What We’ve Been Watching – May & June

Quite a belated one on our updates on what we managed to watch through May and June – it’s a post which just kept getting pushed back through! I suspected that we may not make much progress in our bid to watch another hundred films this year during the run up to the wedding & whilst we were away, but we did do better than I expected.

Television

We really didn’t watch much television through May and June at all. There’s very little of note that I can think that we watched together, but there’s a few programmes which I watched.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
We loved the first two season of Kimmy Schmidt, but for me there’s something about it that started losing it’s charm this season. I think what made the first two seasons so funny was that Kimmy was so oblivious to everything after being kept underground – but we’re kind of two years on or so from where that story left, she shouldn’t be the same clueless character she was when she got out. I think the show will need to evolve a bit more with a fourth season to keep me interested. There were some hilarious moments in it, but for a lot of it I felt like I was watching a rehash of the first two seasons.

Pretty Little Liars
How can I not mention PLL after 3/4 years of watching the show! The ending of the show promised that we weren’t going to be left with any unanswered questions, unfortunately I was left with even more than when the season started. I didn’t love the ending, I really didn’t want them to introduce a new character on the last episode, because I thought it would seem random and it did. I can’t help but feel like they never had a real plan for how the show was going to end and had to cobble some half-arsed idea together.

Here are some of my top spoiler free thoughts on the finale:
1. English people do not speak like that
2. How did no one notice all that stuff being taken into that house/who built it without questioning what was happening.
3. Did they really have to be so stereotypical in Paris? Striped shirt check, beret check, baguette check. Genuinely surprised there wasn’t a string of garlic swinging from his neck.

It was such as shame as I was actually really enjoying the last season of the show up until the ending.

Grey’s Anatomy
I had to mention Grey’s, we were a bit behind in it being shown in the UK – and we were then a bit behind in finishing it off. I thought this series was back to Grey’s at it’s best, and the last two episodes in particular I thought were really good. Although how many times that hospital has to be attacked, with gunmen loose, fires, explosions, dagger icicles until it’s closed down I’ll never know!

The Handmaid’s Tale
We’re still not done with this yet, but we started watching this as soon as we got back from honeymoon after I’d finished the book. The episodes have been racking themselves up whilst I was waiting to read the book. I can’t get over how different the story and time line is from the book, it’s driving me a bit mad watching it as it’s so fresh in my head, which again is a shame as I think I’d be enjoying it more otherwise.

Jane the Virgin
I’m on a major catch up of Jane the Virgin after Netflix added Season 2 & 3 in very close succession. It’s the show I’m enjoying watching most at the moment. If you’ve never seen it it’s based on Tellanouvellas, and it’s fantastic. I put it on as a I’m ill and just want to watch something trashy for a few hours that I’ll never watch again – but then I became hooked. So good – I’m coming to the end of season 2, now and can’t wait to delve into season 3 and try and catch up before S4 starts in autumn.

Mad Men
We’ve just started Mad Men for the first time after years of planning to watch it. When I say we’ve just started, we have just started – we’re about 5 episodes in and I don’t have any real comments on it at the moment other than I feel like I’m waiting for it to get better. The character progression hasn’t really been happening quick enough and I’m finding it a little bit boring… but I will continue to watch it as Ben is enjoying it and I don’t hate it enough to exile myself from the living room.


Movies

XMen Apocalypse
I’ve skipped the past few Xmen releases, and I wasn’t too keen on watching this one either, but actually I enjoyed this one. The character Apocalypse is the original mutant who is awoken, he tries to rid the world of humans, absorb other mutants powers and amplify them. The best scene stars Quicksilver, the film is almost worth watching for that scene alone.

Batman Lego Movie
We watched this on the plane, the movie choices were vast but we’d seen quite a lot of them so it was slim pickings for trying to find stuff we hadn’t seen. I didn’t really like the first Lego movie, I didn’t love the Batman one – but it was slightly better. I’d put it in the mildly entertaining category – good for kids.

Blackmass
We watched this one day in Bali – we’d planned a pool day and it absolutely chucked it down so stayed camped in our hotel room for the afternoon. We were limited by television channels and this just happened to be what was on the movie channel. Starring Johnny Depp as local mobster who terrorises the neighbourhood and killing anyone who stands in his path or doesn’t play by his rules. I liked this, I just found it a bit long.

Iron Man
Watched on the same rainey night as Black Mass. I mean if you haven’t seen the original Iron Man by now you’re probably not going to are you? Probably my second favourite of the three Iron Man movies (ranking 3, 1, 2 in order).

