Vee

One of the greats.

Bechtel is a lot better than he used to be. I noticed it when he popped up maybe a year ago. He can do emotion now; he couldn’t a few years back. I remember when they tried to make him emote on Grey’s Anatomy in the Ron Carlivati era and it was like blood from a stone. The hair is, uh, seen. They still need to SORAS with a better kid - he should’ve burst into tears and didn’t manage that - and a slightly older one who can be around full time. Of course Dick Cruiser Ava is all over this trying to get Spencer to forgive her latest piece, the man she barely knew when he first “died”. Who wouldn’t want mob queen Ava insinuating herself into a private family situation and turning on the forgive-me-in-fuckpumps charm that always worked so well on Kiki? This is so typical of Ava and yet the show plays it so earnestly and I can never take it seriously, ever. Ava is Ava is Ava. Let her be or don’t waste my time trying to make her Carly Snyder. Remember when Maura was only supposed to be on a week back in 2013? I’m not complaining but the stories need work. I still can’t tell the new White Chicks (Willow/Sasha) apart. Sorry! At least Billy Joel a.k.a. V____n is no longer lord of the Cassadine manor. I feel like Mike has had Alzheimer’s for like fifteen years. I mean, yes, people do but come on. Did the Arab twink already lose his accent? Is Kevin still married to Laura? Does Kevin still exist? I was Chad Duell’s biggest booster for a long time, and he can be very good with good writing which he hasn’t had much of in almost ten years. Long did I champion pairing him and Maxie in an unlikely older least mature woman possible/younger man screwball romance; I think it would’ve worked, back when both still had much energy left. I think he works wonderfully with certain people, like Jane Elliot. I also think he should go now. If Drew Garrett wasn’t some sort of #MeToo situation BTS or something beg him to come back or get someone equally vulnerable yet strong. Michael is reduced to this because they don’t invest in Chad and Chad has failed to rise to the occasion. There is also absolutely zero reason for Michael to have a baby, let alone Maxie or Lulu having two. I’d still write Maxie out for a good while, and probably Lulu for a few months before finding a suitable recast assuming Julie Berman still doesn’t need rent money. Charlotte would be un-Spencered. I don’t care. I don’t! I have no idea what is happening with Brook Lynn and I’m sure the writing is poor but there will never be a better recast for such a previously doomed role than Amanda Setton, and they should lock her in as long as possible. I have said this many a time, but the holiday scenes drove home how wrong it is that Lisa Lo Cicero isn’t playing Lois since that’s basically all Olivia ever was minus a few details, from the beginning, right down to the Bensonhurst backstory. The chemistry with Wally Kurth is the same and she even auditioned for the Lois recast in the mid-2000s. Ron Carlivati wisely but too briefly lampshaded this when he first put these two together years ago by having Ned and Olivia openly discuss Lois on a date, but to this day I don’t feel it’s ever been really examined enough in scripts. Of course I haven’t watched regularly in like five years, so hey! Who knows? I just feel like it needs to be an intelligent discussion if I’m expected not to squint and call her Lois. There’s also zero reason that nice smiling child isn’t Ned’s son and not Brett Ratner’s. I mean Julian’s. Whoever. Jason and Sam have resumed fulfilling no functional purpose beyond driving action and clinging to their aging and dying demo slice. One or both should now be brutally killed and/or written out. Their story will never go anywhere or evolve in any way while they are paired. Laura Wright, who can weather anything IMO, finally looks very tired. I don’t blame her. Did little Aidan finally get gayed or did they pull back after realizing the opening of that story was wildly offensive? Is Jake, more talented than half the new cast, still on the show? Why does the new Q mansion’s color scheme look like it now comprises over half the current sets of Days of our Lives? Has Jane given interviews? How is she feeling about being back? I remember her exit interviews, which were very gleefully in the key of “fùck this, I’m retired forever!” They need to beg her to do a Jess Walton recurring deal a la Y&R.

She will never work.

Bong's best movie is still the incredible Memories of Murder - the best police procedural of the last 25 years, and a true story that rivals Zodiac - but Parasite is excellent.

Taggert?!

I msged you on PTV.

Classy of Zimmer to be interviewed on it. She discusses it a fair bit in her book.

I thought Lady Bird was profoundly overrated, despite some great performances. Little Women OTOH shocked me by being my favorite film of last year. It was an epic achievement, particularly in terms of its structure and production design, and yes, I feel Gerwig was robbed.

I love a lot of Friedkin's work and really like Sorcerer - I got to see the restoration a few years ago on the big screen - but I adore the original film, Clouzot's The Wages of Fear. [/OT]

J____ and/or possibly an ardent fan have many sockpuppets which are largely inactive but which @Toups and @Errol inexplicably refuse to ban. Donna should be very carefully regulated at the very least, but I guess that would take too much time away from showing up every four months to tell us you'll be back after lunch.

Because of the blood sacrifice they made to Anubis, lord of the dead, Donna.

Lovely to see Sacha Dhawan, who played Waris Hussein in An Adventure in Space and Time, as

I don't have investment in the future of American daytime because daytime has no investment. It's a zombie now. They had their chance to revolutionize (online) and largely shunned it. GH had some good stuff from 2012-2015 - FV and RC saved that show that first year with a mix of wild/bad camp and genuinely good stuff, and had many highs and lows before crashing completely. But only AMC 2.0 and OLTL 1.0 and 2.0 fully mattered to me in the 2010s. AMC 2.0 was the best American soap opera of the 2010s, and it only ran about five months seven years ago. OLTL 2.0, close second. That says it all.

I haven't watched that material since I was a child, but the way I remember it was that while pre-psycho Kristen was invested in by the show, IMO there was never any doubt John and Marlena's connection remained the core of the story. I don't believe Deidre's age was ever a factor. I think they knew what they'd had since the '80s with them and were all in (at the expense of Roman, of course), at least until JER went off the reservation several years later with his Catholic shït and started flirting with John and Hope.