Thursday, March 26, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #298: TMP Television Edition - Docu Series



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 TMP Television Edition - Docu Series

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There will never be a Documentary Feature TMP  because I rarely watch any, but documentary series, I definitely do watch them, well because I watch more TV than movies. So if it's on TV as I am flipping channels, I might just continue on watching. I prefer history docu series or the theme within a theme I'm going for this week which are docu series that does "making of" or "behind the scenes" look at something.

7 Days Out (2018)
Each episode follows groups of people which may be employees, organisers, participants or competitors and gives a glimpse at the behind the scenes stuff for seven days leading to an event. I absolutely love this series and I hope they do more. The first season covered the Westminster Dog Show, a restaurant reopening, a NASA mission, a Chanel fashion show, the Kentucky Derby and a pro video game tournament. If you've ever played a sport or organise an event that involves a lot of people, where there is a lot of work that goes on for months and days leading up to the actual event, I think you'd relate and enjoy this.

Animals with Cameras (2018)
The series follows camera specialists as they work with scientist to fit cameras to wild animals to give a truly unique animal's perspective of the world around them. We get to see the team go through a lot of trial and error to make a camera just the right size for each respective animal, in the case of a meerkat it was very small, and to find a way to fix it on them in the best way possible. If putting a camera on a land animal is hard, an aquatic animal seems a lot more challenging as in the case of the devil rays, but the footage of a group of devil rays migrating that came out off it was just magical to look at.

The Movies That Made Us (2019)
The thing I miss most about DVDs and Blu-rays are the special features. I love seeing how movies get made. Which is why I love this series and once again I hope they do more of it. The first season looked at Dirty Dancing, Home Alone, Ghostbusters and Die Hard. I thought the series presented the making of these movies in such a fun entertaining way. And I do think it goes beyond the usual info in special features that comes with DVD which usually just have interviews with the director and actors and maybe sometimes the screenwriter, composer or costume designer. This series actually has few actor interviews and instead talked mostly to the behind the scenes people like the producers, the screenwriters, special effects people, casting directors, etc and they talked about studio changes, writer changers, title changes, cast changes, etc the kind of stuff that probably would never have ended up on a DVD special features since DVD special features tend to be more promotional and rosy. Anyway I just found it all fascinating. 

Cheer (2020)
Cheerleading isn't a thing here, so the only cheerleading I've seen are in movies like Bring It On or on teen TV series but those of course are just actors. So when this series came up on Netflix, I thought sure why not. I wanted to see real cheer stunts. It's a pretty good series that gives a look into competitive cheerleading as it follows a college team as they train for a competition. The team isn't really one that does those sideshow cheers at other sports games. Cheerleading is a sport in itself and so this team's stunts are much more acrobatic, death defying and as such amazing to look at when they pull it off perfectly; some of those stunts looked like as if the film reel is playing in reverse even though it's not. Yet you really wonder why anyone would go through months of painful training because it really looks just so painful, even when they do the stunts perfectly and of course worse when the stunt fails. I suppose it can be argued that most sports causes pain and injury, but the difference being that unlike other sports there is no pro teams or leagues in store for the cheerleaders to actually make a living other than being a coach. All the risks and injuries with very little reward...which reminds me of a fictional drama TV series called Dare Me where a doctor is examining a cheerleader that had just sustained an injury after a terrible knock to her face when a stunt went wrong, and he says something like "at least football players have helmets".

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Thursday, March 19, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #297: Bad Boys



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 Bad Boys

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This is a fun topic. At first I thought of going the route of school bad boys, then I thought of a theme within a theme within a theme. I'm going for literary bad boys who are all men in uniform serving in the military.

George Osborne from Vanity Fair (2004)
Snobby narcissistic George marries the naive Amelia. I thought he was perfectly played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers who looked like a total peacock especially with the costumes and the vibrant colors this adaptation had. 

Mr Wickam from Pride & Prejudice (2005)
The charming, ambitious and opportunistic Mr Wickam tries to woo Elizabeth and when he fails at that quickly moves on to the silly youngest Bennet sister, Lydia.

Sergeant Francis Troy Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)
Bathseba attracts three different suitors and yet chooses to marry the handsome but reckless Francis Troy.

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Thursday, March 12, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #296: Spoofs / Satires / Mockumentaries



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 Spoofs / Satires / Mockumentaries

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I'm picking satires, because there are so many good ones. Here are three that immediately came to mind.

Scream 1 - 4 (1996 - 2011)
The first time I saw the first three Scream movies I was a kid and I didn't get the appeal of it nor any of the references. I've rewatched all of them the last few years and I get it now. I know Scream 3 is probably the least liked of all of the Scream movies, but I actually do like it. Bringing the characters to a movie set about them brought the series to a full circle.

Office Space (1999)
I love workplace comedies especially ones with office settings and this I remember as being very good. It has been ages since I've watched it though so time for a rewatch.

Thank You for Smoking (2005)
Like Office Space, I've somehow have not picked this for TMP before. This was so sharp and funny. It follows a tobacco lobbyist as he goes around defending/speaking for cigarettes. I particularly remember that little speech the character gives to his son about proving someone wrong...very good spinning. 

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Thursday, March 5, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #295: Seven Deadly Sins Edition - Gluttony



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 Seven Deadly Sins Edition - Gluttony

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Welcome back to the Seven Deadly Sins edition and today's theme is Gluttony. This is a tough one, because it seems quite similar to Greed. But here is what I understand to be the difference: gluttony refers to over consumption while greed refers to over accumulation. So with that, I could have gone a few different ways...movies about over consumption of food, alcohol, drugs, etc. Instead, I'm going to go the supernatural horror route and here are my picks.

Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Lestat creates the child vampire Claudia and she becomes a talented little vampire luring victims with her little girl charms.

30 Days of Night (2007)
A coven of vampire kills a whole town during their 30 days of night.

Jennifer's Body (2009)
In this horror comedy a cheerleader develops an insatiable appetite for boys.

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