Never-ending stories

Laid up for two days with a stomach bug this week, I discovered something: the TV of your childhood is back. I don't mean that H.R. Pufnstuf has been rebooted - man would that not go well - but rather how you watched TV is returning. The Criterion Channel now has Criterion 24/7, a steady stream of its film collection that you drop into to see what's on. To find out what's playing, you go to a dedicated URL. Amazon Prime is going all in on the idea, with an entire 'On Now' section that includes a Saturday Night Live vault mixing sketches from every era, and channels for Classic Film, Kids in the Hall, monster movies, local news broadcasts from LA and Chicago, and more. You know, TV programming. It's one more sign that the streaming era as we know it is coming to an end. Get ready to sign up for cable again.

🎥 Le Samourai (Criterion)
That 24/7 channel is precisely how I find this, though I had heard of it as a classic of French cinema. When you're wanting to feel stylish, arty, and cool as hell, queue this up. An absolutely gorgeous timepiece of the 60s, it's a tense crime thriller that was clearly influenced by 1940s film noir. I especially loved the cat-and-mouse chase through the Paris subways. It's considered the director's masterpiece for good reason.

📺 Dark Matter (Apple TV+)
Every time I start to cancel this damn service, they pull out another great show. (Also I hear the new season of Severance is imminent.) This is a dimension-hopping, sci-fi love story that does us the very nice favor of explaining exactly what's going on in episode 2. American existence is a confounding puzzle right now, so I appreciate not having to decode my entertainment as well. Also, Jennifer Connelly is in it and I like her.

📖 The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
It would be weird to say I want to live in this book's world, because it's set in a poverty-ridden town in 193os America with healthy doses of racism and anti-Semitism. But the main characters in the town are just wonderful people, and I want them to be my friends. There is a heart-pounding rescue attempt toward the end that will have you gulping each page down like water. I found myself thinking about it days later.

That's it for this week. Three-day weekend coming up—hang in there, friends.

xoxo