Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-06-21 (Friday)

On 6/22/2024 10:08 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 6/22/2024 9:40 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

I mostly watched more (lower-rung) movies on Friday, along with soaps:
>
soaps: DOOL - The prom ep. Tate's date (still can't remember her name)
confronts Holly about their plan to use her so Holly and Tate can sneak
off to be together. Indeed, Tate and Holly do sneak off to be together,
and it looked like maybe they were about to "do it", but are caught by
NuTheresa (in an amusing bit!) and Brady!... Meanwhile, Ava comes back
to town, gets (unnecessarily) chewed out by Kayla, and then comes
face-to-face with Harris (who I am assuming is going to tell her he's
leaving town for good). Steve meets with Justin and intends to turn
himself in (alone) for helping break Clyde out of prison. Alex continues
to be an asshole.
    GH - Lil' Violet comes home to find dad Finn passed out on the
floor, and bleeding from a cut from his hand, and panics and calls
Tracy, who comes to rescue her - Monday should be good as we'll get to
see Tracy verbally just *lay out* Finn. Tracy takes Violet to Chase's
and Brook Lynn's... Meanwhile, Sam (re-)confronts Carly with the
incriminating recording of Carly that Agent Cates is holding over Jason;
later, Cates shows up to sweet-talk Carly, but Carly now knows the truth
about him. Sam goes to Spinelli to complain that Jason threw the rest of
them under the bus for Carly (true!). Anna doesn't make much headway in
finding evidence against Valentin, who is wooing her hard! but Jason is
also there lurking, and I think he's going to get the evidence while
Valentin is distracted by Anna...
>
Double Walker (Tubi) - [sigh...] This 2021 flick was pure "artiste"
indie cred(/crud) BS.
    I refuse to accept the idea that, just because you're going for an
"artistic film" that you can't tell a coherent story!

>
+1
>
This was abut 100%

"atmospherics".
    But this flick was all over the map! (At least it has some naked
nudity to make up for it...) Mostly it tells one version of a kind of
"Ghost" story, but then completely pivots near the end to a different
version, and then finally ends completely inconclusively, to the point
I'm not sure what happened (or if anything happened?!!). (So, was it all
the mother's dream?!)
    Bah!!
    This stars Sylvie Mix (as the Ghost), who also co-wrote it (so, she
wrote herself nakedly nude scenes?!!).
    I wish this had been a lot better, with a lot more thought put into
it, as I actually kind of like the concept. But, for instance, they say
that the Ghost can only be seen by "believers and sinners" - so why the
hell could the movie theater young adult see her when he was clearly
neither of the above?!
>
What Happens in Miami (Tubi) - A 2024 Tubi Original film.
    Basically, this can be summed up as: Bitchy white girl(s) deserve to
die, and the women of color who kill her(them) deserve to get away with it.
    This one was very disappointing. It was very clear from mid-film
that that was where they were going with this, so really there was no
"mystery" (despite them trying to contrive one) and the end "twist" was
not even a "twist".
    Further, I resented the way this was written, because early in the
film they portray the white girl, portrayed by Annalisa Cochrane, as
completely normal, but as the film went on she became more and more
(uncharacteristically) bitchy and EVOL!, purely by writer convenience,
to basically prove their overall point that "Bitchy white girls deserve
to die".
    Well-filmed and edited, this still may be the worst Tubi Original
film I have seen (though "Tow" was pretty damn bad (for different
reasons!) as well) just because as a "message film" this was junk.
>
Simulant (Hulu) - Disappointing sci-fi, though I liked the performances,
esp. Sam Worthington, Jordana Brewster, and to a lesser extent Alicia Sanz.
    Basically, this is the old "androids become sentient and try to take
over the world" bit. The problem is that the filmmakers take this too
literally, as if the humans would have no measures in place to ever
prevent such an occurrence.
    Also, I didn't like Simu Liu's

>
I had to double check you weren't talking about Atlas.  I forgot Simu
Liu played a simulant trying to wipe out humanity in two different
movies.  But I think I did see this back when I had Hulu.
>
character at all, as he seems to be

behind driving a development that will lead to wholesale human slaughter
- like, has he thought through what he is trying to do?!
    Anyway, this ends on the expected downbeat note (actually, maybe
more downbeat than I was expecting), which I didn't care for at all...
    P.S. Von Flores looks so old now!!  :(
>
What Comes Around (Hulu) - This 2022 flick, starring Grace Van Dien
(must have been made before she "paused" from acting, and AFAICT she is
still "paused" on acting...), Summer Phoenix and Kyle Gallner, was
probably the "pick" of what I saw yesterday, though I'm not sure that is
saying much...
    This takes a while to get going, but it does build through the end,
and manages a pretty decent ending (though I would hardly call it
conclusive).
    Van Dien's teen character is romanced over-the-internet by Gallner's
character, who is clearly too old for her. When her mother (Phoenix)
finds out, she justifiably goes over the moon.
    But, wait! There's more going on here!!
    I can't really say more without spoiling it. But as I said - at
least this builds through the end, and manages a decent ending, which is
more than I can say for the other movies I watched on Friday!!
>
>
What did you watch?

>
>
I watched:
>
Doctor Who - (Disney+) - "Empire of Death" Episode 8 / Season finale.
The Doctor and Ruby try to stop Sutekh from wiping out all life in the
universe.  Some mysteries are answered some are not.  Pretty good finale
overall.  I'm looking forward to next season.

 I was happy when they killed just about everybody, but unfortunately they
got better. Not a lick of this made sense to me. Where were the doctor and
Mel that they had to come back to unit on a scooter? Wasn’t the VR stage in
the same building?
 

SPOILERS
Susan Triad (real name Susan Twist) was announcing the launch of her software down the street.  The Doctor and Mel left Unit to watch/stop the launch.  Ruby stayed behind and was in the VR chamber.  Everywhere in time and space the the Doctor had landed since the Tom Baker era Sutekh deposited a Susan Twist variant.  They all simultaneously came online and released Sutekh's gift of death. The Doctor and Mel were running away from "Susan" because she was releasing the death dust.  It just so happened that Sutekh was also already in Unit headquarters with another one of his acolytes releasing it from their as well.