Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-07-19 (Saturday)

On 7/20/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

Two-day catch-up.
soaps: Y&R - Wed's thru Fri's ep's. Chance investigates the murder of Damien. Someone is trying to set Nick up, and it may push Nick over the edge! Everyone (except Filis[sic!]) thinks Cane did it, even his lawyer who grills Cane over the obvious appearance of looking guilty.
    DOOL - Thur's ep. Ari and Holly wonder if anyone is missing them, and then realize they need to free themselves from their current captivity or they may be burnt toast! NuGabi expresses her concern that Ari may be missing to Rafe who comes around to agreeing with Gabi that something is off, and promises to look into Ari's (and Holly's) disappearance... Nonsense with jury selection for Johnny's trial (ridiculous! this trial is happening ridiculously too fast, and they don't even have enough to charge Johnny!) - Mrs. Choi is rejected as a juror, but Leo Stark is empaneled! Nu(AndWimpy!)Sophia is in Chicago, ducking her mother (and Tate) in order to perpetrate Melinda Trask's ruse about the baby... Tate confronts Doug III about Holly and Ari being missing, and gets out of Doug that it's over Doug's loanshark debt, so Tate agrees to pay it.
    GH - Thur's ep. Jason takes Sasha (and her baby) to their destination - which is apparently with Robert. Liesl Obrecht is back, and tells Rocco about her daughter, Britt (who is clearly coming back any day now). Dante is weak and worthless about Brook Lynn, which rightly disgusts Lulu. The professor dude does the hand-off to his contact, despite Josslyn trying to use Danny to disrupt it. (I wonder what Jason would do if he knew Joss had purposely involved his son in a spy operation!) Nina explains to Sonny that she publicly threw Sonny under the bus because Tracy Q. blackmailed her. Later, Nina is reunited with Obrecht!
FRI:
I think this may have been the day I watched ep. #7(?) of "Shifting Gears" off Hulu - This is the epie that Nancy Travis guest-starred on. Her guest stint immediately perked the show up - too bad it looks like her stint was a one-off and it doesn't appear like she'll be back again.
What Hides in Silence (LMN) - Aubrey Reynolds and Gina Vitori are reunited again!! Unfortunately, this time they aren't trying to duck sharks...  :(
    This was an odd little flick, not one of Reynolds' better ones (unfortunately), and I say that as a fan.
    The flick opens with Reynolds' character, a deaf teacher, losing one of her students in a freak circumstance when he wanders away when she's not looking and getting himself run over.
    It's two years later now, and Reynolds' character is a mess, and she's living with her engaged sister (Vitori). In one of the flick's more realistic bits, Vitori's fiance (Aaron Mees, I think) is a jerk who doesn't like the sister played by Reynolds and wants her OUT OF THE HOUSE! A.S.A.P.!!
    Reynolds' character gets a job to interpret for a recently deaf high school senior (Haley Baird Riemer) in summer school - The high schooler's dad (John Castle) is OK, and in fact is sweet on Reynolds' character. But her mom (Liza Jaine) is a total nightmare.
    Anyway, Reynolds' character eventually breaks down the high schooler's walls. And soon enough, the girl picks up a potential boyfriend (Alec Anderson-Carrasco).
    But all along, someone is harassing and threatening Reynolds' character. We're led to think it's the high schooler's nightmare mom, but of course that is too easy.
    I had this one figured out pretty early on, and unfortunately they didn't really go anywhere with it that I wasn't expecting.
    So, this was... OK, I guess, but Reynolds has done other Lifetime flicks that I've enjoyed much more.
SAT:
Heads of State (Prime) - Idris Elba and John Cena... are... Heads of State!!
    Of Cena's recent action-comedy flicks for streaming (have they all been for Prime?! I want to say I watched at least one of them on Hulu...), I may have enjoyed this one the most.
    The film seems to open with a non sequitur - some operation to take down a Russian arms dealer (it's Paddy Considine!!) lead by Priyanka Chopra (Jonas) - the op fails and the entire team is taken down deader-than-dead, even apparently Chopra at the end.
    The film then segues to:
    Cena plays... Ronald Reagan? Sly Stalone?!... an action film star who gets himself elected President of the United States. He's an optimist who likes to make bold statements and wants to be liked by the people.
    Elba plays the Prime Minister of the UK - a cynic who has been in office for 6 years and is facing declining popularity. Oh, and Elba thinks Cena is a joke, and has no respect for him!
    Anyway, in a contrivance, they are both put on Air Force One together when it is taken down by inside saboteurs and an outside aircraft.
    Sidenote: BTR must hate this flick - the Secret Service is either ignored, an afterthought, or generally compromised or incompetent in this flick!
    Though one stalwart SS agent gets Cena and Elba off the plane in parachutes before it goes down.
    Now everyone thinks the US Pres and UK Prime Minister are dead, but Elba and Cena are instead stranded in Belarus and have to get back to the NATO conference (in eastern Italy) before it is sabotaged!
    Wacky action-comedy shenanigans ensue as Elba and Cena attempt to get back while being chased by Considine's baddies!
    This wasn't deep. And there was a little too much RW commentary going on here. But this was mostly fun. I actually enjoyed that Elba was shown to be the more competent action hero here, with Cena being more the bumbler this time.
Witch Hunt (Prime) - Low-budget 2021 fantasy(?) alt-history(?) flick starring Gideon Adlon, the lovely Abigail Cowen, and Elizabeth Mitchell.
    In this tale, witches are real!!
    So real in fact that there was an 11th Amendment to the Constitution in 1789 about them that said "No witchcraft!"
    Thus, "now", in the present day, there is an entire government enforcement agency - basically, the "FBI for witches"! - that exists, populated by "witch hunters" who track down witches for some righteous stake burning.
    The witches, of course, are all trying to escape down Mexico way, where the government and population is apparently much more chill with witches and witchcraftery.
    Mitchell and Adlon play mother and daughter living in So. Cal. - the mother (Mitchell) is basically part of a "secret underground" for witches, who try to smuggle witches into Mexico.
    Adlon just wants to be a regular teen, and not be part of this dangerous witch smuggling business.
    The first charge of theirs that we see is a fleeing witch played by Ashley Bell, and she's not so lucky as the witch hunters track her (and her smuggler down) and torch them.
    Soon enough, the next charges appear - two sisters (the lovely Cowen, and Echo Campbell who plays the younger sister) whose witch mother we see get stake-burned in the film's open.
    The mother and daughter are forced to conceal the two sisters for longer than usual with the witch hunters breathing down their neck. Of course, Cowan ends up breaking down Adlon's character's defenses.
    Anyway, I don't know if the "twist" in this film was supposed to be obvious from the get-go, or they just did a horrible job of hiding it, but I knew where this was going from early on.
    Despite the obvious allegory they were trying to set up here, I though this flick turned out better than I was expecting because, 1) the allegory was very secondary, and 2) they did a lot of other atmospheric or unexpected stuff to keep this engaging.
What did you watch?