December 23 - January 5:

Coming this week: Any Christmas movies and TV we don't get to before we leave town will be coming with us on our trip!

December 16 - December 22:

Lots of holiday viewing this week, featuring The Lemon Drop Kid (1951), Holiday Affair (1949), A Diva's Christmas Carol (2000), as well as A Colbert Christmas (2008), Frosty the Snowman and Christmas episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Jack Benny Program.

December 9 - December 15:

We're still loving season one of Drinking Made Easy and also found time for A Charlie Brown Christmas and the season one Christmas episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

December 2 - December 8:

We started in on season one of Drinking Made Easy, a gift from our friend Mike and a very fun and hilarious show--highly recommended! We also continued the holiday viewing with A Christmas Story and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which was on while Paul and Zach set up the train under the Christmas tree!

November 18 - December 1:

It's been a busy time, but we did find time to watch the 1942 classic To Be or Not to Be when the family was here for Thanksgiving, as well as various episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the season premiere of Hot in Cleveland.

November 11 - November 17:

Viewed this week: 1960's The Apartment, which happens to be a Christmas title and was conveniently on TCM. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like OD'ing, although she didn't die and all came out happily in the end. We've also been making our way through Christmas episodes of various classic TV shows and got around to Beverly Hillbillies, The Donna Reed Show and Burns & Allen this week.

November 4 - November 10:

Holiday viewing continued with our first screening of the year of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We also caught a 1967 short from TCM about teenagers with syphilis called Her Name Was Ellie, His Name Was Lyle, wherein the kids learn that wishing they don't have syphilis doesn't make it go away. Good times.

October 14 - November 3:

You'd think our trip, coupled with the storm, would have curtailed our viewing, but you'd be wrong! We managed to watch the eternally classic (and delightfully painful) Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976) and Bela Lugosi in White Zombie (1932) on the laptop when we had no power and have since watched Desk Set (1957), since I've decreed that we can start watching holiday movies early this year. We ran out of time before the holidays last year, which bummed me out. Not this year!

October 7 - October 13:

I'm pleased to report that it was another banner week of movie viewing, the highlight being the new 3-D print of Creature from the Black Lagoon at Film Forum in New York City. If you get the opportunity to see it, GO! It looks really amazing, by far the best 3-D I've ever seen. We also managed to catch Frankenstein's Daughter (1958), featuring characters so unattractive you really don't care what happens to them, 1943's I Walked With a Zombie, with a sweet nurse and harmless drunk who make you care somewhat more, and the film noir classic Somewhere in the Night (1946), wherein a tortured amnesiac war hero tries to regain his identity AND find the bad guy who left him money while he was overseas. He finds all that AND love, plus puts a bad guy away in the process. Also watched Mary Tyler Moore, Maude, Bob Newhart, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Car 54 Where Are You? on MeTV. What am I going to do in hotel rooms with only basic cable for ten days?!

September 30 - October 6:

Viewing this week ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. We started with 1997's Vegas Vacation, which most fans of the Vacation series think is execrable, but which I love, particularly for the scenes with Wayne Newton. We also caught an old favorite, Sitting Pretty (1948), the film which hilariously gave Mr. Belvedere to the movies. In a Halloween vein, we also watched Night of the Living Dead (1968), which I kind of love, despite the fact that (SPOILER ALERT) Ben doesn't make it to the end, even though he managed to keep himself and a bunch of morons alive for most of the film in spite of the zombie onslaught. Famously, the film never uses the word "zombie," but I was frankly glad when the zombies got Barbara and Mr. Cooper. People that useless deserve to be zombie chow.

September 23 - September 29:

Viewed this week: Strangers on a Train, the 1951 Hitchcock classic in which poor Farley Granger becomes mixed up with psycho Robert Walker. The movie itself is plenty creepy, but it's even worse to realize we're personally acquainted with people almost as crazy as Bruno. I preceded the movie with an episode of Fantasy Island. The two worked oddly well together.

September 16 - September 22:

Viewed this week: Trog, a 1970 disasterpiece and Joan Crawford's final theatrical film in which she plays an anthropologist who learns of a prehistoric troglodyte who just happens to be living in a nearby cave. Over the objections of just about everyone, she and her daughter, with whom she works, and a couple of other sympathetic scientists, set out to train him for modern life. As you might imagine, despite the fact that she manages to teach him a bunch, it doesn't ultimately end well for Trog. If you can get past the boring first half hour or so this movie is a masterpiece of "so bad it's good"-ness.

