My Enjoyment of Books, Movies and TV Have Changed

Yes, I no longer am entertained by the same things I used to be–and I’m going to be honest and blame it on age.

Of course there are exceptions as there are exceptions in all things.

I used to love horror movies and books–not so anymore. Oh, yes, I still love a good ghost story with plenty of scares, what I don’t like is gruesome, blood-letting scenes. Forget the ax murderers and torturers.

I used to like Criminal Minds and followed the series through the first couple of seasons. Then I realized it began to show the grossest of torture scenes of women and sometimes children. I gave up CSI  long ago, couldn’t take the gore. Scenes I really didn’t want lodged in my memory.

I once was a fan of thrillers, both movies an books–but the more I read, the more I began to see how impossible some of the plots were. Sometimes the time sequence was not realistic, but more often the hero and heroines could not possibly live through what was shown or written. I know it’s fiction–but goodness, lets be a bit more realistic. People don’t recover from beatings and being shot in a matter of hours or sometimes minutes–and especially not enough to fight again, or leap from one building to the next.

There are plenty of mystery shows I do like–Castle for one, even though there are holes in the plots sometimes. I love the characters and it’s fun to watch. The Mentalist is another I enjoy–most of them, anyway. NCIS is still a favorite as is The Good Wife–the best writing on TV in my humble opinion.

Frankly, I never stay up to watch the new shows because I can’t stay awake. I usually watch the previous season on Netflix, except for those shows that they play over and over on USA and TNT and early enough for me to see the whole thing all the way through.

The only show that I make myself stay up for these days is Dancing With the Stars. Even my husband watches that one with me. He’s much better at spotting dancing mistakes than I am.

While I’m telling you all of this I might as well make a confession. Hubby and I both watch General Hospital on the days we’re home in the daytime. It comes on right after lunch and often we both nap through it. When I do see the whole thing I am amused. The writers put in things that happen in police work that would never be accepted in a mystery. Things happen in hospitals that could never go on. People die and years later come back to life. Hubby and I laugh and say, “Sure.”

What I really like best in any kind of mystery are characters I can cheer for, people who I now I’d like if I met them. I’m not so thrilled with the dysfunctional hero or heroine who drinks too much and isn’t a good judge of male or female lovers.

Guess I’ve just turned into a cranky old lady. And I hope people like my characters.

Marilyn