What's To Watch? - Aug 18-24 - Joy and escapes

 

    This will be a restless, draining weekend for me, much as this past week's been, and as at least the first two days of next week will be. Wish me luck.
    Moving on.

     A light mix this week, swinging a little wider to include a podcast. One with a theme I could dearly do with, at long last, cultivating in my life.
     Comedian, author, former and likely future tv host Craig Ferguson returned to a conversational

interview format in August (a 2-minute introduction was posted a week earlier, on July 25th) with a weekly podcast. Titled Joy (that link should take you to where you can access all of them to date) each Tuesday Craig speaks with someone he likes, speaking with them about their lives and pursuits, trying to connect with their perspectives on life, seeking a key to their personal source of joy.
     Lurking as a sub-theme to this project is the idea of the importance of engagement, even and perhaps most especially with people who hold strongly different personal and political beliefs from ourselves.
     One of the things I lamented about Craig's decision to leave The Late Late Show (CBS) late in 2014 after approximately nine years, was his general banter with guests, particularly those he connected well with, and he seemed to be able to establish a rapport with most.
     His first guest was comedian Gabriel Iglesias, the following week it was just over an hour with Kathie Lee Gifford. This past Tuesday was a little over half an hour with skateboarding entrepreneur Tony Hawk. So far, and it didn't come as a surprise to me, the most difficult listen was the just over an hour with Kathie Lee...but I stuck with it, trying to remain open to the experience.
     I've no idea what the order of guests will be, but based on the press release the upcoming slate of guests will include Angela Kinsey, Lewis Black, Diedrich Bader, Wendie Malick, Shirley Manson, and Tom Papa - most of whom, as people, I know little to absolutely nothing about, and a few of them (Kinsey, Manson, and Papa) I'm not even very familiar with their careers.
     So far I've been listening to these while doing some other task, ranging from running a test at the lab to making dinner at home.
    The links I've posted above (which will pop out as their own screens, so this window/page will remain open) arbitrarily happen to be on the iHeart platform, though as with most podcasts it can be found through most of the podcast streaming platforms, and they cost nothing to listen to. They do contain one or more commercial breaks, but that's fairly modest.    

      Next Wednesday on Disney+, a new Star Wars story arc begins, with a series centering on the Jedi Ahsoka.

     Set roughly in the period following the fall of the Empire (so, after the events of Return of the Jedi, just as both The Mandalorian and The Book of Bob Fett have been) Ahsoka Tano (who as a teen had been an apprentice to Anakin Skywalker before he went fully over to the dark side) investigates an emerging threat. I've enjoyed what they've been coming up with in the Disney+ era for the Star Wars universe, and this looks as if it'll fit in pretty nicely.
     An eight-episode season, the first two will arrive on the 23rd, then one per week through its finale October 4th. (How can we be this close to October already?!)

     TCM's Summer Under the Stars daily actor spotlight continues through August. (That link pops out for a full-month guide to each day's featured star, the list of films - each of which has its own hyperlink if you want to find more out about the film.
     Once again, giving the timing of these blog posts I'll include both this Friday and next's here, as today's is already in progress, as next Friday's will be when that post appears.
        Friday, Aug. 18: Carole Lombard
        Saturday, Aug 19: Fred Astaire
        Sunday, Aug 20: Barbara Stanwyck
        Monday, Aug 21: James Stewart (a nice, near career-spanning range, with titles from 1936 through 1970, but interestingly none of his Hitchcock films.)
        Tuesday, Aug 22: Geraldine Chaplin
        Wednesday, Aug 23: Vincent Price
        Thursday,Aug 24: Loretta Young
        Friday, Aug 25: Ernest Borgnine (A fun raft of films, including Bad Day at Black Rock, The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, The Wild Bunch, and Escape From New York, but, curiously, not Marty.)
        

     Another case of closing with a cartoon, this past Wednesday marked the 93rd anniversary of the release of the first complete sound cartoon to be made in color. It was also the first cartoon produced by Ub Iwerks after leaving Walt Disney's studio. The cartoon includes an unnamed mouse character strongly reminiscent of Mickey's precursor Mortimer Mouse, both of whom Iwerks had been the first animator of.
     It's Flip the Frog in Fiddlesticks (released August 16, 1930)

     That's over on YouTube, but I'll include here a link to the Internet Archive, too, where that and so much else awaits, with no commercials.

     ...and that's all I have the time (and energy) for this week. I hope to meet back here next Friday, and to do so in a far better mood and state. Well, it'll either be that, or a far, far worse one. - Mike