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

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 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?!?
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.
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.