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What Did You Watch? 2021-06-11 (Friday)

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Ubiquitous

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Jun 12, 2021, 9:25:11 AM6/12/21
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I watched:

THE WILD WILD WEST:
"The Night of the Returning Dead". Jeremiah (hey, it's Sammy Davis
Jr!), a former slave to Col. Beaumont Carson. Carson and his family
were kidnapped, tied up, and burned alive in an old barn at the start
of the Civil War so a group of men could steal the Carson family
fortune. Jeremiah escaped and has since looked for a way to bring
Jackso, who has since become mayor, to justice. He found it by
contacting Jim and Artie and they concocted a plan involving Jeremiah’s
apparent supernatural power to control animals along with his
disguising himself as Carson’s ghost in order to spook out a
confession. When Jeremiah controls every horse in town, forcing them to
stampede the courthouse during his possession, it is terrifying because
we do not ever see ay horse at all. Just the sound and fury of their
attack. Brutal. The plan works, even though our heroes are captured by
some of Jackson’s cohort’s and must devise a means of escape. Jackson
confesses to Jeremiah about the murders and is taken into custody.
Jeremiah is set to ride of into the sunset when Jim offers him a job
with the Secret Service. Jeremiah refuses, saying only Will smith would
be dumb enough to believe he could pull that off.

THE WILD WILD WEST:
"The Night of the Flying Pie Plate". This ep is is every bit as
ridiculous as "The Night of the Returning Dead" was spooky, yet it
works. Chalk it up the two factors. First, the scam being pulled does
not have the obvious resolution. Second, Jim and Artie are on the ball
the entire time, so no one’s intelligence is insulted by the outlandish
plot. What is that outlandish plot? While escorting a million dollar
gold shipment through Arizona, Jim witnesses a UFO crash. The aliens
inside are beautiful green women from Venus. Their ship is out of fuel.
You will never guess what they use for fuel. Yep--gold. They have
plenty of jewels worthless to them, but invaluable to us Earthlings to
trade for it. Unfortunately, it is government property. At no point
does the story try to pass this scenario off as anything but a scam.
The conflict is discovering who is behind it. Is it the bank president,
a traveling hellfire and brimstone traveling preacher, or any number of
thugs I town? It turns out to be all of them. One might think it is a
cop out the red herrings are not red herrings, but, really, how often
do you see that happen? Mot of the fun of “The Night of the Flying Pie
Plate” is not the scam, anyway. It is a 1960’s television series
loading up an episode with 1950’s flying saucer cliché and setting it I
the 1870’s. The “Venusian” girls are cute, too.

Several Mexican wrestler monster movies on Shout Factory TV.

What did you watch?

--
Trump won.

Ian J. Ball

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Jun 12, 2021, 1:06:56 PM6/12/21
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On 2021-06-12 08:30:41 +0000, Ubiquitous said:

> What did you watch?

I focused on getting through some movies yesterday. But, first:

soaps: DOOL was off Thurs & Fri for French Open tennis. So, just:
GH - Thurs' and Fri's episodes. They're acting like Harrison Chase
is going to die (I can't confirm that Josh Swickard is leaving the
show....), to the point where stupid Willow has agreed to marry him! (I
guess she figures he's going to die before she has to follow
through?!...) Also, Michael tells Willow that Jax blackmailed him on
Nina's behalf, and FauxCarly suspects something like that is going on
and confronts Jax about it who admits to nothing. NuNina finds out that
Valentin "had a kid" with Brook Lynn, and has a visit with Wiley where
she waxes contemplative about "Mike"/Sonny.

