Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-02-05 (Wednesday)

On 2/6/2025 6:36 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On 2/6/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
 

What did you watch?

 Wednesdays aren't so bad work-wise, so I actually got through a movie yesterday, along with catching up with soaps:
 soaps: DOOL - Wed's ep. Well, that was fast - they resolve the soap opera stalker/poisoner storyline, and have Whitley reappear, all in a single episode!!... So, most of the cast gets sick (Leo was wearing gloves, and so doesn't get sick from the poisoned script) - some are rushed to the hospital, others try to recover at home. In the end, everybody (we're shown) survives, and Abe confronts Whitley who admits to everything, and with Paulina's help subdues her... Hey, is Joy dead?! Last we saw, she totally collapsed. But nobody mentioned her this episode! Not Alex. Not even Abe - who was looking at a board of pictures of the victims, including Joy!! No one! I guess Joy is dead. From neglect, and because nobody loves her...  :(
    GH - Tue's and Wed's ep's. Ugh. The "new" Jack Brennan is already airing on the show, and he's not a patch on Charles Mesure - in fact, with the way this is going down, I wonder if they are just going to write Jack Brennan off the show in short order: the way they wrote some of this, it seems like they're now just playing the character like a straight villain... Anyway, after returning from Germany, Carly goes to see Willow, but discovers Drew's left-behind tie when Willow is out of the room, and afterburns out of there to go confront Drew! They have a knock-down-drag-out public argument, where Carly exposes Drew's affair with Willow, and Drew throws in Carly's face that "Jason got Sasha pregnant". This causes Sasha to go ballistic on Drew. Seeing this, Tracy wants to go confront Willow, but Brook Lynn convinces Tracy that she will talk to Willow. And that doesn't go well - when Brook Lynn points out that Willow's deal meant Willow couldn't see Drew on Quartermaine grounds, Willow gets fed up, and insists upon breaking the deal and leaving the grounds, despite Brook Lynn and Nina trying to talk her out of it. (I was hoping Nina would find some backbone, and tell Willow she wouldn't let her move back in!) And Josslyn is going to get herself killed! - She breaks into Cyrus' place, looking for clues, but messes up, and Cyrus knows someone was casing his place!
 Then, one of the last Bruce Willis flicks that I hasn't seen yet (there are a few of these flicks that weren't available when I ran through all of Willis' last films a while back) has turned up on Hulu:
 Fortress: Sniper's Eye (Hulu) - This 2022 flick - the 10th last flick Willis ever did according to IMDb - is a sequel to 2021's "Fortress" (which I did watch, over a year ago now, so I barely remember what happened).

I don't think I've watched either movie.  I'm not sure if I want to, especially if they aren't good.  If I ever did a Bruce Willis movie marathon, I'd want to watch him in his prime in good movies.  Not that I haven't watched my fair share of bad Willis movies...But I just don't see myself actively seeking them out.

    This showed all of the usual hallmarks of "last-stage" Bruce Willis flicks: most of Willis' dialogue (and other) scenes are unsubtly filmed in isolation - he shares just three short dialogue sequences with people, two of them with Natali Yura (who plays a woman Willis rescues from a Russian prison in the film's open) - and Willis dialogue delivery is flat with little emotional nuance.
    If anything, I think this sequel is even worse than "Fortress" (IMDb seems to agree, rating "Sniper's Eye" a 3.0, and the original "Fortress" a slightly better 3.3) - I don't remember much about "Fortress", but I am pretty sure that it had more "action" (and suspense?) than this one does. This one feels like it has less action than the first, and is mostly just people running around (mostly aimlessly).
    Many people from the first film come back - e.g. Willis, Jesse Metcalfe, Kelly Greyson, Michael Sirow, and Natalie Burn, though the latter gets needlessly killed off pretty early on. Even more ridiculously, Chad Michael Murray and Ser'Darius Blain both return as villains, even though both were clearly killed in "Fortress". (What, they want us to believe that Willis would shoot a guy like Murray's baddie, and *not* check to make sure that he was dead before moving on?!)
    About the only thing I liked about this film was the addition of Gabrielle Haugh, as Greyson's sister, though Haugh isn't really given enough to do.
    The ending of this one is pretty bad, though at least both Murray and Blain seem to be unambiguously dead by the end of this. And it's not like Willis is coming back to film more of these, so...
 Of the late Willis films that I still haven't seen, I know one (maybe the last one!) is "Apex" (2021), but it's still only on AMC+ so I can't get to it. Others Willis flicks I have missed are much earlier, like "Precious Cargo" (2016) and "The Prince" (2014).
  What did you watch?
 

I watched more Babylon 5 season 4 blu-rays:
The watch list is a long gone memory.  I just put the disc in and hit the play all button.
"Moments of Transition" - The Minbari civil war wraps up.  Lyta is treated horribly on B5 (I guess to set up season 5) which opens a door for Bester.  I *really* don't understand how Bester could even get to B5 in an official capacity or hand out favors that would mean anything on Earth.  It makes *no* sense.  And how is Lyta not simply on permanent retainer anyway?
"No Surrender, No Retreat" - The Liberation of Earth turns into a shooting war with B5 liberating one of the outer colonies.
"The Exercise of Vital Powers" – This one was a Garibaldi episode set mostly on Mars.
"The Face of the Enemy" – As the war to liberate Earth rages on, Garibaldi betrays Sheridan.  The episode ends with a meeting between Bester and Garilbadi (if you know, you know), and Ivanova ordering Garilbaldi to be shot on sight.
"Intersections in Real Time" - Sheridan is interrogated until he agrees there are 4 lights.  Wait, wrong show.  Thanks to The Lurker’s Guide I know the Drazi was played by Wayne Alexander.  I definitely would have missed that.
"Between the Darkness and the Light" - With Sheradin out of commission Ivanova is in command of the fleet.  Feel bad for anyone who gets in her way. Feel very bad! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaSmassvv4w
"Endgame" A freshly rescued Sheridan sends the fleet to liberate Earth. So is “ramming speed” a button on the ship or is that taught in flight school?