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Thursday, November 22, 2018

Thursday Movie Picks #228: Non-Linear Timelines



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 Non-Linear Timelines [Suggested by Mettel Ray]

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This week's theme is a suggestion by Mettel Ray. This theme is both fun and challenging. A lot of films have flashbacks, so I didn't want to pick something that only employ character flashbacks in their non-linear narrative. I suppose I was also looking for those where there are different characters/stories and timelines and they all eventually overlap and converge. Anyway I think I just about manage it and all of them I actually really like.

Dunkirk (2017)
The movie follows and alternates between three different groups of people from three different start off period. The ones that we follow from land that start from one week ago, the ones making their journey by sea that start a day ago and lastly the pilots that start from an hour ago. Their stories slowly start to overlap and eventually fully converge by the end.  

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
This one does employ flashback scenes, in which we discover how two strangers that meet on a train actually do know each other. But it also has a separate but related story arc of a set of characters and how they have affected and would affect the two strangers we meet in the beginning and the story come full circle.

11:14 (2003)
I don't remember much of this other than I liked it when I first saw it and was surprised at how the movie had not received much attention. Basically 11:14 follows different groups of people whose lives overlap and converge at 11:14pm.
 
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6 comments:

  1. I haven't seen 11:14. Actually, I've never heard of it before. But I loved your other two picks.

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  2. I haven't seen 11:14, but I remember hearing about it. Love your other two!

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  3. Oh we match with two, not surprised about that but I'm also in the category of people who hasn't seen 11:14.

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  4. I haven't 11:14, but Dunkirk and Eternal Sunshine are both brilliant. Great picks!

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  5. Eternal Sunshine is popular this week and one I have been meaning to see since it came out. I have not heard of 11:14 but it sounds good. I can’t stand Dunkirk as I found it slick and full of pomp but not much else. On top of that, I saw brand new homes right near the beach that would not have been there in WW2.

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  6. Oh dear, well I have seen all three of these but have to say that Dunkirk was the only one I liked even a little.

    I liked Dunkirk and thought it was a well done version of events but I've seen it done better elsewhere. Still a good film.

    I know I'm in the minority but I disliked Eternal Sunshine intensely however not as much as I flat out hated 11:14. They do fit the theme well though.

    I struggle a little but did manage to finally come up with three.

    Out of the Past (1947)-Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is trying to restart his life in a small Sierra Nevada town running a filling station when a henchman of his old fremeny Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) shows up and pulls him back in to hunt down Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) who has stolen $40,000 from Whit and shot him four times. Sterling doesn’t care about the money he just wants the girl back. And we’re off on a time jumping tale of greed, vengeance, hate and treachery. So begins one of the quintessential noirs based on the novel Build My Gallows High with two fantastic male leads and one of the queens of the genre, Jane Greer, in her best performance as black hearted pit viper Kathie.

    Two for the Road (1967)-As wealthy Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) and Mark Wallace (Albert Finney) take a three day journey from their London home to St. Tropez for the unveiling of an opulent home Mark has designed they reflect back on their now 10 year old crumbling marriage. The film follows a non-linear time table as it jumps through the various phases of the Wallace’s courtship, marriage and estrangement.

    Go (1999)- Grocery store clerk Simon (Desmond Askew) occasionally sells drugs from his cash register at work, so when soap opera actors Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) come looking for Ecstasy on a quiet Christmas Eve, they are surprised to find Ronna (Sarah Polley) covering his shift. Desperate for money, Ronna decides to become an impromptu drug dealer, unaware that Adam and Zack are secretly working for obsessed narcotics officer Burke (William Fichtner). That’s just the set up for the crazy quilt of a film that follows. Challenging, confusing and funny.

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