Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-14 (Tuesday)

On 1/15/2025 10:58 AM, shawn wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 08:19:10 -0800, "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
wrote:
 

On 1/15/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
>

What did you watch?

>
Did work, and had a meeting yesterday, then ran an errand. So I only saw
stuff in the afternoon and evening:
>

 

Initiation (Prime) - A 2020 horror movie. What's interesting about this
is that is was co-written and co-produced by the film's lead, Lindsay
LaVanchy (an actress I have never come across before). Considering all
of that, it actually has a passable cast, as they got Yancy Butler

Witchblade, Yancy Butler?  For some reason I thought she got out of the business.
and

Lochlyn Munro to show up for this.
    My one issue is that the film takes way too long to get going.
    It starts out being about a sorority and a frat and its members and
pledges. At a party, the lead's (LaVanchy) pledge (Isabella Gomez from
Netflix's "One Day at a Time") is roofied and apparently raped by some
of the frat guys, potentially including the lead's brother.
    Eventually, a masked figure starts offing the frat guys in
particularly brutal ways - is the killer eliminating the "weak links" to
protect the frat?
    Anyway, this gets better the longer it goes, though I would say the
final sequence with the sorority sisters (Shireen Lai plays the third
sorority sister) trapped together in a college building with the killer
probably goes on too long.
    So, I have never seen Lindsay LaVanchy before, and this was
definitely her biggest role to date. Then COVID hit and she basically
did nothing else since this... until just recently - it looks like she,
Gomez and Lai are working together on another new upcoming horror flick.
>
>
What did you watch?

  I spent the last few days working through 2023's GOOSEBUMPS: The
Vanishing.

I've been hovering around watching this.  But I slightly lost interest once I realized it was a series and not a movie.

 What did you watch?

This is a two day catch up.  I watched:
The Bear (Hulu) I finished out the third season.  This was interesting binging through 3 seasons in a few weeks.  I thought the first season when Jeremy Allen White was running the greasy spoon and trying to turn it into a high-class restaurant was pretty good.  But season 2 when they didn't have a restaurant didn't really work for me.  And now with season 3, they have a high-class restaurant, but so many of the episodes weren't about the restaurant.  I just found myself not caring so often while watching, even if the individual actors were good, I didn't care about the characters.
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu) No surprise Hulu recommended I watch this after "The Bear."  It was pretty much a coin toss if I watched this or the Bear first, and I was actually on my way to watch this, but Hulu put The Bear in front of my face first.  Anyway, I watched the first episode, "True Crime" and was not impressed.  At least now I *finally* know what the show is about!  But I like Steve Martin and Martin Short so I'll probably give it another shot.
Pretty in Pink (Showtime) 1986 movie written by John Hughes and starring Molly Ringwald as a poor teen who gets caught up in a love triangle between a rich kid played by Andrew McCarthy and her poor friend played by Jon Cryer.  James Spader also stars as McCarthy's jerk of a rich friend who doesn't approve of Ringwald.  I thought I saw this movie once before, but while watching nothing was familiar about it.  I'm sure I would have remembered a young Annie Potts playing a punk rocker if I ever saw that before.  The only thing I did recognize was Jon Cryer's character being named, "Duckie" but I'm pretty sure I knew that because I live on planet Earth.  And how many movies did Spader and McCarthy make together anyway?  Like infinity or something?  I think this just leaves "16 Candles" as the only Molly Ringwald/Jon Hughes movie I've yet to watch.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Disney+) - "The Real Good Guys" - Episode 8 and series finale.  (Mild spoilers)  So with the kids finally home and the pirates in orbit, the pirates decide to invade the planet.  This was just dumb IMO.  How is one ship of, a few dozen at best, pirates going to conquer an entire planet?  Even if it is battle hardened, heavily armed pirates vs. untrained, unarmed civilians, the civilians still outnumber them probably a million to one.  This does not end well for the pirates in any scenario!  Not to mention, the civilians do in fact have weapons, but I was trying to make it easier for the pirates. Anyway, this series was an overall disappointment.
Night Court  - I've been slowly making my way through the last few episodes from last year.  I kept falling asleep which would force me to restart over and over again.  But I finally made my way through them all.  They were really bad.  I did start watching last night's episode with Blossom, and so far it's actually OK.