Kelly's Guide To Surviving Social Distancing

Kelly from Kellyvision stops by the blog today to offer her suggestions on what to watch while we are all social distancing/self isolating/quarantined. 

I'll be offering up my own recommendations tomorrow.

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I've read a bunch of articles saying that you shouldn't just watch TV shows and movies all day, that you should be exercising and doing projects, maybe trying to learn French or paint your apartment or deep clean everything.

I'm sorry, but there is a literal pandemic and I am going to cope with this the way I cope with everything: by staying inside and letting pop culture distract me.

If you are overwhelmed but want to stay informed, I would advise you to only watch local news. They will tell you what you need to know (as in, exactly how your area is doing). And that gives you a lot of time for binging.

I'm pretty sure there are three main types of people: the ones who want to forget everything scary and just have an escape; the people who are leaning in and the people who just want to watch the shows and movies they already love. I'm probably that third type, though I definitely bounce around for all three. 

I'm going to recommend movies and shows, and I'll do them for Hulu, Prime and Netflix. Plus, I'll let you know what I plan on watching; please feel free to comment your suggestions and reactions or chat with me on Twitter (I'm @khager).

AMAZON PRIME: 

If you want to escape, Prime has The Spy Who Dumped Me. You may not have seen it, but it is so funny (much funnier than it has any right to be) and it's one of the most fun movie experiences I've had in a while. 

More of a lean in type? It has The Big Sick. It's not about a pandemic, per se, but the love interest has some weird disease and she spends half the movie in a coma. It's very funny and sweet, so don't put off watching it because of the illness part. 

Need some comfort food? Prime has all of Downton Abbey! Also, Pretty in Pink, Bridget Jones's Diary, First Wives Club and Clue.

I'm hoping to watch Brittany Runs a Marathon and The Report, as well as binge the TV shows Hunters (about people hunting Nazis after World War II).

HULU:

It has the first season of What We Do in the Shadows (it's so funny!) and the show Little Fires Everywhere (with Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon, based on the book by Celeste Ng) starts Wednesday. I've got approximately 11 billion things in my watch queue, including the show version of High Fidelity, so it's probably getting all my time.

Also, it's got Spin the Wheel, a game show that I absolutely love. (You can win over a million dollars, based on the wheel and your own knowledge of pop culture. And it only has the most amazing people as contestants so you really root for them to win. It's my favorite thing.

There aren't many choices for leaning in. There's a documentary on Nostradamus. 

*approximately 20 minutes later*

I just did a real deep dive into the rabbit hole of Hulu and there is a show called "Alone." Ten people are separated and left alone in middle of nowhere Vancouver. I mean, no matter how much you are slowly losing it, at least you have food and water and are indoors. So maybe that will help?

As far as old favorites go, Hulu wins the entire world as far as I'm concerned. Heathers, Say Anything, National Lampoon’s Vacation (also European and Christmas vacations), When Harry Met Sally, Some Kind of Wonderful and the original Hitcher. There's the Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas and Dawson's Creek.

NETFLIX:

If you want to escape, I cannot recommend The Good Place and Schitt's Creek enough. Both are sitcoms that will make you literally LOL, and also make you cry a little. They're the best of who we are as people.

If you want to lean in, there's Pandemic (a TV series about preventing an outbreak) and they have Outbreak. It's not maybe the best idea, but I don't judge.

And as for old favorites? Netflix is about to make your day. They have Tootsie, Gilmore Girls, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Candyman and Rosemary's Baby. And I don't know if you've seen Step Brothers, but it's so, so fun.

I'm probably going to watch Love is Blind soon, because that's been recommended to me so many times.

I feel so behind on TV so I'm excited to see how much I can catch up on. (Or, barring that, how many times I just watch Clue instead.)

It's a scary time. Hide if you need to. We're in a great age of television and movies.