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From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-10-18 (Friday)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2024 10:06:07 -0700
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On 10/19/24 1:44 AM, shawn wrote:

> What did you watch?

Yesterday, I mostly ditched soaps to get back to "Snowpiercer" season #4 
(I'm going to try to finish this off this weekend, so I can move on to 
probably season #2 of "The Rings of Power"), and I finally got around to 
watching "MaXXXine" and the Thursday night LMN flick I recorded!:

soaps: GH - I did get through Wed's ep of this. Not much happened - 
Sasha asked Michael for the money to help Cody buy that ranch, but 
Michael turns her down. The problem is Tracy overhears, and then chews 
Sasha out for asking. (It's unclear if Tracy will help Cody buy the 
ranch.) Meanwhile, Holly Sutton has dinner with Felicia, but acts all 
weird when she sees an ad with Cody and Sasha, and acts even weirder 
when Felicia tells Holly that Cody is Mac's son, and he and Sasha are 
dating... At the end, it's revealed that Sasha is Holly's daughter!! 
PLOT TWIST!! (Which makes me wonder if they are going to retcon it that 
Holly was somehow involved in Valentin's plot when Sasha originally came 
to town and pretended to be Nina's daughter.) There was also Lulu stuff 
which was mostly skippable - but at the end, Sam tells Dante that she's 
the match as Lulu's donor. (She's dead meat now...  :(  )

Snowpiercer (recorded) - Ep's #1.5 & 1.6.
    Of these two episode, I thought ep. #1.5 was the much better one, as 
Layton has to decide to turn over Big Alice to Evol! Son of Coul, in a 
gambit to try to get his daughter back. So, pretty much everyone gets 
captured. It's then revealed that, of course! Wilford is still alive, 
and conspiring with Son of Coul. In the end, Till, Bennett Knox and Ruth 
manage to escape and get back to Big Alice. But now my third favorite 
character is sacrificed.  >:/  (It's a good thing this show didn't come 
back for season #5, as by that point all of my favorite 
characters/actors would have been off the show!!)
    I didn't care for ep. #1.6 much. There was much less Big Alice. Much 
of this one was Layton vs. Wilford, with maybe both of them vs. Son of 
Coul. Meanwhile, back at New Eden there's a subplot where Oz tries to 
get info out of the person that betrayed New Eden to Son of Coul's 
forces. In the end, Oz discovers that New Eden has been boobytrapped for 
destruction, so I'm guessing they will end up having to abandon New Eden.
    Just 4 more episodes to go that I am hoping to get through this weekend.

MaXXXine (Max) - In what would have been glorious 4k if Max hadn't 
screwed us cable subscribers out of that!
    The third (and final?) entry in the "X" trilogy.
    I will say this - this one had by far the best cast of any of the 
three films. The first one ("X") basically just had Jenna Ortega and 
Brittany Snow. The second one ("Pearl") had no one notable that I can 
recall!
    But this one has Elizabeth Debicki(!), Giancarlo Esposito(!!), 
Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins(!) and Kevin 
Bacon(!!!), and even has Sophia Thatcher in a smaller role. I dunno how 
they did it, but *everyone* seems to have wanted to be in this film!
    Of the three films, my first impression is still that "Pearl" was 
the best one of the trilogy - "X" is ostensibly a "horror film" but is 
bad at that parts and was actually better at the "history of porn" parts 
of the film; "Pearl" was basically more of a psychological drama or 
character study and worked best IMO. "MaXXXine" is less a horror film, 
and more a "thriller" (it definitely felt like it was channeling Brian 
De Palma in parts...) - I'd put it down as better than "X", but not as 
good as "Pearl".
    I did like the sort of "history of film" aspects of this one, as it 
is set in 1985. And Elizabeth Debicki's director character is enjoyable.
    This flick definitely does has a killer soundtrack - this was one of 
the most enjoyable soundtracks I've heard in a while!
    I appreciated that this film did not go back to the first film for 
its villain (that wouldn't have made any sense), and came up with 
somebody new.
    The ending of this film is satisfactory (if a little over-the-top), 
though I'm not 100% sure it even happened and wasn't just Maxine's 
"fantasy".
    After watching this, I wish there had been a 1980s "The Puritan" 
horror film series! - I would have watched that!!

My Professor's Deadly Secret (recorded of LMN Thurs. night) - This 
turned out to be a lot better than I was expecting.
    Once again, it took me at least half the film to figure out what was 
going on (though there was one strong clue fairly early on if you were 
paying attention!).
    This was an odd little script - Maddison Bullock actually wrote it, 
and it feels like she either had background in math, or is a big math 
fan. It wasn't complicated on that end - it doesn't go through equations 
- but does seem to cheerlead math the whole time.
    Gist: A "brilliant" math professor suddenly dies. Her math prodigy 
niece (Kayden Brenna Tokarski) is convinced she was murdered, which 
drives an even further wedge between her and her dance studio-owning mom 
(Nicole Marie Johnson) who seems to just want this all to go away. The 
dad (James Hyde) tries to smooth things over with the daughter by hiring 
a math tutor/mentor (Maddison Bullock) from the same university that the 
dead math professor taught at, who conveniently turns up at the right time!
    Coincidence?! - What do you think?!
    Anyway, this one plays it pretty close to the vest through at least 
the first half, so you're not sure what's going on.
    I will say this, though - the villain's actions don't make a whole 
lot of sense in places, and doesn't really square with their stated 
objectives were.
    There is an also out-of-left-field "twist" that did seem to come out 
of nowhere, and really wasn't necessary for the story being told.
    But, overall, I enjoyed this one, and did keep me guessing for quite 
a long time.
    This is also another one where the villain in memory-holed in the 
final scene - when will these movies learn: I am much more interested in 
what happens to the villains in these than what happens to Our Heroes!(tm)!!


What did you watch?