What I've Been Watching: August Edition

Happy Thursday! Well, it's not very happy for me, haha! I'm full of a cold, have swollen and red-raw tonsils, can't stop coughing and had around 3 hours sleep because I couldn't breathe very well. I really hope that this bug or whatever it is passes soon, because I have plans for the first time in ages next week. I'm off to see the new version of IT with my best friend, and I'm really looking forward to it! Fingers crossed that these cherry soothers that I've been stuffing into my mouth for the last several hours help speed things along! Anyhow, on with today's post... you may have seen last month that I started up my 'What I've Been Watching' monthly series again (you can see the post here if you haven't read it already). Well it's time for my August edition! I've watched A LOT of movies and documentaries this month, so I've just choosen a few to discuss. I will try to keep spoilers to the minimum, however I'll be talking about what the movies are about, my favourite parts, etc! I hope you all enjoy reading :) 

 The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) 

I was searching for more movies starring actor Ezra Miller when I came across this one. I think he's an awesome actor! I've loved his character in every movie I've watched with him in it so I was pretty sure I'd enjoy this movie even before I read up about it. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a really interesting movie, and it was definitely my cup of tea since I love psychology! It is based on a real experiment which took place in the early 1970's at Stanford University in America. The experiment was conducted by Dr Philip Zimbardo and his team, and involved students participating in a simulation of a prison environment. Some of the students were assigned roles as the guards and others as the prisoners. I love that the movie was historically-based and that Dr Zimbardo himself was a consultant on the movie so a lot of the movie was very accurate in depicting what really took place during the real experiment. It was fascinating and also scary how 'passionate' the students playing the guards got about their roles. I would love to tell you more about the movie, but I don't want to spoil it! It's worth a watch guys :) Let me know what you think if you check it out. 

Missing 411: The Movie (2016) 

I adore a good documentary and this one didn't disappoint! It was one of those documentary movies that get you really analysing the facts put before you to come to your own conclusions about what you think actually happened. Missing 411 is about the massive number of people who go missing in National Parks across America, many of which are children. Some of them are never seen again, others bodies are found months and even years later. A lot of them in questionable and strange circumstances. Despite all of these mysterious occurances, the authorities in charge of governing National Parks in the States still have not set up a database of missing people. Why? It is certainly weird. I can't say much else without feeling like I'm revealing too much. I'd give this documentary 3 out of 5 stars. 

Harlots (2017) 

I was reading a post on facebook by Buzzfeed (but don't quote me on that!) that was recommending other shows you might enjoy if you like Game of Thrones. Due to the history-based elements in Game of Thrones, there were lots of period drama series on the list, most of which I'd already watched since period dramas are my thing! History geek me very much enjoyed this ITV drama, and it was also awesome to see Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay (she played Sybil on Downton and is just so gorgeous) playing one of the main characters! As the title of the series suggests it tells the story of sex workers, living in 18th Century London. It centres around a brothel owner and the girls who work for her. It is based on a book called 'The Convent Garden Ladies' by Hallie Rubenhold. During Victorian Britain, life for women was very tough and the only way many of them could ensure their survival was to work as a sex worker or marry a wealthy man. The aim of many of the sex workers in this time period was to be asked to become mistresses to high-society men. The drama is about the women and different brothels competing with one another, plus dealing with the other perils of life in the 18th Century. It is filled with such strong female characters and I liked it so much that I binged watched the entire first season over 24 hours! I really enjoy ITV period dramas in general, they've aired some great ones like Ripper Street & Poldark. Enjoy history like me? Then give 'Harlots' a watch!

There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane (2011)

Last month, I decided to give HBO documentaries a watch since I'd only ever seen fictional series produced by them. I started off with 'There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane', which covers the story of Taconic State Parkway Crash that took place in 2009 and was one of the worst accidents in US history apparently. The crash occured when a woman drove head-on into oncoming traffic and caused the deaths of the driver herself, her young passengers and also the people in the car she collided with. There was only one survivor of the horrific crash and that was the driver's 5 year old son. The documentary consists of interviews with people that knew the driver, Diane Schuler. Her immediate family were trying to clear her name after police reported that there was alcohol and cannabis found in Diane's system. As a result, she was branded as a unfit, irresponsible parent which her loved ones disagree. The documentary, through these various interviews with people who knew Diane, people involved in the case such as detectives and such, they all paint different pictures of what actually happened and what Diane was really like. I hope I didn't give away too many spoilers, but I cannot recommend this documentary enough. I enjoyed listening to all sides of the story and coming up with my own opinions. If you decide to watch it for yourself, please let me know what you think about it! 

