Chillaxing Critters

 

A Private Affair (Un Asunto Privado)

tags: Amazon streaming, comedy, crime, murder-mystery, Spanish series

8 episodes

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Amazon

1940s, Galicia. Marina Quiroga, a bold upper class girl with the soul of a detective, decides with the help of Héctor, her loyal butler, to trap the killer who has been terrorising her city.

My favorites Aura Garrido and Jean Reno are the leads, how can I not watch. I like the first two episode so far and will rate when I am done watching the complete series. Amazon is showing interesting series [at least to me], at last.

Update September 24, 2022: 5 stars.

Highly recommended. Watch in original European Spanish with English subtitles. Dubbing in English is always atrocious.

Father Stu

tags: based on true story, Catholic priest, drama, family, redemption, streaming on Netflix

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Based on a true story, Father Stu is an unflinchingly honest, funny and ultimately uplifting drama about a lost soul who finds his purpose in a most unexpected place. When an injury ends his amateur boxing career, Stuart Long moves to L.A. dreaming of stardom. While scraping by as a supermarket clerk, he meets Carmen, a Catholic Sunday school teacher who seems immune to his bad-boy charm. Determined to win her over, the longtime agnostic starts going to church to impress her. But surviving a terrible motorcycle accident leaves him wondering if he can use his second chance to help others find their way, leading to the surprising realization that he is meant to be a Catholic priest. Despite a devastating health crisis and the skepticism of Church officials and his estranged parents, Stu pursues his vocation with courage and compassion, inspiring not only those closest to him but countless others along the way.

The movie is currently Number 1 on Netflix and I can understand why. It is well scripted and acted, inspiring for everyone not just for Catholics but for all faiths. It's superior to any current movies Hollywood is churning out these days. The soundtrack is awesome also. 

Highly recommended.

Ringo Starr is 82

82-year old Ringo Starr does jumping jacks in time to the music after a 2 hour show in Pittsburgh Saturday; second of a three night stand in Pennsylvania: Easton Friday, Philadelphia Sunday. Some guys not as old as Ringo go home to Delaware on weekends and fall off their bike. pic.twitter.com/0JlN56E6xt

— Kristinn Taylor (@KristinnFR) September 11, 2022

He was 65 years old in this 2005 video. Don't Pass Me By is still my favorite from the double album White Album. It was originally written as country western by Ringo. Great song and I like the humor in the story/lyrics.  

I listen for your footsteps

Comin' down the drive

Listen for your footsteps

But they don't arrive

Waitin' for your knock, dear

On my old front door

I don't hear it, does it mean

You don't love me anymore?

Don't pass me by

Don't make me cry

Don't make me blue

'Cause you know

Darling, I love only you

You'll never know it hurts me so

How I hate to see you go

Don't pass me by

Don't make me cry

Don't make me blue

I hear the clock a-tickin'

On the mantel shelf

I see the hands a-movin'

But I'm by myself

I wonder where you are tonight

And why I'm by myself

I don't see you, does it mean

You don't love me anymore?

Don't pass me by

Don't make me cry

Don't make me blue

'Cause you know

Darling, I love only you

You'll never know it hurts me so 

Sorry that I doubted you

I was so unfair

You were in a car crash

And you lost your hair

You said that you'd be late tonight

About an hour or two

I said, that's alright

I'm a-waitin' here

Just waitin' to hear from you

Don't pass me by

Don't make me cry

Don't make me blue

'Cause you know

Darling, I love only you

You'll never know it hurts me so

How I hate to see you go

Don't pass me by

Don't make me cry

Don't make me blue

Ringo Starr wrote this in 1963 and sang lead. It was the first Beatles song he wrote by himself. In an interview for a New Zealand radio station during their 1964 tour of Australia, Ringo is heard in the background saying "sing the song I've written, just for a plug." Then, Paul says "Ringo has written a song called 'Don't Pass Me By.' A beautiful melody. This is Ringo's first attempt at songwriting." At this point, Paul and John actually sing a verse of it and Ringo says, "It was written as a country western, but Paul and John singing it with that blues feeling has knocked me out. Are the Beatles going to record it? I don't know. I don't think so, actually. I keep trying to push it on them every time we make an album." Paul then states, "Unfortunately, there's never enough time to fit Ringo's song on an album.

