On 11/10/2024 7:20 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
On 11/10/24 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
What did you watch?
Graded most of the day (and got through my exam stack in one day!!, so
no real "movie" watching yesterday:
soaps: Thur's ep's.
DOOL - A pretty stale ep. Mostly I remember Stephanie and Alex continuing their awkward dance. Johnny continues to sweat bullets that
his affair/one night-stand will be discovered with Joy around. And Gabi continues to mope now that she's been dumped (apparently) by Stefan.
GH - Carly goes running to Brennan about Sasha's kidnapping -
Brennan says he'll handle it and dismisses Carly! Then Brennan calls up Robert and Holly; Anna and Jason show up around the same time, and
Brennan dismisses Anna too! Sasha offers Sidwell (Carlo Rota) a "deal"
to get his diamonds back (is this a con?!) but Sidwell isn't biting.
Both Lucas and Portia are racked with guilt about Sam's death.
Searching for a Serial Killer: The Regina Smith Story (Lifetime) - This
was pretty much exactly as expected.
"Heroic" single mom (of course, the father of her daughter
"abandoned" them, so the story goes...) and new cop Regina Smith drags
her partner in to "protect" all the pros'es on their beat when they
start turning up murdered, with their eyeballs removed. Of course,
plucky Smith insists upon investigating the case on her/their own!
This another annoying Lifetime flick, in that they deliberately make the setting "timeless" - the actual murders took place in the late-80s/ early-90s (hence the lack of cellphones in the film), but I don't think
there were any visual clues in the film itself to clue us into this.
There's also a contrived subplot with Smith's boyfriend, a SWAT
officer (Christopher Russell), and his fate.
Of course, this film was far too hagiographic about its subject to
be interesting,
Many, many years ago, I made a snarky comment to someone about Lifetime
movies all having the same plot where a perfect woman saves the day from
an evil man. And the response I got back was essentially, of course
they do. That's *why* they watch them. And they better keep on having
that exact same plot too.
If it's not broke, don't fix it. Also see Law & Order: SVU. ;-)
outside of the serial killer angle.
What did you watch?
Sometimes you feel like going for a drive. With that in mind I watched:
The Cannonball Run (blu-ray) 1981 comedy with an all star cast lead by
Burt Renolds who partners with Dom Deluise to participate in an illegal
cross country race. The movie also features Jackie Chan in one of his
first American movie roles. I used to watch this all the time when I
was a kid and back then my favorite character was Roger Moore who was
parodying himself and his Bond persona. And I love the opening theme
song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk1vbwb6vS8
The Cannonball Run II (blu-ray) 1984 sequel. I don't think I've watched
this since the 80s maybe 90s. I had on DVD, but the DVD was full frame,
so needless to say it never got watched. The plot of II is basically
for all intents and purposes a remake of the first one just with some of
the original cast being either swapped out or recast. Most notably, no
Roger Moore, and they replaced Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman for
Daisy Duke, I mean Catherine Bach and Susan Anton. And both movies
shoehorn in a fight scene featuring Jackie Chan. I was surprised by how
much I liked it. I know I liked the movie when I was a kid, but a chimp driving a car and slapping everyone for some reason was still funny to
me. I guess I just like lowbrow humor. But I did grow in the 80s
watching Mel Brooks, so it's not my fault.
The Hitcher (4K disc) 1986 movie starring C. Thomas Howell as a young
man who picks up a hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer). The hitchhiker turns out
to be a psycho killer who for reasons unknown decides to make Howell his special project. Once Howell manages to survive their first encounter
Hauer basically spends the movie stalking him and framing him for
multiple murders. And not even the police seem able to stop Hauer. I
haven't watched this since seeing it on TV in the 80s. I only
remembered two scenes, but 99.9% of the movie was a surprise as I
watched. It was surprisingly good. Much better than I was expecting.
Sympathy for the Devil (4K disc) 2023 movie starring Cage and Joel
Kinnaman. The movie opens with Kinnaman driving to the hospital to be
with his wife as she delivers their baby. When Kinnaman pulls into the hospital garage to find a park, Cage suddenly opens the door and gets
into the backseat. Cage then pulls a gun and orders Kinnaman to drive.
I don't want to get into spoilers but from there Cage gets to let lose
his full manic psycho persona. This was a blind buy, and it turned out
to be a good one. This is one of Cage's better movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu1yCTgfdfA
Drive Angry (3D blu-ray) 2011 movie starring Nicolas Cage as a man who
escapes from hell to save his granddaughter from a cult that murdered
his daughter and plans to sacrifice his granddaughter. Along the way
Cage teams up with a waitress (Amber Heard). While watching I was
expecting a reveal that she was his daughter or granddaughter, but she apparently was just some random waitress he met and saved so she tagged
along for the ride. Hot on their trail was William Fichtner, who played
a demon from hell known as "The Accountant." Fichtner really chewed the scenery in that role. And Billy Burke also starred as the leader of a
satanic group that murdered Cage's daughter and was planning to
sacrifice the baby. Overall, this was pretty good.
Drive (4K disc) I had time to squeeze in one more and decided to go with
this 2011 movie starring Ryan Gosling as a Fall Guy, I mean movie stunt
man who moonlights as a get away driver for robbers (think The
Transporter). Gosling's friend played by Bryan Cranston has plans for
the two of them to ride off into the sunset with Gosling becoming a professional race car driver, if Cranston can get the money to sponsor
him. To get the money he turns to some mobbed up friends played by
Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. But while all of this is happening,
Gosling befriends his next door neighbor (Carey Mulligan). And thing
become complicated when Mulligan's husband (Oscar Isaac) returns home
from prison. There are a few more twists and turns, but that's the gist
of the movie, which gets very dark and violent as it goes. Overall it
holds up very well.
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