Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-12-24 (Tuesday)

On Wed, 25 Dec 2024 16:57:37 -0800, Arthur Lipscomb
<arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 12/25/2024 3:58 PM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On Christmas Eve, I got ready for the holidays, and didn't watch much
seriously.
 

>
I did a bit of straightening up and DVR clearing.
>

soaps: DOOL - Tue's ep. In the weirdess/silliest bit, the "Rafe double
dude"! (I think I just barely remember this storyline...) is back, and
pestering EJ for more money and/or a new mission!... NuPhilip continues
to be an annoying twitchy pest, this time trying to rub Alex's face in
his relationship with Stephanie. Stephanie continues to be neurotic
headcase, justifying blowing off Alex and allowing NuPhilip to pursue
her. Jada is sort of half-heartedly raked over the coals by Mayor
Paulina, and then she and RealRafe sort of come to an understanding
about their respective, but conflicting, jobs.
    GH - Mon's ep. Reader's digest version: NuNuLulu is put into contact
with Charlotte (Scarlett Fernandez returns as Charlotte - I did wonder
if they were going to recast the role...) by Rocco, and goes off to
secretly retrieve Charlotte all by herself after swearing Rocco to
secrecy. Gio comes across Robin's (and Patrick Drake's, a character I
barely remember!) SORASed and recast daughter, Emma Drake (now played by
newcomer Braedyn Bruner), who seems to be a rebellious (and
pickpocketing?!) teen - but Gio is into her. Alexis and Ric put aside
their differences to try and throw a festive Christmas for a shocked Molly.
 
Beyond that, I mostly left Christmas movies on.
 

>
Same.

I did not. I watched WEREWOLVES, a movie about a super moon event
causing anyone exposed to turn into a werewolf that is hungry for
human flesh for the night. Apparently it happened one night last year
and is due to happen again on this night so everyone is making
preparations. Needless to say the werewolves are strong and smart so
most of the preparations don't go as planned.

The story revolves around society trying to deal with this werewolf
problem that apparently is going to repeat unless they find a cure,
the effort to find a cure or way to prevent people from turning and a
certain family.

It's not a bad movie but I can't exactly call it a good movie.

I saw "Sincerely Truly Christmas" (2023) with Paula Brancati and Jake
Epstein on Lifetime, which I hadn't seen before. In this one, Brancati
magically can get people to reveal their Christmas wishes. Somehow,
Epstein gets roped into helping her.
 
Later on, I also saw "Snowed in Christmas" (2021) on UPtv with the
lovely Kayla Wallace (who may be the thing that gets me to finally watch
"Landman" on the Pee+!). I think I had maybe seen this one before, but
this time I watched it off the Spectrum app so I could at least watch it
in 1080!
 
 
What did you watch?
 
 

I watched:
>
Dear Santa (Paramount+) New Christmas movie from the Farrelly brothers
about a preteen boy who writes a letter to Santa.  Except the boy's
dyslexic and misspells Santa, Satan.  Next thing you know, Jack Black
shows up offering to grant 3 wishes in exchange for the boy's soul.
Black quickly catches on the boy thinks he Santa and decides to play
along in order to get the boy's soul.  Overall, I liked this movie, but
there were some spoilerish implications with the end of the movie that
were just completely glossed over, and I'm not just talking about Satan
coming to Earth to trick children into selling their souls for eternal
damnation.  I was honestly shocked with the ending, but maybe I was just
overthinking it.
>
>
The Muppets Christmas Carol (Disney+) 1992 movie based on the Charles
Dickens classic, but with the Muppets and Michael Caine as Ebenezer
Scooge.  This was the uncut version that's available on Disney+.  I'm
pretty sure I've never seen this movie before now, but I kept hearing
about it.  I kept hearing how good it was, and apparently in spite of
using Muppets is the closest version stayed truer to the novel.  It was
OK, I guess.  I don't have any real complaints.  And it was definitely
the right choice to have Caine play the role straight.
>
>
Sugarplummed (Hallmark) A stressed out mom is granted a Christmas wish
and wishes Sugarplum or Ms. Sue Garplum, from the popular TV movie
franchise into reality.  Ms. Garplum follows all the rules of a made for
TV Christmas movie, but she soon discovers those rules don't work in the
real world.
>
>
Carol for Another Christmas (TCM) 1964 made for TV version of A
Christmas Carol written by Rod Serling.  SPOILERS for a 1964 TV movie!
>
This is set in modern America with a bigoted isolationist businessman
being visited by three ghosts to teach him the error of his ways.  The
movie has a very antiwar message and Serling was definitely not messing
around with this movie.  He has the ghost of Christmas (war?) past
taking the scrooge character to visit Hiroshima and visit children with
their faces melted off from the atom bomb.  And the ghost of Christmas
(war?) future takes him to a post-apocalyptic America.  Where Peter
Sellers sits as a judge who has fully embraced the selfish bigoted
attitudes that lead to the nuclear war, and Sellers preaches those
attitudes to an eager audience.  One guy shows up and tries to preach
peace and tolerance and they hand a little boy a gun and the boy shoots
him. How have I never heard of this before now?!?
>
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You Better Watch Out (Lifetime) New Lifetime movie about a woman stuck
at a small snowed in airport who discovers a kidnapped woman tied up in
a van in the airport parking garage.  I don't want to get into spoilers,
but I *hated* what the woman did next. None of what that woman did made
*any* sense!!!  I pretty much just hate watched this movie.
>
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What If...? (Disney+) "What If... the Red Guardian Stopped the Winter
Soldier?" - The plot is the title of the episode.  They were trying to
be funny, but weren't funny.  The overall episode was otherwise OK, I guess.

It was definitely an attempt to be funny but then isn't that always
the case with the Red Guardian? I enjoyed it but wouldn't bother with
a second viewing.

What did you watch?