Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-03-15 (Saturday) & 2025-03-16 (Sunday)
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 07:51:09 -0700
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 202
Message-ID: <vr9cu0$bjq5$1@dont-email.me>
References: <vr96sm$64lt$2@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:51:50 +0100 (CET)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="224c07a7bf5a06bc5635b8f3c1bfb349";
	logging-data="380741"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19hQsirs8hs6XFZNhdUjyZP4c33MVDvBso="
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:zECg66X2WtCj/ZVYlz1k5SvD7p4=
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean
Content-Language: en-US
X-Antivirus: Norton (VPS 250317-2, 3/17/2025), Outbound message
In-Reply-To: <vr96sm$64lt$2@dont-email.me>

On 3/17/2025 6:08 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
> I don't even remember what I watched Saturday... I think it was nothing 
> except Day 3 of The Players Championship.
> 
> On Sunday, I was travelling back home during the day, so I missed the 
> final day of The Players Championship (which went to a Monday playoff 
> anyway!).
> 
> When I got home, I decided to record a couple of LMN/Lifetime flicks I 
> had missed or would miss that evening. Then I watched the Tues/Wed 
> episodes of GH:
> 
> soaps: GH - Tue & Wed ep's. Of these two episode, Tue's ep was more 
> interesting, with the Brook Lynn stuff, though it's pathetic how her 
> evol! grandmom is stonewalling her. Meanwhile, Anna and Jason try to 
> manage an irrate Charlotte. Thur's ep really only had a faceoff between 
> Willow and Sasha going for it - Sasha actually seemed to be getting to 
> Willow.
> 
> I also left "Suits LA" on as background noise, but couldn't tell you 
> what happened.
> 
> What did you watch?
> 

On Saturday I watched:


Snow White (blu-ray) 1937 animated classic.  This was mostly background 
noise with a Roy Disney commentary.  Roy has a lot of interesting 
stories about the making of the movie and getting the finances.  One of 
his anecdotes was the reason they kept the TV rights was when they were 
offered for sale he wouldn't sign the contract because he didn't know 
what TV was and wouldn't sign for anything he didn't understand, and 
that's how Disney kept the TV right to Snow White.

I only occasionally glanced at the screen but from what I could follow 
apparently the plot involved a woman who shacks up with 7 strange men. 
The men clearly don't respect her and go so far as to call her a "ho" as 
they walk in saying, "Hi ho."  Then at a point later in the movie the 
brutes chase down an innocent old woman causing her to fall to her 
death.  The movie ends with a strange man showing up who is apparently 
into necrophilia because he, sees a corpse on the ground and immediately 
starts trying to make out with a dead woman.  Anyway, I wasn't paying 
close attention, but I'm guessing that's an accurate description of the 
plot.


Show White and the Huntsman (blu-ray) 2012 fantasy action movie starring 
Kristen Stewart as an armor-clad princess who battles her wicked 
stepmother (Charlize Theron) for control of her kingdom.  Chris 
Hemsworth co-stars as the eye candy love interest for the hero.  This 
was mostly background noise with the director's commentary.  Oddly 
enough the director pointed out his wife's cameo in the movie, but 
didn't mention the affair he was having with the leading lady that lead 
to his divorce.


The Huntsman: Winter's War (4K disc) 2016 sequel to Snow White that 
brings everyone back, except Snow White.  The evil stepmother (Charlize 
Theron) returns, but now she's a T-1000 terminator out for revenge 
against the Huntsman and an often mention, but never actually seen Snow 
White.  To get her revenge she teams up with her evil sister, The Snow 
Queen (Emily Blunt).  Jessica Chastain also stars as the Snow Queen's 
henchwoman and Hemsworth's love interest.


Maleficent (blu-ray) 2014 fantasy movie starring Angelina Jolie as the 
famously evil Maleficent, who in this version is just cranky and 
misunderstood.  After being betrayed and mutilated, Maleficent curses 
the king's (Sharlto Copley) daughter (Elle Fanning) to fall into a death 
like sleep on her 16th birthday, and nothing can wake her except true 
love's kiss.  But since Maleficent is only cranky, and not evil, she 
ends up regretting the curse and by the end of the movie all is well and 
forgiven.  Maybe there's a fire breathing dragon and some deaths, but 
all will be well and forgiven by the end.


Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (4K disc) 2019 sequel which finds 
Maleficent back and she's even more cranky than last time.  This time 
around she faces off against an evil Queen played by Michelle Pfeiffer 
who has manipulated Maleficent's adopted daughter (Elle Fanning) into 
marrying her son.  I haven't watched this since it was in the theater. 
I vaguely recalled there was more to the plot, but as it turns out, 
Pfeiffer is just evil for the sake of being evil and that's pretty much 
the driving plot element of the movie.


