The Bold Squirrel Gets the Whole Donut

Plus he’s like, a giant.  Like NBA level tall.

This summer I discovered the tv land show Younger, and I’m so glad I did. 

The premise: Forty year old housewife Liza Miller has a daughter in college and an unfaithful ex-husband with a gambling problem. Needing to return to work after a fifteen year absence is not easy, particularly in her former field of publishing. She is willing to start at entry level, but her age causes potential employers to balk. One night out with her friend, she is mistaken for being in her twenties. Her friend suggests she use her youthful appearance to her advantage, and pretend to be a twenty-something millennial rather than a forty year old gen x'er to get a job. She does, it works, hi jinks ensue as she tries to evade getting caught. 

 It’s perfect summer tv. It hits the crazy addictive sweet spot of say, a kdrama, with the buzzy, racy humor of Sex and the City (same producer). It has fun with generation gap humor, literary jokes about publishing, and a ton of parodies of famous authors.

I’m known for never rewatching anything, even my favorite tv shows. This show has been the exception. I just enjoy it so much that I watch each episode at least twice. Much has been made of this season (their fourth) being their highest rated. I think in uncertain, anxious times, people respond to escapism in entertainment, and this show is the perfect escape.

Seasons 1-3 available on Hulu.  

Season 4 currently airing and available on demand if you have TV Land, or through Amazon or iTunes.

I just found out Chung-hoo Chung was the Director of Photography for IT.  You know Chung-hoo Chung.  He’s why everyone things Park Chan-wook is a genius.

In honor of book lovers day I give you a top ten list of movies about books, because I have to be contradictory.

Movies about Readers

84 Charing Cross Road (This movie captures the charming feeling of the book, which was a collection of letters over the years between a New York tv writer and London bookseller.  You can’t go wrong with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins.)

Julie and Julia (part biopic, part romcom, part food movie)

Dead Poet’s Society (Drama with a capital D.  Oh Captain, My Captain)

The Never-ending Story (Atreyu!  Activating childhood dreams of owning a big fluffy dragon)

Misery (Making “I’m your number one fan” something no one can ever say.)

Movies about Writers

Deconstructing Harry (When your fictional characters attack)

Stranger Than Fiction (My favorite.  Quirky, odd, funny, thoughtful.  Probably inspired by the next movie on the list.)

Adaptation (A Charlie Kaufman classic.  Who does Meta better than him?  No one.)

Capote (A movie about the writing of a genre defining book.  With special appearance by Harper Lee!)

 I'm really enjoying this show and its very interesting take on art, desire, marriage, fantasy, consent and the female gaze. I'm really surprised it hasn't made a bigger splash on Tumblr. It's pretty racy, and very artsy, but I'd think Tumblr people would find it relatable in regard to fandom (and the ethics of fan fiction about real people.) Then again, it's really awkward to search the tag.

I haven’t posted anything Legion related in awhile, but if you like Legion you might like:

The works of Wes Anderson

My faves are The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom.

The works of David Lynch

My fave of his is the film Blue Velvet and the series Twin Peaks (original, I haven’t seen the newest yet).

The works of Chan Wook Park (or Park Chan Wook)

Warning: Chan Wook Park’s films can be EXTREMELY disturbing, but the cinematography is incredibly sumptuous.

The works of the Coen Brothers

Don't do that.

Much has been made about the current relevance of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, but as I was watching it I also couldn’t help but see similarities to scenes from Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis is a graphic novel memoir about Satrapi’s family experience during the Iranian Revolution.  If you haven’t read it, you should.  

One of the reasons The Handmaid’s Tale is being praised is the way they show through flashbacks an entirely believable progression of events leading up to Gilead. I don’t recall Margaret Atwood giving a great deal of background to how Gilead came about in the novel, but a quick Google search turned up an interview with Atwood in the NYTimes at the time of the novel’s release, where she discussed being influenced by the rise of the Christian Right and...the Iranian revolution. I wonder if the writers of the show, knowing this, used books like Persepolis as a reference. Or if not Persepolis specifically, the Islamic revolution in general.  Here are a few sample pages from Persepolis where Marjane describes the very sudden switch to state mandated fundamentalism.