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Apart from watching pretty much all of The Real Housewives of New York on Netflix over the past month (I know, I'm scarlet for me too), I also managed to fit the following in:

Thor 2: The Dark World.
This is the usual Marvel craic, big baddie threatens Earth, one of the Avengers (obviously Thor in this case) steps in and shows off for a while. I'm a big Marvel fan in theory but there's something about this latest batch of movies that fall short a bit. The Avengers was fantastic but Thor on his own (same goes for Captain America..but never Iron Man!) is a little lacking. There are definitely some funny moments that had me loudly chuckling, Darcy and Loki are great characters and Chris Hemsworth is easy on the eye for sure but overall there's just this unnecessarily convoluted plot that is at times difficult to follow when really all anyone wants to see are the big fight scenes and Loki saying something snide. That said, it's enjoyable and I will no doubt be watching it again..I just wish it was as good as the Avengers.

Gravity.
Sandra Bullock plays a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission into space alongside veteran astronaut George Clooney. All is going fairly routinely until disaster strikes; they lose contact with Houston and are left stranded, tethered only to themselves. The film then becomes a lesson in survival when everything is overwhelmingly against the characters. Clooney is his usual, affable self in this but for me, Sandra Bullock is the real stand-out performance. I like her anyway but I felt this was quite different from her usual parts, given how stripped back and honest it is.
Also, I dare you to watch this without biting all your nails off; it's very tense and a bit too stressful for me, truth be told. Overall, it's very aesthetically pleasing; the expansive shots of Earth from space are stunning and it's well worth seeing this in 3d- it's one of the few movies that actually warrants its use. 

The Conjuring.
I went through a brief period there of avoiding horrors because I was a bit jaded by them. Then I got my terror-mojo back and gave these two a go. The Conjuring is similar to The Amityville Horror in that "large family moves into big old house in the country in the 70's with terrifying results" thing. This time, they have the help of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine who tell a few creepy stories at the start to confirm their weirdness credentials and then basically move in with the family to help rid their home of the malevolent presences within it. I actually really enjoyed this, it's far from perfect but it's an old-school, jumpy ghost-horror that won't scar you for life but will give you lots of "sweet jebus!" moments. There's one in particular involving a wardrobe...I'm still a bit traumatised after it and I haven't been that scared by a horror in a long old time (but in a harmless way). Well worth a watch.

Teeth.

This was a Netflix pick, around Halloween. An independent comedy/horror about a teenage girl who discovers she has teeth in her vagina..yes, you read that correctly. This contains plenty of scenes of sexual violence but mostly involving male victims, which is definitely a new take on these sort of films. In parts it is a bit of a revenge-horror but because of the subject matter it deals with that in a refreshing way. Interestingly, one of my husband's friends watched it and said that it made him aware of how desensitised we've become to films that use sexual violence against women as a plot device (because of how common it is), whereas films like this with male victims are so unusual that it is even more shocking because there is such a sharp contrast between the regularity and the use of two styles. That said, if you have a sensitive disposition, avoid this like the plague. It's graphic and gory and while I have no problem with that, Himself did squirm a bit so definitely not for the faint of heart, or those of a male orientation, in his case!

Have you seen any of these? Anything you'd recommend for me to watch?
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