On 4/27/2025 7:26 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
Yesterday, I only did "work-work" in the morning, taking it easy the
rest of the day. And as there was nothing that I wanted to watch on
Lifetime last night (and this week's golf tourney is one I don't like or watch), I actually got through a movie as well!
So, I watched:
soaps: Both Thur's ep's.
DOOL - Ulch. The new Rachel child actress premiered in this ep, and
I don't like her! - While the old Rachel child actress wasn't very good,
she did get the "vibe" of the role right, playing Rachel as matter-of-
factly a budding psychopath, which is the spot-on take. The new actress
(who is probably a little older than the former child actress) may be
more expressive, but she's playing Rachel as a garden-variety brat,
which is all wrong, IMO... Anyway, Kristen throws water on Xander after
they publicly argue, which gives Xander the opportunity to YA take his
shirt off in public! EJ has supposedly turned over a new leaf, and
supposedly can't remember the shooting (it's all he dreamed about while
in the coma!!), but seems to have remembered finding Rafe's listening
device. Ava is apparently not in Hong Kong - she's supposedly gone to a Tibetan monestary! (aren't those only for men!?!). And of course the
cops can't match EJ's bullet to any gun. [roll]
GH - I knew this was going to happen! - First Marco accidentally
finds the form Diane wanted Alexis to sign to involuntarily commit
Kristina; later, while meeting with Ric, Alexis accidentally dropped the
form (and other stuff) in Ric's room, allowing Molly to accidentally
pick the form up - later, with Cody, Molly finds the form!... Not much
else happened this ep - Sonny starts his heart surgery. Lulu starts
writing her freelance article on adoption, but Brook Lynn finds out
about it from Lucas.
Heretic (Max) - I guess I am inadvertently continuing my "Sophie
Thatcher" film festival!
This 2024 horror flick was interesting. It's probably the best (IOW, the most "accessible") A24 flick I have seen so far.
Gist: Two young put-upon Mormom missionary women (Thatcher, and surprisingly Chloe East who you wouldn't expect in a film like this - Thatcher is billed ahead of East, but East pretty clearly seems like the "star" of the film to me) are in Colorado, and they take an end-of-the-
day meeting with a creepy old dude (Hugh Grant, playing kind of a blow-
hard of an old jerk (so, playing himself?!!)).
What the creepy old dude really wants to do is engage the two women
in a kind of theological debate. The sinister part? He won't let them
leave! as his house is kind of "locked from the inside" and they can't
leave if he won't let them.
This, of course, makes the two young women increasingly terrified as they come to realize what's happening.
Most of the way through, this was a decent thriller, with OK theological elements.
But it wasn't perfect. For example, there's a fairly massive plot
hole, when it's revealed that Grant's character seemingly knew
Thatcher's character "secret", when I feel like there's no way he could
have known about it, and they never explain how he does know, and its revelation is kind of way too convenient for what's happening in the
film at the time.
I also didn't care for the ending which seemed to me to be an A#1-
type A24 ambiguous ending.
But aside from not liking the ending, I overall enjoyed this.
I don't recall the secret, but I do agree it did fall apart a little at
the end. Otherwise it's a good movie.
What did you watch?
This is a two-day catch-up. I watched:
The Righteous Gemstones (HBO) - I caught up on a few episodes.
Havock (Netflix) 2025 action movie directed by Gareth Evans (The Raid
movies) and starring Tom Hardy as a crooked cop working for Forest
Whitaker. With Whitaker in the mix playing someone crooked the movie
reminded me a lot "Street Kings" only not as good. This was mostly
background noise.
Cobra Kai (Netflix) - I finished the last three episodes of the series.
There were some major spoilers that I won't get into, but overall the
series wrapped up pretty well. I liked at one point Johnny was training
for a fight and they reused the montage music from the original movie
for his montage, while also playing homage to "Rocky."
Black Widow (4K disc) 2021 movie set in the MCU staring Scarlett
Johansson as Black Widow. Set between the events of "Captain America:
Civil War" and "Avengers: Infinity War," the movie shows Black Widow
teaming up with her "sister" (Florence Pugh) and "father" (David
Harbour) to take down the Red Room (where Black Widows are created), but
to do so must get past Taskmaster, who can mimic any fighting style.
This is a very underrated movie. I get people wanted it to come out
sooner, but regardless of when it finally came out, it's a very
entertaining movie.
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