September 9 - September 15:

Viewed this week: 1988's Tapeheads, which stars John Cusack and Tim Robbins as a couple of seemingly going nowhere guys who start a business making videos. While very much of its time (Who isn't making videos these days?), it holds up because it is genuinely funny, the theme of trying to break into showbiz is universal and it has cameos and supporting roles by some hilarious folks (Bobcat Goldthwait, Weird Al, Don Cornelius, Milton Seltzer, etc.).

September 2 - September 8:

Lots of classic TV, including That Girl, Hawaii Five-O and Police Woman. I'm still LOVING having MeTV! We tried to watch a 1974 blaxploitation film called Jive Turkey, since the title was so promising, but it turned out to be one of the most boring movies either of us had ever seen. We both kept falling asleep, yet once we turned it off we managed to stay awake for two more hours of classic TV. That just about says it all!

August 26 - September 1:

We DVRed a bunch of spring break movies on TCM way back in the spring and finally got around to watching one this week, 1965's The Girls on the Beach, starring Noreen Corcoran, Kelly on TV's Bachelor Father, from whom I got my name, and Lana Wood, Natalie's less-well-known sister. The film featured performances by the Beach Boys and an utterly formulaic beach party movie script, so you know I want to save it, even though anyone with half a brain is WAY ahead of the plot while watching.

August 19 - August 25:

Alas, we were in full-on party prep mode, so very little got watched, outside of basic cable. We'll remedy that this week!

August 12 - August 18:

Having read all of the Stephanie Plum mysteries, I was interested to see One for the Money (2012), which is based on the first book, which started it all. It was entertaining and I enjoyed it, but Katherine Heigl just isn't Stephanie Plum to me. She's too confident and competent. I liked Debbie Reynolds, but I wish they would have let her be a lot more eccentric in the role of Grandma Mazur. And neither of Stephanie's love interests stacked up to the books for me (I don't think of Ranger as cussing and he did in the movie). But I did love Sherri Shepherd as Lula. I missed Uncle Sandor's Buick, which suddenly became Big Blue, a '70s land yacht in the movie, but at least she had an embarrassing car! Overall I think it's fun if you don't get too persnickety about the details.

August 5 - August 11:

This week involved sewing, which means TCM. It turned out to be Rita Hayworth day, which allowed me to catch 1941's You'll Never Get Rich, featuring Miss Hayworth and Fred Astaire in a mindless dancing/military romp. Mindless is good when you're sewing!

July 22 - August 4:

Believe it or not, I kept my promise and watched several movies during this time, including two Michael Douglas titles I'd never seen before, 1987's Wall Street and Falling Down (1993). It's kind of scary how much I related to his thoroughly antisocial character in Falling Down, but he WAS sort of an extreme version of Everyman. We also watched Tootsie, which I still consider among the best films about show business ever made. Hilarious, yet totally realistic.

July 15 - July 21:

Other than possibly the funniest World's Dumbest Performers ever, I don't think we watched a thing. We were just too busy.

July 8 - July 14:

Where did the week go? While we did manage to get a little classic TV in, the week largely disappeared in a whirlwind of work and socializing. It was a good week, so I can't complain.

July 1 - July 7:

I don't know how I've gone this long in life without seeing it, but I watched Dog Day Afternoon (1975) for the first time and loved it. Absolutely hilarious. I had no idea. The deadpan delivery made the most mundane and obvious lines screamingly funny. I think I need to own it.

June 17 - July 1:

I'm pleased to report that we DID see drive-in movies at Ohana, including turgid teen favorite Teenage Diary, as well as episodes of Gidget and Stingray. Paul was actually running the computer on which they played, so he saw even more. I also had time over the weekend for That Girl, Police Woman, Hawaii Five-O and Dragnet.

June 10 - June 16:

We're in full-on Ohana prep and "Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en" production mode, so we're more about creating entertainment than consuming it, but we did make the observation that, when we watch double features of Hawaii Five-O and Police Woman, we can call them Morton Stevens Nights, since he wrote the fab theme songs for each! Yes, we're geeks.

June 3 - June 9:

Besides catching the season finale of Hot in Cleveland, we actually tried to watch the George Kennedy movie Zigzag, for which I had high hopes, but which was so dull that I couldn't stay awake. I'd like to say I'll give it another chance, but time is short. I've got other things to watch!

May 20 - June 2:

Two weeks went by with almost no viewing, outside of Mad Men and Hot in Cleveland, both of which are about to end their seasons, and a very little classic TV. This is pitiful. I've GOT to make time to relax.

May 13 - May 19:

I sewed this week, so much viewing took place, including Anything But Love, a perennial favorite of mine, both because it's about a retro-loving singer trying to make it in New York cabaret and because it's an indie film that got made because of the commitment of the filmmakers.

May 6 - May 12:

Featured: A That Girl marathon!

