Thursday Movie Picks #33: All in the Family Edition: Father-Son Relationships (Biologically Related)

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each.For further details visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is All in the Family Edition - Father-Son Relationships (Biologically Related)

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Every last Thursday for the first nine months of 2015 I'm running the All in the Family Edition and wow did time flew because today is the the second theme for the edition. This week is pretty easy one for me, my picks came easily. Here are three of my favourites:

About Time (2013)
The big misconception about this movie is that it is just a romance/romantic comedy and people probably gave it a miss because of that. Yes there are elements of romance and comedy in it, but it is as the title says it is. It is about time, about valuing it and family. One of the relationships that was focused on is the relationship between Tim and his father. They have a great relationship and it's just one of those that is just so rarely seen on screen. One of the saddest scene in the movie was when Tim and his wife decides to have a third child and we understand what it means for his father so I was pretty much sobbing when Tim and his father went to the beach near the end of the movie.

Billy Elliot (2000)

Billy's father may not approve of Billy's fondness for dancing, but when he realises how good and dedicated Billy is to dance he comes around to supporting him. The goodbye scene is one of the most heartwarming scenes of very masculine characters expressing their love for each other.

Road to Perdition (2002)
This movie is just perfect for today's theme since it has three father-son relation though one is not biologically related so I won't go into that one. The first is the relationship between the mob boss and his foolish reckless son. The other is between the mob's hitman who has been shielding his sons from his life of crime until one of them spies on a hit which leads to disastrous consequences and I'll just leave it at that.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

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Check out some of my random Thursday Movie Picks

Thursday Movie Picks #28: Movies with Colour in the Title
Thursday Movie Picks #17: Movies Featuring Amnesiacs
Thursday Movie Picks #25: Bank Robberies
Thursday Movie Picks #13: Zombie Movies
Thursday Movie Picks #22: Movies that Feature a Family Secret

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

 

Thursday Movie Picks #32: Oscar Winning Movies (from pool of Winners of Best Picture/Best Animated Film/Best Foreign Film)

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each.For further details visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Oscar Winning Movies (from pool of Winners of Best Picture/Best Animated Film/Best Foreign Film)

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The Oscars are upon us! Are you a fan of the Oscars? Do you watch the ceremony? I use to really follow all these various award shows, but now I really don't follow who wins what or who got snubbed because there are just so many good stuff out there that just doesn't have the marketing machine behind it to help it get seen and nominated. That said I still watch the Oscars because it's still a pretty entertaining show: I enjoy the opening jokes by the host, the funny thank you speeches and the performances for best song. So because it is Oscar Week, picks this week have to be one of the movies that have won a best film award. For my picks I'm going with some of my favourites:

American Beauty (1999)

This movie was my introduction to the world of dark comedies back in 1999. Dysfunctional family movies are kind of the norm now, but then (at least to me) it was just so new going beneath the surface of the perfect-from-the-outside family. I still catch this movie sometimes when it's aired on TV and it still draws me in with its interesting messy characters and the sardonic narration of Kevin Spacey's Lester Burnham

Gladiator (2000)

I wasn't at all interested to see Gladiator because I though all it had to offer was people battling in the Colosseum. Eventually I did see it when it aired on TV and I pretty much love it. It was the sweeping music, the sweeping shots. the epic story and especially the acting that won me. Russell Crowe was of course superb as Maximus, who can ever forget his iconic lines, and Joaquin Phoenix was just hateful as Commodus.

Rebecca (1940)

I've talked about Rebecca here before. Joan Fontaine is just perfect as the Second Mrs. de Winter with the right blend of youth, innocence and naivety who is just trying so very hard to be as elegant as Rebecca. The movie itself is haunting, suspenseful, also surprisingly funny in the 1st third and I'd consider (except for the bit at the end) a very faithful adaptation of the book.  