The Duke Of Burgundy (2014)

I stumbled upon a gif from this movie over on tumblr and was very curious about the theme of the movie. It is centered around two women, who are in a Dominant and submissive relationship dynamic, and I was pleased to see a modern movie depicting a kinky dynamic that wasn't based on a heterosexual relationship or anything like the disaster that is Fifty Shades of Grey. It was certainly a unique movie with some very interesting cinematics and lots of imagery. I didn't know this before watching the movie but The Duke of Burgundy is actually a species of moth, and the movie very cleverly in my opinion, uses imagery of moths throughout. I was curious to see how the D/s relationship was depicted in this movie, and was impressed to find that it did not mimic the representation of D/s that many other movies do. They always focus on the control of the Dominant over the submissive, but in this movie we see that the submissive is very much in control of most of the aspects of the relationship. In real life, this is very much the case and what lots of people don't release is that the submissive is the one who controls the dynamic. Another cool thing about this movie, directed by Peter Strickland, is that there was no men in it whatsoever! I love quirky movies and this one was differently like nothing I've watched before :) 

Game of Thrones Season 7

{There will be spoilers here guys!} As all of my regular readers will know, I'm a big fan of George R.R. Martin's novel series 'A Song of Ice and Fire', which inspired the HBO series named after the first book in the series. I love love love it! Even if you don't personally watch GoT, you'll know that on social media throughout last month, Season 7 of the series was all anyone talked about! I don't blame them of course because it was an amazing season, but I'm biased. If you watch Game of Thrones but have not caught up with all of the episodes of S7, skip this section because **SPOILERS** are coming your way! So many things happened on this season, it was an explosive one indeed! Quite literally, since Daenerys' biggest dragon, Drogon, absolutely scorched most of the Larrister Army! This was definitely a very impressive scene and had be panicking for the safety of so many characters. In this season, Tormund appears a lot to my delight since he's a yummy man indeed. It was lovely to hear the conversation between him and Sandor (The Hound) about Brienne. It was adorable! This season didn't disappoint when it comes to death and destruction that's for sure. As we finally saw the end of creepy LittleFinger just when they made it seem like his scheming plans would work in his favour, and it was epic! As much as I try to dislike Cersei, she is pretty badass and I can't help but admire her determination and drive. She was great in this season! Finally, we were all devasted when we watched the fall of Viserion, one of Dany's beloved dragons! I was freaking out a little too because I couldn't be sure what had happened to Rhaegal for a while, and he's my favourite of the dragons (mega nerd!) but all was well with him when I saw him flying over the Dragon Pit in King's Landing. I wasn't surprised with what happened to Viserion as I suspected one of the Dragon's being controlled by the Night King all along. The season ended with a mix of happiness and sorrow, with Jaenerys finally becoming a thing but then, what happened to Tormund? I'm prepared for a riot if he's not safe! Who's with me!? Oops, I wrote a lot about GoT. I don't know how I'm going to cope until it's back on *cry cry* 

I hope you all enjoyed reading about some of my favourite watches of August. I watched quite a lot of movies this month and I'm proud of myself for getting back into this hobby after spending so long with no motivation to watch stuff! I watched several thrillers, with my favourite being Rupture (2017). It was different and although crappy in places like many horror/thriller movies nowadays, it definitely wasn't the worst I've seen. I watched various documentary movies, a few movies with actress Juno Temple in because I think she always does an awesome job too. I watched Child Genius on Channel 4 and also the first few episodes of the new Season 3 of Rick & Morty. It was awesome as expected! 

Thankyou for reading! 

 ♥

What did you watch in August? 

I'm always looking for recommendations!