On 8/30/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
[What did you watch?]
I'm going to do two follow-up posts here...
First, the week(+!)-long recap of stuff I have watched but didn't
mention before, because I've been so busy with work (and my video game!)
this summer:
soaps: GH - thru Wed's ep. Ric Lansing isn't dead! Instead, Ava,
horrible Kristina and Alexis conspire to keep Ric captive, for a month!
(How will they pull this off?!) I'm wondering if Willow is "playing"
Drew (that would be so rich!), as she agrees to get back with Drew if he
can get her kids back (I think she intends to get her kids back, and
then renege on the deal!). Maxie (Zenon!) slips into a coma so they ship
her off-camera while the actress is on leave.
DOOL - thru Wed's ep. Yep, Rachel shot EJ, which EJ remembers. But
Rachel doesn't remember it, so Marlena, EJ and Kristin conspire to get
Johnny off on the attempted murder charge while protecting Rachel, by
having Kristen confess to shooting EJ (even though she didn't do it!!)
Are they writing out Stacy Haiduk (at least for a while)?!...
Y&R and B&B - Pass.
Over the past two(+?) weeks before yesterday, I've watched 2 flicks, and several Lifetime movies - flicks first:
Cleaner (HBO Max) - This was barely OK - it was mostly mediocre. "Die
Hard" it ain't. I did appreciate the bait-and-switch on the main
villain. But the ultimate main villain's motivation was completely
unbelievable which doesn't help when you're already dealing with a
mediocre actioner. Daisy Ridley is OK in this, but I doubt it's going to
make her an "action star".
The Fix (Prime Video) - They want you to think this is a dystopian
sci-fi flick, but by the end you come to realize that it's actually a "superhero origin story" (pretty much ripping off Spider-Man,
basically). That's all well in good, but the flick was obviously filmed
for a $1.98! - in Cape Town, South Africa!! This movie is for you if you
want to see Grace Van Dien in her skivvies a lot (no actual naked nudity
tho!), but it turns out she really is super-skinny, so this is less
enticing than you might think. (Note: This was filmed in 2023, before
Grace Van Dien apparently quit the business(??) after being sexually harassed(?) - honestly, I don't know if that stuck or if Van Dien has
gone back to acting... but she's been very quiet over the last couple of
years after appearing in "Stranger Things"...) Anyway, this was mostly
mediocre - it had an OK premise, but the low budget really did not help
here.
Lifetime/LMN flicks:
Eat, Pray, Lie (LMN) - This wasn't horrible, but it was pretty over the
top. For a change of pace, Chelsea Rose Cook played the dopey heroine,
rather than the villainess (she was always the villainess before this
flick).
Dead Girl Summer (Lifetime) - This was one of Lifetime's "paranoid"
thrillers - I actually liked this one OK. Sydney Hamm - another one
playing a heroine for the first time after playing the villainess
previously - stars. The gist: her friend was killed (murdered?) one or
two summers ago. She comes back to the lakeside town where it happened
with her bestie (the lovely, but short! Madison Crawford, though I don't
care for her as a blonde as she is here). But her bestie soon goes
missing! Their townie friend's girlfriend (Savoy Bailey) couldn't look
any more guilty here if she tried, but at least they uncorked a twist at
the end which somewhat redeemed that.
The Doctor with Two Faces (LMN) - Originally I was going to go into a
long rant about how Masiela Lusha has ruined her looks - let's just go
with this: in this film, Charisma Carpenter, who is a decade and a half
older! looks much better in this than Lusha does! I'm sure Carpenter has
had "work done", but is Charisma's case the work that's been done is
*subtle*. Lusha's "face work", OTOH, is absolutely *not subtle* and
looks horrible! So that's how a woman of about 40 can look way worse
than a woman of 55!
Beyond that, this movie was pretty poor. Charisma was the best thing
here, but her character was pretty horrible. Beyond that, this felt like
an Asylum-level Lifetime flick (it's not from Asylum, tho) - it's
screechy and unsubtle and over-the-top and not very believable.
Fit for Murder (LMN?) - This is actually a 2024 Tubi flick... Anyway,
add Paris Smith to the list of (young) actresses who have completely
ruined their looks - from the looks of it, Smith had the works done:
nose job (for sure), lips (for sure), and almost certainly cheeks as
well. Smith is now unrecognizable from when she was on "Every Witch Way"
10 years ago... Aside from that, this was pretty much what I expected.
It actually wasn't terrible, but every time Smith was on camera I was
taken out of the scene by how awful I think she looks now. At least that
kind of fit her character who was a pathetic, drug-addicted fraudster
thief (and cheater!) who gets herself murdered by two "celebrity"
meathead influencers. This is actually based on a true story.
Do Exactly As I Say (Lifetime) - This was actually a cut above: Erin
Karpluk (looking every minute of her age, if not older!) plays the
personal chef to some zillionaire couple who run an energy company. Soon enough, her tween daughter gets kidnapped by a mystery person who wants
to use Karpluk's proximity to the zillionaire couple to get dirt on them
and take them down, and orders Karpluk to do so! There was a twist with
the ID of the mystery person - their original culprit was a surprise;
the ultimate culprit really wasn't.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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