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

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Check out some of my random Thursday Movie Picks

Thursday Movie Picks #7: Dramatic Scenes   
Thursday Movie Picks #16: Haunted Buildings       
Thursday Movie Picks #24: Movies Driven Entirely by People Talking
Thursday Movie Picks #14: Found Footage Movies
Thursday Movie Picks #22: Movies that Feature a Family Secret

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

 

Top Ten Tuesday #4: Ten Book Related Problems I Have

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish where bloggers share a list based on a weekly theme.

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I haven't been doing any bookish posts lately so I thought I'd do this week Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Related Problems. I only manage to come up with only eight problems which is good I suppose.

Choosing What to Read
That is the primary problem isn't it? There are only so many hours in a day and so many that I want to read.

Books or Audiobooks
I'm really enjoy listening to audiobooks especially since I can do other things while listening. This brings about another problem: which book should I read and which should I listen because I still enjoy just reading a book the traditional way.

Book Amnesia

I guess it's natural to forget plots of books the more you read but it sucks when you're reading a series and can't remember what happens in the previous book which I recently encountered when I read The Infinite Sea (I couldn't remember who the secondary characters were).

Read It or Watch It First?

As a fan of both books and movies I am continually torn on this. Either way I lose the experience of going into one of them not knowing anything.

Mixing It All Up

I like watching adaptations and for some books I have watch a few different adaptations that it has. I have found that when I have watched the adaptations, eventually the stories have kind of get mixed up and overlap where I can no longer remember what was actually in the book and what was just stuff that the adaptations changed and added in.

Borrowing More Than I Can Read

When the books I want to read become available I can't help myself from borrowing it even though I already have like a stack of library books at home still unread.

Not Reading the Books I Own

The last time I read a book from my own bookshelf was probably more than a year ago. They are so neglected.

Rotting Books

Here in the tropics humidity is high, accelerating decomposition...basically my books are rotting...ok I'm exaggerating. But they are yellowing terribly fast and of course the mass market paperback fare the worst. The pages of the books that I bought some ten years ago now look ancient.

Thursday Movie Picks #31: Unrequited Love

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each.For further details visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Unrequited Love

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Last week we covered romantic comedies, today I thought lets do a little heartbreak...the unrequited love type. As Toulouse-Lautrec from Moulin Rouge says "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return" and don't the characters in my picks know it. Now there are quite a number of unrequited love movies so I put up my own parameters before getting down to my picks today. First, there must be some confession of love and a rejection, because otherwise, how can there ever be a surety that the love is unrequited. Second, the parties must not come together by the time the movie ends in the they-learn-to-love-each-other-in-the-end (so no Sense and Sensibility). Third there are no obsessive stalker films (so no The Story of Adele H). So here are my picks: two favourites, a hidden gem and one bonus.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Love the movie. It's cute, quirky and funny. And I love that they did a reversal on the genders going for the opposite of the gender often assumed to be the more romantically and emotionally invested in a relationship. Oh Tom...it's sad that his heart broke, but it he had it coming, he was just not hearing anything Summer way saying.

I Capture the Castle (2003)

Set in the 1930s England, 17 year old Cassandra's father is suffering from a bad case of writer's block, with no income her family struggles to survive in their crumbling castle. That is until their landlord, a pair of American brothers, come to check on their English estate and may just save them financially if one of the brothers marry Cassandra's older sister Rose. This is a sweet coming of age movie based on a book I love and it has not one but three unrequited love so lots of wasted hearts here. As Cassandra would say "It's like some hideous party game.Everybody's dancing, and nobody's getting the prize they want because it's all thirdhand and second best."

Two Lovers (2008)

Joaquin Phoenix puts in a really good performance as Leonard a depressed suicidal guy who finds himself between two new relationships. The first is with the daughter of his family's friend who wants to save/care for him. Leonard is charming and funny but also awkward, sad and vulnerable and you can't help but think that the second relationship with the charismatic tall blonde party girl next door, who he falls for fast, is bad news.

