Flick Chicks are back....and we have news....

You may have noticed that me and Allie went on a little hiatus at the end of last year. My workload went entirely insane and didn't ease up until July and even then I was still playing catch up. I wasn't willing to jump back into blogging as I was nervous that I would get busy again and let Allie down and I really didn't want to do that (again!!). Anyway, the other day we had a chat and decided we wanted to get back into blogging and watching movies together but without the pressure of posting every other day. We both have new and different priorities (I'll let Allie tell you her exciting news herself). 

Hi guys! It sure does feel weird to be typing in purple again. A lot of you probably know I set up a little solo blog at the end of last year, but as I've been blogging less about movies there lately it was perfect timing when Jenna said she wanted to kick start Flick Chicks again! To be fair, the conversation was more memes that words, I asked and Allie replied with:

followed by my:

So I guess you'll end up seeing less commentary from me on new cinema releases and more about animated kids movies as I'm due to have a baby any day this month! Argh! Yay!!

I managed to get myself a Promotion at work and I now manage people, not sure what mug signed that off but hey ho! I have finally settled into the role and my workload has become a bit more manageable. This is no where near as exciting as Allie's news which is just amazing and I genuinely can't wait to meet Allie's mini Flick Chick <3

In other news, I am taking part in Sober for October, which in comparison to Allie's last 8 months isn't that impressive.  However, when considered alongside my current gin obsession, it is quite a feat!  Alongside that I am trying (and failing) to swear less, I now have a swear jar at work which is costing me more a day than my monthly food bill!!

I am so excited to be blogging again and to get back into reading all our fellow bloggers posts again! 

I can't even tell you how cool it is to see red and purple back together :D

Flick Chicks Hiatus: An Update!

Hi guys! So, as much as I promised I was still lurking, I realised I've gone quiet on you all over the last week. I have a good reason, I promise. Now that I've finished Christmas shopping and wrapping presents (don't ask about deliveries) I've used some spare time to set up my solo blog. I'm using Wordpress for this one which is entirely new to me, so I've spent many a late night Googling format issues and all sorts.

This new blog will be exactly what I originally intended it to be, an outlet for me to blog about much more than movies. For now there will probably be quite a few movie related posts to satisfy my blogging itch whilst Jenna's still on a break, but I really want to make it clear that I'm not leaving Flick Chicks behind. I am so excited for Jenna to come back, so that we can write the dual-posts that you guys so often tell us you love to read. The upcoming Oscars season is going to be so much fun!

For now though, if you don't mind adding my new blog to your feeds, I would be very grateful. I won't be posting very frequently over Christmas, but I'm planning some New Years Resolution type posts for the start of January, and then it'll pick up a bit in pace from there.

The blog is called Often Off Topic, named because of my tendency to, well, go completely off topic when I'm meant to be focusing on something. Here's the link, and you can also click on the banner which is hyperlinked too.

I'm still trying to sort out the format, and set up Social Media sites for it, so don't panic if you're suddenly being stalked by an Allie Adkins or Often Off Topic, it's just me! Also, if anyone who uses Wordpress can help me out with something, I'd be so grateful.

I've used the Wordpress reader to follow all of the blogs I follow already here on Blogger, but some just won't show any posts available. Do you use the Wordpress reader or do you use an external site?

Flick Chicks Is On Hiatus

Hi guys. This post has been in the works for a week or so now, but I eventually realised there’s no point in flowering it up. This blog is going to go on hiatus for a while. For the last couple of months I’ve tried my hardest to keep Flick Chicks updated on it’s regular schedule whilst Jenna has been away, but it’s getting exhausting, and to be frank, I’ve ran out things to talk about.

December is my favourite month of the year, and my most busiest, so rather than dish out half hearted posts that I’ve rushed to put together I thought it best to take a break all together. The onslaught of brilliant cinema releases has been super useful for writing purposes, but at home I’ve found myself watching a movie for the sake of having something to write about, and that makes both the movie itself and the blogging not as fun as it should be.

I’m not going anywhere though, I promise you that. I’ll still be checking my feed everyday and reading everyone’s posts, I mean let's face it, how else am I going to know what I should be watching? Plus, I love you guys, and it’s you who make this so much fun to do.

As far as the future is concerned, I have plans. This year I feel like I’ve really found my passion for blogging, so much so that I’d like to expand my horizons a little. I want to read more books, and review those, I’d like to talk about some of the games I play, and Flick Chicks isn’t the place to do that. I still predominantly want to talk about movies, but I’d like to create a platform that allows me to combine all of my hobbies. If I do this, I think it’ll be in January, and I hope you guys will follow me over there.

With regards to Flick Chicks, I would love to continue this blog too, just not by myself. So if Jenna wants to come back, I’ll be back too, watch this space!

So I’m not really saying goodbye, because I’ll still be around commenting as much as I always have done, but it might be a while till you see a new post here!

Looking Forward to Seeing at the Cinema: December 2016

Even though the nights are dark, it’s freezing cold, and my Christmas tree is up, I can’t quite believe this is the last ‘Looking Forward’ post of 2016! Where have you gone, year?! After a record number of cinema trips in November (I actually made it once a week) I’m preparing to inevitably fall off the wagon, probably because I’m nearly done Christmas shopping and am now poor.

