the Cold War days Soviet Russia would contrive to install ‘useful idiots’ in leadership roles in bordering satellite states. Examples of this are too numerous to mention. A problem with this tactic, though, was they’d then find themselves surrounded by countries ruled by idiots. Putin got his money’s worth…

A reminder, ‘The Girl with’ was already a TV series. A 2009 Swedish series. The reason why the Hollywood movie had such a lackluster reception was because it was a pale imitation of the well known original Swedish production (as most Hollywood remakes of foreign material tends to be). If I were a betting man I’d wager …

Let me think... My favorite podcast episode has to be “My Dad Wrote A Porno”, season 2 episode 15: ‘Jim’s Secret’. If you’ve heard it you’ll know why.

I recall a few years ago Korean TV did a series named ‘BIG’ that was unrelated to the old Tom Hanks movie... except for that part about the child finding himself in an adult’s body. Other than that, completely different.

The “marching-band-in-a-Vegas-floorshow uniforms” gag is straight out of true events from the Reagan presidency. When Reagan got into the WH Nancy dressed up the WH military guards in gold spangles and brocade like something out of a Busby Berkeley musical. It was grotesque.

They gave the genre a hippie stoner twist with David Carradine’s ‘Kung Foo’ TV series back in 1972. The CW is actually rebooting that series for 2021, this time with an Asian female lead, and I believe without cowboys.

That looks really interesting.! British humor these days, though, tends to be a little bleak for my tastes. 

Wasn’t our president’s address honoring the nation’s fallen soldiers moving yet respectful today. This message from the alternate timeline where the candidate who won the 2016 election got to serve as president.

Oh my, this article summoned a memory of olive oil packed sardines on a toasted bagel, sprinkled with cayenne pepper. I almost swoon at the memory. The next time I dare to enter the COVID-riddled supermarket for provisions I may just pick me up some fixin’s.

I just posted this on another story. Everything seems to be a metaphor for Trump these days.

Well, you could say Snowpiercer was a metaphor, before American show-runners got hold of it.

Production is able to resume because NZ did it right, in contrast to the Russian satellite state of Trumpsylvania which has 5% of world the population and 30% of the COVID-19 deaths.

It seems we can’t escape mentally reading every story as a Trump metaphor these days, no matter how tenuous the association.

Is it ‘pop culture’ to mention a certain unnamed morbidly obese former reality show actor whose’s been snorting too much hydroxychloroquine slandering a respected new anchor today ?

Sigh, I recall how back-in-the-day I lived and breathed network TV. Set my internal clock to synchronize with what was airing that day. Not anymore. I think it all started to go wrong when scripted prime time series started being replaced by brainless game shows and even more brainless reality shows. Now networks are…

‘Live’ is so difficult to locate. ‘Recorded live’ is another category and there’s lots & lots of examples that come to mind.

2020 now, since this finale aired a decade ago there have been SO MANY great shows with such awful finales that it retroactively ruined the series, from ‘Game of Thrones’ to ‘Sherlock’ to the America-destroying abomination that was ‘Celebrity Apprentice’.

Whenever a columist compares someone to Nora Ephron I want to ask ‘Could you name someone besides Nora Ephron? Who would be your second choice?’ 

It’s especially icky viewing those films through the ‘Trump lens’ today. In 2001 an aging self-centered letch was just an aging self-centered letch. These days an aging self-centered letch is a metaphor for the rot at the center of America.

Noona romances are the best romances.