Thursday Movie Picks #333: 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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So it's Thursday again and what's become my favourite Thursday of the month since I'm now watching more TV than movies. My picks are from the ones I have caught up with this year.

Borgen  (2010 - 2013) (2022 - )

A Danish series following the lives of politicians, press advisers and political journalists. I picked this two months ago for the journalist theme. Anyway, it's a really good drama, so definitely one to check out if you have a chance. And apparently Netflix has revived it for a season 4 in 2022 so I am looking forward to see what has happened to the characters since.

 

Rita (2012 - 2020) 

A Danish series following the life of the outspoken and rebellious teacher Rita. Just finished the latest season today and I have really liked this charming drama that's filled with humor and quirky characters and have enjoyed seeing how the characters' storylines have progressed over the years. This series has even been remade in a few countries and there's also a failed US pilot that never got picked for a season.

How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)  (2019 - )

A German series following two teenagers who start an online store selling drugs. I really enjoyed this fun quirky comedy. If you like sort of those mockumentary type of thing, I would recommend this too, because in between the regular type of narrative following the two teens and their entrepreneurial adventures there are little snippets of the characters being interviewed for a sort of documentary that takes place sometime in the future talking about their experience. 

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #332: Movies about Villains

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 Movies about Villains

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Oh this is a fun theme. I'm picking 3 of my most recent watches that I like.

Joker (2019)

This was good. Most of the time it didn't even feel like it's about a comic book villain from the Batman universe, but just about a very tragic disturbing character. Joaquin Phoenix transformation into this character was also just hard to look at with how emaciated he looked.

 

Brightburn (2019)

This one has a real interesting premise: what if a Superman-like character that crash landed on earth as a child was evil? This one probably didn't live up to its potential with that great premise, but it was decent. I sorta expected it to be more of a dark superhero like movie, however it turned out to be more horror and pretty gory too.

Venom (2018)

Venom, if you aren't familiar, is one of the villains in the Spiderman universe. I didn't really know what to expect from this movie going in but I ended up liking it. It's a fun action movie and I liked how Venom looked. Very alieny monstrous. Though Eddie Brock doesn't go quite all that villainy yet in this, he was able to maintain some control over Venom. There is going to be a sequel so I am looking forward to it.

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Thursday Movie Picks #331: Favourite Cinematography

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 Favorite Cinematography

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Today's theme is a suggestion from Brittani and it is certainly a tough one in that there are just so many to choose from. So I'm doing a theme with a theme. My picks are all period dramas based on books I've read. I'm not going to name them, so have a guess what movies they are from the movie stills.

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Thursday Movie Picks #330: Bookish Movies

 

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 Bookish Movies

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When I set this theme Bookish Movies, it is meant to be more than just adaptations (a theme we already have annually) or movies about writers (a theme we had in 2016), though they could very well be that too since those things are not mutually exclusive. I would say the Bookish Movies theme is meant for those movies that are about the love of books and reading or a sort of homage to everything literary. Here are some of my top bookish picks:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
A writer forms a friendship with residents of Guernsey Island who had formed a book club during WWII where reading and talking about books became an escape from the harsh life of living under Nazi occupation. This is one of my most recent watches. A bit of tearjerker but I really enjoyed this charming romantic drama.

 

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
The movie follows the lives of the eccentric members of the dysfunctional Tenenbaum family. This is one of my favourite movies and this is possibly not the most obvious choice for bookish movies, but here's why it's my pick. There's just a very storybook-like quality to almost all of Wes Anderson movies and it is especially so with The Royal Tenenbaums, visually and narratively. If you remember, it is told in chapters (each chapter introduced with an image of the first page of the respective book chapter if I recall correctly) and the movie is narrated by an unseen narrator. The movie is also populated by characters many of whom have written books and we get to see those books with their gloriously retro design book covers. And if you've seen the Criterion DVD, the slipcase is designed to look like a book and the DVD cover art inside has a very whimsical picture book sort of illustration. Basically The Royal Tenenbaums from the movie to the packaging of the DVD completely charms my bookish heart.

Dead Poets Society (1989)

A new English teacher teaches his students to appreciate poetry, express themselves and seize the day. Just one of my favourite movies ever. Once again it's about a group of people meeting up to talk about literary stuff.

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Thursday Movie Picks #329 Halloween/Television Edition - Horror

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 Halloween Edition/Television Edition - Horror

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Hey it's October again and it's time for the Halloween Edition. Take a look at what's in store for the rest of the month.

October 29 - Halloween/Television Edition: Horror

 

 

Last week of the Horror Edition and it's also the TV Edition. My picks today are the most recent horror TV series I've seen the past year.

 

True Blood (2008 -2014)
I had seen this back when it aired then had stopped until about season 3 or 4 and finally completed the series this year. Basically watched right from the start again. Overall I enjoyed it; it was a fun sexy horror dark comedy.