Bonus...

Love Actually (2003)
This is a bonus because I already picked this last week and because the unrequited love story here is only one small story in a mosaic of love stories but the Mark and Juliet story is so perfect for this theme and it's so sweet that I just can't resist mentioning it once again.

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

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Check out some of my random Thursday Movie Picks

Thursday Movie Picks #11: Nautical Movies
Thursday Movie Picks #22: Movies that Feature a Family Secret   
Thursday Movie Picks #13: Zombie Movies
Thursday Movie Picks #16: Haunted Building   
Thursday Movie Picks #21: Movies Adapted from a Play (non-Shakespeare and non-musical)

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

 

In With the New Blogathon

Finally...here it is my entry to Wendell@Dell on Movies In With the New blogathon. A little late but just in time for Wendell's new deadline. The gist of the blogathon is to pick a remake/reimagining that is better than the original. One caveat is that no sequels are allowed. Since I love watching adaptations of books and tend to watch different adaptations of them I immediately went for an adaptation and it is:

Jane Eyre

The thing that book readers have to get used to is that any adaptation of a book will most likely fall short of what you want it to be. Firstly nothing is going to be able to be that perfect little movie that plays out in your head as you read. Secondly they're never going to fit in hundreds of pages in a two hour movie, something will be left out, but most of all the adaptation is going to be someone else interpretation of the book, not yours. Now Jane Eyre is one of those books that is old enough and popular enough to have been adapted countless times. So if you're a fan of Jane Eyre, like me, you're bound to find something you'd like in one of the many adaptations, which I have. Since this is a movie blogathon, I'm only sticking to the movie adaptations.

  
The earliest of the three Jane Eyre movies I've seen is the 1943 version. I was actually really looking forward to this because Joan Fontaine who plays Jane was brilliant in Rebecca (as Rebecca) just 3 years earlier and that story is pretty much a modern day version of the Jane Eyre story, but unfortunately the movie is unremarkable so much so that I have forgotten I have ever seen it. The next Jane Eyre adaptation is the 1996 version which I thought had a good Jane in Charlotte Gainsbourg. However, the childhood part of Jane Eyre was a little length and incredibly overacted and the thing that probably hurt this movie the most was that William Hurt was terribly miscast as Rochester. So with this blogathon being about the new being better, it is pretty clear that the 2011 adaptation is the one I think is better and here's a few reasons why (beware of some spoilers).

The non linear narrative. It tells a well known story differently and that is refreshing, beginning at the 2/3 point of the novel where Jane flees Thornfield and the story goes back and forth before finally catching up. 

A gothic tale will not do without beautiful sweeping shots of the moors. 

Seriously this movie is visually stunning.

And I have to add sometimes we forget that there was no electricity in the 19th century with the amount of light in the night scenes of some period movies, so I thought it was great that this Jane Eyre had a lot of night scenes lit only by the warm glow of a few candles.

The music. There were some beautiful string music used to heighten the tense scenes.

I like Jane for her independent spirit, her quiet strength, restraint and resoluteness, but the book is told in first person and with Jane being such a quiet internal character it can be quite a difficult story and character to put on screen. With a lesser screenplay and actress, Jane Eyre may appear dense and passive, but Mia Wasikowska plays it so well. She is so expressive, saying so much with so little. 

"I'm not fond of children. Nor do I particularly enjoy simple minded old ladies. But you might suit me, if you would."

"Ah, there you are! Just like one of your tricks to steal in along with the twilight. If I dared to touch you, see if you were real."

Rochester we all know is the older man, master of the house, a brooder, surly and abrupt. What I find missing in some of the other adaptations is the mean cutting remarks Rochester make to the people he doesn't care for and also the playful and teasing side of Rochester especially when he is with Jane, so it's great to see that all of these sides of Rochester made it to this adaptation and Michael Fassbender has just the right mix of darkness and charm as Rochester.

Lastly the chemistry between the leads is electric and came through especially well in their parting scene.