Anyway, my choice for December was already decided 12 months ago, so before I gush about Rogue One I thought it might be fun to look back at what my choices from the rest of the year were!

January: The Big Short - I started off well and saw this at the cinema. Little did I know how much I would be blown away by Spotlight, though.

February: Deadpool - Yaaaaas! Best Valentine’s Day cinema trip ever.

March: Hail, Caesar! - I had 3 planned and cancelled cinema trips for this one. It just wasn’t meant to be…

April: Midnight Special - Such a good movie. Plus, mine and Jenna’s first cinema trip together of the year.

May: Warcraft - My wedding month! Needless to say, I had to wait for the DVD release of this one. Better than I expected, too!

June: The Nice Guys - This came out whilst I was on honeymoon and disappeared quicker than my wedding cake. A shame because I absolutely loved it when I finally got the chance. Still don’t know how nice my wedding cake was, though.

July: Finding Dory - How have I not seen this yet?! Still waiting a DVD release yet. Let’s hope Santa is listening!

August: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping - We almost watched this on the only bad weather day on honeymoon in June. I had to wait for a UK release instead. Worth every day of the wait!

September: Swiss Army Man - The wait for this was torturous, but worth it in the end. Still the weirdest movie of 2016, if not ever.

October: The Girl on the Train - I never even got round to reviewing this one, because I still don’t know how to feel about it. Kind of wish I’d never read the book and gone in blind.

November: I was greedy last month and picked 4 movies, Nocturnal Animals, Arrival, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Patterson.

Which brings us onto December. This is always a big month for me when it comes to cinema, because my family get together on the weekend before Christmas to see something big at the IMAX. It started with a special screening of The Polar Express back in 2008, and has been a tradition ever since. This year will be slightly different because of work patterns, so we’ll be seeing Rogue One on Boxing Day instead.

It feels odd to be honest, this has probably been my most anticipated movie of the entire year, but this time last year I’d never even seen the Star Wars movies and was making my way through them all so I’d know what was going on in The Force Awakens. Skip to the present day and my current handbag has a Stromtrooper helmet on!

I’m not going to find a trailer to post in here, because I’ve somehow managed to only see the first proper trailer. I’ve heard a lot of TV Spots have been made but I’d rather see as little as possible! At the moment I’m mostly looking forward to seeing Ben Mendelsohn’s character, Krennic. Did you see him rock up on stage at the European Star Wars convention earlier this year in full costume? Dude knows how to pull off a white cape! I just about stopped myself from buying his Pop! Figure at Birmingham’s Comic Con the other week.

What movie(s) are you looking forward to catching before the year is up? 

The Fall: Season 3

After waiting what felt like 2 years (it might have actually been that long) for Season 3 of The Fall, I never even watched it at the time it was shown on TV. Doh! Talk about double standards. I started watching BBC’s The Fall not long after is started in 2013; it came onto my radar when a bunch of whingers complained about the violence in it. What is it about a show receiving complaints that makes it so irresistible? Maybe it was a ploy all along. Plus, Jamie Dornan was the lead and with the rumours going round that he was playing Mr Grey in Fifty Shades, I wanted to see what he was all about.

If you’ve never heard of The Fall, let me fill you in a little. It’s a British Crime/Drama, a cat and mouse game between the police, led by Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) and serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan). Spector has a career as a grief counselor with a wife and 2 children back at home, but in his spare time he preys on women and murders them in unsettling ways. That’s as far as you need to go if you haven’t seen Season 3 yet, the rest of this post is going to riddled with spoilers.

Season 2 ended with Spector being shot whilst in police custody, and it was questionable whether he would survive the ordeal when the credits rolled. I liked this ending, and although it would have been a shame if Spector died from the attack, I could envisage how the rest of Season 3 would go. It seemed reasonable to assume he would live, but when Jamie Dornan started promoting the new Season a few weeks before it returned, he told everyone that Spector was going to survive, and that took the edge off a little. Why tease us if it was that obvious?

Episode 1 was arguably more difficult to watch than some of the actual murder scenes. There’s a reason I don’t watch shows like ER! The entire episode was dedicated to the hospital staff trying to save Paul Spector. Interesting, but it was unnecessary to drag it out an entire hour. Of course, the big twist here is when Spector wakes up, he has amnesia, and thinks it’s 2006. I’ll admit, I didn’t see this coming, and it was quite exciting to see how this would change the investigation.

From there however, everything blurred into one, long episode. There were plenty of new plot points opened up, how Spector’s babysitter Katie (Aisling Franciosi) was going off the rails, how Spector’s poor wife Sally Ann (Bronagh Waugh) was driven to attempt to kill not only herself but her children, and the case being built by the scumbag lawyers against Gibson. The problem is, as interesting as those points were, they got scrunched up and thrown into the trash with that ending.

I haven’t been so mad about a TV Show's ending since Dexter. It’s not the fact that Spector died, it’s the fact that so much story got abandoned in the process. It made the entirety of Season 3 pointless.In the end, I felt much like Gibson. Tired. I even read today that the writers aren’t sure if that’s the actual ending or not. So there might yet be a Season 4! Well, at least a new Season of Fargo is around the corner to fill this void in my life.