Post by UbiquitousWhat did you watch?
I was supposed to do work yesterday, but did not. (I still have
today...) But I did get through soaps, golf, and 2 movies.
soaps: Y&R - Thur's(?) ep. They seem to be winding down the Ian
Ward-Jordan storyline: Nick and Chance determine that Jordan is Ian's
accomplice, and figure out that she kidnapped Sharon; meanwhile, Claire
feigns disgust at Jordan's "incompetence" for leaving evidence in the
hotel room, and gets Jordan to admit that Ian is her accomplice. Sharon
continues to fail to escape(!?!).
DOOL - Fri's ep. So, I guess they've brought Kristen's Mommy back
from the dead(!). I had to look this storyline up - if I was watching
DOOL during the 1990s "Woman in White" storyline (I disliked the Stefano
stuff, so may have stopped regularly watching DOOL during this), it must
have been that I was barely watching it at the time, as I don't remember
this storyline really at all - however, back in the 90s Kristen's Mommy
was a "good guy", whereas now she's clearly EVOL! as she conspires with
lil' Rachel (still the same child actress) to kidnap Ava. Meanwhile,
there was ancillary stuff with Cat Green, and grieving widow Julie.
golf - Final day at Torry Pines (which for several years now has been on
the weird Wed-Sat schedule because of NFL playoff football) - old-timer
Harris English pretty much dominated all day, having the lead from the
start of the day, and steadily playing 12 pars in a row on the last
holes to outlast all comers which included two young guys.
I then skipped Lifetime, and watched a couple of movies off Tubi:
Megan Is Missing (Tubi) - I've been hearing about this 2011 film for a
while (though it was filmed in 2008, which explains some things about
the film itself, and is set in 2007), and that the film packs a
devastating wallop of an ending. I can confirm that the ending does pack
a wallop - in fact, this film falls into the category of films like
"Requiem for a Dream" - films that I am glad I watched, but have no
intention of ever watching again.
This is not exactly a "found footage" film, but more like a
"social-media (IOW, phone and webcam) footage" film - it's presented as
if it were a "documentary" involving footage that two early teens took
of themselves, etc.
The story is this: Two 14 year old girls - one of whom (Megan,
played by Rachel Quinn) is more sophisticated and popular but who it is
also revealed is child abuse survivor, and the other (Amy, played by
Amber Perkins) is shy, awkward and unpopular - try to make their way
through the unforgiving teen landscape of sex and drugs. (In many ways,
the way the teen life of two 14-year olds is depicted is the most
controversial part of the film.)
This makes Megan, who hates her home life with her mom, especially
susceptible to predators (IOW, internet predators).
After being introduced to what is supposedly a skaterboi online,
Megan soon goes missing. This leaves Amy to frantically search for her,
including hitting up the online skaterboi for info, and eventually
turning info on him over to the police.
That goes pretty much where you expect it to, except the ending is
even more horrific than you could have possibly anticipated. In fact,
the ending is incredibly bleak (about "Requiem for a Dream"-level
bleak!). Though I wanted more from the "ending of the documentary" angle
- the final sequence shows you without question what happened to the
girls, so I wanted a final "real-world followup" on this, but the
"doc-within-the-film" does nothing with it.
I thought Rachel Quinn as Megan was quite good here, and I am very
surprised that she didn't have more of a career, esp. after "Megan Is
Missing" was released.
It does not surprise me that Amber Perkins, who played Amy, left the
acting biz cold after filming this movie - Perkins has the much harder
part to play here, and I would have quit acting in her shoes after this
film as well.
For the record, this film seems most based on the murders Ashley
Pond and Miranda Gaddis in 2002.
Anyway, this is strong stuff - effective, but one viewing is
probably enough here.
Top Floor (Tubi) - I was expecting this 2024 thriller to have almost as
bleak an ending as "Megan Is Missing", but the film flubs the ending
with a massive disappointment.
This film is pretty simple: a massively popular influencer (Justine
Wachsberger, who was an attractive younger actress a few years ago - I
sort of remember her from the low-budget 2018 film "4/20 Massacre" - but
here is playing 30, and is clearly in her mid-30s IRL) is in a car
accident, and wakes up trapped in an elevator. She is soon
menaced/taunted by the elevator's "phone operator" who is instead
clearly some hacker with a major grudge against the influencer and who
intends to publicly expose her "secrets" and/or kill her in the process.
This is all well and good as a premise for a low-budget film.
(Sidenote: While set in NYC, the film is riddled with obviously
French or Euro actors, and was actually filmed in Bulgaria, which
further decreases the film's effectiveness!!)
But the ending ("twist") really, really lets this film down - if
they were going to try for this ending, the film really, really needed
to be better along the way to make it work! As it is, I didn't buy the
ending for a minute, and it basically ruins almost everything that comes
before it.
What did you watch?