From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv
On 7/8/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
What did you watch?
So, yesterday, I got my molar pulled, and they replaced it by putting a
screw into my jaw! Out and it's a screw I'm not really supposed to touch
- for the next month!! :o
Needless to say, I wasn't in a great mood after the novocaine wore off, certainly not in much of a mood to do anything! except watch TV and movies.
So, that's what I did:
WC soccer - Didn't see much of either game. In the Argentina-Egypt game,
I watched the beginning of the game and then came back to it *after*
Argentina scored 3 goals in 15 minutes. So basically, I missed the
fireworks.
I only saw the end of the Switzerland-Colombia game after I got back
from the dentist. But I did see the exciting penalty kick finish.
soaps: DOOL - They start the treatment for arsenic poisoning on Holly. Stephanie vents to Chanel about Joy's manipulations.
GH - Jack Brennan tells Danny to drop spreading the word that Rocco
shot the now-dead Director Cullum as it won't help; Danny then admits
that he was a rat to Charlotte who should have kicked him to the curb.
Josslyn firmly tells dumb Carly that she's not leaving the WSB. Willow
and Tracy get into it (I can't figure out why dumb Willow doesn't use
her office to dismantle the Quartermaines!!), but Willow now think that
Tracy set her up (while Tracy surreptitiously figured out that it was
actually Brooke Lynn).
movies:
V/H/S 99 (AMC+) - The fifth in the series (and the second Shudder
Original in the series).
This was by far the weakest one in the series - in fact, Wiki
confirms that this is the lowest-rated entry in the series (not
including the spinoff "Kids vs. Aliens" which I did watch once).
The framing device sucked (there basically wasn't a framing device
this time!), and the first short film in the anthology was actually the
worst one this time rather than being the best!
I will say, the short films do seem to get better as this one goes -
the first one is just not good, the second one (starring Ally Ioannides
from "Into the Bad Lands", and she's probably too old to be playing a
college girl by this point!!) is actually pretty good (though I think it
much have been better if they had just played it straight), the third
one "Ozzy's Dungeon" would have worked better if they had stuck with the satire of Nickelodeon kid game shows, the fourth one is weak again.
But this time, they saved the best one for last - I actually enjoyed
"To Hell and Back" (co-starring Melanie Stone from the "Mythica"
series!!) quite a bit (I would love to know where they filmed this).
Forbidden Fruits (AMC+) - This doesn't seem to be a Shudder Original,
but from IFC Films (I don't remember - Does AMC own IFC now?!)
Anyway, as someone very succinctly described this, it's like "Mean
Girls" meets "The Craft" (isn't that redundant?!!). Indeed, the lead
character in this (played by Lili Reinhart) seems to definitely be
channeling Fairuza Balk's character in "The Craft" to a large extent
(though Reinhart's character her is "glam" and not a goth like Balk's).
Aside from Reinhart, the rest of the "coven" in this flick is new
girl Lola Tung (from "The Summer I Turned Pretty"), Victoria Pedretti
(from "You" among other things) as the resident low self-esteem slut,
and Alexandra Shipp (from lots of stuff) as the "nerd".
BTW, Pderetti seems to have no problems with nudity, though I'm not
sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. ;p
This film is apparently based on the screenwriter's stage play (the
script was co-written by the film's director), and as such the film does strike one as being very... "stage-y".
It definitely feels like this is whole thing, esp. the coven and its
inner machinations, seems to be some kind of allegory about female relationships.
However, there's one mid-credits scene with Gabrielle Union that you
can tell was absolutely not in the original play (if suspect the
pre-credits finale scene with Reinhart may be how the play ends) and was tacked on by the producers to give the film a more definitive ending.
Anyway, this was OK, and the four principals, esp. Reinhart and Tung
look great here. But like the original "The Craft" I ended up being underwhelmed by this. I especially wish they had dug deeper into
Reinhart's character and had maybe done a better job setting up the
"twist" regarding new girl Tung's character.
With the pain in my jaw increasing as the night went on, I ended up
watching a couple of episodes of "Sheriff Country" off Pee+ - I had seen
one of the episode previously, but not the other one. Then I tried to go
to sleep, which did evenutally work.
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