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A Little Background

From the time we met, Sheila & I loved seeing movies. Most of course had to be seen in the theatre, at the movies, without surround sound, lol!

We still do – Netflix, Amazon Prime, any number of TV channels, cable, DVD (at one time), and the old time movie house theatre, when it seems worth paying the $$$ & the experience promised being worth seeing “on the big screen!”

I actually wrote movie reviews in college, one of my first, after return to college after leaving the Air Force, was Car Wash w/Richard Pryor. I wish I still had it! Titled it, “A Sudsy Cleansing for the Blues” 😊

About My Reviews

In general, I don’t do negative reviews.

Generally, I think it’s more productive to steer folks toward stuff I like or thought was really good (sometimes that’s the same thing, sometimes not quite 😊)

I do often say what might/could be better, or I’d rather’ve seen or experienced, but in the context of why I liked the movie or TV show enough to want to do a review at all.

Thanks everyone – Adan

Update 06.16.20 – Have Added Acorn TV to My Sources of Shows to Review

Now that Sheila & I are Covid-19 staying at home “much” more, and regular network TV’s gone w/out hardly any new programming, and – we’ve cut the cord (yay!), we right away picked up the modestly priced Acorn TV via our Prime subscription. I’ll be (can already tell) happily adding reviews of shows from New Zealand, England, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and I believe Scotland!

Brokenwood Mysteries Acorn TV Prime Video – 5 Stars! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Quickly becoming one of our favorite shows to binge on during Covid-19, it’s also becoming evident this series, The Brokenwood Mysteries, is so good, we’d watch it regularly anyway, lol!

One of two shows set in New Zealand on Acorn TV via Amazon Prime, the other being 800 Words (another growing favorite, even if not a mystery 😊 ), The Brokenwood Mysteries are not only top notch contemporary mystery genre material, they’re a fascinating look into life (as per TV of course) in New Zealand.

I don’t know if it’s our new Fire TV (just found out my son’s had one & loves it too!), with its 4K video, but the scenery is “wow, let’s go there!” – after Covid of course 😏

Folks there are very much like folks here, but, different. Kinda country rural (in Brokenwood), merged with quite a range of city-like sophistications, merged with upscale wine country (one episode’s already been dedicated to a murder at a winery!), merged with a differing range of other ethnic cultures, merged with good old fashioned human passions, failings, and, successes.

And, the pronounce their “e’s” as a long e sound in English. Not all their e words, just most of them 😊 The same is true with the other New Zealand show, 800 Words, though not quite so pronounced.

Interestingly, another Acorn TV show we’ve begun, Dead Still, set in Victorian Ireland, has characters also pronouncing their e’s like that. Hmmm. Yes, interesting!

And, as seems to be a growing feature I’m noticing in numerous small-town-setting mysteries, in a wide variety of countries, there’s a very wide preference of music displayed by the characters.

In the Brokenwood Characters, the main detective “really” likes country music. But, to my long removed from current music ear, the songs seem different somehow, transposed maybe, somehow, ie, reinterpreted as per New Zealand, and I don’t know if this is an accurate portrayal of the fictitious town in the series, but real for New Zealand. Either way, though I’m not a big fan of country music, but did grow up hearing Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and the likes of Buddy Holly, and this country music on the show seems more deeply rooted in those traditions, ie, threads of rock music in it. Shazam was able to tell me two songs in particular I liked were, Running to You by Tami Neilson, and All Those Things by Barry Saunders.

And this music thing may well be all just my imagination, lol! But either way, it’s made for an extremely interesting viewing experience for my wife and myself, thoroughly enjoying the music plus the parade of characters, the wry humor, the excellent acting and accents, plus the wonderful terrain it all happens within.

On top of that, differing topics seem to be covered each week, a steady feature of other long running mystery shows we’re currently watching. Wineries, rugby, golf, hunting, etc. are just a few of the show themes each week. One learns a lot about aspects of a topic of interest, how differing folks interact within that niche culture, all wrapped up in a – almost always – mystery whodunit 😊

And though The Brokenwood Mysteries doesn’t sport the 21 seasons of Midsomer Murders (England), it does have a healthy full 6 seasons and running.

Have fun everyone, as one safely can, stay well, stay inquisitive – whodunit! 😊

Adan

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My Movies, Books, TV, Fitness, Amazon, and TripAdvisor Reviews are at –
https://felipeadanlerma.com/2019/10/12/category-links-reviews/

These are some samples of my movie reviews 😊

• “Jersey Boys” the Movie, from Clint Eastwood – Evocative Story Telling
• The Revenant, the Movie – The Brutal Persistence of Humanity
• The Good Wife – Asks: What is the Real World?
• Review – TV – Blacklist Season 06 Episode 20
• Movie Review – Renoir
• Adan’s Movie/Cable TV Reviews – “Knives Out” – a Charmer with Daniel Craig+++ 

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Thanks again everyone! 😊

Adan

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