On 11/20/2022 12:26 PM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
> Obviously should be "Saturday"...:
>
> Well, this was my weekend day to watch nothing but movies, so that is
> mostly what I did...:
>
> soaps: GH - Fri's ep. Not much happened. Sam believes that Cody has been
> scamming Britt the whole time to get his hands on the necklace. (That
> would explain why Cody lied about Mac not being his father...) They also
> look to be setting up writing Britt out (I think she's leaving the show
> any day now.) The only other thing of note is that Robert Scorpio
> follows Holly (Emma Samms) and now knows she's working for Victor
> Cassadine.
>
> Machine Head (Tubi; aka. Spring Break Killer) - This stars Sharon
> Hinnendael from the 2013 "Embrace of the Vampire" flick - but this time
> there, no nudity from her, and barely any nudity at all: mostly just
> costar Nicole Zeoli who has certainly had a boob job.
>   The beginning of this is incredibly poorly filmed; the rest of it is
> just mostly poorly filmed. (They must have made this for a $1.98!!)
>   That said, the film is actually surprisingly decent at establishing
> suspense and terror later on. The problem is that the death scenes are
> completely perfunctory and uninspired. This is also so low budget that
> it has basically *no gore* - this is basically a "slasher film" without
> the gory slashing, so really what is the point?!
>
> I saw a little of "The Holiday Swap" with Alex Paxton-Beesley on UP tv.
> I may have come in at the wrong time, and only saw the ending, really,
> but it seemed kind of downbeat.
>
> Walker: Independence (recorded) - "Random Acts" (ep. #6). This was much
> better than ep. #5, and was actually a pretty good episode.
>   Deputy Gus has it in his head that the former sheriff, Otis Clay
> (Jonathan Medina) was the one who shot Abby's husband, Liam. And for
> some reason Calian plays along, even though Calian knows that Abby said
> Sheriff Davidson was the shooter. Gus and Calian head to the outskirts
> of town, to Otis' ranch, to question him.
>   In town, Sheriff Davidson is determined to impress a visiting
> railroad big wig, and gets the idea from Kai to throw a "fight night"
> for the big wig. Davidson convinces Hoyt to fight. Hoyt uses the
> opportunity to throw the fight in order to make money off the betting.
>   Separately, Hoyt has a sweet momemnt with Lucia's father Francis
> Reyes (Nestor Serrano), who we find out helped raise Hoyt after Hoyt's
> father's death.
>   Abby and Kate go through Liam's (Abby's husband) journal(?), and
> determine that Liam was in contact with former sheriff Otis before
> coming to town. Abby goes off to Otis', and meets up with Gus and Calian
> there, and is present during the questioning of Otis. Otis admits to
> taking a payoff from the Davidsons to retire, but has an alibi for
> Liam's death - it turns out Otis was on a cattle run with Francis Reyes.
> When Gus, Calian and Otis go to Reyes to confirm the alibi, Otis is
> shot! and Francis Reyes is killed!! (Who is behind this?)
>   Annoyingly, the show never gets back to Otis' fate - he is not
> brought into town with Reyes' body, and is not mentioned again, so we
> don't know if the gun wound was fatal or not.
>   At the fight night, Davidson is outraged when Hoyt loses (i.e.
> because Hoyt has thrown the fight), and Davidson insists upong fighting
> himself, barely winning with Kai's help.
>   The next morning, Abby figures out that Liam had been paid off by the
> Davidson's to come to Independence. (This makes no sense! - They paid
> him off, just to kill him?! What a waste of money!! (And does Abby now
> have access to this money?))
>   Gus and Calian bring Reyes' body into town.
>   But in a shocking twist! somebody stabs Sheriff Davidson. Possibly
> fatally! It's a cliffhanger!
>   I will like this show a lot more if it's revealed that Abby herself
> stabbed him, or had him stabbed. But I doubt this show is ballsy enough
> to go there...
>
> Santa Bootcamp (Lifetime) - I got sucked into watching this, but it was
> actually kind of fun, and was somewhat of a departure from the usge
> holiday TV flicks.
>   The first half mostly involved Rita Moreno (she's secretly Mrs.
> Claus, you see!!) torturing Emily Kinney's party planner character!
>   Kinney's character shows up looking for recommendations on Santas for
> an event she is planning for a crass shopping center executive, but gets
> coercively drafted into taking part in the "Santa bootcamp" by Moreno if
> she wants the Santa recommendation.
>   But this is all a set-up! Morena's Mrs. Claus seeks to unlock
> Kinney's latent Christmas spirit!
>   Of course, this all also involves a cute chef that is Kinney's love
> interest.
>   Anyway, I liked that this mostly "broke genre", at least for the
> first half, when Moreno seems to take glee in putting Kinney's character
> through the Santa ringer!
>
> Where the Crawdads Sing (Netflix) - This was pretty good - pretty much
> what I figured it was going to be.

