Everyone goes wild when the pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin beer hits the stores.  Not me.  It’s definitely a good way to ruin beer and coffee.  Before I digress into my feelings about pumpkin and pumpkin spice, I’ll stop here.  

Late August, early September marks the end of the summer blockbuster season.  A lot of people take a break from the movies until Thanksgiving.  However, if you favor the horror and suspense genres, now is the time for you to hit the movie theaters.  I love a good suspense thriller, but I’m very selective about horror movies.  I want to see horror movies that are believable or loosely or accurately based on true stories.  I don’t enjoy slasher movies.

Recently, I saw Searching, The Nun, and A Simple Favor.  Searching and A Simple Favor fit into the suspense category while The Nun is pure horror.  The Nun is part of The Conjuring Franchise.  If you’re familiar with those movies, you’ll know that this demon nun first made an appearance in The Conjuring 2.  The Conjuring series is based on fact, but I don’t know the extent of what was fact and what was left to the imagination of the writers.  The Nun gave me an adrenaline rush in a few spots. The scary image of this demon nun kept me up last Saturday night.  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that image.  Overall, I felt the story was ok.  I didn’t dislike it, but I will not go out of my way to see it when it’s available for streaming.

Searching is about a widower whose daughter went missing and was presumed dead.  Without giving away the storyline, I will say the filming is very unique. I have been dragging my feet over this blog post because I find it difficult to describe how the movie was filmed.  The movie was filmed from the viewpoint of a computer webcam or smart phone camera.  So, the viewer is watching the film through the phone or computer.  It was not distracting in any way.  I was able to follow the story just as I would with a traditional movie.  The filming was very well done.

If I had to pick my favorite of the three, it’s A Simple Favor.  It was a suspense movie with a dark comedic edge.  I like a good dark comedy.  Again, I will not reveal the story or plot, but this was a good movie,  It kept me riveted the entire time. It’s everything a good suspense movie should be (in my humble opinion).

Will I see some other movies that are due to be released in the next few weeks?  I don’t know.  I will play it by ear.  I typically don’t pay attention to movie critics because they don’t like what I like or vice versa.  In the meantime, feel free to comment on the movies I mentioned or let me know what I should see.  Also, feel free to comment your feelings on pumpkin or pumpkin spice.

 

 

Over the past year, I discovered that I truly enjoy going to the movies.  I think the reclining seats, wide aisles, and cup holders contribute to my enjoyment.  No more wrestling for the arm rest and climbing across bodies if you have to get up in the middle of the movie.  It’s like flying business class.  Once you’ve done it, you don’t want to go back to coach. Well, the same goes for these theaters with the reclining seats.

As I mentioned in my first post, I wanted to have a blog about movies.  My intention was to review each movie I saw in a separate blog post.  Since the 2018 summer blockbuster season is over, I’ll make a list of the movies I saw this summer.  They’re in no particular order:

• Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom
• Book Club
• Ocean’s 8
• Adrift
• Avengers: Infinity War
• The Meg
• Crazy Rich Asians
• Ant-Man and The Wasp
• Life of The Party
• Solo:  A Star Wars Story
• I Feel Pretty
• Tag
• The Spy Who Dumped Me

That’s a lot of money on pop corn, Diet Coke and admission. But the movies saved me from the torture of watching reruns all summer.  Yes, I know there’s Netflix, but if I’m going to watch something on Netflix, I have to be fully committed to the binge.  For some reason, I couldn’t get into binge-mode this summer.  Before I digress further into my binge-watching habits, I’ll continue with the subject at hand.

My surprise favorite this summer was The Avengers: Infinity War.  I am by no means a comic or superhero junkie, but I do find that genre enjoyable.  The other 2 favorites were Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8.  Crazy Rich Asians was also a pleasant surprise.

Most of the summer blockbusters should be available for streaming or on Blu Ray.  One thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that movies do not linger in the theaters anymore.  If you want to see something, jump on it within the first two weeks, otherwise it may be relegated to a less desirable theater WITHOUT the wide aisles and reclining seats!!!!