On 8/24/24 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
What did you watch?
As is usual over Summer, I made Friday a massive movie day, and started
going through the final season of "Snowpiercer":
soaps: GH - Wed's ep. Getting ready for the funeral of the baby. But
first, Molly and TJ pick a name for the baby, and TJ tells his family
the news. Meanwhile, Molly goes over to inform Kristina, who is furious
that she wasn't consulted on naming the baby. Then Agent Jagger comes
over threatening to arrest Kristina, with Alexis swatting him away, but
in so doing Molly discovers Kristina filing for custody of the (now
dead) baby (I hope Molly nukes Kristina!). Meanwhile, Josslyn and Trina
bicker over Ava's guilt, and later Ava admits to Trina that Jagger is
forcing her current story about Kristina's accident on her. Then Sonny confronts Ava... Jason is an asshole to Anna - I hope she throws him in
the clink along with Sonny!
Perfect Addiction (Prime) - Finally got around to watching this 2023 sports(?)-romance flick. (I don't remember where it was before Prime -
but I think Prime is this flick's second steaming stop, not its first.)
Anyway, this was OK but pretty par-for-the-course for what it was.
I primarily watched this because I really like Kiana Madeira, and
she's the star of this. She's pretty good here.
Madeira plays Sienna. She trains her boyfriend Jax (Matthew Noszka)
to be an MMA fighter, primarily because she's too chickens**t to pursue
a career in MMA herself.
Of course, Jax turns out to be an asshole who cheats on her with her
little sister, and then leaves the "legit" gym (owned by Manu Bennett!)
where they've been training to go make money in "underground" MMA
fighting. A double betrayal!!
Sienna plots her revenge by training another local MMA fighter,
Kayden (the ubiquitous Ross Butler, whom I seem to see in many things).
Of course, Kayden is the sensitive, smoldering, "damaged" type, as is
Sienna, so they're perfect for each other!! But if they get together,
will it ruin their trainer-trainee relationship?!
This all comes down to a grudge rematch between Kayden and Jax that
Sienna has to train Kayden to win.
Again, this isn't anything you haven't seen before, but Madiera (and Butler) make this go down pretty easy, despite the gritty "urban"
setting (and characters) which I don't care for.
P.S. Another film where they tease naked nudity but never actually
deliver.
Life Like (Prime) - Intriguing sci-fi film from 2019, starring Addison
Timlin, Drew Van Acker, and Steven Strait (from "The Expanse"!) as the
"robot"!
But, first, we're back to the question - Does wearing a sheer bra
count as naked nudity?!! If not, there's plenty of male-ass naked nudity
in this, but Timlin only manages side-boob and/or sheer bra.
Sidenote: When did Addison Timlin grow boobs?! I swear she did not
have them a decade ago (e.g. "Fallen"), but she definitely has them by
this film, and I think they're real and not "enhanced"!
Anyway, in the near-future(? they never really say), a young-ish
couple (Timlin and Van Acker) moves into his family's mansion after his
father dies, and he takes over running the family company. She, being an
urban artsy type lays off all of the mansion's household staff because
she doesn't believe in servants (idiot!).
He insists they get a robot - ok, technically an "android"! - to
replace the laid-off servants, and so they get Henry (Strait) from a
seemingly shady industrialist (James D'Arcy).
Of course, he starts neglecting the wife played by Timlin, so she
starts using the android to fill her... uh, "emotional voids". Which
makes the husband jealous of the android!
This was pretty good, except there was one development I didn't buy
(and the explanation for it I bought even less, as it made no sense!),
and one major twist that I thought was both clever and a little... desperate(?).
And I didn't buy the ending ending. But, overall, I liked this and
found it thought-provoking.
Snowpiercer (recorded, off AMC) - First two episodes of season #4.
SPOILERS
!
OK, first, I forgot that they killed off Annalise Basso's LJ in the
season #3 finale. And then... SPOILERS!!... they kill off Sheila Vand in
the season #4 premiere. Yikes, this cuts my interest here probably in
half! (Why do they always kill off the best-looking ones!?!)
Anyway, episode #4.1 is mostly about "New Eden", "9 months later".
This is annoying, as it takes ep. #4.2 to show us what happened on Snowpiercer "9 months back" - Son of Coul(!) takes over Snowpiercer by
military force!!
I find this development dumb, as their cause was just, and all of
this was unnecessary, as Snowpiercer and co. would certainly have agreed
to help them if they had just *asked first*. So, basically, I find the
set-up to this final season contrived. (And they've killed off the two
hottest babes on the show!!)
What is less clear is why Son of Coul's forces are still mucking
around in New Eden "9 months later". I have an unfortunate feeling that
it's going to take the entire season to find out!
Sidenote: This is definitely a show I can't make myself watch
weekly! as it would be incredibly frustrating. I will probably try to do
a couple episodes every time I watch this one.
The Killer (2024) (Peacock) - In glorious 4k! And filmed in Paris!!
Careful! - There are *multiple* films with this title, incl. a 2023
film starring Michael Fassbender!
This one is John Woo-directed - a sex-swapped remake of his 1989(?)
film of the same name (starring Jett Li!).
Nathalie Emmanuel stars in this one as the titular "killer" (an
assassin!) named Zee, and Emmanuel is quite good with the action
set-pieces and stunts - I think she's still in her early-to-mid 30s, so
they should get her in more action pictures over the next few years, STAT!
Anyway, I gather the plot of this one fairly closely tracks that of
the original 1989 film - Emmanuel's Zee is ordered to kill a Paris
nightclub full of bad guys, which includes a seemingly innocent American
singer (the lovely Diana Silvers from Prime Video's "Birds of
Paradise"), whom Zee doesn't kill but accidentally (temporarily?) blinds.
Pretty much the rest of the movie is Zee deciding to keep the singer
alive, against her boss' (Sam Worthington, playing an EVOL!!1! Irishman) orders.
Meanwhile, they are all pursued by a dogged Parisian police
detective (Omar Sy), who will stop at nothing to take down the bad guys!
This clocks in at over 2 hours, but the time goes by quickly, and
this film has plenty of supah! action sections (in glorious 4k! in
Paris!!) to keep you entertained.
So I quite enjoyed this.
ReSet (Tubi) - This 2022 flick (filmed in Kansas!!) is pretty much a
low, low-budget version of "Happy Death Day".
But with two major differences:
1) In this one, the heroine knows who her killer is. And,
2) This is more a psychological film, in which the heroine has to
spend less time figuring out how to avoid being killed, and more time
trying to figure out how to outsmart her killer.
The gist: A young college student's (Alyssa Corella) grandfather
dies, and gives her a family heirloom ring - but this is no ordinary
ring! It's a magic "Groundhog Day" ring!!
Soon enough, the college student is roofied and kidnapped by a
creepy single dude (Ben Barlow) who claims she has no way to leave and
will have to stay with him for several days.
Of course, he gets homicidal every time she tries to leave, and then
the ring "resets" her to when she wakes up in his house, to try again.
I primarily watched this initially because of lead Alyssa Corella's relatively unique look - she's not "Hollywood pretty" (e.g. imperfect
teeth), but she's definitely "Midwest pretty", and it's rare you see the
latter in American films these days.
Overall, I thought this film wasn't bad (I think it's better than
its 4.3 IMDb score), and I liked that the lead in this film is about as
snarky as Tree was in "Happy Death Day" - I especially liked her final
line! ;)
What did you watch?
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