Legacies (recorded) - "This Feels a Little Cult-y" (ep. #3.14). I have
to admit - I was hoping for a little more out of this episode.
Josie tricks Hope, who's still angrily "grieving" over being dumped
by Landon in the previous episode, into going with her to Lizzie's
witch "retreat", where they both immediately pick up on weird "cult-y"
vibes, as Lizzie is acting way too nice! That was a good set-up, and I
was hoping that they'd set Hope up to take the place down, but instead
this turns into a "Lizzie episode", as Lizzie "breaks the spell", while
Hope and Josie fall prey, so Lizzie ends up having to (mostly) save the
day.
Sidenote: The witch cult "leader" was played by Sibylla Deen, and
this is the first time I've ever seen her *not* play a straight-up sex
pot!
In other storylines, Josie's gf Finch challenges Jed to be alpha of
the werewolf pack (I like how this one ended...) And Dorian is
convinced that MG has turned into a "ripper vamp", but Alaric isn't so
sure, and it turns out to be another monster that's responsible.
At the end of this one, Sibylla Deen's character follows through on
her mandate - though not before dosing Hope, Lizzie and Josie as a
hallucinogen, which causes them to see themselves as panda plushies!! -
and summons a new creature that looks a lot like... Darth Vader!?!?!!
Just two episodes left in this one, and the next episode does indeed
look like a "Star Wars" spoof episode, which is an extremely odd choice
for the penultimate episode of the season. :|

Tenet (HBO Max) - This is a pretty good "caper"/thriller/action-type
picture, but it's another Christopher Nolan flick and this one I found
*way harder* to follow than "Inception" (which is probably really
saying something!!).
Basically, this involves an unnamed CIA(?) "agent" (John David
Washington) who quickly finds himself enmeshed in a "time war" (with
the future?). The confusing part comes in when there's a bunch of
elements that are running *backwards* in time, which later involves
*people* running backwards in time too! This latter stuff is impossible
to follow, and definitely feels like it doesn't make any sense!
This has a good supporting cast though - Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth
Debicki, the main baddie is played by Kenneth Branagh, and cameos by
Martin Donovan and Michael Caine.

Crawl to Me Darling (Prime) - This has the kind of premise that an
indie filmmaker can love, as it costs about $1.98 to film!!
British low-budget, three-person-cast indie psychological horror
film - This opens with our heroine, Millie (Makenna Guyler), calling
the cops (and *failing*), before getting grabbed and kidnapped after
being drugged.
When she wakes up, she gets the "Pavlov's dog" treatment from her
abductor (Scott Whatley), who is determined to "train" her to "love"
him. Soon enough, Millie establishes that her abductor has another
accomplice (Isabele Hernandez), and that escape from her current
location of confinement is difficut-to-impossible.
It did feel like there were some scenes missing in the middle here,
because Millie's "conversion" felt too abrupt. And there's one slo-mo
scene at the end that goes on way longer than it needs to. But I like
the ending in terms of the heroine, if not in terms of the accomplice.
This was a decent idea, but it really felt like it needed several
more passes through the typewriter, with stronger storytelling, and a
better ending.


Recorded for later: Just "Van Helsing", as "The Blacklist's" last 2
epies won't be on Friday nights.


--
"Who would ever do this to him!?" - HottCiara on DOOL (04-27-2020), asking
who would stab Victor Kirakis... How about ANYONE WHO'S EVER MET HIM??!!

Arthur Lipscomb

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Jun 12, 2021, 1:51:47 PM6/12/21
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He's called "The Protagonist." That's just Nolan being pretentious.

who quickly finds himself enmeshed in a "time war" (with the
> future?). The confusing part comes in when there's a bunch of elements
> that are running *backwards* in time, which later involves *people*
> running backwards in time too! This latter stuff is impossible to
> follow, and definitely feels like it doesn't make any sense!
>   This has a good supporting cast though - Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth
> Debicki, the main baddie is played by Kenneth Branagh, and cameos by
> Martin Donovan and Michael Caine.
>

I liked the movie, but I agree the plot is hard to follow. I watched
the movie a couple of times and various video plot break downs and
explanations, and I still couldn't explain how time travel works! I
suspect a good chunk of my confusion comes from Nolan intentionally
making the movie confusing.


> Crawl to Me Darling (Prime) - This has the kind of premise that an indie
> filmmaker can love, as it costs about $1.98 to film!!
>   British low-budget, three-person-cast indie psychological horror film
> - This opens with our heroine, Millie (Makenna Guyler), calling the cops
> (and *failing*), before getting grabbed and kidnapped after being drugged.
>   When she wakes up, she gets the "Pavlov's dog" treatment from her
> abductor (Scott Whatley), who is determined to "train" her to "love"
> him. Soon enough, Millie establishes that her abductor has another
> accomplice (Isabele Hernandez), and that escape from her current
> location of confinement is difficut-to-impossible.
>   It did feel like there were some scenes missing in the middle here,
> because Millie's "conversion" felt too abrupt. And there's one slo-mo
> scene at the end that goes on way longer than it needs to. But I like
> the ending in terms of the heroine, if not in terms of the accomplice.
>   This was a decent idea, but it really felt like it needed several
> more passes through the typewriter, with stronger storytelling, and a
> better ending.
>
>

Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll check this out. This plot sort of
reminds me of a Netflix movie I started but never finished. Maybe I'll
finally finish the Netflix flick, then watch this one.


