Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-02-08 (Saturday)

On 2/9/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

I got no work done yesterday! (I generally don't on Saturdays.) So I actually got through *three* movies yesterday! And some soaps too!:
soaps: Y&R - Tue's & Wed's ep. Much of this was taken up with Billy's new "business venture" with Filis[sic!] mostly on board, but Michael (and Summer) skeptical. Also, Billy has some "romance time" with Sally, but it's interrupted by Filis; Sally also tried to talk Billy out of going into business with Filis... Also, at some point, Filis is forced to talk to Sharon, and I swear Sharon was deliberately baiting Filis, even though Sharon was claiming to be all "contrite". Not much else of note happened.
    DOOL - Fri's ep. No follow up with Joy/Alex/Stephanie. Instead, we get follow up on captive Ava! The "Lady in White" gives Ava a hard time, pointing out that no one is looking for her because they all think she's in Hong Kong with Tripp. Kristin discovers Ava's phone in Rachel's bag (no Rachel this epie - we should be getting NuRachel any day now, I think) and realizes that Ava's text to Brady about Hong Kong was faked by Rachel, and realizes that Ava is captive in her old parents' place. Kristen heads there, intending to free Ava (believing Rachel is holding her captive), but comes across the "Lady in White", realizing it's her mother! Patch calls Tripp in front of Brady (no Tripp on-camera), and they both realize that Ava is not in Hong Kong... Meanwhile, Patch pitches Jada on the idea that EJ is framing her. And Paulina offers FauxRafe the interim Commissioner's job, just like EJ wants. (Can't wait until Belle discovers what EJ has been up to!)
Movies:
Mechanic: Resurrection (Max) - This 2016 sequel flick had been on the "ad-supported" streamers (e.g. Tubi) most recently before this, however I resisted the urge to watch this flick there. But when I watched "Beetlejuice" on Friday, I noticed that "Mechanic: Resurrection" finally made it back to a real streamer! - Max. So I endeavored to watch it on Saturday!
    At the end of 2011's "The Mechanic", our (anti-)hero, Arthur Bishop is presumed dead. So he apparently took the opportunity to "retire" from the "secret assassin" business, and moved to Rio.
    This first sequence is annoying, as I don't think the primary crew ever went to Rio to film at all, and so this sequence looks very clunky, consisting of greenscreen work, etc. In fact, compared to the first film, this film overall feels more cheaply produced.
    Anyway, in Rio, Bishop is tracked down by a mean Asian "courier" (lovely Thai actress Rhatha Phongam) who tries to coerce him to "unretire", and then sicks a dozen thugs on him when Bishop demures. Bishop dispatches the thugs and flees Rio, but discovers the identity of the courier before he does. (Oddly, we never see Phongam in the rest of the film, so I'm not sure why it was necessary to show us that Bishop figured out her ID....)
    Anyway, Bishop flees to Thailand, where it seems like much of this movie was really filmed.
    Here he meets up with his "old friend" Mei (Michelle Yeoh). The sequel is annoying for inventing a whole host of people who we didn't see or hear about in the first film including Mei, the film's Big Bad, and Bishop's love interest.
    On that score, soon enough Mei wants Bishop to rescue an abused wife(? girlfriend?) who just happens to be played by Jessica Alba, so you know this isn't just a subplot! Bishop does, accidentally killing the abuser in the process. It doesn't take Bishop long to get Jessica Alba to admit that she's been coerced into being "honey trap" for Bishop, by the same Big Bad who sent the courier to Rio - some dude named Crain (Sam Hazeldine), who apparently worked with Bishop in the past, though he was never mentioned at all in the first film!
    Anyway, Crain quickly takes Alba hostage, after Bishop has already gotten sweet on her (of course he does - it's Jessica Alba! if she didn't treat underlings as badly as JLo does, she might be the perfect woman!!). Bishop now has to kill three rivals of Crain's, or Crain will kill Jessica Alba.
    That's a lot of set up to get this sequel to the same place as the original film - with a bunch of elaborate set pieces to get Crain near each of the targets, and then a bunch of gadgetry in order to execute the "kill".
    Tommy Lee Jones, in what must be one of this last roles (I haven't noticed him in anything in years!) shows up towards the end of this as the last target on the list.
    This wasn't nearly as good as the first film, but it has beautiful locations, Jessica Alba, and is OK once it gets to the "assassination hit pieces". The ending is kind of weak, but seems to imply that a third "Mechanic" film is very unlikely.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Max) - The 2024 sequel to the 1988 film. Also directed by Tim Burton, with the score from Danny Elfman.
    While the original film is charming, as you might expect the sequel is lacking in nearly all of that, and instead hews much closer to Tim Burton's later excesses. This film is also much "busier" and (unnecessary) more complicated that the original film.
