Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-23 (Thursday)

On 1/24/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
 

What did you watch?

 Yesterday was my last meeting before classes start next week. So I decided to focus a little more on movies (off Tubi), and I ended up only watching one soap:
 soaps: DOOL - Wed's ep. Ha! Stephanie admits to Alex that she wanted to be with him all along (I *knew* it!), and they were sort of "working through their stuff" when Joy (who won't see this coming!) arrives and drags Alex off to see Bonnie (who wasn't in this ep) in the hospital. Earlier, Joy talks over Bonnie's situation with Kate (Kate, of course, is trying to blame Bonnie!), and then Joy admits that Alex is the only person in Salem who has been decent to her (wait until she finds out about Alex and Stephanie!!)... Otherwise it was "soap sabotage" stuff - Jada questions Kerry, and can't tie him to the Bonnie stuff (or the poisoned cupcakes). They "show us" (but don't show us the face of) someone "crossing Bonnie" of their list, and it looks like Alex may be their next target - as this doesn't seem to be Hattie, I can't figure out who this is.
 Then I watched two (disappointing!) movies off Tubi:
 Night Blooms (Tubi) - A 2022 Canadian flick - this is pretty typical of Canadian indie flicks, portraying Canada as a pathetic country filled with pathetic youth and pathetic adults/parents. (Yes, *everyone* is pathetic in this film - there's not on non-pathetic character!) The only wrinkle is that this is set in the 1990s - so is Canada even more pathetic now?!
    P.S. Filmed in Nova Scotia, just to make it even more pathetic(!?!).
    Anyway, I watched this because it stars Jessica Clement, and as I expected she's the best thing about this film by far - her character is also pathetic, but at least Clement has the ability to attack the role with gusto - Clement really does deserve more and higher profile roles: she recently had a memorable guest stint on "Cross".
    Ostensibly, this is about how Clement's 17-year old character targets and seduces her bestie's (Alexandra McDonald, not to be confused with the superior Allie MacDonald who hasn't seen to done much in the last 5 years or so...) father, played by Nick Stahl (and, wow - he looks old now!). Of course, this leads to disaster for all involved. But, they're all rundown pathetic Canadians anyway, so who cares?!
    And, being a Canadian indie, they of course add unnecessary elements, like how Clement's character is seemingly guided(?)/haunted(?) by an EVOL! "spirit woman" who looks like a hipster lesbian(!?!).
    So, this flick was good for Clement, but bad for everything else, and I don't think I would recommend this even for fans of Jessica Clement.
 Final Girl: Halloween (Tubi) - I found most of this supposed "horror" ("psychological horror"?) to be quite mild. I guess that's another way of saying it's actually very "mid"...
    That is, until the ending, when I thought the whole film fell apart.
    The set up is this: high school girl (Krystal Lynn, a redhead though not quite as attractive a redhead as the similarly named redhead Stephanie Lynn from "Little Black Lie" that I watched recently...) survives a slaughter at a house party where masked-killer kills everyone else, including her boyfriend, but not her.
    This is an OK set-up, though as a horror "slaughter", this opening sequence is undeniably "mild" (or listless/lacking in urgency or proper horror atmosphere!).
    The problem is everything that comes after - her friends seem generally unsupportive, and the other kids at the highschool are so mean and cruel to her that it defies believability.
    I also disliked most of the casting - for example, I didn't believe for a minute that the actors cast as her parents would have produced this pale redheaded daughter! (Get the basics right, people!)
    Once back to school, the killer continues killing, and then it becomes a mystery to figure out who the masked-killer is. Meanwhile, the final girl's mean father stonewalls the poor downtrodden detective on the case (who is paired with an idiot "comedy relief" uniformed cop, which was another discordant element of this film!).
    But the real problem is that this falls apart with the ending.
    Basically, almost this entire same premise was covered, and covered *much better*, back in the 2015 film "Last Girl Standing" - now that film actually delved much more deeply into the psychological horror aspects, and was substantially better in delivering its ending.
    I did like a couple of the supporting players here: Grace Winters (no picture on IMDb, despite having a decent-sized filmography) as one of the final girl's besties, and Nathaniel Hinson as the slacker (neighbor?) dude who has an obvious crush on the final girl. No one else really stood out here.
    Anyway, if you want this kind of flick, skip this one, and go with the much more harrowing "Last Girl Standing".
  What did you watch?