The Hobbit

tags: fantasy, reread

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

From Goodreads

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.

Great adventure and fantasy for all ages. Read it. It is short at 370 pages.

2022 Outstanding South Korean Dramas

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

16 episodes, 60 - 62 minutes, Season 1 complete

tags: dramedy, [bit of] romance

Woo Young-Woo is extremely smart and she also has autism spectrum disorder. She never forgets what she sees, but she lacks in social skills and empathy. Woo Young-Woo begins to work as a trainee lawyer at a large law firm. While working there, she faces prejudice and irrationality against her, but she solves cases with her own unique perspective and grows as a lawyer.

Although the main character Attorney Woo is a 28 year-old lawyer, the drama is kinda bildungsroman because she has autism and only becomes fully an adult towards the end of the first season. The writing is absolutely perfect. I love her immediate boss, Jung Myeong-Seok's admirable and warm personality, that I was rooting for him when he fell ill. I read there will be a second season because fans around the globe love the series. I'm looking forward to the second season.

Alchemy Of Souls

20 episodes, 62 - 70 minutes, Season 1 complete

tags: fantasy, mages, magic, romance, sageuk

The fate of these people become twisted due to "hwanhonsool" (the soul of the dead takes over the body of another living person).

In the country of Daeho, Jang Uk comes from the noble Jang family. He holds an unpleasant secret about his birth, which people all around the country talk about. He is a troublemaker. Jang Uk happens to meet Mu-Deok. She is an elite warrior, but her soul is trapped in a physically weak body. She becomes Jang Uk’s servant and secretly teaches him how to fight.

Seo Yul comes from the noble Seo family. He seems perfect with good appearance, intelligence, and strong martial arts skills.

Go Won is the crown prince of Daeho. He hopes to become a generous king.

A period drama, comedy, horror, shamans, mages, the baddest villains, romance, lots of sword fight, pretty and cute young leads, and the obligatory love triangle. Here the triangle becomes a polygon with 4 young men and 2 young women, it is dizzying at first but eventually settled to a rectangle, then a triangle. Whew! 😄Second season with 10 episodes will be aired in December, 2022.

The love polygon - Crown Prince, nobles and mages Jang-Uk and Seo Yul are all in love with maidservant Mu-Deok. Crown Prince calls her Filthy Mu-Deok because she used to wear tatty clothes.

Little Women

12 episodes, 60+ minutes, ongoing Saturday and Sunday

tags: 3 sisters, corruption, loosely based on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, mystery

Three sisters get involved in a case that leads them to fight against the richest and most influential family in South Korea. They grew up in a terribly poor environment with an inattentive mother and absent father who lives abroad.

Oh In-Joo is the oldest sister. Since she was a young child, she realized that money was the most important thing to protect herself and her family. Her dream is to live an ordinary life like other people. She gets involved in a case that could change her life.

Oh In-Kyung is the middle sister. She is an enthusiastic reporter at a news station. She believes in doing the right things. She believes money doesn't rule life. She now begins to dig into a mysterious case that she first faced when she first became a reporter.

Oh In-Hye is the youngest of the three sisters. She is a student at a prestigious arts high school and she has a natural talent for painting. She often feels her two older sisters' love for her is too much.

There are only 3 sisters, not 4. I'm guessing Beth is not included because nobody will want to watch if the middle sister dies. The story is a mystery involving an ambitious wealthy politician and his involvement in a series of deaths in the present and 4 years before. Interesting story line and the acting and script are really good.

I gave all 3 series 2 thumbs up on Netflix.

Schooled

tags: Kindle First, unfunny

⭐

From Goodreads

Jack Parker didn’t set out to be a stay-at-home dad, but his professional dreams went up in smoke after he accidentally burned down his office building.Six years later, Jack’s got parenting his two kids down cold.

Then comes an unwelcome blast from Jack’s past: high school nemesis Chad Henson. He beat out Jack for class president, stole his girlfriend, and never had so much as a pimple in his four years of adolescent bliss. Now Chad has moved to the same midwestern town Jack calls home.

When Jack learns Chad is running for president of his daughter’s school board, he decides to run to settle old scores.But parent politics prove more cutthroat than Jack could have imagined, and he’s facing unexpected challenges in his marriage, too, forcing him to question his role in the family. Suddenly, the election is about more than Jack’s past. It’s an opportunity to discover the person he wants to become.

