Films To Keep You Awake Spectre 2006 Full Movie Watch Online
Beverly Zielonko
You can keep your modern ghost stories. I understand why they would terrify some people, but those films tend to leave me cold. They use modern science to find something which cannot be scientifically explained, but trying to find ghosts the same way special ops teams try to find terrorists diminishes the illusion. You can only shake the camera so much before I wonder if the ghosts have access to a tripod. The stories also tend to lack any subtext and generating scares is their sole mission. I prefer my ghost stories gothic and foreboding and that's why I adored Nick Murphy's The Awakening. The film still uses the same conceit of using the scientific to explore the paranormal, but does so with early 1920s technology and it's far more exciting to see an investigator who uses cameras which rely on a trip-wire and a magnesium flash than someone who went down to the local Best Buy and asked for a quality camcorder. In addition to its creativity, Murphy paints a gorgeous picture that delivers the thrills, chills, and terrific performances from Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, and Imelda Staunton.
Following the Spanish flu and World War I, the opening titles tell us "This is a time for ghosts." In London, 1921, skeptic Florence Cathcart (Hall) believes it's a time for debunking ghosts. Florence is the popular author of the book "Seeing through Ghosts" and she's entreated by teacher Robert Mallory (West) and matron Maud Hill (Staunton) to investigate their provincial boys boarding school where one of the students has died after reports of seeing the twisted spectre of young boy. She decides to take the case so the students won't have to live in fear, but as she continues to investigate the house, she begins to see that her reliance on science may not be enough to explain the strange phenomenon around her.
Murphy hooks the audience from the get-go with Edward Grau's lush cinematography and Daniel Pemberton's beautifully melancholy score. You sink into the movie like a warm bath and bath has a ghost hand in it. The Awakening has its fair share of jump scares, but they're timed perfectly so that they don't feel cheap or unintentionally comic. Murphy knows how to build tension, make you grip the arm of your seat, and never look away because you need to see how he's going to land his scare. Furthermore, the movie doesn't just frighten. It unnerves you to your very core. There's one scene involving a dollhouse that had my jaw slowly dropping to the floor.
If The Awakening had simply painted a rapturous, thrilling ghost story, it would have been fine since we rarely get films in this genre. But Murphy and co-writer Stephen Volk bring the sadness of loss into the proceedings. Everyone in the film has a secret that weighs heavily on their soul. The war and the pandemic have caused survivor's guilt on a massive scale as everyone questions why they lived while their loved ones perished. Cathcart has lost the man she loved, Mallory (West) has lost his brothers in arms, and Hill has also lost someone although we don't know who. They're all hiding pain and they're all struggling to find a way to deal with death. It's the familiar subtext of the ghost story in finest form, and the cast brings the supernatural atmosphere to a human level.
The film glides through most of its story but gets a little flat-footed at the end. Murphy doesn't want to write off science but he also doesn't want to lose the paranormal aspect so he blends the two with uneven results. However, the confidence of the resolution carries it past the clunky writing and the ending is almost secondary to all the scares and twists that came before. The Awakening is for those who loved The Devil's Backbone and The Others. It's for those who want to be transported out of our time and into a sumptuous and haunting place on the hazy line between life and death.
Most, if not all, put their watches in a separate watch box.
Small carton packaging + small leather boxes, like Grand Seiko now makes (all made in Japan) are more than enough.
The HUGE Longines boxes are madness, I have two of them taking as much space as 6-7 boxes from other manufacturers.
yes, Omega are also big, but not as big as Longines.
I have two Omega boxes and they are much smaller.
I prefer GS packaging, it is thought out, with Japanese paper and all blue, but the boxes are much smaller.
To be honest, like someone said, the boxes are only really needed if you want to resell.
I disagree. it is a fun and interesting topic when looked at from the perspective of what people like and how they might change things. And, with 30 plus comments it seems to be a pretty engaging topic.
The huge boxes, boxes within boxes, protective cardboard around boxes is all mega pointless! I keep mine just in case I want to sell the watch in the future but in the loft. Day-to-day I just keep mine in service boxes, which btw I think the IWC one in your main picture is.