Fist Fight
Another plane watch, I started watching this between Bali and Kuala Lumpur and finished it on the flight home. I found this way funnier than what I should have done so much so I was actually laughing so loud Ben was staring at me out of embarrassment I think. He ended up watching it on the flight home to see what the fuss was about and found it funny, just not as much as me. It’s about two teachers who have a disagreement, one of them gets fired as a result of the other not lying for him and challenged to a fight on the last day of the school year when the school is already in chaos from leaving pupils. If you like mindless comedies, this is a good one.

Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates
Confession I love Zac Efron. I also love Anna Kendrick, so this should have been a winner for me. Alas it was not. Zac Efron and his brother Adam DeVine (aka Mike and Dave) advertise for wedding dates for their sisters wedding in Hawaii, in no way do these two look like brothers (problem number 1). Two friends apply for the role and chaos ensues. Sadly it was boring, it was predictable, it had the opportunity to be a good movie but didn’t take it. It was almost like they secured a good cast, and then rushed a story line together afterwards.

War Dogs
A true story about two childhood best friends who reunite at a funeral, and end up becoming weapons dealers. I didn’t realise when we started that this was a true story, so was kind of expecting it to be a comedy instead I think it would be more of a drama comedy. It was okay, the character played by Jonah Hill I found just so incredibly annoying I felt like I couldn’t let myself fully enjoy it. It was worth a watch, it just wasn’t fantastic.

Bridget Jones’ Baby
Everyone told me I was going to love the third edition of Bridget Jones’ story, I thought I would with the addition of Patrick Dempsey to the cast. I liked it but it felt like the story was missing something for me, I thought the beginning took a litle too long and then they rushed through the mid section of the film. I like it, I expected to be buying it but I won’t be. It’s the kind of thing that now I’ve seen it I’m done. Also Renee Zwelleger’s new face was a hard adjustment.

Our movie total is now at 36 (end of June), we were actually not that far behind on last year – we’ve made up quite a bit of slack so far in July as well. I’m not convinced we’ll succeed getting to 100, although I never thought we would, it was just the goal to try and meet last year!


Have you got any movie recommendations? There’s a few things I want to go see at the cinema but recent releases don’t seem to inspiring us much!

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Helpless Whilst Drying

Email: helplesswhilstdrying@gmail.com

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24 Comments

  1. July 22, 2017 / 9:00 am

    That is so weird….I started watching Jane the Virgin for that exact same reason! 😂 I was super ill and only anticipated watching it while I was bed ridden – then I got hooked!
    Also, totally agree with you about the PLL finale!!! Xxx

  2. Finja
    July 22, 2017 / 10:17 am

    Looks like a good list, the only thing I’ve been watching is the Handmaid’s Tale, so so good! 🙂 Have a good weekend.
    x finja

  3. July 22, 2017 / 2:51 pm

    I have such mixed feelings on the PLL finale, part of me thought it was ridiculous and part of me loved it! That British accent though….

    • July 22, 2017 / 7:28 pm

      I didn’t hate it but I don’t think it was the ending most of us wanted! All the other bits apart from who it was gave the closure everyone wanted, ezraria wedding, emison, spoby etc but the actual who done it was terrible! Like I said I wish it had been an existing character rather than something new. I also wish they’d given more examples of other times that character had been posing, it didn’t go far enough back to be convincing

      • July 22, 2017 / 7:34 pm

        Yes that’s exactly what I said! They should have used the whole of season 7 to show us that character being around the girls and lettings us feel like something was off!

  4. July 22, 2017 / 9:23 pm

    I started watching Pretty Little Liars but I watched it so much I got a bit bored of it! 🙁 I’m going to see Baywatch in cinema tonight so I hope it’s good x

    S x
    SHELISES WORLD

  5. July 23, 2017 / 1:03 pm

    Thanks for sharing will surely go for it

  6. July 23, 2017 / 8:44 pm

    I loved the Batman Lego Movie! Not for kids at all… 😛 I’m not immature…
    X-Men Apocalypse was such a forgettable movie, ugh – that whole cast just phoned it in. The Quicksilver bit was neat but was done much better in X-Men Days of Future Past.
    We saw War for the Planet of the Apes last night – it was good but I still liked the 2nd one best.
    Of recent releases, we saw Wonder Woman and Spider-Man – both were ok, not Amaaaaazing…
    Have you seen The Accountant? We were surprised how much we liked it.

