Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-05-19 (Sunday)

On 5/20/24 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

I had a final review session in the late afternoon, and also had to do some chores, which killed some of my TV watching momentum yesterday... But I still got through two Lifetime movies, watched a chunk of the PGA Championship, and caught up on soaps:
soaps: DOOL - Fri's ep. Stefan goes running to "Mayor" Paulina to rat EJ's bad behavior out to her, and she fires EJ. (Bring back Melinda Trask!!) Holly and Nicole have a terrible fight, in which the Brat says a bunch of truly awful things to Nicole - after, Holly goes running to Marlena filled with self-hatred, while Nicole runs to a bar to get drunk. It falls to Eric to drag a drunken Nicole back home, and Nicole plants one on Eric for good measure, which the just-fired EJ spies... Steve is convinced that Ava knows more about Clyde Weston than she's letting on (she does!), but Ava denies everything.
golf - Final Day at the PGA Championship. As I was watching, Collin Morikawa had already choked and fallen apart, as was already well-off the co-lead he had at the end of Day 3. But both Bryson DeChambeau and Victor Hovland were coming on strong, and closing the gap with leader Xander Schauffele.
    Unfortunately, I had to leave before the finish. Apparently DeChambeau manged to tie it up near the end, but Schauffele hit a birdie on the final hole to win it. This is Schauffele's first major championship (gold at the Olympics apparently doesn't count!) - good for him!
Living with My Mother's Killer (recorded off Lifetime on Apr. 7) - I've been trying to clear some of the movies I've recorded from Lifetime off my DVR, so yesterday, I decided to get to this one...
    This was OK. But, unfortunately, I figured out the (obvious?) twist fairly early on, which mostly killed the suspense.
    14 years before, a woman's mother was apparently "killed" by her teenaged "crush", the teen handyman at her mother's inn.
    14 years later, the woman (Hallmark staple Rhiannon Fish coming over to Lifetime, for the first time I believe...) now manages the inn with the mess of her step-sister (it's cutie redhead Leanne Lapp! and the younger version of the character is played by cutie redhead Maia Mae Fields!), but finally intends to sell the place after being (figuratively) haunted by the unexplained circumstances surrounding her mother's death all those years before.
    But, soon enough, the handyman (Greyston Holt), convicted for involuntary manslaughter in the mom's death, shows up, claiming his memory of the events are still hazy, and wants to help her investigate how her mother really died. But the women's step-sister and her ex-husband are both highly suspicious of all of this.
    If that was all there was too this, it would be pretty straight-forward. But it turns out this is one of those "double-twist" thrillers, where the "main twist" is actually just a distractor for the more relevant "second twist" (which is the one I figured out early on).
    Anyway, this was OK.
The Ice Rink Murders (Lifetime) - This stars Maddison Bullock as an ice skater - Bullock obviously must have skated (professionally?) IRL at some point, as she clearly seems to know what she's doing on the ice - and she also wrote this flick! That's one way to keep yourself employed if you're an actress - write your own Lifetime movies!!
    Unfortunately, this one was given away, literally, by the movie's cast list - only three people are credited in the movie's front credits, and one of them is the star, Bullock, and the third is a man (her love interest), so whoever's listed second *has* to be the movie's killer!
    That's Natasha Calis. Calis, a still-working former child star, used to be cute, when she was on Canada's "Nurses" a few years back. But, like "The Boys'" Erin Moriarty, she's another actress who has totally f*cked up her face - too much collagen in the lips, and her formerly softer face is now much too angular (either through weight loss, cosmetic surgery, or both). Just like Moriarty.
    Anyway, in the film, Calis, half of an ice-dancing pair, seems super-nice, though a little spacey and social media-obsessed, and soon befriends Bullock's character.
    But we know the local mean ice skating bitch (Brittany Clough) is just a red herring, as Clough wasn't credited in the film's opening. We know that Calis's character's "nice act" is just an act, and she's the crazed killer! because she was credited as #2!!
    This flick has some interesting insights into ice skating training (again, it feels like Bullock is writing from experience here). But the "murder/stalking mystery" was too obvious for the reasons I've outlined.
    Anyway, overall, I did enjoy this, despite being put off by how Calis looks these days.
What did you watch?