People grow up, but some high school rivalries never die. It’s time Chad Henson got schooled once and for all—and for Jack to learn a few things of his own.

False advertisement by Amazon Kindle First...again. Supposed to be funny and relatable. Big NO! What is funny about burning down your place of work because of negligence, heating pizza in the microwave on a piece of aluminum foil and leaving it to go to the parking lot??? This stupidity is on the very early part of the book and the reason he lost his job and eventually becomes a stay-at-home dad. At the playground, his daughter loses her underwear to a squirrel yet he is not concerned and continues talking to a former classmate and bully, the antagonist Chad. I skimmed through but finished the darned book because I'm a masochist and because I want to give it the least star on Goodreads.

Recommended for masochists.

Country Music Playlist

They Came To Baghdad

tags: espionage, mystery, thriller

⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

They Came to Baghdad is one of Agatha Christie's highly successful forays into the spy thriller genre. In this novel, Baghdad is the chosen location for a secret superpower summit. But the word is out, and an underground organisation is plotting to sabotage the talks.

Into this explosive situation stumbles Victoria Jones, a young woman with a yearning for adventure who gets more than she bargains for when a wounded secret agent dies in her hotel room. Now, if only she could make sense of his final words: 'Lucifer ... Basrah ... Lefarge ...'

I don't think I can rate any Agatha Christie's novel lower than 4 stars. I wasn't expecting much with this short story but surprised I really loved it. The story and writing are superb as usual.

The book is more of a spy thriller than a murder mystery. The main protagonist is Victoria Jones, a young woman who is bored with her low paying job as a typist. She meets and gets enamored with a very charming and handsome young man, Edward who is going to Baghdad in a few days. Victoria, on a whim, decides she wants to follow him without knowing his full name and with just 4 pounds in her pocket.

Victoria is a pathological liar who invents stuff without batting an eyelash and people believe her because she is resourceful, pretty, and charming herself. She succeeds in going to Baghdad armed with just her lies and meets Edward. Victoria gets to know a lot of people, some are famous personalities, who are also in Baghdad for some reason. She gets into dangerous situations and is able to get out of them, of course, and helps in preventing a crazy group of people from implementing their sinister plan during a summit with the American President and Russian Premier.

Highly recommended for Agatha Christie fans.

The Moonstone

tags: detective story, mystery

⭐⭐

From Goodreads

Bequeathed a rare diamond by her late uncle, heiress Rachel Verinder has no idea it was stolen from an Indian temple or that it has a cursed history. When the diamond disappears on her eighteenth birthday, multiple suspects - including Rachel’s suitor, Franklin Blake - are implicated in its theft. Determined to prove his innocence, Franklin begins his own investigation. Did one of his fellow Englishmen steal the jewel? Or was it whisked back to India?

The case, which unfolds through multiple narratives, takes startling twists and turns in pursuit of the truth. Widely considered the first great detective novel written in English, The Moonstone is one of Wilkie Collins’s most famous works.

It is considered the first detective novel but I beg to disagree. The Moonstone was written in 1848 and Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders In The Rue Morgue came out first in 1841. Yes it is a very short story with less than 100 pages but C. Auguste Dupin was the first fictional detective in the first detective story ever written and the most brilliant IMHO. M. Dupin and Poe's story inspired both Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Moonstone is unnecessary long and not very exciting. I was bored to death and finishing it was a chore. It's more like a family drama and the center of the story is the missing moonstone. I didn't like the writing style with multiple points of view divided into their own chapters written in the first person - my pet peeve.

I find the book too simple and pedestrian. And too contrived. The detective, Sergeant Cuff is sharp and smart but I never warmed up to his character.  His character is as dry as the Sahara. The rest of the characters are not likable specially the housemaid who has a physical defect and not pretty. She fell in love with a young man way above her station. Adoration and unreasonable protection of a person who doesn't look at or even acknowledge her is crazy and it isn't the fault of the man. She is a housemaid in the 1800s! The whole mystery is revolved around him and he isn't even aware that it is so. 

I find the story very weak and doesn't need to be 600 pages long. It was serialized so understandable but the editors should have trimmed it to just a third because the rest is just group of words that do not contribute much to the story. I skipped one chapter after realizing it has nothing to do with the narrative and is totally totally not needed. Totally. I'm not kidding. 

Not recommended.