• Doctor Who (amazon purchase)
• Back to the Future (amazon prime)
• The Muppets (hulu)
• The Good Wife (amazon purchase)
• Homeland (Showtime Hulu)
• Good Morning directed by Yasujire Ozo (Criterion Hulu)
• Gotham (hulu)
• Penny Dreadful (Showtime Hulu)
• The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror (iTunes purchase)
• Inside Assad’s Syria (Frontline PBS)
• Pets Wild at Heart (Nature PBS)
• It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (DVD)
• Fargo (iTunes purchase)
• Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Criterion Hulu)

• Inside Man (HBO Now)
• American Graffiti (Showtime/Hulu)
• Ray Donovan (Showtime/Hulu)
• Doctor Who (Amazon Instant)
• The War Room (Hulu/Criterion)
• The Muppets (Hulu)
• E.O. Wilson (PBS)
• The Martian (big screen)

If you have never seen it, I recommend The War Room. It is a documentary about the Clinton campaign of 1992 from the perspective of the campaign headquarters. So, if you are expecting to see a lot of Bill and Hillary, you will only catch glimpses of them. But you will get a sense of how modern political campaigns work. Plus you also get to see a lot of a young George Stephanopolous. And his hair.

Watching the Muppets again, thirty some years after the original show I used to watch with my family is fun. The basic idea is that Miss Piggy is the host of a late night talk and variety show and Kermit is the executive producer; and Kermit and Miss Piggy have broken up and there are lots of issues on the show about that. It seems Miss Piggy will never forget Kermit. One ubiquitous theme in the show is that Miss Piggy never gets along with the guest starr and Kermit spends most of the episode trying to get Miss Piggy to act more human toward the guest star. But I think the thing I enjoy the most about the show is that the jokes are topical and funny. Plus, it seems to be one of the few shows that Monika, Marta, and, occasionally, Michal all enjoy watching.

*4 Little Girls (HBO now)

*Inside Out (big screen)

*Masters of Sex season 3 (showtime through Hulu)

*True Detective season 2 (HBO now)

*The Brink (HBO now)

*Ballers (HBO now)

*Nurse Jackie season 7 (showtime through Hulu)

*Ray Donovan season 3 (showtime through Hulu)

*Uranium: twisting the dragon’s tail (PBS)

*Fiddler on the Roof (purchased from iTunes)

***

I would like to start by admitting the embarrassing obvious fact in July I watched quite a bit of television and did not do that much reading. In my defense, I started writing down more of what I watched than what I read in July. But it’s a weak defense because I know I spent more time in front of the television than in front of a book or kindle.

I do not have cable, satellite, or any way to watch television other than the Internet, but there is a huge amount than can be watched that way. Let me list the sources of television programming I have: PBS, amazon and amazon prime, Hulu (which I recently upgraded to include Showtime), HBO Now (through iTunes), netflix (which I cancelled this month because I have so many other things to watch), plus a weather channel. I use a roku box and an AppleTV to get all this programming from the Internet that comcast sells me for about $54 a month plus tax and modem rental. I did subscribe to cable for about six months but I got tired of fighting the commercials and dealing with Comcast’s less than stellar DVR. (Why they don’t rent TIVOs to their customers is a question that needs to be asked much more often by their many dissatisfied customers.) I discovered that it was far more satisfying to purchase episodes of Mad Men, Modern Family, and the Good Wife than to watch them over cable. But that’s just me; your mileage may vary.

Random thought about TV watching. David Bianculli’s TV Worth Watching page is worth checking on a regular basis.

Fiddler on the Roof we watched at the request of Ola, Monika’s mother, who bought the movie for us because she really wanted to watch it again. I enjoyed it, but not as much as she did. Once you have seen a movie several times, or if you saw it at an important time in your life when you were younger it has an effect on you that can be hard for others to fully appreciate.

Marta was the biggest fan of Inside Out, which should not be a surprise since it is about the mind of a twelve year old girl who has recently moved across the country. Certainly the story is unique. I have now seen it twice and enjoyed it both times.

This month is the anniversary of the ending of World War II and the bombing of Hiroshima; this inspired PBS to have a series of movies about nuclear power. Twisting the Dragon’s tail is narrated by a physicist and tells the story of how humans discovered and harnessed uranium. PBS also broadcast The Bomb, as well as a documentary about Fukushima. Oh, and now that I think about it, I did also watch a Frontline documentary about El Chapo Guzman.

Despite Mitt Romney and other republican politicians’ efforts, PBS and NPR continue to produce excellent work. As far as PBS, I consistently enjoy watching American Experience, American Masters, Frontline, Point of View, Nova, and Nature.

Since I just started this project a few days ago, I’ll keep this entry short