So that's my pick of a new adaptation that I think is better than the earlier ones I've seen. Have you seen this Jane Eyre? How do you think it fare against the other adaptations?

 

Thursday Movie Picks #30: Romantic Comedies

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share three movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple simple: Each week there is a topic for you to create a list of three movies. Your picks can either be favourites/best, worst, hidden gems, or if you're up to it one of each.For further details visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Romantic Comedies

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This week we're back to regular programming and with Valentine's Day less than two weeks away it's fitting that the theme this Thursday is Romantic Comedies. My picks today are favourites:

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) 
I thought Renee Zellweger was adorable as Bridget, the 30 something singleton, who tries to get her life together as part of her new year's resolution but almost always end up doing and saying all the wrong and embarrassing things landing her in some hilarious situations making this a very fun and funny watch filled with some catchy pop music.

 

Love Actually (2003)
I watch this often, it is pretty much my comfort movie. Love Actually is funny, cute and it not only feature romantic love but other types as well. And what is it with British romantic comedies???...they seem to have the best pop soundtracks.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

This is a super cute fun period comedy. Desperate for a job after a recent dismissal, middle age Miss Pettigrew takes on the position of social secretary to the glamorous and charming but ditsy singer Delysia (adorably played by Amy Adams). Basically Miss Pettigrew's job is to assist Delysia in getting the West End role she is working towards including ensuring the different men Delysia is juggling do not meet and clash, including the piano player Michael who is in love with Delysia and wants her to leave with him and go to New York. 

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So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

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Check out some of my random Thursday Movie Picks

Thursday Movie Picks #6: Movies about Time Travel
    Thursday Movie Picks #8: Movies set Locally
    Thursday Movie Picks #12: Unstable Characters
    Thursday Movie Picks #14: Found Footage Movies
    Thursday Movie Picks #20: Foreign Language Movies - French

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If you are participating be sure to add your blog post to the linky widget below (Enter your Blog Post URL, your Blog Name and your email {which will remain hidden}). Please also visit the other participating blogs, spread the word about this meme, and also link back to my blog on your own Thursday Movie Picks post :)

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Participating Blogs/Bloggers

Weekly Recap #15: The Infinite Sea, Lullabies, The Flash, TMNT ...

I haven't been doing this for a while partly because I just wasn't able to squeeze writing a post and partly because some the TV shows I was following went on mid season break and so there wasn't  much to recap on the TV side. That said the mid season break has certainly threw me off the TV watching momentum and I haven't got back on to watching even though some of the series have comeback from their break. I guess now I have to wait for them to either air marathons or wait for the DVDs which probably means September or October.

Read

The Infinite Sea
This is the second book of the Fifth Wave series by Rick Yancey. If you haven't heard of this series before you will very soon since its been made into a movie with Chloe Moretz as the lead to be released in 2016. I read the first book, the Fifth Wave, a year and a half ago and I have to say getting back into the world in The Infinite Sea was difficult because I remember very little of what happened in the first book. Usually I rely on a website called The Recaptains where a group of bloggers recap books from YA series to help readers get into the next book in a series but unfortunately this time it didn't help at all. Basically I was totally lost and it affected my enjoyment of the Infinite Sea. I think in part it was also because in the first book I was more invested in what happened to the main characters and in the second book the secondary characters have a greater role in the story and I just can't remember who they were. Do you ever get that? Read a book and come across characters that you remember nothing about?

