Media Roundup: What I've Been Watching and Listening To
As I spend most of my time at home, I’m always looking for something new to watch on Netflix and HBO Max. Moreover, I also frequently listen to podcasts while I work or fall asleep (you can check out my past posts on podcasts here).
During the month of January, I watched a couple of TV shows and movies that I want to share with you all that I think are worthy of your time. I will also include a podcast I’ve been listening to that I have not mentioned on my blog before.
Read on below to learn more about what I have been watching and listening to in the first month of 2021!
Series:
We’re starting this list strong with “Perry Mason”. In the 2020 version of this classic show, it’s the early 1930s in Los Angeles. A child is kidnapped and murdered, and his mother becomes the prime suspect. Mason is hired as a private investigator and then as the suspect’s defense lawyer to prove otherwise.
The character of “Perry Mason” is based on a book series and was a popular TV show back in the ’50s and ’60s. I’ve never watched the old version of this series and could not tell you how the old and new differ. I will say that the production value of the new TV show is astonishing.
You get to see 1930s Los Angeles come alive and how sensational the media could be during this time. The actor who plays the titular character (Matthew Rhys) makes you feel different emotions all at once.
I’m very much into crime dramas which is why I gravitated toward this show. However, you could definitely watch this just for the grimy LA aesthetic!
“Perry Mason” is streaming now on HBO Max.
Ok listen, everyone and their mother have been watching “Bridgerton” and with good reason. This Netflix-based show is escapism at its best. You have the Regency era, big parties, gorgeous fashion, and of course, romance.
To summarize what it’s all about, the Bridgerton’s are a large affluent family in England. Although it primarily focuses on Daphne Bridgerton, the eldest daughter who is ready to find love and get married, you also get to meet her siblings and the other wealthy families involved in this period drama.
What really makes this series is the chemistry between Daphne and her love interest, Simon Basset (who also happens to be a duke). I will be sincere and say that the first episode had me bored. By the third episode though, I was fully committed to knowing what the future held for each of the characters. Please watch; you won’t regret it!
Movies:
“Radium Girls” recently dropped on Netflix, but I had been waiting for this movie for so long. This true story is unbelievable, but I feel like it rarely gets told.
The Radium Girls were a group of young women in the early 1920s who worked for the United States Radium Corporation. They painted numbers on wristwatches with radium paint and were told that it was completely safe.
To make a long story short, radium is radioactive and these girls quickly began to die from radiation poisoning. Although the movie is a fictionalized version of these events, you get to see the reality of what happened to this group of people in the form of one story.
Joey King plays Bessie, a watch painter who sues the United States Radium Corporation after she realizes it was the cause of both of her sister’s illnesses.
I watched “Sightless” on a whim because the actress who is in it, Madelaine Petsch, plays Cheryl on “Riverdale” (my guilty pleasure!). I really was not expecting much from this movie but I was proven wrong.
Petsch plays Ellen Ashland, a world-famous violinist who gets blinded during a violent attack. While police try to uncover who attacked her, she moves into a temporary apartment with a caretaker to adjust to life without her sight.
This film has twists and turns; some that you might see coming, some that you might not. Whatever the case, this is a psychological thriller and although this is not the best movie, I was taken back by Petsch’s performance.
You can stream“Sightless” on Netflix.
Podcasts:
