COVID-19: What to Binge Watch

From Worldometer, I have adjusted this table to show how new deaths best determine the phase of COVID-19:

DAY     China   Italy   USA   Spain   Germany   S. Korea  WORLD

May   1         0    269   1897      281          113               1        5624

              2         0    474    1691     276            76               2        5215
              3         0    174    1154     164            54               0        3481
              4         0    195    1324     164          127               2        4096
              5         0    236    2350     185              ?               2        5787
              6         0    369    2528     244          282               1        6811

              7         0    274    2129     213          117               1        5589
              8         0    243    1687     229          118               0        5550
              9         0    194    1422     179            39               0        4248
            10         0    165      750     143            20               0        3510
            11         0    179    1008     123            92               0        3403
            12         0    172    1630     176            77               2        5328
            13         0    195    1772     184          123               1        5314
            14         0    262    1715     217            67               1        5317
            15         0    242    1595     138            73               0        5072
            16         0    153    1218     104            26               2        4360
            17         1    145      865       87            22               0        3618
            18         0      99    1003       59            74               1        3445 

Summary:

• A  generally okay day for much of the world.
• However, the USA went up in new deaths and had 22,630 new cases, 25% the world total.
• Brazil could well overtake the USA by next week, unless the economic re-opening scuttles the disease.
• India, Pakistan and Bangladesh remain worrisome.

• From The New York Times:  President Trump threatened to end all funding to the World Health Organization if it didn’t “commit to substantive improvements within the next 30 days,” according to a copy of a letter he posted to Twitter. Earlier Monday, China pledged to donate $2 billion to the W.H.O.

• Our intrepid President, Donald Trump, is now taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent getting COVID-19.  I thought that pill was perhaps helpful for reducing the sickness period for some.  Apparently, though, there is a major study which by mid-summer will report on this drug as a prevention option.  But is it smart for the leader of the free world to essentially participate in this guinea pig experiment?  He is not part of the study itself.

• Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked about this hydroxychloroquine treatment, worried about Trump's longevity prospects, but just had to provide one dig, calling him morbidly obese.  

• Reportedly, Trump is 6 ft 3 in tall and weighs 236 pounds.  More accurately, his driver's license says 6'2".  Referring to that table in the right column, plugging those numbers in, I get a BMI of 30.3, which puts him right on the line between obese and overweight.  His golf handicap, if true is around 3, making him the best golfing president ever.

• William Taft's BMI calculated to 40, which did make him morbidly obese.
• Barack Obama?  22.1, which placed him in the middle of normal, and is about the healthiest BMI to have.  He improved his golf handicap from 17 (which was mine at my prime) to 13 (the best I ever had for a short period).
• So Nancy Pelosi exaggerated.  Trump is merely just about obese.
• Well....  In any case, this gives me an opportunity to dump two Trump jokes here to clear my desktop, although these are condemnations and not really funny:

Yesterday was a happy day for me.  First, I reported that Just Sam became the latest American Idol (just scroll down to the next article).  Then I weighed myself, and saw 159.8 pounds, which shows that if I don't agonizingly walk 36 holes of golf per week, I can control my weight.  However, I need to be very careful about what I eat and drink.  Looks like I'll soon go back to golfing, so that I can consume whatever I want.  Saw a notice that 15 Craigside will soon be relaxing the lockdown.  Finally, my face shield was delivered.  Below, I can see more and more people, like Nancy Pelosi, wearing the latest in COVID-19 wear (by the way, I bought ten black masks at Daiso--a Japanese thrift store--for $1, thus 10 cents/mask):

Well, life goes on, so today, I will focus on the best  of those Netflix and Amazon Prime series I have thus far experienced.   The problem with these programs is that they take so much of your time.  Some are addictive to the point of changing your life to accommodate the watching.  I never knew they even existed until I started my string of binge viewing.

Netflix/Amazon Series                      Rotten Tomatoes     My Rating

                                                       

                                                         Critics  Audiences

Money Heist  (2017-  )                          91          81                 A
Giri/Haji (2020)                                   100          92                 B+

Into the Night (2020)                              ?          76                 B

Dead to Me (2019-   )                            91          91                 B

Babylon Berlin (2018-  )                     100          95                 B+

Unbelievable (2019)                             98          94                 A-
Killing Eve (2018-2020)                        90          87                 ?
Bosch (2015-2020)                               83          90                 ?
Homecoming (2019-2020)                   98          71                 B
Undone (2019)                                    100          93                 ?
Catastrophe (2015)                              98          92                 ?
Fleabag (2016-2019)                          100          93                 ?

Money Heist is a  Spanish television series created by Alex Pina.  That 91/81 Rotten Tomatoes rating is an average of some sort, as good parts of the effort were rated at 100%.  So far, there have been four parts with a total of 31 episodes, around 50 minutes each.  Can't believe I spent a whole 24-hour day on it. An Italian anti-fascist song, Bella Ciao, used here and there, actually became a summer hit in 2018.  The theme song, My Life is Going On by Cecilia Krull soon will become one of your favorites.  The mask is Salvador Dali.  This has been the most-watched series on Netflix.  This is not a place for a full review, so I send you to Wikipedia for details.  Will there be a Part 5?  You bet.

