Thursday Movie Picks #209: Characters Magically Aging Up or Down

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 Characters Magically Aging Up or Down

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I thought there were going to be more of such movies...oh well I guess I was wrong. I think the Body Switch theme in August would be more interesting with a lot more movies to pick from.

17 Again (2009)

Guy regrets the path not taken. When his wish to be 17 again is granted he enrolls back in the same high school his kids are giving him an opportunity to have a relationship with his family from a different perspective. Really enjoyed this, very funny.

 

13 Going on 30 (2004)

Girl wishes to skip the awkwardness of adolescent straight to being 30 and her wish is granted. I enjoyed the whole 80s thing and the movie overall is just super cute.

Big (1988)
Boy wishes to be big. His wish is granted and becomes an adult. The most popular one in this category. This used to be on TV a lot when I was growing up.

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Thursday Movie Picks #208: Long Awaited Sequel

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 Long Awaited Sequel

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You know when you watch a good movie and think there should be a sequel and you wait and you wait...well this is a theme inspired by The Incredibles and its sequel which only took 14 years to arrive.

Before Midnight (2013)

Before Sunset is my favourite, but I had not known there was going to be a continuation to Before Sunrise, I mean how often have dramas get sequels? So yeah I had not been waiting for a sequel after before Sunrise. However, after Before Sunset, of course! Only took 9 years to get Midnight...but that was expected since the gap between Sunrise and Sunset was also 9 years.

 

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Since Toy Story 2 came only four years after the first one, this seemed like it was a maybe...maybe not going to happen? But it did!..only took 11 years! Toy Story 4 is coming out next year, no plot details as yet, but let me guess...Andy now has his own place, and his childhood toys are now on display in glass cases as collectibles?

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) 
I suppose when new Star Wars movies were announced in the 90's, most fans probably wanted a sequel. Well we eventually got the sequel. Only took 32 years to happen.

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Thursday Movie Picks #207: TMP Television Edition - TV Spinoffs

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 - TV Spinoffs [Suggested by Wendell]

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This week's theme is by Wendell. There are so many spinoffs to pick from, so this week wasn't hard at all. I'm picking the ones I like.

Frasier (1993 - 2004)
A spin-off of Cheers. Frasier is one of those TV shows that while I don't really follow it from season to season, it is a very easy show to slip into and I usually just watch it whenever I stumble upon it on TV. I can't believe it ended more than 10 years ago.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001 - 2011)
A spin-off of Law and Order. I used to like SVU, but it got really cheesy and bad over the years, so my pick is this one which was a lot more consistent and had better performances I'd say. The detectives Eames and Goren played by Kathryn Erbe & Vincent D'Onofrio had great chemistry and they're supposed to be like Holmes and Watson, Goren being the Holmes character using psychology to solve crimes.

Chicago Med (2015 - )
A spin-off of Chicago Fire. I've seen all of the Chicago series. This is the better spin-off. Like a lot of medical dramas, they're easy get back in even when I've missed the last couple of episodes.

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

 

Thursday Movie Picks #206: Juvenile Delinquents

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 Juvenile Delinquents

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Unfortunately, I couldn't find any that I actually love. These were all just ok.

Thirteen (2003)
Thirteen year old girls get out control with drugs, sex, and petty crime. I know this movie is supposedly loosely based on Nikki Reed's experience, still I thought the movie was trying a little too hard to shock us with what these kids were up to.

 

Charlie Bartlett (2007)

A rich kid starts playing the psychiatrist at his high school; listening to his classmates problems and selling them prescription drugs. I really wanted to like this. It's not bad, but not great either.

The Bling Ring (2013)

Inspired by true events of teens robbing celebrity homes. Hard to like since I found the actual story sort of annoying. Do we really need to give more air time to these shallow spoiled kids...there was already a TV movie 2 years before and this one didn't seem to add much to it.

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Thursday Movie Picks #205: Legend/Mythology

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 Legend/Mythology

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Not much to pick from this week and can't say that I love love any today but do like some of them.

 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

It was a bit odd but interesting. I generally like it but don't think I get it get it since I'm not at all familiar with the Odyssey, beyond knowing who Odysseus is, which it is loosely based on. I did think the music is great.

Tristan + Isolde (2006)
I would have liked it much better if it had a better Tristan. The character mopes and cries quite a bit, which still could have turned out fine, but James Franco was just awful at it.