Castle Rock  (2018 - )
If you like Stephen King adaptations I'd recommend this though this isn't really an adaptation. It's new stories based around characters and settings made famous in some of King's books. I prefer the second season, less confusing and it has a more identifiable character that the story features, which was a younger Annie from Misery.

 

Servant (2019 - )

I really like this. It's basically about this couple whose baby died, I think from SIDS, and with the wife unable to accept the death, the family, upon a friend's advice decide to use a doll in place of the baby. The wife proceeds to treat it like her baby, alive and well. The series begins when the couple bring in a live-in nanny to care for the doll baby when the wife ends her maternity leave and restarting her job, which brings the weird to a whole new level. This series has such super creepy atmosphere and you can't decide who to be afraid for more, the young nanny staying in a household where one its members is suffering a mental illness, or the couple who have opened their home to a stranger from unknown origins.

Locke & Key  (2020 - )
This, if you didn't know, is based on a graphic novel of the same name written by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son). I have been waiting for an adaptation of this since I read it a few years ago and there had been a pilot episode shot in 2011 that was never picked up for a full series. While overall I did enjoy this new adaptation, I thought the depiction of the supernatural stuff was pretty decent, season one is still a bit of a disappointment. The problem is that I remember the graphic novel to be much more sinister in tone and this adaptation is just too PG and YA-ish. I'm hoping they make the tone in the second season darker and not waste such a great horror premise.

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020 - )

This is from the team that brought The Haunting of Hill House. This time it's an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw. Like the other series, this too was a slow burn, it only really started to get good for me from episode 5 (just like on Hill House) where things start to make a lot of sense and we begin to see the connections. While not as great as Hill House, Bly Manor was still good and features some similar things like: a lot of jumps between past and present, characters who aren't fully aware of their being, a character self sacrificing to appease the restless and it is similarly more sad tragic horror rather than jump scares horror. Now I'm eagerly anticipating what other literary house this anthology is going to tackle. Some have speculated it's the Eel Marsh House from Susan Hill's The Woman in Black which I am so for, that house is creepy. Another literary house I think would be interesting is Hundreds Hall from Sarah Water's The Little Stranger.

 

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #328 Halloween Edition - Holiday Horror

 

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 Halloween Edition - Holiday Horror

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Hey it's October again and it's time for the Halloween Edition. Take a look at what's in store for the rest of the month.

October 22 - Halloween Edition: Holiday Horror
October 29 - Halloween/Television Edition: Horror

 

 

Well this was quite tricky, trying to remember what movies was set against what holiday. My picks today are all non Halloween movies.

 

Escape Room (2019)
Staying on her college campus during Thanksgiving break, a young woman accepts a mysterious invitation to an Escape Room. It was an ok tension filled movie where the characters try to solve elaborate puzzles before time runs out. 

P2 (2007)
After working late at her office on Christmas Eve, a woman finds herself trapped in the garage and pursued by the crazy garage attendant. I don't remember much of this now, but I think it was an ok movie.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

On a day trip to Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day, a few students from a girls' boarding school and a teacher disappear. One of my favourite movies. I wouldn't really categorise this as outright horror, I'd say this is more of a mystery drama that has some horror elements, in that people have gone missing, with subtle hints of the supernatural. Overall the movie is beautiful and eerie. Also the movie like the book cleverly misleads you into believing that it's based on a true story.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #327: Halloween Edition - Snow / Winter Horror

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 Halloween Edition - Snow / Winter Horror

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Hey it's October again and it's time for the Halloween Edition. Take a look at what's in store for the rest of the month.

October 15 - Halloween Edition: Snow / Winter Horror
October 22 - Halloween Edition: Holiday Horror
October 29 - Halloween/Television Edition: Horror

 

 

I think the snow and cold makes a good backdrop for a horror movie. It sort of heightens the sense of both physical and psychological isolation. Anyway this is another hard one. Mostly because I'm running out of movies to pick from. These are all ones I've picked before for other themes.

The Blackcoat's Daughter a.k.a February (2015)
Other than the two staff staying off the main buildings, the last two girls stay alone at their boarding school waiting for their parents who seem to be late in picking them up for winter break. I like it. The whole being alone at a school that looks quite isolated in not great weather is already creepy. Throw in a girl who seems off and you're just dreading in what way it's all going to go wrong.
   

The Visit (2015)
Two siblings on their own visit their estranged grandparents whom they have never met before for a vacation. I like this one too. It starts off like a fun vacation with the kids quite excited to meet their grandparents for the first time but then things get weirder weirder.

Let the Right One In (2008) 

A bullied boy befriends his new strange neighbour. One of my favourites. I know the title is likely a play on the whole vampire lore of having to be invited into a home. But I also think it works in the case for Eli, in that she, the vampire, has to be careful who she lets into her secret, and we see that it's a cycle, that she had picked the right one in Oskar's predecessor.

  

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