Trying to take it easy, while working in the evenings. But I have gotten through some movies over the past few days:

I'll get to "The Stepdaughter 1/2" in a second, but after watching "The Stepdaughter [1]" on Lifetime, I stumbled across a movie on LMN that I
hadn't seen before because it aired back in June when I was in Europe!:

Shattered Vows (LMN) (aka. "From Dangerous Height", and not to be
confused with the 1984 Valerie Bertinelli TV flick of the same name!) -
This stars Christine Leverette (who just starred in Friday's "The Beach
Read Murders").
I actually was surprised, as I enjoyed this. Leverette plays a
newlywed whose husband (Will Holland) pretty much dies on their wedding
night. Before he dies, he apparently shares a disturbing secret with the bride, though they don't show us what that secret is. Anyway, everyone
is a suspect, including the bride! There's a whole subplot with Kabby
Borders, who is the husband's recovering addict ex-wife and mother of Leverette's stepdaughter... Anyway, this was pretty twisty, so I thought
it was decent.

Then... Cassidey Fralin! Is! The Stepdaughter! (1! & 2!!)

The Stepdaughter (LMN) - A 2024 Tubi Original!!
Both this, and the sequel, I felt were poorly directed - with
something happening in a later scene pretty directly contradicting what happened in an earlier scene.
So, I'm not sure this had much going for it, aside from star
Cassidey Fralin filling out a bikini great. (Which is actually somewhat
creepy as Fralin was a child actress who is only now on the cusp of adulthood...)
Anyway, Fralin's "stepdaughter" character apparently shows up on the doorstep of her father (Blue Kimble), a hip-seeming dude who has just
married a mom (Annie Ilonzeh) with two teen sons after knowing each
other for all of 5 seconds. (Her friends rightly warns her about this,
but it falls on deaf ears!) Fralin's "stepdaughter" shows up on their
doorstep after the death of her grandmother (did "the stepdaughter"
murder Granny?! there wouldn't be a movie if she hadn't!!).
Ilonzeh's character is decidedly less than thrilled. Which escalates
to much worse than that as the clearly EVOL!1! stepdaughter stars upping
her antics.
This goes mostly where you expect it to. There is one "twist" which
I anticipated since at least the halfway mark, so it didn't surprise me.
This does end with a decent showdown, though even the aftermath of
this confused me (I think because it wasn't clearly filmed).

The Stepdaughter 2 (LMN) - A 2024 Tubi Original sequel!!
I found this to be substantially worse than the original.
So, first, they cheat - they act like it's going to be like
"Halloween 2", and pick up exactly where the first one left off. But
within a scene, it's then "2 weeks later", and then a "year later".
Second, this one seemed to focus way more on Blue Kimble's father character than on Cassidey Fralin's EVOL stepdaughter this time, and the
EVOL stepdaughter was the one thing I mostly liked about the first film.
And it couldn't decide how much of a "sequel" it wanted to be, with
Annie Ilonzeh reappearing in this film but not as the focus.
Interestingly, this one pretty clearly sets up for a third film with
its ending... Except, there has been no "The Stepdaughter 3", and it
doesn't seem like one is planned! Lame!!

Beyond that, there is no real sports Labor Day weekend, so there wasn't
much else to watch.

I also have been watching soaps, but... pass!


What did you watch?


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Verily, in article <1094sm7$2ksf$1@dont-email.me>, did
ijball@mac.invalid deliver unto us this message:

What did you watch?

On Saturday,I watched a new video from Unsolicited Advice: "Why Everyone
Hates Therapy-Speak."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
4ydCDjnXweI&pp=ygUSdW5zb2xpY2l0ZWQgYWR2aWNl

His subjects are getting a bit slighter, but the channel's also getting
more established, so it's not necessarily a bad sign that we're no
longer getting deep dives on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. He has good
points beyond the simple overapplication of the term. He discusses that,
the pathologization of normal things, and several other issues.

I also tried two episodes of Watson, an original thing Paramount+ is
pushing. John Watson, rebooted as a modern black American man, has
returned to medical practice to carry out Sherlock Holmes' last will and testament, for Sherlock was secretly rich and dreamed of Watson starting
a clinic focusing on exotic diseases. Yes, you read that correctly.
They're essentially taking House, M.D., lifting it back to the Holmes
universe from which it was itself lifted, and then injecting pure
insanity. Sure, that amuses me enough to try it.

The pilot probably should have been an unaired pilot. It spent lots of
time on setup, with the actual plot being left so predictable that the foreshadowing felt like a two-by-four and I knew the twist as soon as I
knew two cousins were ill. The second episode was better, though -- a reenactment actor starts thinking he's his character. Can Watson and the clinicians solve the puzzle? Yeah, of course they did, but it was fun
getting there.

This is a decent, watchable show. It's not sure what it is, but it could
find a direction. I'll probably try it again.

What did everyone else watch?


--
Trustworthy words are not pretty;
Pretty words are not trustworthy.

-Lao-Tzu spoke those pretty words.

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On 9/1/2025 12:37 PM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

Trying to take it easy, while working in the evenings. But I have gotten through some movies over the past few days:

I'll get to "The Stepdaughter 1/2" in a second, but after watching "The Stepdaughter [1]" on Lifetime, I stumbled across a movie on LMN that I hadn't seen before because it aired back in June when I was in Europe!:

snip

Back when I had TCM I would periodically scan the upcoming listings for
stuff to watch/record. But I got rid of TCM a while back and stopped bothering to check the upcoming listings. I finally did it again a
couple of weeks again and ended up seeing a lot of upcoming stuff on LMN
and HBO I wanted to watch, including The Stepdaughter movies.

Then... Cassidey Fralin! Is! The Stepdaughter! (1! & 2!!)

The Stepdaughter (LMN) - A 2024 Tubi Original!!
-a-a Both this, and the sequel, I felt were poorly directed -

snip

The Stepdaughter 2 (LMN) - A 2024 Tubi Original sequel!!
-a-a I found this to be substantially worse than the original.

I recorded both of these to watch later. Sounds like they don't warrant
more than a quick sample and delete.



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