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From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: What Did You Watch? 2024-06-21 (Friday)
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2024 09:40:45 -0700
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I mostly watched more (lower-rung) movies on Friday, along with soaps:

soaps: DOOL - The prom ep. Tate's date (still can't remember her name) 
confronts Holly about their plan to use her so Holly and Tate can sneak 
off to be together. Indeed, Tate and Holly do sneak off to be together, 
and it looked like maybe they were about to "do it", but are caught by 
NuTheresa (in an amusing bit!) and Brady!... Meanwhile, Ava comes back 
to town, gets (unnecessarily) chewed out by Kayla, and then comes 
face-to-face with Harris (who I am assuming is going to tell her he's 
leaving town for good). Steve meets with Justin and intends to turn 
himself in (alone) for helping break Clyde out of prison. Alex continues 
to be an asshole.
    GH - Lil' Violet comes home to find dad Finn passed out on the 
floor, and bleeding from a cut from his hand, and panics and calls 
Tracy, who comes to rescue her - Monday should be good as we'll get to 
see Tracy verbally just *lay out* Finn. Tracy takes Violet to Chase's 
and Brook Lynn's... Meanwhile, Sam (re-)confronts Carly with the 
incriminating recording of Carly that Agent Cates is holding over Jason; 
later, Cates shows up to sweet-talk Carly, but Carly now knows the truth 
about him. Sam goes to Spinelli to complain that Jason threw the rest of 
them under the bus for Carly (true!). Anna doesn't make much headway in 
finding evidence against Valentin, who is wooing her hard! but Jason is 
also there lurking, and I think he's going to get the evidence while 
Valentin is distracted by Anna...

Double Walker (Tubi) - [sigh...] This 2021 flick was pure "artiste" 
indie cred(/crud) BS.
    I refuse to accept the idea that, just because you're going for an 
"artistic film" that you can't tell a coherent story! This was abut 100% 
"atmospherics".
    But this flick was all over the map! (At least it has some naked 
nudity to make up for it...) Mostly it tells one version of a kind of 
"Ghost" story, but then completely pivots near the end to a different 
version, and then finally ends completely inconclusively, to the point 
I'm not sure what happened (or if anything happened?!!). (So, was it all 
the mother's dream?!)
    Bah!!
    This stars Sylvie Mix (as the Ghost), who also co-wrote it (so, she 
wrote herself nakedly nude scenes?!!).
    I wish this had been a lot better, with a lot more thought put into 
it, as I actually kind of like the concept. But, for instance, they say 
that the Ghost can only be seen by "believers and sinners" - so why the 
hell could the movie theater young adult see her when he was clearly 
neither of the above?!

What Happens in Miami (Tubi) - A 2024 Tubi Original film.
    Basically, this can be summed up as: Bitchy white girl(s) deserve to 
die, and the women of color who kill her(them) deserve to get away with it.
    This one was very disappointing. It was very clear from mid-film 
that that was where they were going with this, so really there was no 
"mystery" (despite them trying to contrive one) and the end "twist" was 
not even a "twist".
    Further, I resented the way this was written, because early in the 
film they portray the white girl, portrayed by Annalisa Cochrane, as 
completely normal, but as the film went on she became more and more 
(uncharacteristically) bitchy and EVOL!, purely by writer convenience, 
to basically prove their overall point that "Bitchy white girls deserve 
to die".
    Well-filmed and edited, this still may be the worst Tubi Original 
film I have seen (though "Tow" was pretty damn bad (for different 
reasons!) as well) just because as a "message film" this was junk.

Simulant (Hulu) - Disappointing sci-fi, though I liked the performances, 
esp. Sam Worthington, Jordana Brewster, and to a lesser extent Alicia Sanz.
    Basically, this is the old "androids become sentient and try to take 
over the world" bit. The problem is that the filmmakers take this too 
literally, as if the humans would have no measures in place to ever 
prevent such an occurrence.
    Also, I didn't like Simu Liu's character at all, as he seems to be 
behind driving a development that will lead to wholesale human slaughter 
- like, has he thought through what he is trying to do?!
    Anyway, this ends on the expected downbeat note (actually, maybe 
more downbeat than I was expecting), which I didn't care for at all...
    P.S. Von Flores looks so old now!!  :(

What Comes Around (Hulu) - This 2022 flick, starring Grace Van Dien 
(must have been made before she "paused" from acting, and AFAICT she is 
still "paused" on acting...), Summer Phoenix and Kyle Gallner, was 
probably the "pick" of what I saw yesterday, though I'm not sure that is 
saying much...
    This takes a while to get going, but it does build through the end, 
and manages a pretty decent ending (though I would hardly call it 
conclusive).
    Van Dien's teen character is romanced over-the-internet by Gallner's 
character, who is clearly too old for her. When her mother (Phoenix) 
finds out, she justifiably goes over the moon.
    But, wait! There's more going on here!!
    I can't really say more without spoiling it. But as I said - at 
least this builds through the end, and manages a decent ending, which is 
more than I can say for the other movies I watched on Friday!!


What did you watch?