Robin Hood (2010)

This was just so unmemorable which is such a pity and it had a lot of good actors in it. Also, doesn't Russell Crowe seem too old to be Robin Hood? 

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Thursday Movie Picks #204: Speech/Soliloquy/Monologue

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 Speech/Soliloquy/Monologue

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Have been waiting for this theme. I love wordy movies and a good Speech/Soliloquy/Monologue make it all the more memorable. 

"You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. ..."

A Few Good Men (1992) 

This scene gets played a lot but often just the "You can't handle the truth" bit. There a lot more.

"I don't know who went to this place, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell, whoever. Their spirit is dead, if they ever had one. It's gone. You're building a rat ship here. A vessel for seagoing snitches, and if you think you're preparing these minnows for manhood, you better think again, because I say you are killing the very spirit this institution proclaims it instills. What a sham. What kind of a show you guys are putting on here today? I mean, the only class in this act is sitting next to me, and I'm here to tell ya this boy's soul is intact. It's non-negotiable. You know how I know? Someone here, and I'm not gonna say who, offered to buy it. Only Charlie here wasn't selling. ..."

 

Scent of a Woman (1992)

It's that speech where Al Pacino's character is pissed and gives this explosive lecture to the school and its faculty for deciding to expel his young friend for not snitching on his classmates who committed vandalism.

"...on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V." 

V for Vendetta (2005)
This is possibly one of my favourite quotes from the movie (if I'm remembering it correctly it was not in the graphic novel). Just the number of V words put together into something that is actually coherent is amazing.

"Studying is hard and boring. Teaching is hard and boring. So, what you're telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again, but this time for the rest of my life? This whole stupid country is bored! There's no life in it, or color, or fun! It's probably just as well the Russians are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us any day now. So my choice is to do something hard and boring, or to marry my... Jew, and go to Paris and Rome and listen to jazz, and read, and eat good food in nice restaurants, and have fun! It's not enough to educate us anymore Ms. Walters. You've got to tell us why you're doing it."

An Education (2009)
Carrie Mulligan's breakout role as Jenny. I thought Jenny's teacher failed her for not giving a good answer to that question. 

"Nick loved a girl I was pretending to be. "Cool girl". Men always use that, don't they? As their defining compliment: "She's a cool girl". Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrined, loving manner. And then presents her mouth for fucking. She likes what he likes, so evidently he's a vinyl hipster who loves fetish Manga. If he likes girls gone wild, she's a mall babe who talks for football and endures buffalo wings at Hooters. ..."

Gone Girl (2014)

This cool girl speech made Gone Girl one of those things that made it more than a thriller about *blank (because spoiler)* .

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Monthly Book Picks: The Month of May 2018

Hey, if you've ventured past my usual movies post and found this book blog post, welcome. It's a new series that I've started: Monthly Book Picks where I select my favourite reads of the past month.

“People are dumb. I’ll never get over how dumb people are.”

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn (2015)
The Gist: A young woman makes a living as a con artist, the most recent, pretending to be a psychic. She is approached by rich, beautiful Susan, desperate for help: there seems to be an evil presence in her home which might have possessed her stepson. The narrator soon does psychic home visits to Susan's home to cleanse it and she is about to make a surprising discovery. Too bad it is just a novella; I really like it and wanted more. The story definitely looks like it could have been expanded into a novel. I have to say, in the beginning, the edginess of the character and her questionable profession kinda reminds me of the beginnings of a Palahniuk novel. Then it took a different direction when we get to Susan and her haunted house which really was pretty terrifying. But things are never as it seems in a Flynn novel so there were tons of fun twist and turns at the end and you just can't decide what's real or not.

“It was a woman--as pale and luminescent as a ghost, with swirling white hair. Ezra startled, dropping his pencil into the water. Her face snapped toward him. Her eyes were too large, clear green, and had horizontal, slit-shaped pupils, reminiscent of an octopus.”   

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama (2012)
The Gist: 140 years ago, a mermaid gave up her life underwater to be with a young naturalist but their love story ended in tragedy. In the present day, a 17 year old girl meets a mysterious stranger with whom she feels a strange connection with and he helps her investigate the mysterious affliction that have plagued the women in her family causing them all to die soon after giving birth. This is my first mermaid book and I really enjoyed this; it's a blend of contemporary, historical, horror and fantasy fiction with a little bit of romance. Ultimately it's a dark and tragic tale the way fairy tales were before they were heavily edited for young readers. I'd definitely recommend this to those that like to read folk tales and the un-Disneyfied fairy tales.