Lullabies
Sometime in 2013 I began seeing Love & Misadventure Lang Leav's first book of poetry on Tumblr. Now I don't really read poetry beyond the epigraphs in books or poems that are referenced in books/movies/TV but the cover of Love & Misadventure, which was very pretty, attracted me to it. I was initially surprised by how short and simple the poetry was but there was a touch of whimsy to them and I actually like a couple plus I suppose it is its simpleness that makes it accessible to non poetry readers like me. Anyway Lullabies came out last year so naturally I decided to check it out and I have a much different reaction to this. I used to think the poet's poetry was short and cute, now with this second book I'm of the opinion that it's simplistic, too childlike and cliche. So my question again is, is this poetry? Because they sound more and more like little love notes between lovers and quotes found in greeting cards. But what really made me want to chuck this book halfway through it was that it's full of romantic love poems: finding love, being in love and heartbreak. What about regret, failure, guilt, shame, fear, contentment, anger...I'm sure these emotions would have made great themes for poetry too? I mean I get it, the poet's probably in love or out of love or whatever but with a title like Lullabies I expected it to have moved away from the themes of love which was already well explore in Love & Misadventure. I probably won't recommend Lullabies but I am now terribly curious what people who actually read poetry would think of it.

Watched

TV

The Flash
I've only watched a few episodes so I am totally not up to date with the series at all but I am loving it thus far. I used to watch the 90's series but I remember nothing of it, so the story is like new to me. I was a little worried that the series wasn't going to hold me being too episodic with a meta human of the week to torment Barry, but so far they have done a good job of weaving the normal everyday drama and the continuing mystery of who murdered Barry's mother into the narrative so there is definitely something to look forward to the next week. Now I like Arrow (the series the Flash spins off from) but Oliver is very reserved, distant and guarded so much so it's very hard to see any emotion from him. In contrast, Barry wears his heart on his sleeve; we get to see the full extent of his emotions (like his excitement over the cool stuff he can do with his new powers which is very cute) and that just make him a much more human, likeable and endearing character. He and all his friends are a lot more fun to watch. And I love that Barry's rival in the romance department is such a nice guy. Barry just can't hate him and neither can we. I know there's a The Flash movie coming in 2018(?) and it's interesting that they have another actor, Ezra Miller, in the title role. I mean I know this has been done before with Superman Returns/Smallville but Grant Gustin who plays Barry in this series is just so good as Barry. And if the movie is another origin story that begins at the same point...I really don't see the point of the movie version within 3 years of the TV series.

American Idol

The new season has just started. They started off the show a little differently this time around by letting us hear, but not see, the finalists singing...I guest it's meant to give the audience a taste of the talent we can look forward too. I also noticed they've been showing fewer of the wacky attention-seeking auditions, good move because I can't stand them. Next week is the hollywood week which is always intense for the contestants and fun for us to watch.

Movies

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

I used to be watch this series a lot as a kid and I enjoyed recognizing characters, looking for their quirks and hearing out their catchphrases. But beyond the nostalgia, this movie did not hold my attention. The thing is I'm not fond of action movies, so I didn't care for the action here where I suppose was where much of the budget went too. The characters: I know the turtles were different sizes, they wore different eyebands, had different weapons, one was flirty, another was a techie, but seriously I couldn't match which characteristics to which turtle, which I think I could when I saw the cartoons. Here they seem like just a blur of turtles. And I have to say, seeing a live action TMNT movie is just weird. The turtles were weird. They're like turtles on steroids. I mean they were suppose to be Ninjas! Does the word "Ninja" conjure up images of muscled characters? No right! And I don't remember the cartoon turtles to be muscled so I don't get that desicion. Then there was Megan Fox as April. I get why she was casted but Megan Fox is not April! She's just too sexy and not enough ambitious journalist so it just didn't work from the start. If you like the cartoons, I'd say just stick to the cartoons.

Crush (2013)

There's so many of these crazy obsessive crush movies and though this isn't a great movie I do think it offers at least something interesting: it actually presents three simultaneous crush/stalker relationships highlighting that the line between harmless crush and plain crazy stalking is just so fine. The movie also plays up on the mystery of the secret admirer who's the real crazy one out of the three and yet there's something that gives away the identity before the movie even begins so I'm confused whether are we suppose to know? Or are we suppose to not know which means someone really screwed up and gave the identity away unintentionally?