    • July 24, 2017 / 7:06 am

      I loved the new Spider-Man! Thought it was really unique for the franchise as the character wasn’t so egotistical!
      I haven’t watched any planet of the apes since the first reboot, need to catch up a bit!
      I did have to say when I was writing this up what was x men apocolypse about to Ben as I’d kind of forgotten. To be honest the xmen films I’m kinda over they’re a too many of them and they’re all the same, I wouldn’t watch them if it wasn’t for Ben, but I remember overall I didn’t mind that as much as some of the others.
      I almost watched the accountant on the plane but decided it was probably going to need more of an attention span than I had, I will watch it when it comes to our movie package at home!
      Next at the cinema I want to see is Dunkirk! Hoping to have time to go next weekend

  7. July 24, 2017 / 12:55 am

    I saw your 100 Movie Challenge post last year and I thought it was quite a cool idea so I’ve been counting all the movies I watch and I’m at 65! I knew I watched a lot of movies but I wasn’t expecting that many haha! Love love love Jane the Virgin! Can’t believe E4 didn’t pick it up again?!

    • July 24, 2017 / 7:02 am

      Wow well done! We’re at 46 – this time last year we were on 55 so we’re not too far behind, I thought we would have been further for the wedding!
      I think e4 never really pushes Jane the virgin as much as they do they’re other comedies, considering how often they have reruns of everything else on, they seemed to never bother with jtv! I was late to the party and started watching season 1 on Netflix when s2 was on the tv and it was never replayed for me to catch up on, and had to wait for Netflix, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it wasn’t getting viewing figures but that’s they’re fault for not advertising! I’m happy it’s gone to Netflix personally especially as they’re going to be releasing it an episode a week

      • July 26, 2017 / 10:19 pm

        You say well done but I feel like it just shows how lazy I am haha! I do consider it a hobby though and it’s pretty interesting knowing just how many I’m watching. Ooh I didn’t know they were doing it an episode a week! Thank god because I watched the whole series in a couple of days haha! Didn’t get much else done.

        • July 27, 2017 / 7:19 am

          Yeah it will be released like PLL was and come out just after the US showing it! I’ve been proper binging it most nights this week and I’m almost up to date!

  8. July 24, 2017 / 6:25 am

    Baby Driver was a really good watch! I also recently saw the new Spider-man (which was a cute light watch, imo. i like the new comedic tone of spider-man, very teenage rom-com), and Dunkirk (which was a bit confusing but beautifully shot – and well it’s Christopher Nolan, so I was bound to like it)

    I really need to give The Handmaids Tale a go ! I’m battling with myself on whether or not I should read the book first.

    • July 24, 2017 / 6:58 am

      We have watched the new Spider-Man, but that was in July so didn’t make it to this list. Other than original guardians of the galaxy it’s my favourite marvel film I think, it felt way more unique for the franchise.

      I’ve heard mixed things about baby driver but I do want to see it, I think the next thing we’ll be going to see at the cinema is Dunkirk.

      I loved the book, but I would say don’t watch it straight away like I did, it’s not identical and whilst changes aren’t bad it was a bit too fresh in my mind.

  9. judiththereader
    July 24, 2017 / 10:22 am

    Interesting opinion on The Handmaid’s Tale – I think I have a love/hate relationship with the TV series at the minute. I wrote a more in-depth review of the show on my blog, if you’d like to read it: Thanks! 🙂

    • July 24, 2017 / 11:15 am

      Just took a read, completely agree with you about Serena Joy, I don’t know why they changed her age though – maybe to make it a bit less grotesque between the commander and Offred. We’re still not up to date, I think we’re about 5 episodes in, I agree with Patrick I actually find it quite hard to motivate myself to watch another episode!

  10. July 25, 2017 / 1:09 am

    Oh Bridget Jone’s Baby was awful. I can’t believe I managed to suffer through the whole thing.

  11. August 8, 2017 / 6:40 am

    You pair are on an absolute roll. I feel like I never watch tv (chris is a complete tv hog) and never manage to stay awake all the way through a film! You pair are powering through! You’ll hit 100 by the time Christmas rolls round, it always seem more acceptable to snuggle down on the sofa at 5.30 when the weather is dark and cold! xxx

    • August 8, 2017 / 7:55 am

      Yep in November and December we basically don’t go out, dogs hate the rain and would rather sleep so we end up powering through a couple of movies a day at the weekends ha

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