Thursday, September 24, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #63: All in the Family Edition - Adopted/Foster Families


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: Adopted/Foster Families

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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 last theme for the edition. The year has really flown by hasn't it? Next week is already October and it will be the start of the Halloween edition which is always fun.

White Oleander (2002) 
This movie does not paint a pretty picture of the foster system. White Oleander follows Astrid who is placed in a string of foster homes after her mother is jailed for murder. Michelle Pfeiffer is great in this, so ice cold. 

Belle (2013)
I'm a sucker for period dramas and this one is such a pretty one. It's also based on a real person and stories of mixed race children is not often told. The movie tells of Belle, a mixed raced illegitimate child of an African woman and a navy admiral, who was raised by her aristocratic great uncle in 18th century England.

Orphan (2009)
I'll sneak in a pick that is a little Halloweeny for my last spot. In Orphan, a family that recently lost a baby of their own decides to open up their home to a child that needs one; they adopt a young Russian girl, Esther. Little do they know there is something not right with Esther.

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

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Thursday, September 17, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #62: Journalists/Reporters for Print/TV



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 Journalists/Reporters for Print/TV

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Hi! It's Thursday once more! There's no short of depiction of journalists or reporters in movies so I'm sure you won't have such a hard time with your picks today. Here are my picks:

Shattered Glass (2003)
Hayden Christensen hasn't had much luck after the Star Wars prequels but the movies he did before he was good in including Shattered Glass. Based on a true story, he plays Stephen Glass, a young journalist at a magazine who wrote articles where more than half were either partially or completely made up. It was amazing the amount of deception and fabrication he got away with because he was a charming character well liked by his colleagues. What were the fact checkers and editor doing? Now if you've already seen and like Shattered Glass, I recommend seeing The Hoax another based on a true story movie, this time about the fake Howard Hughes autobiography. 

All the President's Men (1976)
Not much to say about this one other than I expect to see this movie picked a lot this week and rightly so. It was captivating, suspenseful and I found it as great as everyone says it is.  

Philomena (2013)
I've been meaning to watch The Magdalene Sisters for some time, even borrowed the dvd but just could not find myself to be in the mood to watch it. The premise is so bleak. Philomena on the other hand has a bright poster so I gave it a watch. In the movie which is based on a real story (all my picks are today), Judi Dench plays Philomena one of what they used to call "fallen women" like some of the women in The Magdalene Sisters. She had got pregnant in her youth out of wedlock, was sent to a convent because of it and had her child taken away from her. Steven Coogan plays a journalist who reluctantly takes up the job of writing a human interest story and goes on a journey with Philomena in search of the son she lost. The movie could have been a complete bleak tearjerker, Philomena's story is just heartbreaking, but the movie manages to have the right blend of drama and dry humour playing with Philomena's gentle optimistic character against the cynical journalist.

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

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Thursday, September 10, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #61: Train 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 Train Movies (Suggested by John Hitchcock)

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Hey everyone! This week's theme was suggested by John Hitchcock @ HitchcocksWorld. There has been quite a number of train set movies in recent years but trouble is I don't think I've really love love most of them so I'm going with some older picks.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
I don't know where The Darjeeling Limited would rank in Wes Anderson's filmography, but I certainly like it. Possibly more than his most recent. Best of all it fits today's theme perfectly.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)
A young woman realises an elderly lady she recently became acquainted with has disappeared on the train they are traveling on. She tries to enlist fellow passengers to help find the missing lady but some of the passengers have oddly claim to never have seen such a person. For some reason I thought this movie was made much later, I didn't know it is that old. One of those rare times I like a very old movie. I was reading the IMDB message boards today and it seem people didn't like the first 30 minutes. No...why? I thought it was a good introduction to the characters with some funny bits.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Yep another Hitchcock film. Can't help it. It's one of my favourites. If you have yet to check this one out, do it now; it's one of those movies that's referenced a lot. While this has much less scenes on a train unlike my other picks today, the train does play a major role in the plot which is very simple really. As per the title: two strangers meet on a train, each has someone in their life they want to be rid off. One of them pitches a scheme to swap murders because without connection and motive prosecution has a weaker case. The other thinks it is all just empty silly talk until one of them does the deed.
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 So that's it...my three picks. What three movies made your list today?

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Thursday, September 3, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks #60: Teachers



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 Teachers

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For some reason, this week's theme seem familiar to me. I think it could be because we've had a couple of school related themes in the past so we could very well see a lot of overlaps in the movies mention this week. Which is why I'm trying to pick the not so popular titles and avoiding those that I've picked before even though I love them...so no Dead Poets Society :(.

Notes on a Scandal (2006)
I don't know about you, but most of the movies I've seen Judi Dench in she is either plays a sweet little old lady or some upper class lady in some period flick. So it was nice to see her in Notes on a Scandal where plays a bitter manipulative teacher blackmailing a fellow teacher played by Cate Blanchett who is having an affair with one of her students. The performances by both actresses in this is soo good.

In the House (2012)
In In the House, a French teacher, Germain becomes engrossed with his student Claude's essay about his relationship with his friend's family. Germain soon starts tutoring Claude to encourage the writing and becomes privy to the friend's family lives through the essays. I like movies that feature unreliable narrators and Claude is clearly a clever boy making the lines of what is real and what is fictionalised to keep Germain hooked blurred.

Monsieur Lazhar (2011)  
At a Montreal grade school, Algerian immigrant, Bachir Lazhar, is quickly hired to fill the vacancy left by a teacher who committed suicide in a classroom. The kids are silently traumatised over the tragedy and Lazhar tries to help them with their grief while also keeping his actual residency status a secret. A good, inspirational type of teacher movie with good performances all around. If one of the girls look familiar, it's because she's the one in The Book Thief.

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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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