A maybe weekly round-up (6)

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Life

Brr... it's a little bit cold!

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these. Though, I feel I cover my back by saying ‘maybe‘ in the title of these ‘regular‘ posts.

For the past month, or so, I’ve been enjoying working from home, complete with dressing like a total bum. Going to miss that this week. While working at home definitely has its perks, I don’t know how people do it full-time, all the time. It’s tough! Especially living on your own. And oh so easy to fall into bad habits. Going to resent having to get up an hour earlier and pay for my transport to and from work this week. And having to wrap up to face the cold.

The complaining is a little unwarranted. I only have to take 2 weeks until I’m off to Bahrain! Very nearly time. Nearly.


One of the joys I will miss about working from home is the ability to watch my TV during my lunch break, leaving the evening open for some quality film watching. Managed to watch a ridiculous FOURTEEN films last month. And I swear this is mostly because of this little fact. Highlights?

Gravity

Gravity

Gravity finally rolled around to UK screens and I couldn’t wait. Well, I could, because I did. It was worth the wait. BUT. The 3D? Just don’t see it. Personally, I don’t think the 3D increased my viewing pleasure of the film whatsoever. I swear, after a certain amount of time I just got used to it. Yes, I can see that it’s adding depth and “immersing” the viewer in the film. But I don’t need that! Give me a good story with some interesting characters and that’s enough to immerse me into it. For sure.

Which is exactly what Gravity had. And along with the pretty much 99% of you guys out there, Gravity is on my list of favourite films of the year.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

I’m not a huge ‘need-to-see-Christmas-films-this-time-of-year’ sort of person. My kind of Christmas films are the likes of Die Hard and Gremlins. And now Rare Exports. It’s a ridiculous film. Something I’ve come to expect from any film from the Scandinavian region. Ridiculous and fun. Very light-hearted. But some little touches of serious tones. Which I enjoyed. My first Christmas film of the season.

Oh and, the less you know, the better for you. Trust me.

The Sting

The Sting

Ken is teaching me about good films. Previous ‘good’ films he sat me down to watch were Life of Brian and One Upon a Time in the West. The Sting is the next one and so far, all of them have been great introductions to films I think I should definitely have seen.

Watching The Sting, all the way through it, I could see hints at what current filmmakers have taken from it. Little things like double-double-crossings. Some intelligent characters. And clever plot devices. In parts, it made me think it was the Inception of its time. Maybe. But, The Sting is definitely a brilliant classic film. An astoundingly young Robert Redford and ever dapper Paul Newman. Would love to watch it again too.

Look forward to many more film teachings, Ken. And possibly a lesson or two in the English language.

Also, watched a BUNCH of documentary films. More on those… later!


The lacklustre TV season continues. Homeland has finally picked up, with only 2 more episodes to go this season.

The Walking Dead is the biggest tease in the world. Has some great set-ups, awfully boring episodes then drops some massively exciting cliff hangers. Generates massive amount of momentum episode to episode, then drops a couple of woefully slow episodes that just breaks everything up. Sad to say, that mid-season finale might just have been enough for me to be mildly interested on what’s going to happen post-hiatus.

Almost Human

Almost Human started last month and I have been watching. Pleasantly surprised by this show. Four episodes in, and hand on heart, I am enjoying it. So far. It’s pretty much Blade Runner/Minority Report/I, Robot rolled into one. With themes from various other sci-fi films thrown in there from time to time. But it’s enjoyable to watch. Michael Ealy and Karl Urban make a good on screen team. They’re bros and fun to watch. I think from the second episode I knew I’d like those two together. I’m not saying that this is the best sci-fi TV show to come and that it’s the most original brilliant bit of sci-fi on TV in years. It’s far from it. I’ve made some predictions in my head, waiting for those to pan out. I really want them to surprise me. Even if they don’t, I look forward to it episode by episode. So far, I’ve been given some enjoyable bits of TV to watch. So … maybe, yay?


Been trying to keep up with the rest of you guys on your blogs, but Jesus, you guys work a lot harder than I do! Here are some of my favourites from what I’ve been catching up with…


Hope you’re having a good start to your week!

10 Comments

  1. Thanks for the linkage! I too forsee Gravity will appear on many best-of-the-year lists, mine included. The Sting is a lot of fun, “do you follow” is a movie quote our family often use πŸ™‚ Hope you have a good trip to Bahrain!

  2. I’m so glad to hear your thoughts on the 3D in Gravity. I avoided the 3D screening, as I do with every movie, because, for my personally, 3D has always failed to ever “immerse” me in anything I’ve seen it in. Rather, it’s merely distracted me from the actual story at hand, and I’ve always walked out feeling like I missed something, only to come back around to a 2D screening and be surprised by just how much I missed ’cause my attention was taken away by the 3D “spectacle”, lol. Yeah, I’m not a fan of that stuff. Still though, glad you enjoyed the movie itself. πŸ™‚

    • Was desperately trying to find a 2D screening of Gravity, but there were none πŸ™

      I get the distraction thing. Though, I think Gravity had a reason to be 3D. It was technically meant to be a 3D film. Rather than 99% of films that are given a 3D makeover post production. Didn’t feel there was anything to distract me with in Gravity, but there wasn’t anything I was seeing that made me think “woah man, that’s coming at me!”

      The 3D in Gravity didn’t add anything for me. The depth of space and the utter vastness of it and just how lonely it can be was conveyed brilliantly enough by performances by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and how it was filmed and brought to life.

  3. I’m so glad you liked Gravity, though I think this is the first time I read about someone not loving the 3D there πŸ™‚ But if after a while you got used to it I think the film just did a stunning job in immersing you into itself.

    • Ha! Maybe. I just didn’t SEE it. Seeing Clooney drift off into space and the darkness of it all. I got that there was a bleakness and vastness to the situation without the need for 3D. The score and actors did that for me.

      Though, I won’t doubt that Gravity is a technically brilliant film.

  4. I see you have watched Rare Exports. That is one creepy but funny movie, so odd. Yeah it’s true that the less you know, the better. I wasn’t really impressed with Gravity, though.

  5. Glad you enjoyed Gravity too, that’ll be on my BEST list surely. Oh and The Sting! That’s on my BlindSpot series list I’m doing in 2014. Must be fun preparing for your Bahrain adventure πŸ˜€

  6. Alright, now I have to see Gravity! I’ve never seen a movie in 3D and don’t think I ever will. Thanks for mentioning my giv-ng extravaganza & so happy you could join in on the fun! I have a feeling I might not get to my gift until after Dec 25th since I was so keen on making gifts for the family this year. So much to do!

    • Christmas is a time to be completely run off your feet in the run up and have an enormously relaxing post Christmas season. πŸ˜€

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