Thursday Movie Picks #194: TMP Television Edition - Non-English

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five titles and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is TMP Television Edition - Non-English

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If you think you've seen this theme before, you're right. We had one last year. But since it is increasingly easier to watch international series what with all the streaming services carrying them, I thought why not make it a yearly thing. Here are the recent ones I've seen that I love.

Dark (2017 - )
In 2019 in a German town surrounded by thick woods, children have gone missing. As the community search for answers and tension increases, some of the townspeople are reminded of a similar occurrence 33 years ago. A drama mystery with a supernatural/sci-fi element to it, Dark is dark, interesting and it has time travel (highlight to reveal spoiler) so yeah I absolutely love it. The series is getting a second season so I'm glad, but I sort of think the first season ended with a kind of open ended ending that worked just as well if it ended being just a one season series. I kind of think they're all doomed anyway since they're in loop, bound to repeat themselves over and over again. Two people who were in a prime position to break the loop did not: Michael could not because of Jonas, leaving Jonas to make that self sacrificing choice on his own (highlight to reveal spoiler). Also the weird tattoo we saw is based on a supposedly actual ancient tablet that has since disappeared or something, so I wonder if they're going to weave some sort of fake mythology and explore it in season 2.  

Tabula Rasa (2017)

A woman suffering from amnesia is involuntarily committed to a mental institution when she becomes a key figure in the disappearance of a local man that she doesn't even remember she knows due to her condition. I really enjoyed this psychological thriller that constantly shifts between the present and the weeks and days before slowly leading up to the disappearance as the extent of her amnesia and the truth slowly reveals itself. Tabula Rasa sort of feels like a mash up of Shutter Island, The Orphanage and Before I Go to Sleep, so if you like them, I think you'll enjoy this.

Trapped (2015 - ) 
In a remote town in Iceland, part of a body surfaces in the port just as a ferry is about to dock. The local police desperately try to solve the crime as a snow storm descends stranding everyone including possibly the murderer. This is a solid thriller. I love the small town one arc sort of series and this is so soo good. I love the setting too; the unforgiving environmental conditions just adds to the claustrophobia and urgency of the situation.

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Thursday Movie Picks #193: Nostalgia

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Nostalgia

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This week's theme is inspired by Ready Player One which is about a kid that goes on a treasure hunt in a virtual world that is based heavily on the pop culture from the virtual world creator's lifetime. So the movies I was going to pick initially was something in the same vein as Ready Player One, those that have characters nostalgic about pop culture from their youth. Then I changed my mind. Now I'm going to go with movies that get me nostalgic about these three things: Brick and mortar record stores, video stores and book stores. I'm picking only movies that I like.

Empire Records (1995)
I love this movie and whenever I watch it, it makes me so nostalgic for browsing and buying CDs at HMV. HMV closed here in 2015.

Scream (1996)
Scream of course pays homage to horror films before it, so they already had that nostalgia thing going on, and the movie itself also has this scene at the video store where they discuss who Ghost Face could be. Whenever I watch a movie with a video store scene, I always try to see what titles are on their shelves. Anyway we never had big rental stores here, so I had prefered once again HMV for browsing and buying DVDs. They used to import the Region 1(US) and Region 2 (Europe) DVDs which sometimes have extra special features that the Region 3 (South East Asia) do not. 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 
Not a movie about a bookstore but it had a memory wiping scene at the bookstore that one of the characters works at that reminds me a lot of Borders. Borders too closed here in 2013. I loved Borders. Its first outlet was the largest bookstore here (which would still be considered small when compared to any of the US stores probably) and it was a chill bookstore: a lot of areas to sit and they didn't wrap their books with plastic, they really let you browse. 

So you get where my blog name comes from. Suffice to say all the places I used to hangout at are gone and these movies make me nostalgic for them. Now the only place that comes close is the library.

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Thursday Movie Picks #192: Childhood Favourites

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Childhood Favourites

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These are movies that I watch over and over again as a kid.

Mary Poppins (1964)
What's not too love? It has lovely music and a whimsical story. One of my favourite parts was when they went to the animated world.

Grease (1978)
I was introduced to the music of Grease first; my parents had the vinyl of the soundtrack. They later bought the video so I could see the movie the music was from and I immediately love it.

Casper (1995)
I had seen the cartoons growing up and this is the live action version with a gothic manor, of course I loved it. The effects in this movie would now look dated, but back then when I saw it I was in awe that they were able to make the ghosts see-through.

