Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-07-06 (Sunday)

On 7/7/2025 6:26 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

Yesterday, I actually finished my first grading pile of summer, but never even got to the second pile. (Oh well!)
 Aside from that, I watched:
 soaps: DOOL - Thur's & Fri's ep's (so I'm all caught up!). OMG - Did Melinda Trask really convince NuSophia to play the "fake pregnancy" trope?! It looks like it - Sophia is now wearing one of those pregnancy belly pillows to fool everyone into thinking she is still preggers... I am curious to see if they will really write out Holly by sending her to Paris (it would be a mistake of they did). Doug III continues to be menaced by the loan shark dude (I wonder if he will leave town?...). Steve claims to have a line on Julie's stolen necklace. Xander acts like an ass (again!) when he accuses Maggie of voting against him in the hospital board vote (she didn't). Kristen acts like an ass to Marlena. Belle is put back on Johnny's case.
    GH - Thur's ep. I was disappointed when there was no follow up on Joss's handler Vaughn planting one on her in the previous episode... In this one, the guilty acting-DA lady questions Sonny about Natalia and her death. Willow defies Michael and purposely hangs around the hotel's pool to see her son Wiley. Rocco and Danny investigate Britt Westborne's connection to Rocco - at the end, Rocco confronts a shocked Lulu about it. Brook Lynn tells Maxie (a temp Nicole Paggi) about her scheme to go after Lulu through Rocco, but claims that she didn't go through with it (though Rocco has found out anyway!). Lulu warns Laura that her continued ties to Sonny could cost Laura the mayor's office.
 golf - Final Day at the John Deere Classic (in glamorous Silvis, Ill.!!), which I consider to be one of the most minor PGA events of the season. Anyway, there was quite a bit of drama in this one, as the leaderboard seemed to be in pretty constant flux. In the end, it came down to a playoff between recent new PGA winner Brian Campbell and Argentinian Emiliano Grillo - on the first playoff hole, Grillo basically choked off the tee, so Campbell wins his second PGA event of the year.
 Kidnapped in a Small Town (Lifetime) - Even for a Lifetime flick, this seemed to be ridiculous!
    Basically, this was a "paranoid thriller". The car of a mom/widow (Alicia Blasingame) driving her daughter (Joesy De Palo) breaks down. A woman (Holly Anspaugh) offers to give the daughter a ride into town to get help, but when the mom catches up with her the woman claims to have never met her or her daughter. So now the daughter is missing!!
    Of course, no one claims to know anything, and the local sheriff is useless.
    What happened to the daughter? And is the whole town in on it?!...
    Eventually, the mom comes across another woman (Chelsea Rose Cook) who claims her brother went missing in town, and they start working together... The problem is Cook has been a villain in every previous Lifetime flick she's starred in, so we already know how this is going to go!
    Anyway, I thought this over-the-top in a lot of the wrong ways.
 

Sounds kind of interesting.  I guess I could record it, leave it on the DVR unwatched for a year or two, then delete it to make room for something else.

 What did you watch?
 

Sorry if this is a duplicate.  I'm having trouble downloading and sending new messages.
I watched:
Night Watch (blu-ray) 2004 Russian movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
(SPOILERS!)
The movie opens in Moscow in 1992 where a man named "Anton" is visiting a an old witch for some magical help getting his wife back.  The witch tells Anton his wife is pregnant by another man, but with a magic potion she can cause the baby to miscarry and the wife will return to him. Anton agrees to the deal but before the witch can fully put the spell into effect she is violently stopped by an invisible force.  The invincible force turns out to be agents of the Night Watch.  They are essentially a magical police force that prevent various supernatural beings from harming humans, at least harming humans without first getting a license to do so.  Anton is eventually able to see through the invisibility magic, which reveals he too is a magical being, called an "Other".  All of the vampires, witches, etc. are called "Others" and they join either the Light side or the dark side.  Flash forward to present day Moscow and Anton is now a good Other working for the Night Watch.
The movie follows Anton on a case where he stops a vampire from killing a young boy.  While on that case he stumbles upon a woman under a dangerous curse that can end the world.  As the Night Watch is trying to stop the end of the world curse, Anton learns the curse is related to an Other who will either join the Light side or Dark side, and by doing so tip the balance of power in that side's favor.  Turns out the young boy Anton has been protecting from vampires is his son.  The witch lied about his wife being pregnant by another man and had tricked Anton into trying to abort the baby.  The young boy also realizes Anton is his biological father and tried to have him killed before he was even born. This pushes the boy to join the dark others, tipping the scale in their favor.  This is a very good movie.
Day Watch (blu-ray) 2006 Russian sequel directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
(SPOILERS!)
The plot of this one is hard to summarize.  Basically, there is magical chalk that can more or less rewrite reality.  Whatever someone writes, happens, more or less.  It is forbidden for either Night Watch of Day Watch to possess this chalk, but Anton is trying to get his hands on it anyway.  Anton wants to use the chalk to fix the mistakes of his life. The Day Watch is the evil "Other" police force that keeps an eye on the light side and makes sure they follow the rules too.  I'm going to over simplify this by saying the Day Watch is trying to stop Anton.  The Day Watch also frames Anton for a series of murders.  A slightly more accurate description might be to say The Day Watch is manipulating Anton so he can get the chalk for them.
This franchise was always supposed to be a trilogy.  Part 2 ends in a way that definitively sets up a part 3.  Except part 3 was never made because Timur Bekmambetov moved to America and started making American movies, starting with some stupid movie called "Wanted" and then just never bother make the final movie.  :-/
Wanted (4K disc) 2008 movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov. James McAvoy stars as an less than average guy who is recruited by Angelina Jolie to join a secret society of assassins run by Morgan Freeman.  Turns out McAvoy and all the assassins in this order have the ability to "curve" a bullet.  If you turn your brain all the way off, and do something else while the movie plays as background noise, it's sort of watchable.  A before he was famous Chris Pratt pops up as McAvoy's so-called friend. The actor who played "Anton" in the Night/Day watch films also makes a cameo appearance.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (3D blu-ray) 2012 biopic directed by Timur Bekmambetov.  This biopic  details Abraham Lincoln's life and how he slayed vampires before and during his time as President of the United States.  It's an OK biopic.  I'm just glad they didn't omit Lincoln's time hunting vampires the way most other movies about Lincoln tend to do.
Rick and Morty (Adult Swim) - "Ricker than Fiction" - This clip of James Gunn and Zack Snyder making a cameo on Rick and Morty started showing up everywhere last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqiI2dwKIBQ
I tracked down the episode and watched it.  I think this was probably the first time I ever watched an episode all the way through from beginning to end.  But it's possible I maybe watched one other episode years ago.