Giri/Haji, meaning Duty/Shame in Japanese, is a BBC Two production set in Tokyo and London.  To quote reviewers:  violently stylish, complex, really good stuff, fascinating, cross-pollinated genres, mashes together two very different cultures.  There are eight episodes, and I haven't yet completed watching them all.

Into the Night was a six-episode series in season one.  It will be continued.  The Sun suddenly begins to kill everyone in its path.  A commercial flight attempts to stay just ahead of it.  Intriguing and almost addictive, but with many soft spots.

Dead to Me is an American black comedy which includes 10 episodes each through two seasons.  The first year got an 86% reviewers rating, while the second received 97%.  I'm early into season one, so the B rating I gave could well improve by the end.  Stars Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini, Edward Asner and James Marsden.  Involves twists and twins and a general sense of discomfort.

Babylon Berlin is a German neo-noir TV series which takes place in Berlin from 1929.  The production navigates in a time of the stock market crash, rise of the Black Reichswehr and Communism.  Season one has 16 episodes and season two 12.  There will be a third.  Said to be the most expensive TV drama series in Germany.  It's already won numerous awards.  Reviewers said:  exhilarating, mesmerizing television and irresistible.  It is risqué.

Unbelievable is an American drama from a Pulitzer Prize-winning article starring Toni Collette, Merritt Wever and Kaitlyn Dever.  The miniseries of eight episodes is about a series of rapes in Washington State and Colorado.  Quoting reviewers:  a tough but rewarding watch, great performances (Toni Collette has really matured well), brilliantly structured cat and mouse story, all from a female perspective...harrowing.

Killing Eve is an enigma for me.  AMC now carries it weekly for free.  But this is season 3.  How to watch seasons 1 and 2?  You need go to Amazon Prime.  Season 1 has a 96% reviewers rating from Rotten Tomatoes.  But it's dropping: season 2=93% and 3=82, still pretty good.  The problem, however, is to watch Seasons 1 (13 episodes) and 2 (8 episodes) you need to go to Amazon Prime and pay $40.  I'm waiting for this to all become free.

Also on Amazon Prime, Bosch is enticing but a dilemma.  First, it is now in season 6, or a total of 60 episodes.  Second, season 1 "only" got an 83% reviewers rating.  However, seasons 2-6 received 100% ratings.  So I began to watch last night and got through episode 1.  I'll continue. 

Homecoming on Amazon Prime last year starred Julia Roberts.  Season 2 has the same cast except for Roberts, replaced by Janelle Monae.  Watch episode one this Friday on Amazon Prime.  This is FREE for Amazon Prime members...and everyone who buys from Amazon.com probably is.  Yes, Amazon Prime, too, has hordes of series.  It will depend on how long sports programs remain dormant.

A series on Amazon Prime that bamboozled me was Undone.  I watched because of those astronomic Rotten Tomatoes ratings.  It is animated, and rather awkwardly.  Reviewers liked the hyperreality to draw out emotions.  The faces are somewhat similar to the people voicing those roles, like Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul).  I hate animated films because they remind me of children productions.  But this one is for adults.  A car accident enables the protagonist to manipulate and move time.  I only saw one episode, and will move on the second, maybe tonight.  There will be a second season.

Those numbers rating Catastrophe by Rotten Tomatoes must be some kind of average, for this series on Amazon Prime got 100%, 100%, 100% and 95% ratings from reviewers for seasons 1 to 4.  I have only seen episode 1 from season 1.  Nothing special, but those 100% scores must mean something I will appreciate over time.  The writing is exceptional.  This is a romantic comedy that takes you from an unplanned pregnancy on a weekend fling by an American tourist in London into four full seasons.

Fleabag on Amazon Prime is one of those series that must take time to appreciate, for I was underwhelmed by episode 1 of season 1 (there are two).  However, both years were rated 100% by Rotten Tomatoes.  This is a British comedy based on the one-woman show performed in 2013 by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who stars.  A fleabag apparently is a free-spirited, sexually active, angry and confused young woman in London.  In the cast is Olivia Colman, who won an Oscar for Best Actress as Queen Anne in The Favourite, and an Emmy for The Night Manager (there will be a season 2 with Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie).

Let's see now, I'm now into 1987, so here are the #1 songs of the year, in 4 minutes.  The year featured:

• Aretha Franklin selected as the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• Dow Jones hits 2000 for the first time.
• Ronald Reagan in Berlin challenged Michail Gorbachev to tear down the wall.
• Huawei founded in Shenzhen, China.
• Black Monday, Dow Jones Industrials fall 508 (22.6%--the equivalent today of a 5000 point drop) to below 2000.

• 800,000 people stood on the Golden Gate Bridge for a 50th Anniversary celebration.
• First Kentucky Fried Chicken in China.
• First Starbucks outside of Washington.
• Microsoft releases Windows 2.0.

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Ocean storms are starting early this year, with the first one in the West Pacific, Typhoon Vonfong, making landfall over the Philippines at 93 MPH, rolling over the country, and dissipating close to Taiwan.

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Arthur, the first of the season, formed between Cuba and Florida, reached 60 MPH, but moved into the Atlantic Ocean:

In the Indian Ocean, Super Cyclone Amphan, the strongest ever in the region, once a Category 5, has weakened into a 2, and will strike India and Bangladesh:

From The New York Times:  An analysis of satellite imagery from the past four decades suggests that climate change is making hurricanes stronger.

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