Thursday, June 25, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #50: All in the Family Edition: Sibling 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: Sibling 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 this is the sixth theme for the edition. My three of my picks this weeks all come from different genres: Period drama, contemporary drama and horror.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)
I think my favourite adaptation is the 1995 mini-series but this is very good as well. Most would know it because of the Elizabeth and Darcy romance, but at the center of it is the Bennet family where Elizabeth is one of five sisters, all with different personalities. Perhaps if you've never seen this you may think it is one of those slower period dramas; it's not. It is also very funny.

The Savages (2007)
The premise of this movie is something very familiar: you either have been in this position, will soon be or have seen others in it. In the Savages, brother and sister played equally brilliantly by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney have to determine how best to care for their aged father whom they don't even have a good relationship to begin with as I remember, but regardless feel a sense of duty towards.
 
You're Next (2009)
Other than what happen to the neigbours, the movie begins quite brightly. A couple of adult siblings come together for a weekend with their parents at their country home and I thought aww this looks like a sweet family that gets along. Then the snide remarks start to appear; at dinner they have an all out argument and we get the picture of how their relationship really stands. It is the family/sibling relationship that is the foundation of this  very very clever thriller. If you still haven't seen You're Next quick get to it!
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 So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #49: Animated Movies



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 Animated Movies

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Animated Movies

This week theme somehow seems oddly familiar, but after checking past themes, we've really not done this theme before. Now I think I've mentioned on this blog that I don't watch a lot animated films anymore; so I'm not quite caught up on the best animated films of today. My picks will have to come from the pool of films that I watched as a kid and the kid me pretty much loved all the animated feature films I had seen then. I thought it'll be fun to also do a theme within a theme thus I'm picking animated films centering on non human characters.
 
The Land Before Time (1988)
I watch this movie quite a number of times as a kid especially since it played on TV a lot back in the 90s so it was unavoidable. Anyone remembers the theme song If We Hold On Together sung by Diana Ross?
 
The Lion King (1994)
Love, love The Lion King. The movie just gorgeous with a great soundtrack. What is it with kids movies scarring children with scenes of a parents death?

Toy Story (1995, 1999, 2010)
I think I really did grow up with these movies. It had been the first CGI movie I had seen way back when it was first released and from what I understand it was actually the first full length CGI feature ever. I find each subsequent Toy Story is more emotional than the one before despite being essentially about the lives of toys...Pixar is so good at making full fleshy characters from its non human characters.

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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
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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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Thursday, June 11, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #48: Movies Set in a High School, Secondary School or the Equivalent



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 Movies Set in a High School, Secondary School or the Equivalent

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As usual I set up my own parameters for today's theme. Firstly, a majority of the setting has to be the school. Second, I excluded all teen comedies since we already had a teen comedy week and lastly no boarding school movies as we've already had that too. So here are my picks:


The Breakfast Club (1985)
I can't help but pick this movie for this theme; it's set 100% in a school. What happens when a student from each clique are forced to spend several hours together? Some very emotional scenes as they confront each other prejudices.

The Chocolate War (1988)
Based on a YA novel, the story centers on Jerry who as part of a secret society initiation ritual is tasked to refuse selling chocolate boxes for the school's annual fund raiser. I know that might not sound like the most appealing premise but some bad stuff goes down when Jerry continues to refuse selling beyond the number of days he was ordered, as his own little act of rebellion against the school's corruption. Little did he know that his actions escalates the power struggle between Archie, a student who is the mastermind of the school's secret society, and the corrupt school headmaster resulting in Jerry becoming an outcast picked upon by the other students. I love the book so I was thrilled when I found out it had already been adapted way back in the 80s. The book has such great villains; I wished the movie had the gritty performances to flesh out those characters. The movie also certainly tones down the sinisterness of Archie's schemes and the overall bleakness of the novel; still, the movie was an interesting watch.

Speak (2004)
I know I've mentioned this movie quite a number of times but it's so good and yet so under seen. It's also perfect for this theme; a majority of the scenes are set in the school and shows the its social structure. It even has that scene like in Mean Girls where they introduce the cliques but with less of a humorous tone and more to highlight how the protagonist doesn't fit in none of them.

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


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Thursday, June 4, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #47: Kids Movies Adults Would Enjoy (Non-Animated)



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 Kids Movies Adults Would Enjoy (Non-Animated)

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I don't have kids, but as a fan of movies, I do sometimes watch some kids movies. Now I can't help but think that parents/guardians have probably had to sit through countless awful kids movies that are just too sugary sweet, too heavy handed, too moralistic, too simplistic or full of bad acting among others. So here's to saving parents/guardians from bad kids movies.

The reason why I have the caveat as non-animated is because I have a feeling that without it, we'll see a lot of Pixar movies being picked. We all know Pixar is very good at making movies that cuts across all age groups so I thought it would be a much interesting and less easy theme without Pixar movies.

Flipped
You know how you'll sometimes hear of elderly couples who've been married forever because they're childhood sweethearts? I feel like Flipped is a movie of how they got together. It's a very sweet tale of two kids who live across each other in the early 1960's. For the earlier part of their childhood it was mostly an unrequited love, not even a friendship, until the other slowly starts to notice what's in front of them. The movie is based on a young adult novel which I haven't read but I understand they actually pushed the time setting a few decades backwards; I think it works and I really enjoyed the 60s setting. Don't the kids just dressed smartly for school in those days? Actually in general, I think people just dress better in that period.

Peter Pan
Peter Pan needs no introduction, everyone know this story and this adaptation is brilliant. I just love this movie. It's got action, adventure, magic, comedy, drama and has a lot heart. It makes me feel like a kid again.

The Secret Garden
Fell in love with this movie as a child and I still love it. There is no actual magic in this, but there's an almost magical quality to it with how the children's spirit were all restored through the restoration of the garden. If you have a little girl or still young at heart, don't miss seeing this particular adaptation of The Secret Garden.

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


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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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