I forgot about this. Thanks for reminding me. Added to the queue.

>
>
> What did you watch?
>
>

I had this planned out for a while...and was finally able to watch:

Deep Rising (blu-ray) 1998 horror movie about a group of thieves who
plot the robbery of a luxury cruise ship but when they arrive, they find
almost everyone (with the notable exception of Fanke Janssen) has been
eaten and partially digested by a sea monster. I think this is the
first time I've ever watched this movie. I know when it was first
released in theaters I actively avoided it because I was offended by the
movie's trailer which clearly gave the ending away by showing the lead
(Treat Williams) heroically jumping off the cruise ship with Fanke in
tow while riding a jet ski as the cruise ship explodes behind them.
That image was also on the DVD cover art, and probably the theatrical
poster too! And I know I never rented it from Netflix. The only reason
I even have on disc is because it's on a double feature with a different
movie on the same disc. But as I was watching it, several of the scenes
were very familiar. I'm not sure if they were familiar because they
were in the trailer or because I watched the movie on TV once. I'm
guessing they were all just trailer shots that I still remembered. The
only reason I watched it now is because I read it would pair well with
Leviathan and DeepStar Six and curiosity got the better of me, plus I
already had it sitting on a shelf. I guess it wasn't so bad. The movie
is full of familiar names and faces.

"Leviathan" (PlutoTV) 1989 deep sea sci-fi movie about a team of
deep-sea workers who get exposed to a secret Russian genetic program
that causes them to mutate into sea monsters. It has a pretty solid
cast including Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, Ernie Hudson, Amanda Pays,
and Meg Foster's eyes. I don't think I've watched this since around the
time of the original release. I never had any illusions that it was a
good movie, but I could have sworn it was better than this, especially
with this cast. I've had this movie on a planned watch list for several
months (maybe a year?) and even though at the time I put the list
together I knew I didn't own the movie on disc, I figured that problem
would fix itself by the time I needed to watch it. The blu-ray has been
long out of print, but they announced the movie was being released on 4K
disc this year. And I had plans to just buy the disc, but that release
never materialized. So, I was forced to stream it, and every streaming
service I sampled had the movie in the wrong aspect ratio. I could spit
fire, but I broke down and watched it in the wrong aspect ratio. And
with commercials. :-/

DeepStar Six (Blu-ray) 1989 deep sea sci-fi movie about a team of
deep-sea workers who have to fight a sea monster. I don't think I've
watched this movie since the time of the original release, and this is
definitely the first time I've ever watched it in the proper 2.35 aspect
ratio. It's not a good movie, but I knew that going in and bought the
disc anyway specially so I could watch it as part of this movie marathon.

The Abyss (Starz) 1989 deep sea sci-fi movie directed by James Cameron
and starring Michael Biehn as a soldier who has to contend with Aliens
where the solution is to nuke the site because that's the only way to be
sure. Just like "Leviathan" the movie involves deep-sea workers who
must contend with a storm overhead and just like "DeepStar Six"
decompression issues causes trouble for one of the characters. In spite
of the similarities with "Leviathan" and "Deepstar Six" this is by far
the better movie. I haven't watched it in years, and never with a print
that looks this good. I actually recorded this movie half a year ago
with no intent of ever having to watch the recording because I was
*sure* they'd release the movie on 4K disc (or at a minimum blu-ray) in
time for Avatar 2's release so they could cross promote. I remember
back in the day this movie would air on HD cable but be a grainy pan and
scan image, so this new 2.35 print they are using now is the best this
movie has looked since the theater. Too bad they can't be bothered to
slap it on a disc. And it's a good thing I've been saving this
recording for all of these months because the movie isn't available to
stream anywhere, at least nowhere through Comcast. I have been
encountering this problem a *lot* lately and it just reinforces my
strong preference for physical media over streaming.

Avatar (3D blu-ray) 2009 sci-fi movie directed by James Cameron and
starring Sigouney Weaver as a consultant brought in by space marines to
help them deal with aliens that are hostile to human interests. Unhappy
with the way things are going with the aliens, the military decides the
best way to deal with them is to nuke the site because that's the only
way to be sure. I haven't watched Avatar in 3D since the original
theatrical release. The 3D disc is absolutely reference quality. The
movie is OK too.

Battle for Terra (blu-ray) 2009 sci-fi movie about peaceful society of
tree huggers that comes under attack from aliens known as "humans" from
a planet known as "Earth." These "humans" are technologically advanced
and use their technology to overrun the natives. However, with help
from a human who goes native the peaceful natives are able to fight
back. I saw this once when it first came out and found it surprisingly
good, although it sort of reminded me of another movie that came out
that same year.