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.
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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I love all three of your picks. I'm still somewhat salty they never released a version of Renee Zellwegger singing SugarHigh at the end of Empire Records. I would've bought that.
ReplyDeleteI don't really remember her singing.
DeleteLooking at Empire Records now really does give you a feeling of nostalgia. Not just the record store which is very cool but the cast who were all on the rise at the time.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a horror fan but the first Scream was a nice twist on them. I don't remember that scene but whenever I see one set in a video store now it does take me back.
I hated Eternal Sunshine but I know I'm in the minority with that opinion. Maybe because I worked in both a Borders and a Waldenbooks but I prefer and always have the smaller bookstores. There might not be as much room to sit but I like the more intimate feeling. I do miss the experience but have become much more of a library fan lately which takes the sting out of the loss of almost all the bookstores.
I went a slightly different route choosing films with a heavy nostalgia context build into their stories.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)-A year in the life of the upper middle class Smith family (including second daughter Esther played by Judy Garland) as they and their hometown prepare for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. For the most part charming, sweet and bandbox pretty full of great songs-The Trolley Song, The Boy Next Door, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (which was written expressly for Judy) etc.-this is interwoven with dark undertones most courtesy of borderline psychotic (though she’s meant to be seen as innocently eccentric) youngest daughter Tootie (Margaret O’Brien-who won a special Oscar). Wonderfully produced by the Freed unit and directed by Vincente Minnelli.
On Moonlight Bay (1951)-Based on stories by Booth Tarkington we are once again at the turn of the 20th century. In bucolic small town Indiana the upwardly mobile Winfield family has just moved into a bigger house that only the father likes until tomboyish daughter Marjorie (Doris Day) meets handsome neighbor, college student Bill Sherman (Gordon MacRae). Suddenly she gets in touch with her feminine side and she and Bill start a romance which goes along fine until her father finds out Bill is a nonconformist who doesn’t believe in marriage or other traditional values. But after many songs, several mishaps and lots of warm and fuzzies all ends happily. Followed by a sequel “By the Light of the Silvery Moon”
Radio Days (1987)-Told as a remembrance Joe (Woody Allen) recalls his youth (played by Seth Green) growing up in the 30’s and 40’s with his colorful and somewhat crazy family (including his parents who will argue about anything including which is the greater ocean-Atlantic or Pacific!) and people he encounters including the story of radio personality Sally White (a quite brilliant performance by Mia Farrow). Filled with beautiful period detail this captures both the period and a sense of youth.
I'm nostalgic for the record store as I used to hang out at my used record store during my 20s which also sold DVDs. I miss them although I really don't like Empire Records as I see it as a film about everything that was wrong about the 1990s. The rest of your picks I do love.
ReplyDeleteI was a little too young to remember anything that was wrong with the 90s...so I sort of just remember it fondly.
DeleteEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the only I've seen and I loved it.
ReplyDeleteEternal is popular today so I need to see this one.Scream is excellent and pays the right homage to the horror films. That film is actually fun to watch despite the horror. I have not seen your first pic
ReplyDeleteScream is definitely one for fans of movies in general
DeleteLove all three of these movies. Admittedly, I didn't think of Scream at all, but you're right. It absolutely fits the theme.
ReplyDelete