I watched:

Wu Assassin (Netflix streaming) - I watched a couple more episodes. It
actually does get a bit more entertaining as it goes along.


In The Heights (theatrical) New musical based on Lin-Manuel Miranda's
hit Broadway musical. Anthony Ramos stars as Usnavi de la Vega, a young
man who runs a bodega with his young cousin. Usnavi dreams of moving to
the Dominican Republic to run his dead father's business. The movie
follows him as well as the various colorful people in the neighborhood
he interacts with. A bit of mystery is introduced when one of Usnavi's
customers buys a winning lottery ticket allowing everyone to fantasize
about what they would do with the money.

The movie is directed by Jon M. Chu who also directed Crazy Rich Asians.
Like Crazy Rich Asians, the movie is colorful and beautiful to look
at. I also thought some of the dance and musical numbers were very
creatively done. I've never seen the stage version before, so I have
nothing to compare it against, but I can't see how the stage version
could even come close to the theatrical version in terms of visual effects.

While the movie looked great, the plot was just OK. It held my
interest, but I did occasionally check my watch. I also couldn't help
but constantly compare the movie to the far superior "Hamilton".
Lin-Manuel Miranda made "In the Heights" first and it often feels like
an audition or demo reel for Hamilton. A lot of the songs could easily
be Hamilton songs, but for the modern references. It's a fine movie
with fine music, but if you've seen "Hamilton" you can't help but
constantly compare the two and think "Hamilton" is a lot better. So if
it's an option I'd say watch "In the Heights" first, then watch
"Hamilton." Both movies are available to stream, ITH on HBO Max and
Hamilton on Disney+.


Ian J. Ball

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Jun 12, 2021, 2:35:13 PM6/12/21
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On 2021-06-12 17:51:41 +0000, Arthur Lipscomb said:

> On 6/12/2021 10:06 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
>> On 2021-06-12 08:30:41 +0000, Ubiquitous said:
>>
>>> What did you watch?
>
>> Crawl to Me Darling (Prime) - This has the kind of premise that an
>> indie filmmaker can love, as it costs about $1.98 to film!!
>>   British low-budget, three-person-cast indie psychological horror film
>> - This opens with our heroine, Millie (Makenna Guyler), calling the
>> cops (and *failing*), before getting grabbed and kidnapped after being
>> drugged.
>>   When she wakes up, she gets the "Pavlov's dog" treatment from her
>> abductor (Scott Whatley), who is determined to "train" her to "love"
>> him. Soon enough, Millie establishes that her abductor has another
>> accomplice (Isabele Hernandez), and that escape from her current
>> location of confinement is difficut-to-impossible.
>>   It did feel like there were some scenes missing in the middle here,
>> because Millie's "conversion" felt too abrupt. And there's one slo-mo
>> scene at the end that goes on way longer than it needs to. But I like
>> the ending in terms of the heroine, if not in terms of the accomplice.
>>   This was a decent idea, but it really felt like it needed several
>> more passes through the typewriter, with stronger storytelling, and a
>> better ending.
>
> Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll check this out. This plot sort of
> reminds me of a Netflix movie I started but never finished. Maybe I'll
> finally finish the Netflix flick, then watch this one.

Do you remember the name of the Netflix film?
I might be interested in checking it out.

> I watched:
I'm still debating whether to watch this (or "Hamilton"). I'll say
they're on my list, but down my list quite a bit, so I may not get to
them...

Arthur Lipscomb

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Jun 12, 2021, 3:13:57 PM6/12/21
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"365 Days"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/365_Days_(2020_film)

It popped up on my radar when I heard some people were trying to get it
banned from Netflix. They apparently took offense at a plot that
involved a kidnapped woman falling for her kidnapper. I think I watched
about half of it before I lost interest. But I did intend to finish it
just in case Netflix pulled it. Then I forgot about it.