April 29 - May 5:

I'm pleased to say that my pessimism about our chances for viewing during the week were unfounded! We managed to wedge in Mad Men and Hot in Cleveland, as well as episodes of Hawaii Five-O, That Girl and Police Woman on DVD!

April 22 - April 28:

Who am I kidding? We're too busy to watch anything but World's Dumbest, Hot in Cleveland and Mad Men. Even Mad Men will be tough this week, but it will be in the DVR and hopefully we can wedge it in.

April 15 - April 21:

Oddly, the only classic TV we got to this week was Hawaii Five-O. However, that was in part because TCM gifted us with Spring Break Week, wherein they showed a number of beach party and spring break movies for five glorious nights! The only one we watched at the time was the one that started it all, 1960's Where the Boys Are, a perennial Lounge favorite. However, the DVR is FULL of many more!

April 8 - April 14:

Another week where we were out a lot, gone over the weekend and basically ONLY watched Mad Men, Hot in Cleveland and World's Dumbest. Next weekend is a "Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en" weekend, so we will be in town and we WILL be watching, especially since we now have TWO unopened DVD sets: Police Woman Season 2 and That Girl Season 5.

April 1 - April 7:

We ended up barely being home this week, so not much watching beyond Mad Men happened, but we did watch a couple of movies on mute while playing music all night. Does that count?

March 25 - March 31:

It's nice to have Mad Men back on the air, plus Wednesday's episode of Hot in Cleveland was perhaps the funniest ever, or at least second funniest. We need all the laughs we can get!

March 18 - March 24:

At last, some movies, and all it involved was getting back to work! I keep TCM on while I'm sewing and, strangely, I tend to see the same movies again and again while at the machine. This week's repeat was 1950's The Baron of Arizona, in which Vincent Price plays a baddie who tries to swindle the United States out of its claim to the state of Arizona back when the state was new. I also caught the incredibly plotless Friendly Persuasion, (1956) starring Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire as Quakers dealing with the Civil War. TCM also served up the always fabulous Goodbye Girl (1977), a film which really gets life in New York City right, right down to the pretentious off-off-Broadway plays and constant struggles for work in the arts.

March 11 - March 17:

Coming this week: Like a skipping record, I'm planning to watch an actual movie!

March 4 - March 10:

Who was I kidding with my goal of watching a movie last week? I was in NYC three days of the week, which encompassed seeing a new friend make her NYC DJing debut (she did great!), but allowed very little time for watching. I'm hoping for a little less craziness this week!

February 26 - March 3:

We watched the usual classic TV, but also had the opportunity to see Bebe Neuwirth perform live at the Bardavon Opera House! She's a really interesting performer, the show was excellent and we thank our friend Donna for making it happen for us!

February 12 - February 25:

Since we were away we mostly caught up on the TV that we missed while we were gone, but we did get through two parts of a three-part Hawaii Five-O episode, so I'm looking forward to finishing that.

February 5 - February 11:

More distractions, but we DID get to Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Hawaii Five-O.

January 29 - February 4:

It was a week of many distractions, but we did manage to work in viewings of Hawaii Five-O (the original, of course), Fantasy Island (a sordid pleasure I don't even feel remotely guilty about), Dragnet 1968 and Adam-12.

January 22 - January 28:

Lots of TV was watched, but I'm too tired to describe it. I'm sure you can imagine!

January 15 - January 21:

I keep thinking that Antenna TV can't possibly last, because I have never loved a channel this much before. This week we watched Maude, Adam 12, Dragnet, The Jack Benny Program and many more, in addition to our own DVDs of Hawaii Five-O and Fantasy Island. The episodes of Jack Benny were particularly great, because they have great performances by such guest stars as Carol Burnett, Jack Jones and Frankie Avalon, which we'd otherwise probably not see. Please, television gods, smile on Antenna TV!

January 8 - January 14:

We laid low this week and got in a bunch of viewing, including 1967's Easy Come, Easy Go, which tells the story of Navy frogman Elvis, who's determined to salvage treasure from a shipwreck he finds in the name of duty. One highlight: the incredibly goofy "Yoga Is as Yoga Does," performed by Elsa Lanchester and Elvis. We're also still loving Antenna TV, which continues to serve up buried treasures like It Takes a Thief and Circus Boy. Take THAT, TVLand!

January 1 - January 7:

We suddenly have this new channel called Antenna TV, which plays real classic shows, not 1990s sitcoms that wish they were classics! Our DVR is filling up with Jack Benny, Hazel, Bachelor Father and the like! They also play Maude, which we watched when I was a kid, only I get the jokes now. Combine that with our new DVDs of Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Gidget and Hawaii Five-o (season six) and I predict being snowed in will be, if not pleasurable, at least tolerable, just as long as the electricity stays on!

Click here to see what we watched in 2011