Films I Watched In: September

I watched seven films in September, which at first I found rather frustrating because it brought my Grand 2018 Tally to seventy-nine and not a nice round number like eighty (the OCD freak that secretly lives inside me really wished that could have been a nice round number like eighty). However, I realised that with seventy-nine films under my belt, I would have a further twenty-one to go – to make a hundred this year (and yes maths was always my strong point). So anyway – with three months left until the end of the year, twenty one very nicely divides into seven films a month. Woo-bloody-hoo I hear you all cheer.

So most of the films – surprisingly – were first time watches. The only one that wasn’t was Eden Lake (2008) – a bloody good film that I’d not seen in a while. I’ve always said it’s a good horror and still think it is. It’s believable – and very bleak. Whilst violent in places it’s not silly or cartoon-ish and the characters are likable which makes me care more and feel affected when shitty things happen to them. Aww.

If only he had Magneto’s mad skillz (yes the ‘z’ is intentional) in Eden Lake and he’d soon sort that lot out. Anyway, the six new watches were:

Outbreak (1995)

Rocky III (1982)

Rocky IV (1985)

Rocky V (1990)

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

A Quiet Place (2018)

Um, yeah. Bit of a rocky patch there (ho ho). I literally went from having never seen a Rocky sequel or even caring to bother that much, to, well you know what, I think it’s better explained with this picture:

Yes, that this it the complete Rocky box-set on Blu-Ray AND soundtrack for Rocky IV (I have ‘No Easy Way Out‘ set as my ring tone) and I can’t go on Amazon without a million Rocky, boxing glove and ‘action movie’ recommendations. I’m talking about a big for the living room. Seriously – where have these films been all my life? My lovely boyfriend bought me the box set after realising I loved the films as much as – or even a little bit more than – him. I’m lucky he’s not the jealous type and I’m only joking of course, I don’t love anything as much as the Rocky films him!

I knew early on watching Rocky III that I really, really liked it and my love grew as we carried on with the franchise (Rocky IV is currently my favourite). I like the fun, I like the action, I like the humour – both intentional and not. I like the fact they’re not massively long in duration. I love the music and the awesome 80s montage scenes but of course mostly, I just love Rocky. As in, the character Rocky (AKA my Personal Hero) who is so cool and so lovely and so heroic and has the warmest brown eyes ever.

I actually began to find Sylvester Stallone a little attractive at times and trust me, during my thirty three years on this planet (give or take, hopefully take) that has never happened before.

I realise they’re silly in places. Rocky digging out his ‘old clothes’ in Rocky V before he moves back to his old neighbourhood particularly made me laugh. Like, WHO digs out clothes they wore thirteen years ago just because they’re going back to somewhere they used to live?! That would be like me going back to my hometown and dragging my old school uniform out of retirement (probably full of hot rocks anyway to be fair). Though none of this silliness is a problem for me (Con Air is one of my favourite films for gods sake, silliness is NOT a problem), I just like films to have heart and be fun. The Rocky franchise certainly has heart and they are A LOT of fun.

I have (since the end of September) watched Rocky Balboa – and next on the list is Creed. So watch this space for more ranty news – they’ll both be in October’s list (Halloween or no Halloween).

Outbreak I watched on TV and yeah, it was pretty enjoyable for a one time watch. It was about some virus outbreak and government cover up etc. Wikipedia describes it as a ‘medical disaster movie’ – which makes it sound a bit cooler than it was. It had quite a star studded cast and after finding out Dustin Hoffman and Reno Russo were the main actor and actress (I like the word actress, I don’t see why I should give it up) my boyfriend and I were delighted to see all these other household names start to emerge.

“oh, Morgan Freeman is in it too…surprise surprise.”

“…and Cuba Gooding Jr.!!”

“wait, is that Kevin Spacey?”

“yes that is Kevin Spacey!”

(both at once) “…fucking hell, Donald Sutherland!”

(as one final thought) “I know who it is, just came to me! It’s Patrick Dempsey! A very young Patrick Dempsey!”

Actually neither of us were particularly excited about that last one. Sorry.

Philosophy man.

On to The Conjuring 2 which I couldn’t remember if I’d seen or not and is free to watch on Prime. I HADN’T seen it but I thought it was fun. Just a bit of horror fluff to be honest but enjoyed it fine. I have a soft-spot for these generic ghostie thrillers, many of them ruined my childhood sleepy times. Anyway, I enjoyed it FAR MORE than A Quiet Place which I really, really didn’t like. And I’m not one to be a complete misery online and just slag off movies for the sake of it, but either it was massively shit (which I think maybe it was) or just really mis-marketed – which in fairness, it definitely was.

I knew as soon as *spoiler ahead* that creature came and ate the kid messing around with the toy plane that I wasn’t going to like it and it WASN’T going to be scary and it might possibly be lame. And let’s be honest, I was kinda right.

It was boring (so boring), inconsistent and more about ‘family’ than scares (who wants to watch life affirming family rubbish over horror?!). I laughed when *another spoiler* the dad went ‘arghhhhhhhhhhh’ so the monster would eat him rather than his kids trapped in the car. Cornball.

Anyway, that’s all. I want to crack on with some Halloween posts now and even cheapening the name of Halloween in the same sentence as A Quiet Place is really quite disgusting. Let’s finish with this gif from Creepshow 2 – SO MUCH BETTER!