Most luxury watch packaging is wasteful of resources and not compliant with efforts to conserve. I use my Rolex box to store whatever watch that is in my rotation while I sleep, as it easily allows for positional variance I also have used the high quality travel cases my Smiths watches have arrived in when I travel and at home to store watches. But the vast majority of my watch boxes sit in my closet.
I prefer nicer outer boxes like the ones Omega does, and really appreciate when brands include a travel case or pouch inside of the larger box. IWC does an excellent job with this, as their boxes ship with a nice leather travel case with a fold over top. I travel every other week, and these travel cases are nice additions to my carryon.
This comment reminds me of when I bought a Fossil watch, the first time I visited New York. (many, many years ago now!) I was very impressed with the packaging (just a tin with some nice graphics) and probably that experience was part of the domino effect that lead to a full blown watch addition almost 20 years later!
I also have two huge moving boxes filled with various watch boxes. Right now, these boxes are in the basement but I never look at them. I do worry about moisture and mold down there. And we have more watch boxes in moving boxes in our air conditioned storage.
I like a small, nice watch box, but nothing extravagant. When I had one nice watch, the big lacquered wooden box was an enjoyable touch. Now that I have a handful it just sits in a drawer among much more manageable packaging from microbrands, or Oris is appreciated. Nomos does a great job with elegant but portable packaging as well.
I enjoy packaging for special editions, with the little extras that come with it. The Omega Ultraman and Trilogy watches come to mind (back when Omega was in its Fun Era). Sometimes those are fun to just get out and look over, experience again.
I think the packaging is part of the experience and for the most part keep all the boxes and papers when I get a new watch. This is not due to me wanting to resell in the future, but for my own experience. That said when I was starting out in the hobby I would throw most of the stuff away.
In comparison to Speedmasters offered before and even after, it feels like a significantly better value. Though, the lack of included extras also diminishes that perceived value in the other generations.
I still have the original box for my originally purchased 1984 Rolex GMT Master-had it since new. In it I store the original manual, Rolex/PanAm Brochures, spare bracelet, parts etc. So, the box is functional yet not often used. I otherwise store the watch in a winder when not wearing it.
Especially for brands with an online presence, I would love the default be that they are packaged just enough to get them to me safely. Maybe for the more expensive or nicer brands, give me the option to buy a nice box as an accessory.
Pet hate: Watch boxes covered in (or containing) fake leather. I have several from the early 2000s, and despite being kept in a cool, dry, and dark location they have not aged gracefully. The pleather either turning dry and crumbly, or soft and sticky. Neither reflects well on a quality watch.
I think it all depends on the box itself being a piece of art. I use my Cartier box to store my two most precious watches, it is a beautiful red-gold centerpiece on a white sideboard. I am sure the delicate wooden Breguet boxes could be used in a similar way.
No horror movie is as terrifying as the experience of trying to agree on something to watch with your partner as the night draws in. Save some sympathy, however, for the main characters of our most prestige chillers, some of whom have seriously been put through the wringer.
Whether it's the story of a music festival gone seriously wrong in Ari Aster's gaslighting saga Midsommar, or the many societal ills highlighted by Jordan Peele's modern-horror filmography, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ have plenty of excellent scary movies to pick from. To make the task of choosing a little easier, we've rounded up the best horror movies that are available to stream, rent and buy now, all for perusal in the comfort of your home, and best watched while wearing an expression of abject terror. Enjoy?
Still hailed as one of the best twist endings of all time, M. Night Shyamalan's crowning jewel, The Sixth Sense, is as good now as it was in 1999. Centred around a young boy who believes he can see dead people and the child psychologist tasked with trying to figure out whether he's just suffering delusions of the mind, the less said about it the better. Just watch. disneyplus.com
Men. This film is about men. Well, it's really about Jessie Buckley's character Harper and a retreat after a traumatic event that gets overturned by a persistent and looming presence of dread. That dread is men, played by a kind of eerie carousel of Rory Kinnear in different disguises. This Alex Garland film is all kinds of weird and twisty, as we have come to expect, and you will leave feeling overwhelming unease. Happy watching! amazon.co.uk
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