Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your 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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This is a recurring annual theme. I'm picking new series that was released the past year.
Parallels (2022 - )
Four teens sneak out at night to celebrate one of their birthdays at an unused bunker in the woods. In the midst of their celebrations a blackout occurs and when the lights come back on, two of them have disappeared and of the two remaining, one has become a 30 year old man. In an alternate version of reality, the two that disappeared are the two that remain. In each version, the remaining teens try to cope with the loss of their best friends while trying to figure out what exactly happened to them. When I was a kid I did watch some of Disney's tween/teen TV series. We only get the English ones then so most were the American shows, and they were not really good at all. I find most of the characters on those shows rather annoying, they tend to dress in candy colored loud clothes and act very cutesy and the acting is often over the top. Parallels is French Disney series, and I was so surprised by the how good it is (which makes me wonder if the American shows have improved as well or still very childish stuff). It's a nice sci-fi drama that was decently acted. I wonder if this will get a second season since I do think the first season seems like a complete story.
The Empress (2022 - )
About Sisi the Habsburg Empress. While I know of Sisi, I know nothing about her, so for that reason I found the series interesting. However, I did not like that they made it too modern...such as the costumes. The particular corsets being used were obviously not from the period as well as some other things like the chunky statement jewellery. It's like they have some modern costumes and just decided to make do with them and try to match them with some things that they do have that look a bit more period appropriate...it all made it all rather mishmash. I suppose they didn't have the budget? Or they just wanted a modern look to entice young or new audience to Sisi's story...and I guess it kinda worked because this German series has already been renewed for a second season.
1899 (2022 - )
In 1899 a ship from Europe bound for New York receives a message consisting of coordinates halfway through its journey. Believing the message is a distress call from a ship that disappeared four months ago on the same route, the captain decides to change their course to go to the received coordinates to find the missing ship, to the displeasure of its 1500+ passengers and crew who wants to get to New York on schedule. If you like the German TV series Dark, 1899 is made by the same people so I definitely recommend it. I love the first season of Dark, the subsequent seasons not as as much with the third and final season being extremely convoluted and never fully explain some things. Anyway so far the first season of 1899 has been entertaining. This is similarly a sci-fi mystery drama like Dark, although in the beginning it almost plays out like a ghost story. Another thing that got 1899 a bit of attention is that it has a multi-national cast and is a multi language TV series. While Netflix has done this before with the 2020 series Into the Night, 1899 does it on a bigger scale with a larger cast and I think it makes so much sense because of course a ship will have people from different countries and speaking different languages and I think the show portrayed it well. And if you enjoyed this series, I'd also recommend watching the making of feature. 1899 was filmed using Volume technology, something that I think The Mandalorian was the first to use, and it was just amazing to watch how they filmed the series. I have yet to hear if this has been renewed, I hope it does as it was certainly set up to have a second season.
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