Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-05-15 (Wednesday)

On 5/16/24 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

What did you watch?

Yesterday, I took most of the day "off" and watched a couple of movies. I got back to work in the evening, but was still able to watch a movie on LMN that I missed the first time several months ago.
So, I watched:
soaps: Both were Tues' ep's.
    DOOL - Bratty Holly gets cold feet and tries to dump Tate - Tate won't let her. Marlena talks things over with Brady. Alex's new "fortune" goes to his head and he's acting like an asshole; NuTheresa finally admits her true "feelings" for Alex - I'm not sure she got a response out of him! In the most important bits, Kristen informs Stefan that Gil likely killed Li Shin; Stefan and Rafe then vow to together get Gabi out of jail. (It now dawns on me that they hired AnnaLynne McCord to play *Gabi*, despite rumors reporting she's to play Abby...)
    GH - I'm enjoying Nina now being Ava's enemy instead of her friend - Nina pays Ava a visit, and tears Ava another one; then Agent Jagger/John Cates comes by to question Ava, and Ava gets indignant when she finds out Cates is having her followed. Anna goes on her "date" with Valentin in an attempt to figure out his role in Pikeman; earlier, Anna and Jason realize that they can use Carly's prison visit to their advantage. Alexis and Gregory have a wide-ranging conversation.
Movies:
War for the Planet of the Apes (Hulu) - I finally found some time to get around and watch this.
    This was not 4k, but actually still looked really good in True HD (maybe because it was HDR?...).
    Anyway, I was not expecting this one to be about 100% apes, and nearly 0% humans - basically, just Amiah Miller (in her film debut) whom they don't even allow to talk!! and Woody Harrelson (trying hard to channel Nick Cage!!) as the Big Bad. Probably explains why this movie is less popular than "Dawn", which at least has a much better balance of humans and apes.
    Also, despite the title, this movie doesn't have too many "action" scenes - basically, just the film's opening (where, of course, they kill off Roger Cross!), and the film's ending.
    Anyway, this was OK, I guess, though it's overlong, and does suffer from the relative dearth of humans (esp. sympathetic humans). (The film also suffers by not following up on Jason Clarke's and Keri Russell's characters from "Dawn".)
    I will give them credit for having this one be a true "close-out" of the original "reboot trilogy" - IOW, this actually has an appropriate "ending" ending.
    And it does have me looking forward to "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" which hopefully will come to Hulu in a few months.
Talk to Me ((Showtime on!) Pee+) - I think I was dimly aware that this was an A24 flick, which is usually a sign of a film being... problematic.
    I think I also didn't get that it was Australian - these people couldn't sound more Australian if they tried!!
    It's also obviously low budget, which means the "supernatural" stuff is generally low-key, and almost entirely generated by "practical effects" and make-up.
    In this, a group of idiot teens/young adults, use a supernatural embalmed "hand" (it's more like a hand and part of an arm) to "channel" spirits of the dead - using this as kind of like a "hit" from a drug.
    But, of course, this is dangerous supernatural s**t, and things soon go wrong! Very wrong!!
    This stars no one you've ever heard of, except for Miranda Otto, who plays the mother of the film's second lead (Alexandra Jensen). The film's lead is Sophie Wilde (who is very good at playing creepily spirit-possessed!!).
    The one thing I will say about this one - it basically nails the landing. Most horror films, esp. recent ones, sport disappointing (oe worse!) endings. But the ending of this flick is finally one that mostly works, and is appropriate to what came before.
My Acting Coach Nightmare (LMN) - I missed this when it originally debuted on Lifetime some months back, but caught the LMN premiere last night.
    This was just barely OK.
    The problems were - both the lead full-of-herself actress ingenue (Neela Jolene) and the ingenue's hyper control-freak mom (Samaire Armstrong) were thoroughly unlikable. The film also suffered from a nebulous premise - this would have worked a lot better if the EVOL!1! acting coach (Cameron Jebo) was straight-up working for human traffickers, rather than the muddled "gang" concept they were going for here.
    The one thing I did find somewhat of interest was a now very-adult Erik von Detten playing the control-freak mom's kind of nerdy boyfriend!
    So, mostly "meh" on this one.
What did you watch?