    As with the first film, this opens with a long fly-over shot of the Vermont village (again standing in for "Connecticut", though I don't recall anyone saying the word "Connecticut" in this film either!). But this time, it's more clearly a real fly-over shot of the actual village (this time likely using dreaded drones!) with the transition to a fly-over of Adam Maitland's model of the town being much more obvious here.
    This film makes a lot (and I mean *a lot*!) of questionable choices.
    The first is not killing off Lydia's (Winona Ryder) father, Charles Deetz, off-screen (and long-before the sequel). Instead Burton and the writers have the horrifically bad idea of using what is known as the "fake Shemp" trope (including use of an animated sequence in an otherwise live-action film!) to have Charles, but not the disgraced actor Jeffrey Jones, appear in the film. Oh, and they kill Charles off *in this film*! To say this is a bad idea is an understatement.
    Meanwhile, the Maitland ghosts (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis from the original film) get a mere two brief mentions, one of them being a throwaway line from Lydia that "they found a loophole" which let the Maitlands cross over. Some more detail about *this development* would have been more than welcome.
    Of the good elements in the film, Keaton is still great as Beetlejuice (despite it being 35 years later!!), Winona Ryder is still good (despite this film and its backstory pretty much ruining her character), and Jenna Ortega Lydia's daughter Astrid is a welcome addition (though maybe by not as much as you might have expected). Also, Catherine O'Hara's Delia is toned down from the first film, almost out of necessity. I also did enjoy Willem Dafoe (and his crew) as ghost cops, though Dafoe's "ghost" make-up is less than convincing.
    But there are a bunch of ancillary elements added on to the sequel - one being Monica Bellucci as a character inspired by the Bride of Frankenstein, Morticia, or both!; another being Astrid's dead father; a third was Astrid's whole subplot - that I was never sold on. And Justin Theroux is added here, though I'm not sure he adds much to the film.
    And this one retreats in the Tim Burton "preciousness" too often, one example being Beetlejuice's underlings - The original film ends with Beetlejuice in the waiting room of Hades (or whatever!) next to a tribal shaman and his shrunken-headed victim. In the original film, this is a good bit. The sequel has the frankly dumb idea of taking this bit, and running with it, giving Beetlejuice an entire crew of shrunken-headed ghost workers. One shrunken-headed dude (Bob was the main one) would have been fine - Why does Beetlejuice have a crew of nothing but a *dozen* shrunken-headed ghosts?! It makes no sense!... Clearly an example of a good bit being run into the ground.
    Overall, I guess this is entertaining enough, though it is both overly-complicated and over-long (at an hour and 45 minutes, 15 minutes longer than the original film, and seeming to be longer than that!). But I definitely don't want them making a third film in this franchise, after this one comes off as a relative disappointment.
Fatal Exposure (Tubi) - A 2025 Tubi Original film!
    Good news/bad news - The good news is that I think this might the first Tubi Original film without a dumb twist ending (and I was definitely expecting one here!). The bad news is that, as a result, this played like pretty much a standard Lifetime flick, just with more "frank sexualized content" then they would ever put in a Lifetime flick.
    And, on that score - while this film maybe does have more "frank" sexuality than a Lifetime flick, it is still devoid of naked nudity, so the audience actually gets nothing from the frank sex (talk).
    Gist: Sofia Masson (who is now becoming a Tubi Original staple - I think this is the third flick she's done for Tubi) stars as Ariel, a promiscuous and somewhat aimless Millennial photographer. (Sidenote: Here Masson's Ariel is clearly bisexual, and Masson seems to only play lesbians or bisexuals - Is this typecasting? Or is this the actress purposely picking roles?...) Anyway, in the film's open, she is attacked in her place by a masked intruder who steals some of her cameras, and attacks her before being driven off. Ariel calls her new older boyfriend Derek (Stephen Huszar), whom she's getting unusually close to, after the attack.
    Derek offers Ariel the opportunity to come stay with him at his country mansion over the summer. She agrees. But once there, Ariel is isolated, on a country estate with creepy servants. And she then is shocked to discover that Derek has a daughter Ariel's age, Chloe (Jasmine Vega).
    Soon enough, stuff starts happening to Ariel - e.g. she starts getting weird notes, and is sabotaged. Is it a jealous Chloe (who simultaneously seems to start trying to seduce Ariel!)? Or is one of the creepy staff after Ariel?
    This goes exactly where you'd expect it to with the identity of the perp (hint/spoiler: it's not Chloe).
    But at least the ending doesn't try to spring a "twist" on us, as nearly every other Tubi Original flick I've seen before this has!
    However, as a result, I found this flick pretty standard fare - I wasn't really surprised by anything here (except maybe the frank sexuality).
    P.S. Why is Ariel, et al. walking around free at the end, considering how they deal with the perp?!!
So that was the three movies I watched.
What did you watch?