Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-12-21 (Saturday)

On 12/22/2024 9:49 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Ian J. Ball <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:
 

A Carpenter Christmas Romance (Lifetime) - I only really watched this
because it stars Sasha Pieterse (PLL, bitches!).
    Pieterse was always substantially younger than the rest of the PLL
cast, even Janel Parrish (who just looks younger) - Pieterse isn't even
30 yet. As such, she still looks good. She's lost some weight from her
peak (which was probably at the end of PLL), though is by no means
skinny now.

 Colorblind casting if she played Karen, then. Can she act anorexic
believably?
 

    Anyway, this was the usual malarkey, though maybe a cut above the usual.
    Pieterse plays a somewhat prickly fantasy novelist who is hit by a
P.R. crisis - she intends to kill off the main character in her fantasy
series, and her fans find out and are in an uproar. So her
sister(?)-manager sends her back home to hide out and finish the latest
novel. There, of course, she runs across her high school
crush(?)/boyfriend(?) (Mitchell Slaggert) (I didn't pay enough attention
to this part to figure out which he was), who is now a
carpenter/woodworking(?) artist.
    Complications and hott sex enuse!
    This didn't break any new ground, but it went down a little easier
than most, and I liked that Pieterse's heroine was much more subdued
than most of the female lead characters of these things.

 That... doesn't sound awful.

I have saved on my DVR movie with a somewhat similar premise, except I think it's basically a remake of "Misery."  I thought this was that movie at first.
I watched:
Taken (blu-ray) 2008 action movie starring Liam Neeson as a retired CIA officer with a particular set of skills.  I pretty much forced myself to watch it, because it was on my watch list and I'm about to do a bunch of Luc Besson movies and wanted to get this out of the way first (Besson produced this film series). It started out as mostly background noise with a pretty good commentary from the movie's writer. The writer discussed the background of what got the movie made and various background productions details.  He said when he was writing the movie he didn't think much about what the movie would be rated, but assumed there was no way on earth that it could be anything but a hard "R" movie and wrote it without regard to anything else.  He was shocked when the producers were able to cut it to a P-13.  I watched the unrated version, so I have no idea what was cut to PG-13 it.  Anyway, I ended up getting sucked in and enjoying it.
Taken 2 (blu-ray) 2012 sequel which finds the relatives of Neeson's victims from the first movie out for revenge.  But Neeson puts his particular set of skills to good use and handles the situation.  While watching the first movie and this one Neeson kept on calling his daughter's name, "Kim" (Magie Grace) and for a while I was thinking the same actress from these movies was the same actress from "24" before I double checked and saw it was just the same character name.
Taken 3 (blu-rau) 2014 third and final entry in the film series.  This one has Neeson being framed for his wife's (Famke Janssen) murder forcing him to put his particular set of skills to use to clear his name.  Forest Whitaker costars as the LA cop hot on his trail.
Mufasa: The Lion King (theatrical) New prequel to the 2019 live action "The Lion King" which tells the story of Simba's father, Mufasa.  Turns out Scar was born royal blood and all lined up to be the new king of the jungle until this stray named Mufasa shows up and takes his would be girlfriend and becomes the new king.  I wonder why Scar held a grudge?
The movie was OK, I guess.  But not a single memorable song is in this thing.  There was one song that was almost good.  It was a "Be Prepared" type of song by the villain (Mads Mikkelsen).  The refrain is the villain saying, "bye bye" and had the villain sang it menacingly it might have been a pretty good song.  Except every time he sang it, he sang it so non-menacingly that it almost came off as comical.  It ruined the whole song.  Also, it would have helped a *lot* if they could have gotten James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons (or at least Chiwedtel Ejiofor) to voice their characters in this one.
The Lion King (4K disc) 2019 live action version of the classic Disney animated movie.  This was my first time watching it sine seeing it in the theater in 2019.  It's pretty good.  It's close enough to the original to have a similar entertainment value (although not as good as the original) but also different enough to be it's own thing.  I particular liked the 4th wall breaks.