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From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-25 (Saturday)
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2025 10:50:44 -0800
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On 1/26/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

> What did you watch?

I was supposed to do work yesterday, but did not. (I still have 
today...) But I did get through soaps, golf, and 2 movies.

soaps: Y&R - Thur's(?) ep. They seem to be winding down the Ian 
Ward-Jordan storyline: Nick and Chance determine that Jordan is Ian's 
accomplice, and figure out that she kidnapped Sharon; meanwhile, Claire 
feigns disgust at Jordan's "incompetence" for leaving evidence in the 
hotel room, and gets Jordan to admit that Ian is her accomplice. Sharon 
continues to fail to escape(!?!).
    DOOL - Fri's ep. So, I guess they've brought Kristen's Mommy back 
from the dead(!). I had to look this storyline up - if I was watching 
DOOL during the 1990s "Woman in White" storyline (I disliked the Stefano 
stuff, so may have stopped regularly watching DOOL during this), it must 
have been that I was barely watching it at the time, as I don't remember 
this storyline really at all - however, back in the 90s Kristen's Mommy 
was a "good guy", whereas now she's clearly EVOL! as she conspires with 
lil' Rachel (still the same child actress) to kidnap Ava. Meanwhile, 
there was ancillary stuff with Cat Green, and grieving widow Julie.

golf - Final day at Torry Pines (which for several years now has been on 
the weird Wed-Sat schedule because of NFL playoff football) - old-timer 
Harris English pretty much dominated all day, having the lead from the 
start of the day, and steadily playing 12 pars in a row on the last 
holes to outlast all comers which included two young guys.

I then skipped Lifetime, and watched a couple of movies off Tubi:

Megan Is Missing (Tubi) - I've been hearing about this 2011 film for a 
while (though it was filmed in 2008, which explains some things about 
the film itself, and is set in 2007), and that the film packs a 
devastating wallop of an ending. I can confirm that the ending does pack 
a wallop - in fact, this film falls into the category of films like 
"Requiem for a Dream" - films that I am glad I watched, but have no 
intention of ever watching again.
    This is not exactly a "found footage" film, but more like a 
"social-media (IOW, phone and webcam) footage" film - it's presented as 
if it were a "documentary" involving footage that two early teens took 
of themselves, etc.
    The story is this: Two 14 year old girls - one of whom (Megan, 
played by Rachel Quinn) is more sophisticated and popular but who it is 
also revealed is child abuse survivor, and the other (Amy, played by 
Amber Perkins) is shy, awkward and unpopular - try to make their way 
through the unforgiving teen landscape of sex and drugs. (In many ways, 
the way the teen life of two 14-year olds is depicted is the most 
controversial part of the film.)
    This makes Megan, who hates her home life with her mom, especially 
susceptible to predators (IOW, internet predators).
    After being introduced to what is supposedly a skaterboi online, 
Megan soon goes missing. This leaves Amy to frantically search for her, 
including hitting up the online skaterboi for info, and eventually 
turning info on him over to the police.
    That goes pretty much where you expect it to, except the ending is 
even more horrific than you could have possibly anticipated. In fact, 
the ending is incredibly bleak (about "Requiem for a Dream"-level 
bleak!). Though I wanted more from the "ending of the documentary" angle 
- the final sequence shows you without question what happened to the 
girls, so I wanted a final "real-world followup" on this, but the 
"doc-within-the-film" does nothing with it.
    I thought Rachel Quinn as Megan was quite good here, and I am very 
surprised that she didn't have more of a career, esp. after "Megan Is 
Missing" was released.
    It does not surprise me that Amber Perkins, who played Amy, left the 
acting biz cold after filming this movie - Perkins has the much harder 
part to play here, and I would have quit acting in her shoes after this 
film as well.
    For the record, this film seems most based on the murders Ashley 
Pond and Miranda Gaddis in 2002.
    Anyway, this is strong stuff - effective, but one viewing is 
probably enough here.

Top Floor (Tubi) - I was expecting this 2024 thriller to have almost as 
bleak an ending as "Megan Is Missing", but the film flubs the ending 
with a massive disappointment.
    This film is pretty simple: a massively popular influencer (Justine 
Wachsberger, who was an attractive younger actress a few years ago - I 
sort of remember her from the low-budget 2018 film "4/20 Massacre" - but 
here is playing 30, and is clearly in her mid-30s IRL) is in a car 
accident, and wakes up trapped in an elevator. She is soon 
menaced/taunted by the elevator's "phone operator" who is instead 
clearly some hacker with a major grudge against the influencer and who 
intends to publicly expose her "secrets" and/or kill her in the process.
    This is all well and good as a premise for a low-budget film.
    (Sidenote: While set in NYC, the film is riddled with obviously 
French or Euro actors, and was actually filmed in Bulgaria, which 
further decreases the film's effectiveness!!)
    But the ending ("twist") really, really lets this film down - if 
they were going to try for this ending, the film really, really needed 
to be better along the way to make it work! As it is, I didn't buy the 
ending for a minute, and it basically ruins almost everything that comes 
before it.


What did you watch?