Thursday Movie Picks #409: Actors who are Real Life Family Playing Same Family Role in 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 Actors who are Real Life Family Playing Same Family Role in Movies

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I'm picking the three that immediately came to mind. And these are all first time picks.

Say Anything (1989)

Brother and sister John and Joan Cusack playing siblings in Say Anything. Both have been co-stars in multiple films though not all of them as siblings. This is a popular 80's teen movie, but I thought it was just ok.

Donnie Darko (2001)
Brother and sister Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall playing siblings. This was super dark and weird but I think I liked it when I saw it. I haven't seen it a long time so I wonder what I think of it now. 

Ricki and the Flash (2015)
Mother and daughter Meryl Streep and Mamie Gummer playing a mother and her daughter. This movie has such a low rating on IMDB but I enjoyed it. Streep tends to star in more Oscar baity movies so this was a nice turn; a more family dramedy sort of flick about an aging musician who never became famous and trying to reconnect with her family.
 

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Thursday Movie Picks #408: Cinephiles in 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 Cinephiles in Movies

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I thought this would be a fun theme for us movie fans, seeing other movie fans on the screens. Here are the three I immediately thought of.

A Little Romance (1979)

Love, love, love. I'm a big fan of this movie...it is so charming and I have picked it for various TMP themes before. The main boy character in A Little Romance is a cinephile; he hangs out at movie theaters. The movie also has this adorable meet cute of the boy and the main girl character in which he makes a movie related reference in his pick up line. 

Scream (1996)
Scream of course pays homage to horror films that came before it and it has a scene where the teen characters list the rules of horror films...those teens know their horror movies.

Super 8 (2011)
A couple of teens make their own zombie movie during their summer vacation, that aspect is cute and endearing and I like the late 70s early 80s sense of nostalgia. However as much as I wanted to love this one, I don't think it manages to be that kinda kid friendship/adventure movie, like the The Goonies, ET, etc, that one revisits again and again.
 

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Thursday Movie Picks #407: TMP Television Edition - Royalty

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 -  Royalty

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I'm posting this quite late. I'm also going for a theme within a theme....The Tudors

The White Queen (2013) and The White Princess (2017)

These (and The Spanish Princess) are part of an anthology TV series all adaptations of historical fiction book series The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels by Phillipa Gregory; each season focusing on one prominent woman in the Plantagenet and Tudor dynasty. These two seasons takes place during the War of the Roses which is the war between the two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty, the Yorks and the Lancasters and followed Elizabeth Woodville, the queen and her daughter Elizabeth of York, the princess who would later marry Henry Tudor (Henry VII), founder of the Tudor dynasty. I found the series a little on the soapy side, a little too glossy and not much grit but it was still an entertaining series. So I do still want to watch The Spanish Princess (2019-2020) which follows Katherine of Aragorn who became the first (out of 6) wife of Henry VIII.

The Tudors (2007 - 2010)

Follows the exploits of Henry VIII from the House of Tudor. Jonathan Rhys Meyer plays Henry VIII and I thought he so did not match the king's physical size. During the period of time the series is mostly set, Henry VIII was supposedly growing fatter and fatter and was described as obese by the time he died while Meyers is slim and stayed so throughout the series. I don’t think he even wore a fat suit; he basically just wore bigger layered costumes of velvet and brocade. However, I do think he has a very sleazy rakish look to him so I think in that regard it makes him good for the king and his womanizing ways, he had 6 wives afterall, two of which he executed to make way for new ones. I would say overall the series is light on history but still very entertaining and is quite raunchy (which is why they kept Henry VIII slim probably).

 

Wolf Hall (2015)

This is an adaptation of Hillary Mantel’s books Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, both of which won the Booker prize. It follows Thomas Cromwell during his time at Henry VIII’s court. They have really good actors in the major roles: Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damien Lewis as Henry VIII and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn. It also had high production value and just looked and sounded great. I had read somewhere that they only shot with candles and natural lighting to get a more authentic look and it showed; it looked great and very different from a lot of other period dramas. I also really like how the show sounded like the sound of footfalls when the characters walk the hall and then there was the score, which sounded like the type of music that was true to that period played on instruments from that period. So of the three TV series, I think this is the best and if you like Tudor period movies like Anne of a Thousand Days and A Man for All Seasons I would highly recommend this.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #406: Environmental Wrongs/ Disasters

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 Environmental Wrongs/ Disasters (not a natural disaster, so something like Chernobyl)

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This is a quick one. Picking the three that came to mind first.

