Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple 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 further details visit the series main page here.
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This week's Thursday Movie Picks
is All in the Family Edition: Mother-Daughter Relationships (Biologically Related)
Every last Thursday for the first nine months of 2015 I'm running the All in the Family Edition and this is the third theme for the edition. Last month's the theme was Father-Son Relationships and in January it was Married Couples. This week we're looking at Mother-Daughter Relationships and my picks are in chronological order.
White Oleander (2002)
In White Oleander; Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer), a poet, is idolised by her young impressionable daughter, Astrid (Alison Lohman). When Ingrid is sent to jail for life for the murder of her boyfriend, Astrid is shuffled from one foster home to another. Self centered and cold, Ingrid maintains her influence over Astrid through her letters and Astrid's prison visits, attempting to mold her daughter into her ideals to the point of sabotaging Astrid's happiness to maintain her dominance.
Volver (2006)
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Every last Thursday for the first nine months of 2015 I'm running the All in the Family Edition and this is the third theme for the edition. Last month's the theme was Father-Son Relationships and in January it was Married Couples. This week we're looking at Mother-Daughter Relationships and my picks are in chronological order.
White Oleander (2002)
In White Oleander; Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer), a poet, is idolised by her young impressionable daughter, Astrid (Alison Lohman). When Ingrid is sent to jail for life for the murder of her boyfriend, Astrid is shuffled from one foster home to another. Self centered and cold, Ingrid maintains her influence over Astrid through her letters and Astrid's prison visits, attempting to mold her daughter into her ideals to the point of sabotaging Astrid's happiness to maintain her dominance.
Volver (2006)
This is such a movie about mothers and daughters, how can I not pick this? When her daughter, Paula, is attacked, Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) fiercely protects her in a way that her mother never did for her. As Raimnuda tries to get her family's life back to normal while running a restaurant, her own mother comes back from the dead to fix their broken relationship.
Byzantium (2012)
Somewhat similar to Volver, this feature another mother (Gemma Arterton) fiercely trying to protect and save her daughter (Saoirse Ronan). Spending too much time together for long periods of time can cause or reveal cracks in any relationship; in Byzantium, mother and daughter are vampires on the run who have been stuck with each other for a very long time. Their relationship is further strained by the fact the daughter has never been comfortable with what she's become and rejects her mother's means of survival.
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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?
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Check out some of my random Thursday Movie Picks
Thursday Movie Picks #11: Nautical Movies
Thursday Movie Picks #22: Movies that Feature a Family Secret
Thursday Movie Picks #13: Zombie Movies
Thursday Movie Picks #16: Haunted Building
Thursday Movie Picks #21: Movies Adapted from a Play (non-Shakespeare and non-musical)
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Excellent choices! I especially love seeing Byzantium here.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I love Byzantium.
DeleteVolver is an excellent movie. Love Penelope Cruz here. Haven't seen the other two, but you've piqued my interest with your synopsis of Byzantium. Great picks.
ReplyDeleteByzantium is great. I think it may have largely been avoided for being a Vampire movie.
DeleteI haven't watched any of your choices, but they all sound very interesting. Great choices!
ReplyDeleteOh I hope you do eventually get a chance to catch them.
DeleteI only seen Byzantium, it was an excellent mother-daughter movie with taste of vampire! Great!!
ReplyDeleteThanks...I love Byzantium.
DeleteHeard a lot Volver never got round to seeing, I saw the trailer for and I remember it looked like a film made with great visual appeal and style but it didn't spark my interest. However, seeing the love for the film here and in comments I may check it out.
ReplyDeleteI saw the trailer for Byzantium....that's what I meant to say.
DeleteI've only seen Volver, that was a good one. No sure about Byzantium but White Oleander is something I've been meaning to get around to.
ReplyDeleteSo many to pick from this week! My three are:
Gypsy (1962)-Musicalized version of Gypsy Rose Lee's youth, life in vaudeville and growing up on the road as part of her sister Baby June's act and her relationship with the biggest stage mother of them all, Mama Rose. Mama Rose is so consumed with ambition that her daughters are going to be stars that she's do almost anything and ride over anyone in her mad drive. Great music, terrific performances by Rosalind Russell as a megalomaniac of gigantic proportions and Natalie Wood as the at first complacent daughter who finally declares her independence.
Mildred Pierce (1945)-Noirish study of a woman locked into a masochistic relationship with her grasping selfish daughter which drives her to the heights of success only to find emptiness and betrayal. Joan Crawford won an Oscar as the career woman whose slavish devotion to her pit viper of a daughter proves her undoing. Ann Blyth, Eve Arden (both Oscar nominated) Jack Carson (who should have been) and Zachary Scott lend excellent support.
Stella Dallas (1937)-A story of the ultimate in motherly sacrifice. Stella, played by Barbara Stanwyck in an amazing performance, is a girl from the wrong side of the tracks-a loud, vulgar but loving woman who meets and falls for a man from the upper class. They marry, have a daughter and split up shortly after, the bulk of the film is devoted to the strong relationship of Stella and her daughter Laurel. Stanwyck's last scene is a piece of great movie acting.
Honorable mention-Steel Magnolias (1989)-Equally headstrong mother (Sally Field) and daughter (Julia Roberts) butt heads through the years as the mother worries over the daughter's fragile health and the girl fights to live life on her own terms all the while surrounded by a close-knit group of woman friends who meet regularly at Truvy's beauty salon. Funny and sad just like life this has a strong message about the value of friendship and the mother/daughter bond.
Haven't watch any of these yet. I did though watch a little of the Mildred Pierce mini-series starring Kate Winslet when it aired on TV, wasn't able to catch everything. Would love to properly watch it. I don't know how it stacks up with the movie?
DeleteThe mini is somewhat truer to the book but I prefer the movie, the acting is much better. Kate Winslet is good in the mini, of course, but Crawford connects with the role more fully. Also in the mini unlike the film the part of Vida is played by two different actresses, one as a child and Evan Rachel Wood as an adult, and it undercuts the tension of the mother/daughter relationship.
DeleteVolver! SIGH. I love that movie. I've heard such mixed things about both White Oleander and Byzantium.
ReplyDeleteWhite Oleander can sometime be a little of a melodrama; still like it though.
DeleteI haven't seen Byzantium, but I wholly endorse the other two!
ReplyDeleteMatt picked Volver too, and it's really cool to see it made more than one list. We have good taste! ;)
ReplyDeletehttp://assholeswatchingmovies.com/
I'd like to think so :)
DeleteI can always count on you to inspire me to another film on my re-watch list, and this week it's your #3. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen any of these but I'm curious to see all of them. Byzantium sounds like an unconventional vampire drama, great cast too!
ReplyDeleteIt was the cast that attracted me to Byzantium and the premise as well.
DeleteVolver! What a terrific choice. I haven't seen White Oleander, but I read the novel. It sounds like the film follows the book closely. I need to add Byzantium to my list.
ReplyDeleteI've read it too. Well the movie excluded two of the foster homes and they changed the ending to something a little more positive, but I still really enjoyed it.
DeleteThe only movie you chose that I've seen is White Oleander (2002), I remember it being pretty decent, nothing I'd say is re-watchable but definitely was good the first time. I'll have to look into the other two sometime, Volver stands out as the most impressionable.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Pfeiffer was a standout in White Oleander. She was soo icy cold.
DeleteI've only seen Volver here. Love Almodovar's stuff. Really great work from Cruz there.
ReplyDelete