Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-06-27 (Thursday)

On 6/28/24 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

Yesterday was a strange day...
First, Anim sent me down a rabbit hole (it's all Anim's fault!!). And, yes, this is TV-related - just bear (bare?...) with me...
Anim has discovered something I didn't know existed - there are about half-a-dozen (at least! more if you include the Christians!) producers of "short-form "TV" series" out there...
[I'll cover the rest of this in a separate post...]
Then, in the morning, there was nothing else on, so I put on TCM as background noise.
I joined "It's Alive" (1974), which I had never seen before, about halfway through. I didn't give this my full attention, but this was more stylish, but also much less satisfying, than I had been led to believe.
TCM followed this up with "From Beyond the Grave" (1974) with Peter Cushing. This also didn't get my full attention, but this was supposed to be "horror-comedy", right? I mean, right?! - There's no way this was supposed to be taken seriously, right?!!
Otherwise, I watched soaps, and put aside Tubi for a while to watch a couple of higher-profile flicks:
soaps: DOOL - NuTheresa, trying not to get busted for switching the identity of Victor Kiriakis' secret son, tries to prevent Xander's mum from showing up to Xander's and Sarah's wedding, but Theresa is secretly thwarted by Bonnie. Brady warns Alex against Theresa, and surmises (correctly) that Theresa knew that Alex was Victor's heir before seducing him... Eric considers leaving town.
    GH - Dante lays Sam out for getting Spinelli to hack into the FBI's database, completely missing the point she is trying to make about Jason (and Carly). Carly gets legal advice from Diane, who advises Carly that she is likely to lose a RICO case in court. Most of this was Finn saying goodbye to little Violet (lots of tears), and then Chase driving Finn to rehab.
    B&B - Steffi is (still!) a total bitch (and Hope is a marshmallow). As I figured, I think Bill Spencer's new "daughter" isn't really his daughter, and it's a con.
    Y&R - Diane fires (her son!) Kyle - Jack should either back Diane up, or fire them both (I didn't stay through the end of the episode to find out which).
Monkey Man (Peacock) - As India's/Dev Patel's attempt at "John Wick", this 2024 flick was OK, though not nearly as action-packed as "John Wick".
    This kind of takes way too long to get going (though I guess the first "John Wick" film is kind of like that too...).
    I did kind of like how in the first part of the film, Patel's character is kind of a loser - he can take punches, but loses most of the fights he is in. And, unfortunately, there aren't that many fights in the film's first half. (Patel's character, of course, is a "fight club" at the start.)
    But I don't like how Patel's character basically undergoes a "Gandalf rebirth" in the middle of the film, and comes back as... well, the Indian John Wick.
    I gather this is Patel's attempt to do a modern retelling of some old Indian fable/tale. As a result, there are some elements I don't like - e.g. the film is expressly political (I'm guessing it's thinly veiled anti-BJP) - though that may be an explicit part of the fable being told. I don't know.
    The ending, at least, manages to be more "John Wick"-esque, with lots of fighting mayhem, though Patel's character is kind of dumb at the very end, which seemed uncharacteristic for the rest of the film's ending.
Freelance (Hulu) - After "Monkey Man", I decided to shift gears and go with something more "action comedy", so I decided to check out 2023 flick starring John Cena, Alison Brie and Juan Pablo Raba (with Alice Eve! and Christian Slater!!) out.
    As an "action comedy", this was fine, though again I thought this film was too overtly political.
    (Maybe that's why I prefer films where the bad guys are human traffickers - that's straight "good vs. evil" sh*t with no need for unnecessary political posturing in the storylines!)
    One thing I will say about Alison Brie - in her later years, she seems to have no problem with partial nudity!!
    Anyway, this passed the time (but could have been better).
What did you watch?