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Thursday Movie Picks #191: Just One Day

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Just One Day

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I'm going for anything that takes place within a 24 hour period or less and I'm also trying to pick movies that I've not picked before in other TMPs. Here goes:

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
A mad general launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. I tried watching this like 10 years ago, for only a few minutes and gave up. Tried again in 2017 and I finally get it. It's funny! It's about something so serious but it manages to be so sharply funny. There are a couple of scenes that have been used in a certain podcast and when I finally saw it in the movie, the whole complete scene, I could not stop laughing. I totally get it now why people say this is one of the funniest movies ever. If you've not seen this before, now is probably the time to see it.

Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
I can't believe I've not ever pick this before. This used to be on TV so much when I was a kid, I was sick of it. 

A Single Man (2009)

An English professor is unable to cope with life without his partner who died a year earlier. The movie is sad but looks so beautiful. Everyone is so finely dressed.

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Monthly Book Picks: The Month of January and February 2018

Hey, if you have read my blog the last month or so you may have heard me talking about starting a Monthly Book Picks where you select your favourite reads of the last month; so here it is. Since I missed January, I'll be doing both January and February picks this month. If you want to join in do leave a link using the inlinkz gadget below. Monthly Book Picks will go up every first Monday of the month.

January 2018

“There are no good men in this game.”

Vicious (The Villains #1) by V.E. Schwab (2013)
The Gist: College roommates become vicious enemies after developing superpowers through their science experiments. Ten years later, one of them has come back to execute his revenge.
Imagine The Prestige movie but instead of magicians it's people with wicked superpowers. I had high expectations going into this because it has a high rating on Goodreads which was definitely met and Vicious has become my one of favourites. It has great writing, plot, pacing and fascinating characters. If you're tired of the usual superhero fare, as the quote above implies, there are no heroes here.  I can't wait for the sequel and the film adaptation which I'm surprised has not come sooner.


February 2018

“There was a small part of me that was still childish, stubborn in her hope, thinking I could somehow have everything. ...That I could be all the versions of me, stacked inside one another, and find someone who would want them all. But that's childhood. Before you realize that every step is a choice. That something must be given up for something to be gained. Everything on a scale, a weighing of desires, an ordering of which you want more--and what you'd be willing to give for it.” 

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda (2016) 
The Gist: Nicollete has returned to her hometown for the summer to help her brother fix their old house so that they can sell it to use the sale money for the father's nursing home expanses. Then her father, who has dementia, starts saying that he has seen the disappeared girl on their porch, only he has not been to their house a year since his nursing home stay and which girl was he referring too? Nicollete's best friend who disappeared ten years ago or the latest girl that has gone missing, their neighbour. Told in reverse, the link between the girls is slowly revealed as the past resurface.
This is actually my second reading, I loved it on the first read but it being a mystery told in reverse and with a first person narration,you know how unreliable they all are, I knew I was missing a lot of the breadcrumbs the first time around. And yes this is definitely one of those stories/books that you'll continually discover new things you missed before. I also love the writing and the narrator's voice that has a certain reflective wariness to it. Overall just a satisfying suspenseful mystery, one of the best I'd say that I read the last year or so.

“Power. What men like best for themselves and least in their women.”

The Queen of Attolia (The Queen's Thief #2) by Megan Whalen Turner (2000) 
This is the second book in the YA fantasy series The Queen's Thief. The first book The Thief is about a thief who claims he is able to steal anything so he is recruited and goes on a journey with the king's scholar, a soldier and two apprentices to recover a treasure. The first two thirds of the first book, for me, was boring. But the last third was excellent. In the second book, The Queen of Attolia, the thief this time is enlisted more for stealing information and that really is all I can say lest I spoil the first book. Also that, unlike the first book, it is great from the start. It has action, drama, political intrigue with plenty of twist and turns and even has a little romance. I love The Queen of Attolia more, but you definitely can't jump to reading this without reading the first book and all the essential world building.

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Thursday Movie Picks #190: Oscar Nominated Movies that should have Won

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Oscar Nominated Movies that should have Won

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Today's theme is by Birgit. I haven't watch a lot of the Best Picture nominated/winner movies, so it is kind of hard for me to say which should have won, so I'm sort of doing a reverse of it. I'm picking movies that I think should NOT have won because I have watched them and think surely the other nominees (some I have seen, others not) were better.

2010 Winner - The King's Speech (2010)
While The King's Speech was not at all bad, I do think some of the other nominees were better and more memorable. I prefer Black Swan, Toy Story 3 and The Social Network.

2005 Winner - Crash (2004)
I think everyone hates it right, so surely something else should have won. I can't remember much of Crash any more other than it was terribly heavy handed in its messaging. The only other nominated movie I saw was Good Night, and Good Luck and I think I had found it better than Crash.

2001 Winner - A Beautiful Mind (2001)

I found A Beautiful Mind boring. This is one of those years that I've seen all of the other nominated movies. Gosford Park, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Moulin Rouge! are my some of favourite movies so I prefer any one of them to have won.

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