As temperatures remain high, staying inside in an air-conditioned room with a TV monitor and streaming subscriptions beats an outdoor pickle ball or tennis game.
For some folks, the choice of entertainment includes heavy dramas. The number of big-budget sci-fi epics about an apocalyptic world grows each season. The number of features about our war-torn world is seemingly endless, too. If you do venture out, Film Forum in New York City is playing the new 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows from August 2-15. It’s an extraordinarily compelling film about French Resistance fighters under the Nazi Occupation. For those who won’t leave their comfortable rec room at home, there is Criterion’s 4K Blu-ray of Army of Shadows, and it is also streamable.
I’m saving my upcoming viewing of Army of Shadows for a cold autumn evening. This month, comedy is king for me! And for many other home viewers. So it’s no wonder that A Family Affair is one of Netflix’s popular audience picks. Starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron, with strong performances by Joey King and Kathy Bates, it’s a romcom with snappy, often comedic, dialog and a fast-paced storyline. Zara is a 24-year-old assistant to temperamental action star Chris Cole. Chris is a fickle lover, a love-em and leave-em guy. When he hops into bed with Zara’s mother, a prize-winning writer, Zara has a hissy fit. That’s petty much it. The way this straight-forward plot unfolds has the makings of solid comedic entertainment. It's romance and a bit of sex in Los Angeles’ wealthy environs. When the two kiss on the shore at sunset near Chris’ Malibu beach house, who can resist? Two movie-star bodies, a sweet-faced beauty and a handsome muscle-bound guy…
And if this isn’t enough, there even is a Christmas sequence! A Family Affair has plenty of romance and comedy, but it also has touches of sadness. Not so much that we as an audience feel strongly about the problems. This film never makes it past light entertainment. But it is good light entertainment! Not all viewers and critics agree with my positive assessment. Its ratings numbers are unimpressive.
What would summer be without a good detective series? I have been enjoying four seasons of My Life Is Murder on AcornTV. Lucy Lawless as retired detective/police consultant Alexa Crowe, and Ebony Vagulans as Madison Feliciano, her computer-savvy assistant, solve close to forty murder cases over the course of the series. In addition to crime-solving, Alexa bakes delicious sourdough bread which she sells or barters to a café. We haven’t seen that kind of multi-talented detective in any other such series, have we?
With scenic backdrops of Melbourne Australia in season one, and then Auckland New Zealand, an array of crimes and eccentric characters appear in each forty-some minute program. There is an emphasis on Alexa’s and Madison’s personalities. More than any other aspect, this element makes for the success of the show and has kept it running since 2019. Both actors leave audiences wanting more. Both actors excel at light comedy.
If older films are more your thing, try watching screwball comedies with Cary Grant and William Powell, or Jean Arthur, Irene Dunne, and Carol Lombard… or the silent comedies of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, or Mary Pickford, Marion Davies, or Clara Bow. With current technologies, light entertainment is at our fingertips, from streaming sites to the shelves of DVDs and Blu-rays for sale or on loan at the public library.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
