I've Been Watching #5

Welcome back to another I've Been Watching :) I'm still completely addicted to Once Upon a Time, but in the interests of keeping these posts fresh, interesting and not full of "I'm-in-love-with-Captain-Hook-how-can-a-pirate-be-so-attractive" chat, I'll simply say Season 3 is utterly compelling viewing. It really is. Now, on with the update...

The 100

Pronounced "the hundred", just so you know, this is a show from US Network "The CW", where many of my favourite shows of all time have come from; it has now, however, been picked up by E4 and airs on a Monday evening (and is available on 4OD). In terms of genre, this tends to be what you might call the YA channel, only, much like all areas from music to movies to literature, YA has become a bit of a grey area, where the age at which it is initially aimed often has little bearing on the actual audience demographics. I'm a big fan of teen television, and will always defend it to people who dismiss it as nonsense (and trust me, I've heard that plenty times before). Anyway, The 100 is jumping on the Hunger Games/Divergent/youths in a dystopian future bandwagon, and again is based on a book of the same name. It explores a post-apocalyptic world, where planet earth has been rendered uninhabitable following a nuclear war, and the remains of the human race have lived on space stations for the past century. The pilot episode sees 100 "juvenile delinquent" types, (who have been imprisoned on the stations for a variety of crimes), sent down to earth to find out if earth has recovered enough for them to return to, with time and resources running out to keep the space stations going. The lead character, Clarke, is played by Eliza Taylor (anyone remember Janae from Neighbours?!) and I've been really impressed with her so far, while Henry Ian Cusick who plays my beloved Desmond in Lost also stars. The story is gripping and it's really nicely shot - there have been a couple of stunning scenes in the forest so far. We're only three episodes in and it's already incredibly creepy, with life on the 'uninhabited' planet earth proving to be a bit more complicated than anyone had expected. Definitely one to watch!

Not Another Happy Ending

Henry Ian Cusick makes another appearance in this 2013 rom-com set in Glasgow. Starring Cusick, the lovely Karen Gillan and Stanley Weber (amongst others), I desperately wanted to love this film - so much of it is shot in and around Merchant City in Glasgow. But honestly? I just didn't. I'm not actually sure what I thought of it. I found my concentration lapsing at a few points, because it just didn't grip me, and while I love Karen Gillan, I felt like her character wasn't quite developed enough for me to properly care about. When it comes to anything film and tv related, I'm all about character, and I just didn't really connect on this occasion. The premise was interesting - Gillan plays an author named Jane Lockhart, and the film explores her complicated relationship with her editor and publisher Tom (Weber), who believes she is unable to write when she's happy. It's a strange little film, and I think it probably had a lot of potential, but I wonder if the casting is what let it down? I'm not sure. If you've seen it and you liked it, or didn't like it, let me know!

Leesha Vlogs

I never tend to put YouTubers in these posts, and keep it mainly film and TV related, but over the past few months I've found myself totally addicted to Leesha's vlog channel - if you're into beauty on YouTube you might know her more from her main channel X-Sparkage. Last month she gave birth to her gorgeous baby girl Violet, and I've been following her and her partner Paul on this channel throughout the pregnancy. Her vlogs are just so chilled out and relaxed, and kind of what I want to make my vlogs like, if I continue daily vlogging for any length of time! Just now it's mainly about spending time with the baby, and getting used to parenthood, but for whatever reason I just find watching her videos so therapeutic. She just seems like the kind of person you'd want to be friends with, and I love getting a little glimpse into her day to day life - the wonders of YouTube!

So that's it for another edition of "I've Been Watching"! Hope you enjoyed that, and hope you're all having a great weekend!

Just as a sidenote, connected to something I mentioned earlier, I'm daily vlogging over on my YouTube Channel at the moment! If you fancy watching me endure the joys of dissertation work, job hunting, and see the buzz around Glasgow from the Commonwealth Games, pop over and check it out :)

Thanks for reading!

I've Been Watching... #2

It's time for another update on what I've been watching recently! Netflix is a wonderful, wonderful thing...

First, let's talk about Fargo. It started on channel 4 a few weeks ago now (we're now 7 episodes in) and it is phenomenally good. Insane, but phenomenal. I usually don't have the patience to watch a TV show as it airs - I am useless, and hate waiting a week between episodes - but I've been managing to keep up with Fargo pretty well. I've never actually seen the original Coen brothers' film, but having heard such good things about it, and being a massive Martin Freeman fan I was intrigued to see what the TV show would be like. The cast is absolutely outstanding - Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton are both superb, as are Allison Tolman and Colin Hanks. My mum mentioned to me that this is the first major role Tolman has landed, which is hard to believe because she is absolutely excellent. Thus far, the show has focused on the unravelling of Lester Nygaard's (Freeman) life following an encounter with a stranger going by the name of Lorne Malvo (Thornton), and the attempts of Deputy Molly Solverson (Tolman) and officer Gus Grimly (Hanks) to solve a series of crimes they believe Malvo is connected to (it is so difficult to summarise what has happened so far without giving anything away!!).

