Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-03-15 (Saturday) & 2025-03-16 (Sunday)

On 3/17/2025 6:08 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

I don't even remember what I watched Saturday... I think it was nothing except Day 3 of The Players Championship.
 On Sunday, I was travelling back home during the day, so I missed the final day of The Players Championship (which went to a Monday playoff anyway!).
 When I got home, I decided to record a couple of LMN/Lifetime flicks I had missed or would miss that evening. Then I watched the Tues/Wed episodes of GH:
 soaps: GH - Tue & Wed ep's. Of these two episode, Tue's ep was more interesting, with the Brook Lynn stuff, though it's pathetic how her evol! grandmom is stonewalling her. Meanwhile, Anna and Jason try to manage an irrate Charlotte. Thur's ep really only had a faceoff between Willow and Sasha going for it - Sasha actually seemed to be getting to Willow.
 I also left "Suits LA" on as background noise, but couldn't tell you what happened.
 What did you watch?
 

On Saturday I watched:
Snow White (blu-ray) 1937 animated classic.  This was mostly background noise with a Roy Disney commentary.  Roy has a lot of interesting stories about the making of the movie and getting the finances.  One of his anecdotes was the reason they kept the TV rights was when they were offered for sale he wouldn't sign the contract because he didn't know what TV was and wouldn't sign for anything he didn't understand, and that's how Disney kept the TV right to Snow White.
I only occasionally glanced at the screen but from what I could follow apparently the plot involved a woman who shacks up with 7 strange men. The men clearly don't respect her and go so far as to call her a "ho" as they walk in saying, "Hi ho."  Then at a point later in the movie the brutes chase down an innocent old woman causing her to fall to her death.  The movie ends with a strange man showing up who is apparently into necrophilia because he, sees a corpse on the ground and immediately starts trying to make out with a dead woman.  Anyway, I wasn't paying close attention, but I'm guessing that's an accurate description of the plot.
Show White and the Huntsman (blu-ray) 2012 fantasy action movie starring Kristen Stewart as an armor-clad princess who battles her wicked stepmother (Charlize Theron) for control of her kingdom.  Chris Hemsworth co-stars as the eye candy love interest for the hero.  This was mostly background noise with the director's commentary.  Oddly enough the director pointed out his wife's cameo in the movie, but didn't mention the affair he was having with the leading lady that lead to his divorce.
The Huntsman: Winter's War (4K disc) 2016 sequel to Snow White that brings everyone back, except Snow White.  The evil stepmother (Charlize Theron) returns, but now she's a T-1000 terminator out for revenge against the Huntsman and an often mention, but never actually seen Snow White.  To get her revenge she teams up with her evil sister, The Snow Queen (Emily Blunt).  Jessica Chastain also stars as the Snow Queen's henchwoman and Hemsworth's love interest.
Maleficent (blu-ray) 2014 fantasy movie starring Angelina Jolie as the famously evil Maleficent, who in this version is just cranky and misunderstood.  After being betrayed and mutilated, Maleficent curses the king's (Sharlto Copley) daughter (Elle Fanning) to fall into a death like sleep on her 16th birthday, and nothing can wake her except true love's kiss.  But since Maleficent is only cranky, and not evil, she ends up regretting the curse and by the end of the movie all is well and forgiven.  Maybe there's a fire breathing dragon and some deaths, but all will be well and forgiven by the end.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (4K disc) 2019 sequel which finds Maleficent back and she's even more cranky than last time.  This time around she faces off against an evil Queen played by Michelle Pfeiffer who has manipulated Maleficent's adopted daughter (Elle Fanning) into marrying her son.  I haven't watched this since it was in the theater. I vaguely recalled there was more to the plot, but as it turns out, Pfeiffer is just evil for the sake of being evil and that's pretty much the driving plot element of the movie.
On Sunday I watched:
Puppet Master (blu-ray) 1989 direct to video horror movie about a group of psychics who show up at an abandoned hotel after their frenemy supposedly dies.  The psychics are then murdered one by one by evil puppets.  It turns out their not so dead friend learned the secret of bringing inanimate objects to life from a man named Andre Toulon who was being hunted by Nazis.  Looking back at this series the first movie feels like the odd one out.  The later movies focus on Toulon as a central character but in the first one he's almost an afterthought.  I don't even understand why a man from 1940s Nazi Germany is included when the events take place in the then present day 80s.
Puppet Master II (blu-ray) 1991 direct to video sequel which has a second group of psychics showing up at the same hotel to investigate what drove their friend insane.  They quickly learn he was telling the truth about killer puppets.  And this time around Toulon is the central villain after his puppets brought him back to life following the events of the first movie and now he basically plans to rehash the evil plan of the first movie's villain.
Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (4K disc) 1991 direct to video prequel which shows how Toulon (Guy Rolfe) saw his wife murdered by Nazis after his secret of reanimating objects.  To get revenge Toulon sets his puppets after them.  This is probably the best movie in the franchise.  On the commentary they said Paramount called and said Puppet Master II did significantly better than Puppet Master I, so they needed a Puppet Master III tomorrow.  Also on the commentary they spoke a bit about wanting an actor named Ralph Bates to play the lead Nazi instead of Richard Lynch.  I was shocked to hear this because in my mind Lynch fit the role perfectly almost as if it was written for him, and he *looks* like the puppet, "Blade" which is a prerequisite for the part. I googled the other actor and to my eye Lynch looks a lot more like "Blade" than the other actor.  But reading between the lines, there seemed to also be some issues with Lynch on set that the director didn't want to get into on the commentary.
Puppet Master 4: When Bad Puppets Turn Good! (blu-ray) 1993 direct to video sequel which has an evil demon or something upset that humans have stolen his secret to bringing to life inanimate objects so he's going to kill people.  Or something.  I don't know.  There were no closed captions and the guy kept mumbling.  Toulon (Guy Rolfe) also makes the occasional appearance as a floating head superimposed over a puppet to give advice to the hero (Gordon Currie).  The plot doesn't really make much sense, but it is an excuse to have the puppets be the good guys and fight evil little demons.  And the action is once again set at the hotel from the first two movies.  We know it's the same hotel because they are still reusing the same obviously fake exterior shots.  The last time I watched these I only had the first 3 movies in a blu-ray box set.  Then I picked up 3 in 4K and parts 4 and 5. I'm not sure if I ever saw part 4 before or not.  Some scenes definitely looked vaguely familiar, but it could have just been clips I saw before.
Puppet Master 5 (blu-ray) 1993 sequel in this never-ending franchise. (There are a *lot* more puppet master movies!)  This one I definitely never saw before.  The puppets are still fighting the evil little demons and there is also a subplot involving the boss of the hero from the first movie trying to steal the puppets to learn their secrets. According to the director's commentary 4 and 5 were supposed to be one movie and they were arbitrarily cut into 2 movies.  So needless to say, this one picks up where 4 stopped.  Occasionally I would turn on the commentary track if a scene looked particularly interesting.  And there was one scene of a monster killing a guy where the camera focused on blood sliding down a flashlight.  The entire scene was only about 10 seconds long, but it was very well done, so I decided to go back and listen to the commentary.  And in fact, the director spoke specifically about that scene and how the second unit director asked if he could shoot it, so he let him shoot the scene while he went and did something else.  And what should have been a quick shot of blood hitting a flashlight, the second unit director turned into an arthouse movie with about 10 minutes of footage.  It's literally just a shot of a flashlight with blood dripping. The director said it was really well done (it got my attention) but when the producers of this low budget flick saw all the film the second unit guy used up filming that one shot they blew their lids and that kid never directed anything for Full Moon again. But it was a really well-done camera shot!  LOL
The Equalizer - "Dirty Sexy Money," "Taken," and "Trust No One."  I caught up on the last three episodes. The latest episode was basically a mash-up of "The Da Vinci Code" and "National Treasure" with Team McCall deciphering riddles from the 1700s in order to find gold hidden by the founding fathers.  Apparently if you are using hidden messages to find treasure you can destroy private property, and any treasure you find belongs to you no matter where the treasure is actually located.  Good to know.  I'm not even going to get into if the treasure was hidden in the 1700s by Benjamin Franklin, then how did the clues include things like Morse Code and the Dewey Decimal system that weren't invented until the 1800s.  I'm not going to ask!
One thing I noticed over the episodes is how McCall and Dante are now a couple.  Dante is supposed to be a member of a federal task force, except it's always just Dante and McCall going into buildings guns drawn without a warrant.  They even announce themselves as "federal agents." Yes, McCall worked for the CIA, but she's not part of any task force and her actions are unauthorized.  She is still very much a vigilante which the show tends to gloss over.
I forgot to mention from the other day I also watched:
"The Electric State" on Netflix.  It's directed by the Russo brothers and stars Millie Bobby Brown as a teenage living in an alternate history 1990s where intelligent robots lost a war against humans and now live in a giant walled off section of America.  One night a robot comes to her and claims to have her dead brother's consciousness and asks her to come rescue him from evil human scientists.  This leads Brown to teaming up with Chris Pratt and heading into the walled off land of robots. The movie has been getting horrible reviews, but it's OK.  It's just a turn your brain off and watch the eye candy type of flick.