As my ALMS-plan stated, I was supposed to watch quite a lot of movies, series and documentaries etc. I have done just that. First I’d like to recap this one movie I watched from Netflix, Bird Box. It’s a thriller/horror movie starring Sandra Bullock. A bit about the plot: there is some mysterious presence – invisible to the viewer – that drives everyone who is unfortunate enough to glance a look at it, to commit a suicide. The only way to survive in this apocalyptic environment is to wear a blindfold every time you step outside. Mallory, played by Sandra Bullock, has to get two of her children to safety to this certain place, after five years of daily struggling just to survive. The story follows their desperate journey, and offers flashbacks to earlier days of this civilisation-sweeping mass-suicide epidemic to let the viewer know what has happened five years prior to the start of the protagonists’ bid to safety.
Now I made the mistake of watching this movie alone in my small apartment late in the evening. I mean, it was intense and I must stress this – I do not enjoy horror-films, so I really don’t know why I chose to watch it haha. But overall, not considering my deep hatred towards horror, the movie was surprisingly pleasant to watch. It wasn’t too much of a “crap your pants and lose your sleep for a week” -type of experience. But afterwards speaking though… it wasn’t even that good of a movie sadly. It was okay I guess, it just lacked a few elements here and there that would’ve made it better in my opinion. I’d give it a rating of 6/10.
Next up on my Netflix-summary: a series called Broadchurch! It takes place in a small coastal-town in Britain, where 11-year-old Danny Latimer has been murdered. It causes a huge, really unwanted media-frenzy, which totally turns the lives of its residents upside down, mostly of course the Latimers’. Everyone seems to be hiding something, to have secrets they are unwilling to share even at this tragic hour, and it’s the job of a recently arrived D.I. Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and his partner D.S. Ellie Miller (Olivia Coleman, a recent Academic Award -winner!) to solve the case, and bring back the remains of the once thrived peacefulness of the town.
Now this series… it’s… it’s amazing! It is one of the best things I have ever watched. The actors are perfect for their roles, and you really get a feeling like this thing has actually happened. It is touching, provoking, irritating, frustrating, hopeful… it really sucks you in like a hoover does to a dust mite. As a viewer, you are constantly given new hints on who might have committed the horrendous crime, but you can never be sure. And I promise, the inevitable revealing of the killer will come as a shock to you, but it’s so good that you can’t help but to applaud the screenwriters’ creativity while still being so baffled on what just happened, that you begin to question everything you have seen. In all fairness, I loved every single second of this show. So much so that I actually binge watched the entire first season in one day haha. This masterpiece mops the floor with the Bird Box I watched earlier, no debate. And the rating? A solid 10/10 of course!
Last but not least on this list of the things I’ve recently been watching on Netflix, is Top Gear. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of this number one show of the worlds petrol-heads. In fact, it was the number one show of the world, period (based on the numbers) – no matter if you were a car enthusiast or not. The popularity of the show was much thanks to its hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Sadly, the trio left the show in 2015 following a fall-out between Clarkson and the shows’ producers. They now have a show on Amazon Prime called the Grand Tour. Anyway, back to the episodes I’ve been watching. Now I’ve seen a lot of them in my time, but recently I decided to just watch all of the best episodes again for fun, and because they are so well made that it’s a pleasure to the eye and mind every single time.
The episodes I’ve been watching have included, for example, a trip to the source of the River Nile, a race in St. Petersburg between a car, a bike, a hovercraft and public transport, a look down in the history of a few car-makers such as Saab and Peugeot, and of course driving and testing new, magnificent cars, just to name a few.
The time I’ve spent watching these shows and the movie discussed above, is around 22 hours in total.