So I didn't get that confused, but I'll agree there are a few scenes that seem like they skipped over something and as a result, it's not easy to tell some of the CIA guys who ran drugs and guns for the Contras from the state department characters who seemed to play both sides, or figuring out which side the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan characters were on (a few were with the Sandinistas but it seemed like some of them also were hired killers for the CIA). On the other hand, maybe that's the point: all the players were back-stabbers who could switch sides at the drop of a dime according to whatever was in their best interest at the moment.

Anyway, the film has a bit of a surprise ending and the cast was good (Affleck was a bit wooden, but he's never struck me as Mr. Personality.) The only real criticism I have is the constant smoking by everyone -- it was light a second cigarette as you put the first one out, from the first scene to the last. Yes, that's how it was in the 80's but I doubt many people who used to smoke like chimneys and quit enjoy being constantly bombarded with it as they are in this film. I wonder how many people will relapse after seeing this movie.?

As for Joan Didion, the writer of the book on which the film is based, I can’t recommend her highly enough. Here’s an article I found today: How to write like Joan Didion, that gives you an idea of how unique her style of writing is.

Moving on: Even though I intensely disliked "Narcos" seasons 1 to 3, I found myself watching the latest version on Netflix. Still the annoying voice-over of a DEA agent character, but at least they didn't claim he was based on a specific agent in real life. And happily, the dead agent Kiki Camarena didn't dominate the season (he was of course a topic in the beginning episodes, because after all, this is not a series about "Narcos" as in drug traffickers, but about "narcs" as in law enforcement). What made it really tolerable was knowing early on the DEA was going to get trounced and lose by the end of the series. Plus, so many agents die because they fell for a ruse by the traffickers, no one should feel sorry for them. And watching the high level administration figure for George HW Bush castigate the main task force agent responsible for the doomed mission is rewarding.

This season of Narcos also featured an older real life Narco named Pablo Acosta and his real-life Texas heiress girlfriend Mimi (wonderfully played by the real-life daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick). The real Mimi is the niece of the late TX senator John Tower.

One of the main characters this season(who appeared a little last season ) was real life drug lord the late Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, aka Lord of the Skies. While the actor playing Amado does a very good job, the show doesn't give much background to his story. He just can't compare to Rafael Amaya who plays the fictionalized version of him (using the moniker Aurelio Casillas) in the Caracol/Telemundo series Senor de los Cielos.

Which leads me to music I'm watching and listening to these days: BTS, the uber popular boy band from South Korea has a new album out called Map of the Soul 7. Last week they were on the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon for a full hour, and in the last segment, they shut the week before to film a short performance.

The next night James Corden aired his BTS carpool karaoke . I've already watched it 3 times.

Kim Nam-joon aka RM, the group's leader speaks perfect English, while the others not so much. At one point James asked RM how he learned English and he said when he was in high school, his mother bought him a DVD set of every episode of Friends. He watched each episode three times: once with Korean subtitles, once with English subtitles and once with no subtitles. (I wish that was all it took for me to learn Spanish. I'd be so fluent by now from having watched every episode of so many Colombian and Mexican Narcodramas I should be able pass an interpreter's test. But, I can only read Spanish. My accent is so American and my verb conjugation is so poor that my Spanish-speaking clients almost cringe when I try to speak it.

Also very good on James Corden last week: "Spill Your Guts" and a new carpool karaoke with Justin Bieber. You don't have to be a Bieber fan (although I am one) to thoroughly enjoy both.

James Corden still gets my vote for my favorite TV entertainer. I have never watched an episode of the Late Late Show that hasn't left me in a better mood at the end of the show than I was in at the beginning.

More good TV: Project Runway Season 19 with Karlie Kloss in Heidi Klum's old role. She seems very down to earth (and very, very tall) and she is a Democrat, unlike her brother-in-law Jared. I also recently watched and liked last year's Making a Model with Yolanda Hadid , now on Hulu. Yolanda is the mother of uber-models Bella Hadid and Gigi Hadid and is a former supermodel herself. I read she was also on RHOBH but I have never seen that show.

Also in the fun to watch department: the Great British Baking Show on Netflix (but only the last three seasons with Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig. (Catch these seasons now because Sandi won’t be returning next season. I didn't care for the hosts of the earlier seasons. It's really an odd show that takes some getting used to. During the start of each new season, I question the casting because the contestants seem so awkward. But by the third episode or so, I've become invested in all of them.

I should also mention I finally saw Parasite a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it, on so many levels. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Next topic: I have now tested every streaming device from Apple TV 4k to Chromecast 4k, Amazon Fire TV 4k and Roku 4k. To me, it's not even close. Roku 4k wins hands down (reasons in a later post if anyone is interested.) Apple TV 4k is the biggest disappointment because it has an impossible remote control with a trackpad forcing you to slide from right to left and up and down and I always either swipe past what I'm aiming for or not far enough. Why they did away with a button to go back and forward is beyond me. Also, almost nothing is free. And I find it to be the opposite of intuitive -- listings are by service providers rather than categories.

As for streaming services: If Netflix let me see choose from all of their programs instead of showing me what it thinks I might like according to some algorithm that never gets it right, and didn't have autoplay as you scroll, it would get higher marks. AT&T Now and Hulu (the latter without commercials) win my votes for streaming. (AT&T Now is the former Direct TV Now and comes with a DVR in the cloud so you can record stuff, watch it later, and fast forward past commercials. Anyone with an AT&T phone can get it. Amazon Prime is nicely laid out but I almost never find anything to watch. Their international offerings are far too few.

I also hooked up indoor antennas to my TV's and get more than 50 channels on each. The picture is crystal clear HD, since it's not filtered through a cable service like Comcast which I read somewhere can regulate the output to accommodate more users. There's also no flickering or uneven volume as there sometimes is with cable and TV over the internet. Also, subtitles through your TV via antenna are much better than what you get with Comcast, You Tube or AT&T. Live network television offers a choice of languages for captions, while streaming devices and Comcast usually limit captions to the language they were broadcast in if you try and watch them after they have aired on Demand.

Lastly, let's go to books. If you are looking for one that grabs you on page 1 and you don't want to put down, try American Dirt. It's not Shantarum or Joan Didion, but it is compelling m-- and an Oprah book club selection. It's about the cartel killing a journalist and his entire extended family in their back yard during a family celebration (except for his wife and 8 year old son who had gone inside to use the bathroom and then hid when they heard the shots). The wife and son run away and join caravan of immigrants to get to the U.S. It is No. 2 on the NY Times Best Seller list this week and even the most proper ladies at my nail salon, who I can't picture reading a book about drugs or cartels, just rave about it. (I'm still on chapter one but so far, so good).

Update: I hope this post doesn't read like a sales pitch, it's not. I have not had an affiliate account with Amazon or anyone else for years nor have their been any ads for probably a decade. The post is really just about what I've been watching, listening to and reading, and which devices and services I find most intuitive and easy to use. The reason it's so long is that I've started and stopped it for months now, and I just have a lot to say. (Donations of course are always welcome and much appreciated, even though I stopped asking for them a few years ago. Hardly anyone responds any more).

I have a lot more to say on these topics but this is already much longer than it should be. I don't even know if anyone is interested in these media posts (If you are, feel free to say so in comments or just write about your own media habits -- I always like to know what TL readers are interested in.

Ok, enough. Back to TalkLeft's regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.