Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-24 (Friday)

On 1/25/2025 9:44 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

While there is still some work left to do before classes start next week, I basically treated Friday as a "holiday". So I did nothing, and didn't even watch much - just one Lifetime flick...:
 soaps: DOOL - Thur's ep (I believe). Not great. Kristen (and to a lesser extent Brady) are freaking out about Rachel being missing - at the end, Rachel (still the original child actress before the recast) arrives at her destination (and I couldn't tell where that was...). Sophia (still the original actress here too, before next week's(?) recast) gets yelled at by her mean, awful mom for suggesting adoption for Sophia's embryo; Ava V. unwisely tries to mediate with the mean mom. Holly helps Tate find Rachel, but then flees when Sophia shows up to cry on Tate's shoulder.
    GH - Also Thur's ep. Not a super interesting ep. Cody is in jail - first NuNuNuMolly is disgusted by Cody, and then Mac tries to talk him down. At the cop shop, Lucky and Lizzie pump Felicia for info on Cyrus. Lucas tells Josslyn their theory about Cyrus killing patients (big mistake! as Josslyn will probably try to go murder Cyrus now!). Brick gets Sonny an out-of-town appointment with a cardiologist. NuNuJordan warns Laura about Jenz(sp?) Sidwell (Carlo Rota), who is openly wandering around town because no law enforcement agencies are looking for him! Laura turns down testifying for Ava in the custody hearing (bitch!), but Ric gets Ava a new place that's not a hotel room! for the custody hearing.
 My Family's Killer Affairs (LMN) - If you're suspicious that Kabby Borders is playing a seemingly "minor part" in this flick, let's just say you're on the right track! (Sidenote: I don't like Kabby Borders' new shorter hairstyle as much - hopefully she goes back to longer hair soon.)
    Anyway, in this one, we get one of these improbable "fertility clinic 'switch'!" storylines - a widow (Lifetime semi-regular April Martucci) and her high school senior-aged daughter (Isabella Carlsen from 2024's "Killing All My Sisters") discover that a fertility clinic "mistake" means that they have an older daughter/sister (the zaftig Josie Juliette Wert) out there in town.
    But to add to the complication, the latter's mother was just recently murdered. Of course, the film opens with Wert's character says she wishes her mom was dead, and she doesn't have an alibi for the time of her mom's murder, so the film wants the audience, and the sister character played by Carlsen, to think Wert's character is the murderer. This is too obvious a red herring.
    There are other suspects, starting with Wert's father (Bourke Floyd) whom I was suspicious of the whole time. But then there's the question as to why you would bring Kabby Borders on to this flick just play Floyd's sister and Wert's aunt!
    Anyway, this wasn't deep, and was barely enjoyable (I did rather like Wert in this, though her character is all over the place!), though I did enjoy the ending. (Of course, the very ending doesn't follow up on what happens to the killer, something I hate when these films do this!)
  What did you watch?
 

I watched:
Law and Order - "Greater Good" - Eriq La Salle directs this episode where Team Lawn and Order investigate the murder of a wealthy music mogul, but the case is held up by a local cop who feels the world is better off with the man dead and there's no reason to help prosecute the killer.  Warning, this episode has a recognizable guest star.  You *know* what that means!
Law and Order: SVU - "Master Key" - Team SVU spring into action to rescue a missing teen who was last seen getting into a car with a strange man.  Team SVU quickly find the man dead and the teen with an ever changing story about what really happened.
Penn & Teller: Fool Us - "The Penn & Teller 50th Anniversary Special" - Season 11 premier and their 50th anniversary special.  I wasn't impressed by the magical acts, but it's nice to know P&T are still going strong after 50 years.
Presence (theatrical) New movie directed by Steven Soderbergh.  The gimmick of this movie is it's a movie about a haunted house told from the perspective of the ghost.  First, let me say I don't think a ghost story told from the perspective of the ghost is all that new or different.  I can think of several movies told from the perspective of the ghost.  "Ghost" for example is told from the perspective of the ghost.  What makes this movie different is the camera view is the perspective of the ghost.  The ghost never leaves the house.  So everything (for the most part) that the audience sees is what the ghost sees.  Although I'm not 100% sure that's the case, I'm not willing to do a scene by scene break down to verify it one way or the other.
Anyway, I don't want to get too specific about plot details.  The movie itself is a low budget bottle movie that takes place in a single location, the haunted house.  The story follows a couple (Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan) who move in with their two teenage kids. Their daughter (Callina Liang) is the first family member to notice the presence of the ghost.  At first the rest of the family dismiss her until the ghost's actions become to intense to ignore.  The movie pretty much plays out like any other haunted house movie except the audience only ever sees things from the ghost's viewpoint.  I went in not really knowing anything about what to expect, and this is one of those movies where it is probably best to go in not knowing too much about the plot.
As an aside, this stupid newsreader ate my last post.  Not only did not it not post, it disappeared from my sent folder, and it's not in drafts, or anywhere else.  Normally I wouldn't care.  But it was lengthy post that I typed in real time.  So that was the only version of it.  Any I"m *not* typing it again!  It's just gone.  :-/