What My Mom And I Have Been Watching

(and listening to)

Hi beloveds!

We have had my mom for a lovely extra-long visit, during which time I have been carefully checking movies off a list I prepared for her. Let’s review:

First up, obviously, we watched my illicit screener of Little Women, which I wept through again.

Then we watched Knives Out, which I BELIEVE was my mom’s fav. I had been…mildly indisposed…when I first watched the last quarter of the movie so it was like seeing it for the first time!

I wasn’t sure if Parasite would be too scary, but she made it all the way through and really dug it. My father is also a major Bong stan now.

See above, I was concerned about whether a person who hates horror movies would like Ready or Not, but the violence is cartoonish enough, like in Hot Fuzz, that I figured she would be fine. She was.

We watched the Betty White documentary, which was delightful.

It was my third time through The Irishman, and we talked about how Scorsese a) always sneaks in a Communion metaphor and b) if you think he glorifies mobster life you have never watched the last hour of one of his movies. There’s plenty of good criticisms of The Irishman but not that.

Obviously we watched the Downton Abbey movie, even though I stopped watching the show after season two because I just…did. The movie remained enjoyable.

We watched three Gary Gulman stand-up specials and Mike Birbiglia’s The New One, big hits with mom.

The Gilda Radner documentary. What can I say? I love Gilda.

Two episodes of Cold Case Files, the excellent Netflix reboot with Danny Glover’s narration.

One episode of David Suchet’s Poirot nightly, as we’re doing the full rewatch.

The first two episodes of McMillion$ bc everyone came over from Twitter to tell me to watch it AND OH MY GOD WHERE ARE MY SCREENERS? That guy! Have never felt so warmly towards the FBI, I think it’s secretly a recruiting video.

She hadn’t seen the Theranos documentary, which I rectified at once (the Carreyou book is better, but it’s still fun.)

Then we watched the Linda Ronstadt documentary (my third time) and I became obsessed with JD Souther, her ex, who wrote/co-wrote some of Linda and The Eagles’ greatest songs. May we all have one ex who will be entirely flattering about us in the eventual documentary!

He wrote “Faithless Love” for Linda:

He also dated the great and tragic Judee Sill, and so I have been looping her song about him:

I also love “Rugged Road”:

Back to JD, I love “How Long”, which the Eagles dug up and recorded for a recent album, but this is JD’s:

We also watched the Documentary Now spoof, Co-op edition:

For which I prepped her with the real thing:

Obviously, John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch:

And, because of the zeitgeist, Marriage Story. Today is her last day, so I guess we’ll see what we watch today!

I love you all EXTREMELY MUCH, individually!

Nicole