This Month: July

at the cinema i saw 

It was a slow month for movies, which meant I only saw three new films. How depressing. Probably an all-time low.

Jersey Boys 

I've not seen the stage musical of Jersey Boys but I really enjoyed the movie. The music was great and of course I fell in love with the asshole character, Tommy. As the story moves pretty quickly through time (the characters start out at about 16 and end up, well, old) I thought they were doing a pretty decent job of ageing the actors up, until I found out they were like 40 and they were AGEING THEM DOWN. What betrayal.

Calvary 

I suppose this was a good movie. I mean "the critics probably liked it" not "entertaining and I liked it." It didn't particularly move me in any way. Even the scene where Brendan Gleeson literally gets his brains blown out didn't make an impact. I didn't feel like there was much suspense, because I picked who the murderer was from the beginning, so I was just waiting for it to happen. Pretty, beautiful scenery. weird cameo by Brendan's (gorgeous) son Domnhall, but otherwise...you know. Kind of boring.

Sex Tape

Heaps of fun. Especially the parts when they were flustered about the Cloud because same. Literally what is the Cloud???? Never trust the Cloud. I don't really know what else to say about this movie other than I had a good laugh.

i watched

In The Flesh A super cute zombie drama with a super cute main character (Kieren, played by Luke Newberry) with actually a lot of social commentary and metaphors for social issues woven in. We follow Kieren as he tries to settle back into his small, close-minded town after rising from the dead, and the members of the town as they come to terms (or don't) with the presence of Partially Dead Syndrome sufferers in their lives. It's a miniseries, three one-hour episodes in the first series and six in the second, so it's a quick binge watch that will also conveniently tear your heart out at the same time. 

The 100 Another CW YA sci fi show??????? Sign me up. About a century after some sort of something that made earth uninhabitable for humans, the space station carrying the last of humankind is running our of oxygen and supplies. Their only hope: send 100 underage prisoners to the ground as guinea pigs because it doesn't matter, they were going to be executed anyway. It's another one of those shows where it's really all about the teenagers but they try and put in a storyline about the adults that literally nobody cares about. The first season basically covered the 100, led by beautiful heroine Clarke and kind-of-an-asshole-but-still-really-hot Bellamy, struggling to survive, govern themselves, and find and keep supplies, and discovering that there actually are people that have been living on earth this whole time! Exhilarating. Plus, Bellarke. Watch it, you'll see what I mean. 

i listened to 

Taylor Henderson My fave from last year's X Factor Australia just released his second album (well, first proper one. The X Factor cover albums don't really count) and it is so lovely I haven't stopped listening to it all month. I saw him live at the end of last month and he is just so fantastic it hurts me. 

i read 

The 100 by Kass Morgan I obviously read because I had just finished the TV show and I really wanted to know if Bellarke happened. What I found was quite similar to the show, however there were a few characters added or changed for the show. There was a storyline I LOVED in the book that they cut out of the show and decided to replace with the aforementioned crap token adult storyline, God knows why. Why? Why. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this and I'm excited to see where both the book and the show go on from here.

The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin is the sequel to The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer which I read last month. This one got INTENSE. I loved it. In this one, Mara is struggling to deal with the fact that she can kill people by thinking about it, obviously, and the fact that everyone around her thinks she is mad and are constantly institutionalising her. On top of this, she knows her ex-boyfriend Jude, who was supposedly killed in an accident she caused pre-book 1, is alive, and coming for her. These books are crazy and creepy and exciting, plus the romance isn't the whole focus, even though it is great. They just lazily bicker and banter all the time, it's so entertaining.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me is Mindy Kaling's biography, basically, full of anecdotes about her life growing up and working her way up to being a writer on The Office. This is pre-The Mindy Project, but if you've seen that you'll love this book. So funny, laugh out loud funny, and mostly very relatable, this was a quick but very entertaining read.

I Am Juliet by Jackie French is a book I am probably too old for, but when I heard that it was giving life and mind to one of my favourite characters of all time, I had to read it. It's basically Romeo and Juliet from Juliet's perspective. You probably haven't thought about it too much, but Romeo and Juliet doesn't really tell us all that much about Juliet (which is potentially why so many people misread it and dismiss her as a stupid little girl) and this book was an opportunity to delve into her thoughts, her life, her routine as a young noble girl in Verona at the time. It was quite simple, but for an R&J fan like myself, a really fascinating read. Loved it.

i got obsessed with 

Musicals! 

Living in Australia, we don't have anything like the prestigious Broadway or West End experiences, where many shows run simultaneously for long periods of time and the big ones never close. We get limited runs, usually one at a time, of random shows and sometimes you have to fly interstate to see them. I've seen almost all of the musicals that have had Australian productions since 2007 and I have loved them, but this month was my first time delving into the world of Broadway and getting into shows that haven't played here.

I thought, to ease myself in, I'd start with Newsies. What I found was that there is no "easing in". It's all or nothing, and with Newsies I am ALL IN. I've watched it so many times in the last month I know all the words to everything and all I listen to is the soundtrack, driving round belting out Santa Fe in my tiny red Suzuki Swift. Of course, being me, I got invested in a show that is closing next month and all my hopes and dreams of one day travelling to America to watch it are dashed. Prayer emoji it gets picked up by someone to start an Australian run. SOON.

So far I've also watched Matilda, which is coming to Australia next year, Next to Normal, and Heathers. All are excellent and have excellent music, which means I never get them out of my head. "Candy Store" from Heathers is such a bloody tune.