Erin Brockovich (2000)
This movie was big when it came out and Julia Roberts won an Oscar for playing a legal assistant for a firm fighting a company involved in water pollution. The movie was just okay for me.

The East (2013)
A woman is tasked to infiltrate an environmental activist anarchist group serving their own justice for ecological crimes. Of the three picks today, this is the one I like the most. It's a very interesting crime thriller. If you like Brit Marling's work like The OA, Sound of My Voice and Another Earth, I'd recommend The East as well, it is also one she that co-wrote.

Mother! (2017)
Jennifer Lawrence plays a mother, the stand in for mother earth, and her life/world is disrupted and destroyed by unexpected guests and intruders and violence...basically the other characters represent mankind the cause of the environmental wrongs. I really really dislike this movie. It's just manic and pretentiously nonsensical.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #405: Psychics and Mediums

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 Psychics and Mediums

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****So if you participated last week, you've realized there was a mistake in the final schedule, which I fixed. But guess what? ThePunkTheory spotted another mistake. An extra theme in November. Ahhh. I guess the root of all the mistakes is that I had used the 2021 schedule as a template and I think April had 5 Thursdays in 2021 and that jumbled everything up when I was doing the 2022 schedule and I somehow thought 30 November 2022 is a Thursday. Anyway I've removed the second extra theme.  Please refer to the newly edited schedule here. Hopefully that is the final mistake. ****

 

Here are my most recent watches.

Doctor Sleep (2019)
This is a sequel to The Shining (which I am not really a fan of). I think I like Doctor Sleep more, at least the first two thirds of it before the story had the characters go to the hotel. I just felt the whole hotel thing was just there to make the connection between the two movies clear and that it was a sequel.

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
This is a prequel of the 2014 movie Ouija and I think it is the better movie. Quite a sad one too about a family haunted by evil spirits. If you like The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor and Midnight Mass, well this was made by the same people and has some of the same actors, so you might want to check it out.

Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
This is a very charming very talky type movie, the type you’d expect from a Woody Allen movie.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #404: Diary/Journal

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 Diary/Journal

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****So I've noticed there is a mistake in the final schedule. I had listed on April 1st - Diary/Journal (which is not a Thursday) and April 7th - Psychic and Mediums. So if you were going just by order of themes and not by date when you looked through the schedule, then you would have done the Diary/Journal theme for today (like me). So I'm just going to keep it simple. If you have done Diary/Journal today, then on April 14th do Psychic and Mediums. If you did Psychic and Mediums today then do Diary/Journal on the April 14th. Combat Sports which was previously for April 14th is now on December 1st, so please refer to the newly edited schedule here. Hopefully no more mistakes. ****

I'm avoiding those that have diary or journal in their title because that is just too easy. Here are the ones I like:

Cruel Intentions (1999)
This is a fun classic 90's teen movie about a couple of spoiled rich teens playing a game of seduction. Sebastian one of the main characters, if you remember, writes a journal and it would later be used to bring the downfall of his stepsister.

I Capture the Castle (2003)
Based on one of my favourite books this is a charming adaptation that I love. The story is told from a journal the main character writes and so in the movie she is often seen scribbling away. The movie like the book closes with the last lines from her journal, though they changed the words a little. 

Gone Girl (2014)
The domestic thriller that every other domestic thriller wants to be. Amy, the gone girl, had been writing a diary the contents of which makes her husband look like he had a hand in her disappearance.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #403: TMP Television Edition - Family Comedies

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 -  Family Comedies

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I'm just picking half hour family comedies and the ones that immediately came to mind.

Schitt's Creek (2015-2020)

This got added to Netflix this year so I just started watching and I'm about halfway through and am enjoying it. I find the adult children who are still very childish funny.

Arrested Development (2003 - 2019)

I have only seen the original seasons and not the 2 season revival that came out a few years ago. Anyway I really like the original seasons. I had back then not seen anything like it as a half hour comedy; it was full of sarcasm and dark humour.

 

8 Simple Rules (2002 - 2006)

This was a pretty funny family comedy back in the early 2000s. What made me remember this after all these years is that it was the first show I had seen where the main actor, John Ritter who plays the father, passed away when they were still filming the series. It was actually very early in the second season so the writers had to write his death into the series...what a turn because it is a comedy and they had to do the "goodbye" episodes that show the bleaker aspect of life and have this fictional family deal with their husband/father's death; as far as I remembered it was decently done.

 

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