In the  early days of television , shows like I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke ( 18 seasons ), Happy Days, Dallas, Big Bang Theory ( 10 seasons ) and 60 minutes ( 43 seasons ) dominated.   They all appeared at the same time weekly, except during the summer when there were re-runs.  More recently, say in 2024, Sunday Night football has dominated, with a 5.31 Nielsen rating, Monday Night Football 2.57, and Saturday Night Football 0.92.  Survivor is at 1.06, and the typical series below 1.0.   In 1953, I Love Lucy had a 67.3 rating, but dropped to 43.7 in 1957, but was still ranked #1.  It ran only for 6 seasons. Streaming has changed all that.   Those weekly shows on your CBS/ABC/NBC and other channels are not all-consuming anymore.  For one, there are too many of them.  If you lived in Los Angeles, you can have access to up to 245 different over-the-air and free channels. Mind you, I still regularly watch certain major broadcast networks p...

Two weeks ago I featured the   best dance films.   Many of them are repeated here because where there is dance, there is also music.  An excellent best musical list from   IndieWire : #1    Singin' in the Rain (1954) #2    All that Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979) #3    West Side Story (1961) #4    Dancer in the Dark (2000), featuring Björk #5    Mary Poppins (1964), nominated for 13 Oscars #6    The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) #7    The Wizard of Oz (1939) #8    Nashville (1975) #9    Cabaret (1972) #10  Moulin Rouge (2001) #11  The Sound of Music (1965) #12  La La Land (2016) #13  Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) #14  My Fair Lady (1964) #15  Fiddler on the Roof (1971) #16  The Red Shoes (1948) #17  A Star is Born (1954), there was another in 1937, then 1976, and finally 2018.  The 1954 version starred Judy Garland and James Mason. #18  The...

  First, noteworthy topics of the day that will become newsworthy: The  Supreme Court  announced a unanimous ruling that, while very narrow in application, opened the floodgates for college student-athletes getting paid like professionals.  Essentially, the NCAA was admonished.  States like Alabama, Florida and Texas are close to allowing students to sign endorsements, etc. Medicaid membership is now up to 80 million, a record high. The Democrats won over Senator Joe Manchin, but need to also convince ten Republicans to pass the  voting rights legislation .  It will, of course, fail, but that was expected anyway, and will only further plague Republicans when they re-run for election in 2022. The Tokyo Summer Olympics begin in about a month, and will close on 8 August 2021.  More than 11,000 athletes will perform from 205 nations in 33 sports and 50 disciplines. Tokyo beat Istanbul to host. It's still officially called the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic...

Monday is many times my film/food day.  I'll get to the Mariah/cuisine part, but will start with a dream to which I awoke this morning that was unique in two aspects.   All this began last night when I began watching on Netflix  Something in the Rain , a Korean series starring Son Ye-Jin.  This was her return from a five year absence, and led to Crash Landing on You , which was rated 98 by Rotten Tomatoes.  Only scored 75 from Rotten Tomatoes , but has an appealing nature, where popular American songs are inserted to set the right mood.  Two in particular, Stand by Your Man by Tammy Wynette, and Save the Last Dance for Me by Bruce Willis were repeated numerous times.  I couldn't quite recognize the singer of the second song, and was astonished to later find that this was the Bruce Willis of all those action films. So anyway, I began viewing from around 7:45PM, and this series apparently has 16 episodes of 2 hours or more each.  To sh...