You can catch the show on Sunday night (9pm) on channel 4, or catch up on 4OD (but I'm pretty sure by now the first two or three episodes will be unavailable), otherwise I've been informed by a friend that it is showing on Norwegian Netflix!


Next up we have season one of MTV's teen dramedy Awkward. I watched this entire series over the course of my one month free trial of Amazon Prime Instant Video. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this show, but as a lover of all teen television I was willing to give it a shot, and I'm really glad I did. Is it a little bit predictable? Yes. However, there are some genuinely interesting and well developed characters here that kept my attention through the whole series. It is funny without being too over the top, and explores high school in what feels like a pretty up front way. This isn't your Gossip Girl-esque Upper East Side party zone (which, incidentally, I thoroughly enjoy too), nor is it the opposite extreme which usually depicts teens in pretty dire situations. The only issue for me was main character Jenna's parents - believability sort of went out the window there, and it felt like a sort of awkward (pardon the pun) stereotype of "young parents". That aside, I couldn't wait to get stuck into season two, but to my horror it wasn't available. I'm sure I'll catch it somewhere eventually though!


I FINALLY started watching The Office (the US version) a couple of months back - just when I had lots of uni work to do, of course! It really is as good as everyone told me it was. I am, unsurprisingly, full on obsessed with Jim and Pam. John Krasinski is now, pretty much, my ideal man! I've been a fan of Steve Carell for ages, and he is just brilliant as Michael Scott, he is guaranteed to make me laugh in every single episode. I'm halfway through season four at the moment, so I still have lots to watch, and that pleases me - I love having something familiar to tune in to.


And last but not least for this little update, we have a typically cheesy, rom-com style film called Stuck in Love. As a fan of the majority of the cast of this little movie, I had almost bought it in Asda for £5 a couple of months back, but in an attempt to save some pennies I put it back! This was a wise move, as it appeared on Netflix a couple of weeks later. Starring Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Lily Collins, Logan Lerman, Kristen Bell and Nat Wolff, for a rom-com there are a couple of darker storylines running through the usual romantic stuff here. Much like Awkward, is it a little predictable? Yes, but I genuinely really enjoyed this film, so much so that I got home from a night out the day after I watched it, and put it on again. Any scenes between Lily Collins and Logan Lerman were fantastic - I'm pretty sure I tweeted that they were metaphorically making my heart swell they were so cute, and that's always a hit with me. Is it life changing? Probably not. But I'd definitely say it's worth a watch if rom-coms are your thing!

This is not an exhaustive list of what I've watched over the past couple of months, but just a few words on some things I've been really enjoying! Hope you enjoyed this, and let me know what your favourite films/tv shows of the moment are!

Thanks for reading!

Jumping on the 'Top 5' Bandwagon!

I have been watching and reading a lot of 'top 5' or 'top 10' posts recently and it put me in the mood to do a little mini series of my own! I still hadn't got around to it though when I read the lovely Gillian's Top 5 Books post the other day and decided this was the push I needed to film this video!

As I've mentioned about a million times before, I'm a little bit obsessed with TV, particularly of the American variety (although not exclusively!). With my dvd boxset collection continuing to expand, I thought I'd do a top 5 of X genre series, inspired by this video here from Michelle from SweetBookReviews on youtube - I found her top 10 characters in X genre video really interesting!

So, here is the first instalment - my Top 5 Teen/Post Teen TV Dramas! Sorry it's a bit lengthy - this is a subject I love to ramble on about!! What are some of your favourite shows from the teen tv genre, or some of your favourite teen films? I'd love to know, recommendations are always welcome round about here :) The next video will either be my Top 5 TV Comedies or Top 5 TV Dramas (not of the teen variety!).

For now I'm off to hit the shops to get a card and present for one of my oldest and best friends who got engaged at the end of January (eeeeek, proper grown up stuff happening people!) and is moving to Russia for a year with her fiance - she and I are both jetting off on our adventures just three days apart! Hope you are all having a great Friday and looking forward to the weekend and hope to see some of you Scottish Bloggers at tomorrow night's SBValentines Party in Edinburgh, I can't wait!!


Finally, a custom thumbnail!!