Hey there, welcome to the eight edition of Thursday Movie Picks! Wow that makes this feature 2 months old! I hope you have been joining us the previous weeks. If you haven't, it's never too late to join. For new folks, the rules of this weekly meme is simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each. For more information on the meme and future topics please visit the meme's page here.
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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Movies set Locally (you can choose country or state).
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This week's topic is pretty fun. So far I think the participators in my meme comes from a lot of different places so I don't expect to see any overlap of picks this week. Now I don't know if I mentioned this before here, but I live in the island city-state Singapore which is where all the movies I've picked are set. Not sure how easily you can find these movies if you're ever interested to see them. Possibly Amazon or Netflix may have them?
Anyhow as always, here are my picks of my favourites in alphabetical order:
Apparently people in Singapore love shopping. I live in Singapore, and I don't. Well then again I'm not a wealthy lady of leisure so that probably has something to do with it. To be fair, Singapore is in the tropics so the air conditioned shopping centers provide a cool place to escape from the almost always hot and humid weather and the shopping mall does become a sort of escape for various characters in Gone Shopping. Like the rest of today's picks it's been at least half a decade since I have seen this movie so unfortunately I am working from memory. Anyway...around the time I watched this I had work in retail and Gone Shopping had really felt like a true depiction of the retail scene. If you'd worked in retail before, you'd know it is one of those jobs that you'll meet a wide range of characters and this movie hit on the nail at least one of those characters you'd likely to come across. For me it was Clara, one of those people who are overly friendly to shop assistants having missed the idea that shop assistants are hired to be nice to you and aren't exactly you friends.
In the Maid, a young Filipino woman, Rosa, moves to Singapore to work as a live in maid for a local family that works in a Chinese Opera troupe. Her arrival coincides with the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar where it is believed the gates of hell are open and spirits wander among the living. I saw this movie during the time when a slew of Asian horror movies such as The Ring and The Grudge came out and I was tired of the far reaching vengeful spirits that attack for seemingly little reason, so I liked this spin on the scary spirit movie which grounds itself well in the premise of the seventh lunar month. In the Maid, Rosa not only has to deal with the demands of a new job in a foreign country, living with strangers, but also abide by the rules of a culture and custom she does not understand so as to not offend the wandering spirits.
Singapore Dreaming (2006) - "When Loh wins the lottery, his family believes the money will deliver them from their struggles. However, he dies abruptly, pitching the family into a battle where the stakes are the very meaning of life itself."
Singapore Dreaming is one of the movies that have a pretty authentic portrayal of life in Singapore. The story centers on a local family, their aspirations, their life and it's disappointments which if not relatable, is certainly very recognisable. The father is obsessed with winning the lottery. He and his wife are proud of their adult son who has return home after obtaining a degree abroad. The son now feels the pressure of living up to his parents expectations, getting a high paying job and marrying his longtime girlfriend. Their pregnant daughter is the overlooked one in the family; her efforts are not quite as recognised as their son's. She works hard to balance her demanding job and the duties of a wife and daughter while her husband is a constant disappointment in her eyes for failing in the rat race.
Singapore Dreaming is one of the movies that have a pretty authentic portrayal of life in Singapore. The story centers on a local family, their aspirations, their life and it's disappointments which if not relatable, is certainly very recognisable. The father is obsessed with winning the lottery. He and his wife are proud of their adult son who has return home after obtaining a degree abroad. The son now feels the pressure of living up to his parents expectations, getting a high paying job and marrying his longtime girlfriend. Their pregnant daughter is the overlooked one in the family; her efforts are not quite as recognised as their son's. She works hard to balance her demanding job and the duties of a wife and daughter while her husband is a constant disappointment in her eyes for failing in the rat race.
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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?
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Great choices! I've put together a post which will publish itself tomorrow morning, so I'll be sure to add the link using your widget then :)
ReplyDelete- Allie
Interesting picks. I've honestly never heard of any of those. The Maid sounds quite intriguing, though. Great post.
ReplyDeleteI thought that would be. I think some of them were submitted for international film festivals but perhaps didn't get distribution?
DeleteGreat picks, the only movie I've heard of was The Maid, but I haven't seen it yet. My list is up, it seems I've been joining in every other week
ReplyDeleteSure...join whenever you can.
DeleteThere was a time when Asian horror movies were really popular, which is why I suppose how you heard of the Maid. But I think the popularity of Asian Horror has died down after the millennial decade.