Hi! So even though I said in last month's edition that I'd probably be back to normal for February's WIBW, this month's list was also surprisingly small. I was expecting to watch more things, but the month was so hectic between my personal life and Black History Spotlight that I wasn't really in the mood to watch anything heavy. Despite that, I was still able to find a few new things to watch throughout the month.
Love Me
Married, Single, Dead
My Sex Robot
Enlighten Us
Ultimate Beastmaster
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Cyber Attacks
The Eccentrics
The Santa Clarita Diet
Men in Rubber Masks
Love Me is a matchmaker documentary about the exploits of several men who've employed the services of a matchmaker. These stories always intrigue me, the unconventional and sometimes frowned upon ways of finding love. I once fell in love and built a relationship with someone I met on a virtual RPG site so obviously I can't look down on someone else for their methods (as long as they're safe and legal) to find love. I worry about the matchmaking though because many, many women know matchmaking is not for the poor or financially unstable, so they know there's money there. What I enjoyed about Love Me is that rather than displaying these men as lonely dumb schmos and the women as aggressive money hunters, you get to know them all a bit better. It seems a bit more honest and revealing than other series of its kind. I enjoyed it.
I watched Married, Single, Dead on Valentine's Day and at some point I think I even commented aloud on the morbidity of it but I was sick, exhausted and didn't care. I've been seeing this pop up on my Recommended feed for months now but I wouldn't watch it because I was already pretty sure of the subject matter and I didn't want it to make me even more commitment-phobic. This mini-doc told the stories of four married women who were murdered by their spouses after changing their FB statuses to single. It's scary to think that just making the decision to end your marriage could result in your death, and its a sobering reality that you can be with someone for years and still never truly know them.
My Sex Robot was a hoot to watch. Again, I'm not the judgmental type when it comes to the hows and whys of one finding love. Even though I don't want a relationship, that doesn't mean that I don't want companionship so if we were in a society where robots were the norm I'd be open to checking it out. Not for the sex, for the companionship. Let me be clear about that. LOL This was about different people who are attempting to pioneer the sex robot industry by creating robots of their own. It was interesting to get a look at both the strides made by the creators and the perspectives of those interested in having their own robots.
Enlighten Us is a documentary based on the story of James Arthur Ray and his efforts to revamp his career after his release from prison. If his name sounds vaguely familiar to you but you can't place where you heard it, you probably heard it on the news. A few years ago, Ray was an internationally known motivational speaker. He was featured in the bestselling self-help book The Secret and was on Oprah's show a couple of times. During one of his retreats, a few of his followers died and Ray was later convicted of negligent homicide. Enlighten Us tells the story from many perspectives, including Ray's, between cutaways to his present-day status. This documentary bothered me on a number of levels but Ray seems almost unwilling, even now, to take full responsibility for his actions and in some of his speeches and confessionals, seemed to have a victim's stance on the situation. Not cool. Regardless, even if you were already familiar with the story, it's worth the watch.
Enlighten Us is a documentary based on the story of James Arthur Ray and his efforts to revamp his career after his release from prison. If his name sounds vaguely familiar to you but you can't place where you heard it, you probably heard it on the news. A few years ago, Ray was an internationally known motivational speaker. He was featured in the bestselling self-help book The Secret and was on Oprah's show a couple of times. During one of his retreats, a few of his followers died and Ray was later convicted of negligent homicide. Enlighten Us tells the story from many perspectives, including Ray's, between cutaways to his present-day status. This documentary bothered me on a number of levels but Ray seems almost unwilling, even now, to take full responsibility for his actions and in some of his speeches and confessionals, seemed to have a victim's stance on the situation. Not cool. Regardless, even if you were already familiar with the story, it's worth the watch.
The Ultimate Beastmaster is a new challenge show featuring 12 contestants from 6 countries. Terry Crews and Charissa Thompson host the show for the American broadcast, and they're joined by two hosts from the participating countries of Brazil, Germany, Mexico, South Korea and Japan. The best way I can describe it is American Gladiators on steroids. If you watched American Gladiators and thought that the obstacles were rough then, the Beast is 10x worse. But it is so exciting. The hosts are all lively, entertaining and actually interact with each other in a genuine way. The contestants are competitive, but you can see that they all root for each other to do well because the Beast is both intimidating and for the average Joe, impossible to complete. The entire first season is available now and I loved it.
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Cyber Attacks was what I watched after Married, Single, Dead on V-Day (I'm such a romantic, right? lol) and it didn't tell me much that I didn't already know about the cyber attacks on the site, but it went more in-depth about exactly what happened. You would think that being hacked and the secrets of millions of adulterers being exposed would hurt business, but it hasn't. I think the subject of cheating and having a safe outlet to do so would be a fun topic to debate and discuss, though.
The Eccentrics is a series about different people around the world who differ from the status quo. Each episode introduces us to someone new, from the aunt of Italy who uses her job as a cab driver to escort sick children to and from their treatments and bring them a little joy in the process, to an elderly man who makes a point to talk to nearly every person he sees in an effort to bring them a little joy, to a modern-day Tarzan. I wasn't very happy with the name of the show after watching a few episodes because of purely overanalytical reasons, but I did enjoy watching it.
The Santa Clarita Diet is Drew Barrymore's new Netflix Original show and in it, she takes on the role of mild-mannered, passive, no-quickies-allowed Sheila, whose entire persona changes overnight. Timothy Olyphant (I love this guy, he's so underrated to me) is her worried but loyal husband Joel, who promises to stick by her as said changes reveal that Sheila has become a walking, talking zombie of sorts. I described it in a really depressing manner, but it's actually pretty entertaining...as long as you have strong guts. For my emetophobes with weak guts, as entertaining as this show is steer clear of it. There's v in the 1st episode, and a copious amount of it at that. The rest of it is more of a gore thing, lots of blood and limbs the first couple of episodes, but that first episode will have you crawling off the walls if you try to watch it anyway. For everyone else though, this is definitely a show you should watch.
Finally, Men in Rubber Masks was another documentary I watched on V-Day and this went into detail about the 'masker' community, something I had no idea about until I watched it. This is another one that's been in my Recommended feed for awhile but I kept passing up, and even though I still don't understand the entire psychology behind 'masking,' it was such an intriguing peek into the lifestyle. It's odd and doesn't make sense--to us. To maskers though, it's simply how they choose to live their lives. I don't want to spoil it, but I will say that if you're the more conventional type, maybe this one isn't for you.
Picks of the Month: Ultimate Beastmaster, Enlighten Us, Love Me
Throwaway Pick: My Sex Robot