On Sunday I watched:

Puppet Master (blu-ray) 1989 direct to video horror movie about a group 
of psychics who show up at an abandoned hotel after their frenemy 
supposedly dies.  The psychics are then murdered one by one by evil 
puppets.  It turns out their not so dead friend learned the secret of 
bringing inanimate objects to life from a man named Andre Toulon who was 
being hunted by Nazis.  Looking back at this series the first movie 
feels like the odd one out.  The later movies focus on Toulon as a 
central character but in the first one he's almost an afterthought.  I 
don't even understand why a man from 1940s Nazi Germany is included when 
the events take place in the then present day 80s.


Puppet Master II (blu-ray) 1991 direct to video sequel which has a 
second group of psychics showing up at the same hotel to investigate 
what drove their friend insane.  They quickly learn he was telling the 
truth about killer puppets.  And this time around Toulon is the central 
villain after his puppets brought him back to life following the events 
of the first movie and now he basically plans to rehash the evil plan of 
the first movie's villain.


Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (4K disc) 1991 direct to video 
prequel which shows how Toulon (Guy Rolfe) saw his wife murdered by 
Nazis after his secret of reanimating objects.  To get revenge Toulon 
sets his puppets after them.  This is probably the best movie in the 
franchise.  On the commentary they said Paramount called and said Puppet 
Master II did significantly better than Puppet Master I, so they needed 
a Puppet Master III tomorrow.  Also on the commentary they spoke a bit 
about wanting an actor named Ralph Bates to play the lead Nazi instead 
of Richard Lynch.  I was shocked to hear this because in my mind Lynch 
fit the role perfectly almost as if it was written for him, and he 
*looks* like the puppet, "Blade" which is a prerequisite for the part. 
I googled the other actor and to my eye Lynch looks a lot more like 
"Blade" than the other actor.  But reading between the lines, there 
seemed to also be some issues with Lynch on set that the director didn't 
want to get into on the commentary.


Puppet Master 4: When Bad Puppets Turn Good! (blu-ray) 1993 direct to 
video sequel which has an evil demon or something upset that humans have 
stolen his secret to bringing to life inanimate objects so he's going to 
kill people.  Or something.  I don't know.  There were no closed 
captions and the guy kept mumbling.  Toulon (Guy Rolfe) also makes the 
occasional appearance as a floating head superimposed over a puppet to 
give advice to the hero (Gordon Currie).  The plot doesn't really make 
much sense, but it is an excuse to have the puppets be the good guys and 
fight evil little demons.  And the action is once again set at the hotel 
from the first two movies.  We know it's the same hotel because they are 
still reusing the same obviously fake exterior shots.  The last time I 
watched these I only had the first 3 movies in a blu-ray box set.  Then 
I picked up 3 in 4K and parts 4 and 5. I'm not sure if I ever saw part 4 
before or not.  Some scenes definitely looked vaguely familiar, but it 
could have just been clips I saw before.


Puppet Master 5 (blu-ray) 1993 sequel in this never-ending franchise. 
(There are a *lot* more puppet master movies!)  This one I definitely 
never saw before.  The puppets are still fighting the evil little demons 
and there is also a subplot involving the boss of the hero from the 
first movie trying to steal the puppets to learn their secrets. 
According to the director's commentary 4 and 5 were supposed to be one 
movie and they were arbitrarily cut into 2 movies.  So needless to say, 
this one picks up where 4 stopped.  Occasionally I would turn on the 
commentary track if a scene looked particularly interesting.  And there 
was one scene of a monster killing a guy where the camera focused on 
blood sliding down a flashlight.  The entire scene was only about 10 
seconds long, but it was very well done, so I decided to go back and 
listen to the commentary.  And in fact, the director spoke specifically 
about that scene and how the second unit director asked if he could 
shoot it, so he let him shoot the scene while he went and did something 
else.  And what should have been a quick shot of blood hitting a 
flashlight, the second unit director turned into an arthouse movie with 
about 10 minutes of footage.  It's literally just a shot of a flashlight 
with blood dripping. The director said it was really well done (it got 
my attention) but when the producers of this low budget flick saw all 
the film the second unit guy used up filming that one shot they blew 
their lids and that kid never directed anything for Full Moon again. 
But it was a really well-done camera shot!  LOL


The Equalizer -	"Dirty Sexy Money," "Taken," and "Trust No One."  I 
caught up on the last three episodes. The latest episode was basically a 
mash-up of "The Da Vinci Code" and "National Treasure" with Team McCall 
deciphering riddles from the 1700s in order to find gold hidden by the 
founding fathers.  Apparently if you are using hidden messages to find 
treasure you can destroy private property, and any treasure you find 
belongs to you no matter where the treasure is actually located.  Good 
to know.  I'm not even going to get into if the treasure was hidden in 
========== REMAINDER OF ARTICLE TRUNCATED ==========