A little while ago, a coworker was trying to decide how quickly she needed to get to the theater to see a new movie. When I mentioned that she didn’t really need to be in a rush to see it, her response was along the lines of, “of course you’ve already seen it, you’re such a culture vulture.” A culture vulture? I had never heard that term before…but I’m not mad at it, I actually kind of love it. And I feel like I’ve been doing the moniker proud of late. In case you’re curious, the movie was Us – and I stand by my statement, I just don’t get the hype.
I’m up to somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 musicals and plays on and off Broadway, and April came in hot with some of the best. Tootsie with Santino Fontana (the voice of Prince Hans in Frozen and Greg #1 on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) could be my new favorite musical of all time. I’ve admittedly never seen the movie, so I have no basis for comparison there. But the musical was witty, endearing and charming; the music was upbeat and catchy; and the message was positive. Checked all my Broadway boxes.
Burn This with Keri Russell and Adam Driver takes top marks in the non-musical category. Keri is so beautiful and such an inspiring actress. Adam Driver was even taller in person, which seemed hard to believe. His performance really brought the story to life with his completely over-the-top character. For a play centered around loss, it was surprisingly funny as well. All the emotions.
As we’ve discussed, my new library card has helped me blaze through books of every genre. I try to keep a self-improvement book of some kind going at the same time as a novel, so I feel like I’m covering all my bases. It works because I follow and retain novels better if I read them in e-book form and non-fiction better if I listen to an audiobook. For some reason, my mind likes to wander if I listen to fiction as opposed to read it. My mind has a mind of its own sometimes.
I’ve always been a big fan of movies (ahem, Jason Bateman). They’d gotten so expensive that when Movie Pass came around, I jumped on the bandwagon and got in the habit of seeing movies all the time. Then, Movie Pass went downhill. By the time I left Seattle, there were so few movie options, it was no longer worth even $10/month. Not long after I moved, I subscribed to the AMC Theaters A-List, their own version of Movie Pass. For $20/month, you can see up to three movies a week, including special viewings like IMAX or 3D, and you can purchase tickets in advance on the app. A killer deal, seeing as one movie can cost basically $20. And there’s a huge AMC Theater in Times Square, so I love to do a Broadway matinee/new movie double feature on Saturdays. There’s a smaller AMC Theater about a block from my apartment, so I have options – the only downside is we seem to be having a dry spell on the Jason movie front. Thank goodness for Ozark!
That brings me to my next favorite thing…binge watching. Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime all have so much awesome content out there that I never run out of things to watch. Season three of The Santa Clarita Diet just hit Netflix, and I absolutely love Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant in this series. I avoided it for a while thinking the concept of eating people would be too much for me, but the actors and the relationships portrayed in the show really make it work. Speaking of Netflix, I’m dying to have Queer Eye’s new fab five make over my entire life. Sadly, Jonathan Van Ness isn’t taking new clients or else he’d be cutting my hair right now. I was able to snag a ticket to see Jonathan and Antoni Porowski (and their friend Justin Theroux) for a comedy show they hosted, and they were as adorable as expected. Did not disappoint.
There’s so much more I need to see and do and read and watch, but even I’m amazed at how much ground I continue to cover. I’ve determined that my lifestyle here has really helped my cause. I don’t spend time doing laundry, I don’t spend much time commuting (and when I do, I spend it reading) and have no car to keep up with, I don’t spend time in restaurants (eating out on keto is hard when I can make exactly what I want and like myself), and I don’t spend much time cleaning (can’t clean what isn’t there). I enjoy staying on top of pop culture way more than doing any of those things anyway.