Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-31 (Friday)
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2025 11:06:18 -0800
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Well, at least the first day of classes went relatively smoothly! So, I 
ended up tackling a couple of movies, after I got home and watched soaps:

soaps: DOOL - Thur's ep. It was actually kind of funny how EJ "tortures" 
Rafe on his birthday - Rafe is all tied up (and gagged) in the DiMera 
underground dungeon/catacombs, but EJ brings tied-up Rafe a birthday 
party hat, and a muffin with a birthday candle in it, and sings Rafe 
Happy Birthday! (Ha!) Unfortunately for EJ, Rafe gets free, knocks EJ 
out, and looks to be racing to the "wedding". Meanwhile, Javi catches 
FauxRafe with the stripper/hooker, and gets FauxRafe to admit that they 
slept together, but FauxRafe coercers Javi to keep quiet. Jada expresses 
her concerns to Stephanie that "Rafe" has been acting "differently" 
lately. NuGabi tries to get JJ to be her "date" to the wedding, but JJ 
is called into work. Marlena and Leo Stark bond as "best buddies".
    GH - Fri's ep. A scattershot episode. Somehow, Cody knows that Brook 
Lynn was pregnant at a YOUT! and she basically swears him to secrecy. 
Then Cody goes running to the cop shop to find Mac, and instead finds 
Anna who gets out of Cody that Sasha is pregnant and that (Cody believes 
that) Jason is the father. Dante freaks out about being put on leave and 
banned from working on Sam's murder case, and pretty much cries on Brook 
Lynn's shoulder - of course, at the end, NuNuLulu catches them... Ric 
and Ava go to confront Sonny, NuNuNuKristina, and Diane Miller about 
their custody "offer", which of course is turned down, but Ric picks up 
that something is off with Sonny. Kristina tells Sonny that Sam was 
murdered with digitalis (let's see if Sonny is smart enough to put 
two-and-two together!). Ryan continues to act like an asshole, to 
Curtis, and this time Jordan sees it up close. Brad continues to press 
his luck with Portia.

Then I watched a couple of movies off Hulu:

Take Cover (Hulu) - A 2024 Scott Adkins... well, it's less an "actioner" 
and more of a "thriller" flick.
    As Scott Adkins flicks go, I would not put this one in the top 
echelon - it takes way too long to get going, and while the hand-to-hand 
combat scenes are actually pretty darn good and well choreographed (no 
quick cuts!!), there aren't that many of them, and much of this film is 
people hiding and talking.
    Gist: Adkins is a top-notch sniper for a (private?) contractor. Jack 
Parr (an actor I think I recognize, though not by name) plays his 
spotter. In the movie's open, a sniping "goes wrong". This makes Adkins' 
sniper want to quit, and so they agree to go on one last mission. Alice 
Eve (who doesn't appear onscreen much in this film, and seems to mostly 
do voice-over work) is their "supervisor".
    You should get suspicious for their "one last mission" when Eve's 
character starts giving them top-notch accommodations, like the hotel's 
penthouse suite, and a couple of masseuses(/hookers?) show up.
    It's not long before all 4 of them are trapped by *another* sniper 
team in a building across the way. From here on in, the 4 of them must 
avoid the sniper, or be killed by him.
    Part of the problem is that it takes way to long to get to this 
point. And the other problem is that it mostly isn't interesting enough 
once they do.
    I did like Romanian actress Madalina Bellariu as the main masseuse. 
And Parr was pretty good too.
    But, as I said - I would not rate this among the "best" of Adkins 
flicks (those probably being "Accident Man" and "One Shot").

Acradian (Hulu) - I remember Arthur reviewing this months ago, and being 
cagey about it.
    This 2024 (horror?) flick opens with Nick Cage running through a 
city that is under attack(?) or at war(?) somehow, though Nick is 
keeping right away from that action. This sequence ends when Nick gets 
to two infant/todder boys.
    The film then picks up 15 years later. Apparently, it's now 
"post-apocalypse". The boys are now teens, and Nick is a stern task 
master, making them do chores through the day. But, at night, they turn 
their (farm?) house into a fortress. As there are monsters about! - Real 
monsters! Trying to break in!!
    As an aside: At this point in the flick, I was hoping they were 
going to go with vampires of some sort. But no such luck.
    The older son (Maxwell Jenkins) keeps running off after chores, and 
we soon find out it's so he can go to a neighboring farm and hang out 
with the cute girl (British actress Sadie Soverall, from Netflix's 
"Fate: The Winx Saga", and the film "The Last Exit" (aka. "Little Bone 
Lodge"), whom they force to use an American accent) there.
    This is eventually heading towards a showdown with the monsters", as 
you'd expect.
    This was OK. But it's one of those films where they never bother to 
explain what the "apocalypse" that happened actually was. (I always take 
major points off for this!) Or where the "monsters" came from, or even 
really what they are.
    Presumably set somewhere in America, it's clearly not "filmed" in 
the U.S., and indeed the credits confirm that it was filmed in Ireland.


What did you watch?