I continue to struggle with TV shows. My attention span ain’t what it used to be and most shows are such a long commitment to find out if they are even any good. And then there is the fact that the very business model of TV—get extended for more seasons, keep existing, keep attracting viewers and advertisers—may be working against the right kind of storytelling for what the show actually is. When isn’t capitalism at fault, really? I have enjoyed many shows that went on for numerous seasons, either because they had a long story to tell and the creative team paced it out properly, or because they had many little stories to tell (New Girl could have gone 20 seasons but it was also perfect at 7—lots of shows work like that, though no other show is New Girl). But some stories simply have short arcs, and trying to pad them out for the sake of $$ makes the viewing experience tedious or weird or both. I am probably stuck watching as many seasons of Severance as the creators care to make because I do think the series is excellent but I still hold that that was a one-season story arc. I think the same about Pluribus and I don’t think I liked that one enough for a second season. But those are shows I at least made it through one season! There’s many others I started but after a couple episodes of long long takes and people murmuring, “Welllll, maybe we should…get some tacos…while we think about it,” I could not invest any longer. I honestly think part of the appeal of the Heated Rivalry TV show is that they got you from curiosity to suspense to excitement to a happy ending and on to doing something else in six episodes. How rare and perfect and joyful is that? (I am most of the way through the novel that is the sequel to the Heated Rivalry Sequel, The Long Game, and I am sorry to say I’m finding it tedious. It’s very long, everyone is sad all the time, and suspense is nil. Boo. Maybe Unrivalled will be better. I will have a lot more to say about this when I have read the whole series.)

You know what is at least often the right length, and not forcefully extended by the needs of capitalism? Movies. I have really been enjoying movies lately. They are one evening of entertainment—I don’t need to free up the next month and a half—and the creators have committed to telling a complete story with a beginning, middle, and an end. I love that for me in the mood I am currently in. Here are some movies I’ve loved lately, if you are also in this mood.

Blue Moon This sad, witty, and extremely erudite film was recommended to me by my friend Christine and I just loved it despite it being an extreme downer. It’s the story of one night at the bar towards the end of the life of songwriter Lorenz Hart, of the music-and-words duo Rogers and Hart (they wrote the titular song, their greatest hit). Hart is a snob, an alcoholic, and a bit of a mess, and for all of those reasons has been unable to work on Rogers’ latest project, the musical Oklahoma, which is premiering tonight with words written by a new guy by the name of Hammersmith. As he sits in the bar where the opening night party will—and then does—happen, Hart chats with the bartender, the piano player, other patrons, and eventually party guests and in so doing describes his whole life. I really couldn’t believe the film wasn’t based on a play, it has that tight-space feel to it. So smart and wistful. Hart is played by Ethan Hawke, who is truly very good in the role, but I could not get it out of my head that he was 7-8 inches taller than the guy he was playing (Hart was tiny! Maybe 5 feet!) and every camera angle, all the blocking, even some of the furniture was designed to make him seem smaller. This distracted me a little but I’m of a distractable mind lately. Normal people will be fine.

Shook This is the perfect sort of film for me—slow-moving, quiet, funny, and extremely Toronto-y, set in the little nooks and crannies of Scarborough and Kensington. It’s about a young writer, Ashish, just graduated from his masters in creative writing at UofT (my former program??) and working on his first book. It starts out seeming like he’s a layabout but gradually it emerges that he’s actually a big-ish deal, having achieved a grant and an agent right out of school. But his parents have just split up and he’s stuck living with his mom and brother in a tiny apartment in Scarborough among half-unpacked boxes. And then he discovers his dad has Parkinson’s disease. And then he meets a cute hipster girl in Kensington. Things happen in the movie but mainly it’s just this guy pingponging between all this stuff and just…living. It’s so beautiful, and Toronto and Scarbough look so perfect and real. There’s not one but two scenes in a Hakka restaurant, a perfect romantic moment wandering in the dark on what I’m pretty sure is Augusta, running for the last subway, a rare anachronist sighting of a Scarborough Rapid Transit train (RIP, SRT), and even an intensely emotional scene set on the grassy embankment outside Warden Station. Loved this movie, also sort of see why it might not have been discovered by a wider public, as the appeal is a little bit local.

Michael Clayton This is a nearly 20-year-old legal thriller starring George Clooney that I had remembered really fondly from 2007 and truly it does not standup upon rewatching, but I still have a soft spot for it. Clooney plays lawyer who is a “bagman”—is that a real thing? He comes in to clean up messes and make sure things don’t get too bad for the law firm’s clients—he’s great at staying calm and figuring things out and finding the right connection to make a problem go away? But he is struggling with a side project of a restaurant he started with his alcoholic brother going under and his own gambling addiction, and a host of other vaguely alluded to personal problems when a favourite and highly revered colleague suffers a mental breakdown while on environmental poisoning, Erin Brockovich type case, only his firm is on the anti-Erin side. It gets very very complicated and a lot of stuff…just never gets sorted out. Mark hated this and I have to say it’s not a great film, but I did enjoy Clooney striding around, all the weird connections, and the flashback to the mid-2000s.

PS—If you are wondering why I don’t have the emotional stamina for long TV shows, 1) are normally hearty cats have been puking on the bed more than usual lately, leading to have to launder the duvet cover, leading to have put the duvet cover back on, which is a serious weakness for Mark. Having not sought remedial training for this since the last time a cat vomited on the bed, Mark leaves most of the project to me, which is hard to do with a queen size bed, l leading me to suggest to suggest opening up the marriage for duvet-reassembly purposes only, and 2) If you were following the dishwasher story you’ll know how upset I am that Allstate continues to harass me in an attempt to fix or replace our already fixed dishwasher, and has sent me a second dishwasher motor to…keep onhand? and 3) the washing machine is now leaking.