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A Netflix Find From Scotty

Not sure how “Pretend It’s A City” caught my fancy but it did, and I really like it.

First of all this already feels like a very pretentious post, but bear with me.  I feel like something can be pretentious and good.

I had passed by “Pretend It’s A City” many times before because it looked like just that.  Some kind of artsy, high brow production that a midwest schmo like me would never understand or appreciate.  And maybe it is all of that, but I still liked it.  Here’s why…

  • Fran Lebowitz is interesting and funny.  Her name sounded slightly familiar, but I wasn’t sure why?  Like one of those “New York personalities” that you’ve heard of before, much like Donald Trump before “The Apprentice” or politics.  She’s opinionated, cranky, and unapologetic about it.  And while I kept waiting for politics to find their way into the show, they really never did except for a throw-away comment or two.
  • Living daily life in New York City intrigues me.  I don’t think I’d last a day there, but the fact that 8 million people do (8 MILLION!!) fascinates me.  Now that I think about it, that may help explain my love for “Seinfeld”.  The basis of the show is Fran’s  complaining about all of the problems that come from living in New York City, even though she would never live anywhere else.
  • The episodes (and the series) are short.  Few things are more annoying to me than feeling like I’ve FINALLY found something on Netflix to watch, and then watching for a while and not really liking it.  But at some point you feel like you’ve already committed this much time, and you need to finish it.  There are only seven episodes, around 30 minutes each, and they move very quickly.

And legendary Martin Scorsese is the producer/director/interviewer of the series, he and Fran are old friends.

It’s light, quick & fun.  Watch one and see what you think.  It’ll only cost you 30 minutes!

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