Taking AppleTV+ for a spin

It's been a time of many new services lo this past month, dating back to my son's birthday on August 25th, as Disney+ and AppleTV were both brand new to us, and we've enjoyed exploring both.

One thing we hadn't explored until last night was AppleTV+, which comes free for a year as part of buying an AppleTV. We would have purchased it anyway.

I was planning on watching Boys State, available exclusively on AppleTV+, but we actually made the evening a two-fer by starting with The Morning Show, which is of course a TV show, not a movie. Here in Australia, it's called Morning Wars, because there is an actual morning show called The Morning Show. Fortunately, I've got a U.S.-based AppleTV, so I was able to see the original title. 

I really liked both.

The Morning Show was nearly feature length anyway, consisting of a 66-minute first episode, which is longer than I prefer for a TV show. Even with that hour time block I still prefer something closer to the 42-minute running time of old network hour-long dramas. But I was invested the whole time and am looking forward to seeing where this is going. The cast is packed with actors I like, particularly Jennifer Aniston, for whom I continue to hold a soft spot all these years later. It's a bit Sorkin-y, but the less indulgent versions of Sorkin are still something I'm excited to watch.

Since this is a movie blog, Boys State is really what I'm here to talk about. It came in quite pre-hyped, and mostly lived up to my expectations. I couldn't help having a little bit of itchy skin over watching so many acne-pocked teenage Texans talking about guns and the moment when life begins, but the film has a sneaky liberal undercurrent that even the other fellow future government-builders may not have been aware of. They elevate two of the week's most progressive thinkers to candidacy for its highest offices, and they don't even have to shroud their true feelings very much. That gives me a sense of hope, even at a time when a supreme court vacancy is threatening to give conservative thinkers a leg up for a generation.

As we begin to stumble into all the major subscriptions, expect a post like this related to Amazon Prime in the coming weeks.