Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-02-10 (Monday)

On 2/11/2025 7:48 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On 2/11/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
 

What did you watch?

 My longest workday of the week, though I still managed to get through a movie and a soap:
 soaps: DOOL - Steve and Brady come to believe that something "bad" has likely happened to Ava, after they confirm that she never went to Hong Kong. Kristen is "reunited" with her presumed-dead crazy mom, and of course she throws Ava under the bus, and refuses to free Ava to protect Rachel (who again was not in the ep - I'd love to know what happened with the previous Rachel child actress, 'cos it seems like her departure wasn't planned)... Meanwhile, Jada goes to the DiMera mansion, and confronts EJ in the tunnels, and almost discovers captive Rafe! EJ, feeling the heat, drugs Rafe, and brings him to the same mansion where Ava is being held captive - Ava and Rafe will be kidnapping buddies soon!! And dumb Belle is starting to doubt EJ's "good intentions"! (Ha!)
 Cellphone (Hulu) - 2024 "horror" film (it's more like a "psychological horror"/thriller).
    Ten years ago Whitney Rose Pynn was essentially playing teenagers in Lifetime-type flicks - in this, she looks like a woman in her 30s. And, indeed - she's older than I thought she was, as she's about Nina Dobrev's age. (Sidenote: IMDb claims Pynn now goes by "Whitney Nobel", but she's never been credited this way, and I don't trust IMDb on actor's names as they have too many nitwit "contributors" changing actor's names when they shouldn't be changed.)
    This was a weird little indie horror film, and I kind of don't know what to make of it.
    It felt to me like the film we get at the end of this did not match the kind of film the opening segment implied this was going to be. In other words, it felt like the last 1/4 of this film went way off book! and deviated from the film we got in the first 3/4.
    Gist: Newly widowed and grieving woman, Wynne, racked with guilt over the death of her husband, moves to an isolated place in the country to caretake it for a man named Bob (Malcolm McDowell, but before you get excited it's voice-over role only)

Too late, the second I read Malcolm McDowell I started to think maybe I'll give it a look.  Now I'm disappointed.
- they never say where this place is,

but the movie is filmed in Ohio somewhere. Anyway, in the film's open, we see the previous tenants of this place, a married couple - and the husband seems to be racked by "haunted phone calls" on his cell, and eventually kills himself (what happened to the wife is unclear until later). Wynne starts getting similar "haunted phone calls" pretty much as soon as she moves into the place. Are the calls real? And who is calling her? - The place's supposed ghost? Or could it be, I dunno, SATAN?!...
    Wynne also come across a kind of "caretaker" at the place, Chris (Justin Malik Jackson) who talks non-stop, and seems to have deficiencies with honoring people's personal spaces. (Sidenote: Jackson's presence drives home how tiny Pynn the actress is - standing next to Jackson, Pynn looks like a child!)
    Anyway, Jackson's Chris is kind of like the "good angel" on Wynne's shoulder, while the cellphone is her "devil".

So 976-Evil?
  Who will win the battle

for Wynne's soul?!
    This is all a psychological exercise, until the film's final quarter when it takes a massive turn and kind of upends the film's main premise. I basically didn't appreciate the film's ending making the figurative this literal, and feel like it kind of loses the thread at the end, esp. in the obvious contrast with what happened to the couple in the film's opening vs. what happens with Wynne - why Wynne got such a wildly different experience than the earlier couple is never satisfactorily justified.
    So, while this was a lovely shot film, I think overall it's a "miss".
 

I don't know, if it's a 976-Evil clone, it's worth at least adding to the watch list, even if I never get to it.

What did you watch?
 

I watched:
Babylon 5 (blu-ray) "The Ragged Edge" - Season 5, episode 12.  The Garibaldi is now an alcoholic storyline is kicking off.  Meanwhile G'Kar has an unwanted cult spring up around him.
"The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father" – - Season 5, episode 13 Reggie Lee and Dana Barron (National Lampoon’s Vacation) play new Psi Corp recruits who join Bester on a hunt for a rogue telepath.  I don’t know why, but none of the regular cast members, except for Jeff Conway, appeared in this episode.
"Darkness Ascending" - Season 5, episode 15 - Lennier gathers proof the attacks against the alliance are being done by Centauri ships.  But so far no one has realized the Centauri are just ponds of a greater threat.
"And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder" - The Alliance declares war against the Centauri.
"Movements of Fire and Shadow" - As the war against the Centauri heats up Team B5 discover the Centauri attack ships are being remotely controlled.