Viewed this Week (22)

Inspired by Ticket to Anywhere’s What I Watched, I’ve decided to try to post on Sundays about what movies and/or TV shows I watched the week before.  Some weeks will be epic, and some weeks…won’t be.  There’s no hurt in trying, though, right?

TV:
Switched at Birth 1×23 – “This is the Color of My Dreams”
The L.A. Complex 2×8 – “Stay”
A bunch of Workaholics Season 1
American Horror Story, Season 1

Movies:
Away We Go
Pocahontas
Wayne’s World
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Celeste & Jesse Forever

Thoughts on What I Watched:

So glad that Switched at Birth is back with  new episodes, but I’m not going to lie: I’m confused as to why this is still considered part of the first season.  The show has already been picked up for a second season and had a summer-long hiatus, so why not call a spade a spade and admit this is a new season?  I’m not sure, but I’m not really complaining.  So happy to be fully enmeshed in the world of the Vasquez and Kennish families.

The L.A. Complex continues to be my biggest guilty pleasure, and now I’ve gotten my sister hooked on it, too.  She’s been texting me as she tears through the first season, and it’s been great to have someone to talk to about it.  Worth mentioning this week is how uncomfortable I felt with some of the characters (Connor, which was intentional, I think, and Kaldrick, who has some demons to face, let me tell you).  I’m also super worried about Raquel and how unintentionally self-destructive she is. Such a great show!

I ended up watching a bunch of episodes of Workaholics this week after having heard about the show from multiple sources for several months.  While it’s certainly not my favorite show ever, I have to admit that it’s very funny.  When I asked my roommate if she’d seen it, she went, “Yeah, but it’s way too crude.”  This is a girl from whose mouth comes the grossest turns of phrase I’ve ever heard, so…take from that what you will.

Even though I definitely watched the first few episodes of American Horror Story when the show first premiered, I never really got into it.  I spent the better part of last weekend sort of marathoning the show, and while I think it’s still kind of problematic, it’s also totally entertaining and frequently very scary.  Connie Britton and Jessica Lange are the show’s stand-outs, but I also enjoyed the celebrity stunt-casting w/r/t guest stars.  It’s definitely an interesting premise for a show.

In the scheme of things, I watched a lot of movies this past week.  I think  I technically watched Away We Go last week, but I didn’t include it in my roundup.  This was a rewatch for me, and I really enjoyed it, just like I did the last time I saw it.  The only thing was, this time through, it felt a little less genuine and authentic.  Some of the characters they encounter (I’m speaking mostly of Alison Janne, Catherine O’Hara, Jim Gaffigan, and Jeff Daniels) felt like too much, you know?  Apart from that, this is sweet little film.

Pocahontas–the Disney version, obviously–was a hate-watch.  I remember really enjoying it as a child, but as I’ve grown up and become increasingly aware of how problematic the movie is (not to mention a having particularly bad anecdote about watching it in a college sociology class and fighting with the professor about it), watching it all the way through (and totally sober) was something akin to torture.  GROSS.

Wayne’s World was just a break for my brain.  This is a movie that I still love and think holds up, so many years later.  20 years later?  Something like that.  God, I’m old.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a movie I knew was going to be awful going into it.  I tried and failed to get anyone to go see a matinee of it when it was in theaters, so watching it on my own this week was probably something I had coming.  And it was awful.  I don’t think I’ll review it, because I don’t care enough, but it was totally full of privileged white-people crap.  I was also unsettled by the subtle anti-choice message that seemed to run through the entire thing.  GROSS.

I already reviewed Celeste & Jesse Forever, so there’s no real reason to rehash that here.  I wanted it to be better. It wasn’t. End of story.

What did you watch this week?