I was just reading the wiki page and see it was a huge hit for Netflix
and at one point was their #1 movie. I had *no* idea it was so popular.
I suspect it had something to do when word broke some were trying to
ban it, and people like me rushed to watch while they could. Wiki says
Netflix has two sequels in the works. So I guess I don't need to rush
to watch it before it's pulled.
If you're only going to watch one, watch "Hamilton."

shawn

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Jun 12, 2021, 3:29:31 PM6/12/21
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I think that's because some of the things don't make sense at all. I'm
sure part of the confusion was done intentionally so we didn't catch
on to who was behind this war earlier in the movie.

Consider them breathing which they somewhat resolve by taking their
own air supply with them when traveling backwards in time. That raises
the question of what happens with the air they breathe out? Do we just
have an ever increasing amount of backwards flowing air being left
behind by the time travelers? I think we have to go with basic idea
that there was a neat idea that was made into a movie without too much
effort being put into it being internally consistent.



>I watched:
>
>Wu Assassin (Netflix streaming) - I watched a couple more episodes. It
>actually does get a bit more entertaining as it goes along.


I have to get back to this at some point but I've been on NCIS: LA
binge lately.



Ian J. Ball

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Jun 12, 2021, 3:30:12 PM6/12/21
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OK, yeah - the latter is a *totally* different flick - for one thing,
it's a "sex flick" (like "9 1/2 Weeks"), and for another "365 Days"
definitely" has a budget. Finally, it's not "psychological horror" or a
"psychological thriller" - it's a romance (and/or "sex flick").

The only thing it has in common with "Crawl to me Darling" is the
overall premise - woman kidnapped by a guy who wants her to "fall in
love with him". But "365 Days" involves no torture, etc.

Ian J. Ball

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Jun 12, 2021, 3:32:29 PM6/12/21
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My condolences. :( ;p

anim8rfsk

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Jun 12, 2021, 4:39:41 PM6/12/21
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Ian J. Ball <IJB...@mac.invalid> wrote:
> On 2021-06-12 19:29:24 +0000, shawn said:
>
>> On Sat, 12 Jun 2021 10:51:41 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb
>> <art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I watched:
>>>
>>> Wu Assassin (Netflix streaming) - I watched a couple more episodes. It
>>> actually does get a bit more entertaining as it goes along.
>>
>> I have to get back to this at some point but I've been on NCIS: LA
>> binge lately.
>
> My condolences. :( ;p
>
>

Yeah

--
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.”

Adam H. Kerman

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Jun 12, 2021, 10:17:24 PM6/12/21
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Arthur Lipscomb <art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

>"365 Days"
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/365_Days_(2020_film)

>It popped up on my radar when I heard some people were trying to get it
>banned from Netflix. They apparently took offense at a plot that
>involved a kidnapped woman falling for her kidnapper. I think I watched
>about half of it before I lost interest. But I did intend to finish it
>just in case Netflix pulled it. Then I forgot about it.

>I was just reading the wiki page and see it was a huge hit for Netflix
>and at one point was their #1 movie. I had *no* idea it was so popular.
> I suspect it had something to do when word broke some were trying to
>ban it, and people like me rushed to watch while they could. Wiki says
>Netflix has two sequels in the works. So I guess I don't need to rush
>to watch it before it's pulled.

Patty Hearst?

shawn

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Jun 13, 2021, 12:21:06 AM6/13/21
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On Sat, 12 Jun 2021 12:32:25 -0700, Ian J. Ball <IJB...@mac.invalid>
wrote:

>On 2021-06-12 19:29:24 +0000, shawn said:
>
>> On Sat, 12 Jun 2021 10:51:41 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb
>> <art...@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I watched:
>>>
>>> Wu Assassin (Netflix streaming) - I watched a couple more episodes. It
>>> actually does get a bit more entertaining as it goes along.
>>
>> I have to get back to this at some point but I've been on NCIS: LA
>> binge lately.
>
>My condolences. :( ;p

I was behind by quite a few seasons. Up to about halfway through
Season 11 now so only two seasons behind. lol.
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