The HBO Max series is an alcoholic’s worst nightmare
We’ve all had too much to drink. And anyone drunk has been hungover. You’re perplexed at how awful you feel despite knocking back 12 drinks in record time. Your mind is foggy, your limbs numb. If you really went ham, then you might even wonder how you got home, or how you landed in bed with a total (nameless) stranger.
Some people learn from their drinking mishaps. In fact, I know people who put down the bottle for good after their first hangover (true story). Yet I know even more people…
The imperfectly perfect series for the rom-com addict
If you know me, or you’ve read my Twitter bio, you know I’m a sucker for romantic comedies. I don’t necessarily consider myself a romantic, even though I live in Studio City, CA, and I don’t expect a Hollywood ending to my own life. That being said, I’m not ashamed to admit that rom-coms are my jam and whole-wheat toast.
I’m into the first couple of episodes of Season 4, and I can safely tell you that Sex and the City has absolutely nothing to do with pandemics. The only link between the two is that I just decided to…
The HBO Max comedy-drama tells a deeper tale, yet nails the writer’s dilemma.
Writers love to talk about their trials and tribulations.
Heck, even movies portray how hard it is to write for a living, that writer’s block buries anyone who puts fingers to keys.
Writing is extremely rewarding, but it isn’t glamorous. It’s lonely, frustrating, mind-numbing, and you constantly question your abilities.
The 2020 comedy-drama Let Them All Talk features Alice Hughes (Meryl Streep), a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who sets sail to the United Kingdom on a cruise ship with her friends Susan (Dianne Wiest) and Roberta (Candice Bergen), and her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges). Alice can’t fly because of medical issues…
Living vicariously through glamorous characters
TV shows feature characters with utterly important lives. Even characters who aren’t the most talented or wealthy appear to have an entertaining existence, seemingly something to do on any given day of the week. Take Lonely Boy from Gossip Girl.
Dan “Lonely Boy” Humphrey, a teenager who’s a class below the Upper East Siders, yet still rich enough to attend a private school in New York with Manhattan’s elite, appears to do something every night of the week. Because my life isn’t like that at all (I was a hermit long before the pandemic began), it makes me wonder: Do…
Friends, family, and even strangers question my sexuality.
Appearances and demeanors can be deceiving; it’s like the old saying goes: “Never judge a book by its cover.” At 5-foot-5, I’m considered on the short side for a man. I’m half-Mexican, but can easily pass as white. I haven’t been in a serious relationship in nearly a decade. I’m brimming with festive spirit and giddiness over the holidays. My self-made bubble consists of year-round Christmas music and rom-coms on repeat. I have no desire for marriage or a partner, but I’m not asexual.
Being called gay is not an insult. However, being repeatedly called anything that you’re not tends…
And in real life
Silver Linings Playbook collected digital dust on my Netflix queue for months. I didn’t want to watch a movie about mental illness. As I’m already dealing with enough in my life and surroundings.
That’s why escapist TV shows like Sex and the City, Love Life, Ted Lasso, Mad Men, and The Flight Attendant are my preferred entertainment options right now. Although real-life shit happens in each series, it’s suspended by glittery TV magic, keeping me tethered to the story, while allowing me to avoid the crushing mendacity that’s invaded real life. Mostly, I want to see happy endings on the…
Yet the HBO Max comedy manages to turn a shared nightmare into a heist movie.
It was only a matter of time before movies and shows about the pandemic hit streaming services.
I don’t watch every show and movie. I’m sure there have been other fictional stories with the coronavirus pandemic as the setting. But HBO Max romantic comedy and heist movie Locked Down is the first film I’ve seen that involves the pandemic. (I haven’t watched Songbird.) I was hoping Locked Down would help me get through what’s hopefully the final stretch of covid, but it only made me feel more sad and miserable. As if I needed to feel even more helpless.
Locked…
The HBO Max series about love and life has its flaws — and so do I.
Contains mild spoilers for Love Life.
I didn’t want to write about Love Life.
For those who have yet to tune in, the HBO Max series follows Darby Carter (Anna Kendrick). Darby, similar to other tropey rom-com characters, is searching for love throughout her twenties and thirties. Yet like most twenty- and thirty-somethings, Darby struggles to love herself. If you’ve read my essays, you know this storyline is my ideal setting for a TV series, movie, or just about anything in life. …
Why I can’t wait to get back on a cruise ship…
Cruises bring out the worst in humanity.
You know, like wastefulness: putting more food on your plate than you can eat and throwing away whatever you don’t finish. Or not picking up after yourself. People drop food and rubbish on the ground and don’t pick it up. Or acting like you’re the only person who exists yet being on a boat that houses thousands of guests and workers. And so on and so forth.
Hear me out: I love cruises.
But I can’t stand how countless privileged guests continuously treat the staff like shit because they think they’re better than…
Looking up successful people’s schedules is a rite of passage.
Despite wanting to know when my favorite authors write in hopes of somehow taking what works for them and adapting it to my writing routine, I’ve concluded that I’ll never have a set writing schedule. The sooner I finally accept that, the better. But seriously — because I’ve been having this conversation for years.
My friends and family members know all about my writing schedule woes. It comes with the territory of creating a new schedule every week and telling them about it. I’ve tried everything. Morning writing, 9-to-5, night writing. At times, it all works. But mostly, nothing works…
Trevor Lowry
Just a guy who likes to cruise the aisles at the local 7-Eleven | tslowry.writer@gmail.com
