The Literate Kitty

Not sure if the increase in holiday fare on all of the streamers is due more to the ongoing pandemic or it’s just a numbers game (more subscribers for whatever reason, means more dollars, means more content), but one thing is clear: all of ‘em (the streamers, that is) are firing on all cylinders this holiday season, with a veritable onslaught of seasonal shows. And me? I’m So. Here. For. It. ( Them. Whatevz .) With soooo many streaming services to choose from, though, it’s sort of mind-boggling. But, suck it up, I must, and today, I’m bringing a wildly-different pair from Netflix for your consideration. ________________ A Castle for Christmas Honestly, I’m not at all the target audience for a traditional holiday romance thing . Call me jaded, selective (or what you will), but I tend to really struggle with all those blatantly-obvious Xmas things… which most of what airs at this time of year, is . Still, show me pleasant previews with two legit ‘80s stars—Brooke Shields and Ca

If a little group of cool people—let’s say, Norwegians —were playing a game of “ What if …” around a toasty fireplace, and were on maybe their fourth round of akvavit shots when one of them said, “You know what I’d kill to watch? What if there was this zombie story… but with that family of undertakers from Six Feet Under … made by someone like The Coen Brothers [you know, Bjørn… the ones who did that Fargo , don’cha know?], in their early days… wouldn’t that be awesome?!”, then we might end up with Netflix's latest entry in the bloodsuckers genre . I have no idea if things went down that way [ although until I learn otherwise, that's totally how I'm gonna imagine it],  but however the idea sprang to life, we now have Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes , because of it (and my Nordic-noir-lovin’ self is thrilled ).  ________________ The premise: A pair of cops—a seasoned female officer and a younger male, still wet behind the ears [both of whom, I should add, appear to com

When November 1 rolls around each year, you can count on a couple of things. First, every store dramatically slashes the prices on their thematically-bagged candies (as though they’re channeling Michael Myers tracking down neighborhood teens in Halloween ).  Second—and more importantly, here—all of the streamers shift every Christmas-y movie or show to the top of their “trending titles” and “holiday picks” lists (or whatever other catchy phrases they're hoping will elicit clicks).  Once you remove the classics and perennial family-friendly fare, though, what’s left is an ever-growing yet somehow surprisingly-limited Santa’s bag of tricks… with more lumps of coal at the bottom than fabulous gems (no matter how pretty the outer packaging may appear in the promos). I know this … yet still find it impossible to resist at least a couple new holiday offerings each year. [Some people tell Alexa to play Christmas music nonstop; me, I watch a few rom-coms. To each their own, right?] 

A single mom gets a call early in the morning, necessitating the unceremonious hustling of her so- not -a-boyfriend out of the apartment, followed by making a slapdash school lunch for her little girl, so that she can drop off said small human at said school, then rush off to work to put out whatever fire apparently needs her urgent attention. In this case, though, it isn’t an unhappy client or an impending deadline (or any of the other “normal” work crises most people have to deal with); Naia Thulin is a Copenhagen police detective (although she really, really wants to transfer to IT, so she can actually spend some time with her child), and her boss (who clearly has no plans whatsoever to let her go) wants her at the scene of a newly-discovered murder, now.  In addition, he’s saddling her with a temporary placement, one Mark Hess—someone who normally travels internationally working on high-profile cases, but who’s been ordered home for a spell (after royally pissing someone off,

Anyone who’s been in a relationship (so, the majority of people who’ve reached adulthood, however that’s defined these days) knows that there’s a fair bit of effort involved in keeping things on an even( -ish ) keel.   Another thing those with a relationship or two under their belts know is that things often look rather different to anyone not in that relationship (so, everyone else ). But what happens when someone outside knows just enough of the hidden bits and pieces—the secrets or lies, the silences or tears... the stuff that isn't all "happy families"  on display—to affect what happens next, in the relationship? When that someone purposefully manipulates things, for an outcome only he or she wants? Writing duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen follow up their previous psychological thrillers (among them, The Wife Between Us , reviewed here , and You Are Not Alone , reviewed here ) with a look at that scenario in their upcoming work, The Golden Couple . ____

A very proper Scottish sexagenarian (well, if by “proper” one means at some point in time around the early-to-mid-twentieth-century), who favors an old-fashioned suit, hat, and cane, sports an impressive moustache, and is well-schooled in a field of magical arts known as sigil-making [more on that later]. Goes by the rather-impressive moniker, Al MacBharrais. A wee hob (as in “hobgoblin”), who might only be taken for a (very) sunburned “little person” by someone who’d had a few too many tipples o’ the Scotch (or Irish, or really, too many tipples of anything ), is overly-fond of all mischief-making (including, sadly, larceny), loves whiskey (and loves salsa, even more), and has a helpful (if uncanny) ability to sort of “poof” from one place to another, for brief periods of time. That would be Al’s assistant, Buck Foi [and you’ll need to swap a couple of letters and say it out loud to catch the self-named hob’s bit of tomfoolery, there]. A fabulously-tatted, tough-as-nails pugilist-

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the single most tragic days of the 21st century: 9/11, the day terrorists from another country (far, far away) succeeded not only in demolishing iconic architecture from a skyline recognized and admired around the world, but—and far, far more damaging—in causing the senseless deaths of hundreds of innocent people, who were just going about their regular lives that fateful morning, with whatever thoughts and dreams were on their minds.   It’s a day now indelibly etched into not only the memories of most North Americans, but one which will also forever more be a part of the collective, worldwide consciousness… a day when everyone around the globe saw how truly horrible and sad such hatred and intolerance could really be.   But this post, well… this post is not about hatred, bigotry, racism (or any other form of negative attitudes or behaviors). No, this post is about a little love letter… to the magnificent city of New York. To its bea

Ask any writer what their biggest fear is, and they might say it’s no one reading their work. (Well, that, or forgetting to hit “save”, then experiencing a catastrophic power outage or random computer shutdown. That’s definitely another big one.)  If you asked what plagues them most often, though, chances are, it’s gonna be writer’s block. The muse disappearing. Being stuck. No matter what they call it, every writer goes through it… and it totally sucks.  Most of us try to find inspiration, somewhere, somehow. Or we put the writing aside, to let our thoughts (hopefully) percolate. Maybe we start working on something else, entirely. Or, one can go a very, very different route… as does the protagonist in David Bell’s gripping thriller, Kill All Your Darlings. _______________ Connor Nye is an English professor on the fast track at a small college, when tragedy strikes: his wife and son are killed, leaving him alone and adrift.  He manages to keep it together enough to hold on

  "They laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at them because they’re all the same."                                              ~Kurt Cobain Although these words aren’t uttered until the final episode of the first season, the idea is a poignant leitmotif which runs throughout the French series, Astrid , from the very start… and I couldn’t be more enchanted. This show is an absolute delight. Astrid, streaming on PBS via Amazon Available to stream on PBS, Astrid (or Astrid et Raphaëlle , in its native French—no idea why they decided to drop the other name, stateside) is another fine police procedural/detective program from Walter Presents… but there’s so much more to it than just that .  On paper, Astrid might seem not so different from a host of other cop shows over the years. It features an odd couple: the messy, loud detective, Raphaëlle (in a fantastic turn by Lola Dewaere), and the meticulous, withdrawn police librarian, Astrid (brilliantly portr