Thursday, June 30, 2022

Thursday Movie Picks #416: TMP Television Edition - Orgin Story



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 iTMP Television Edition -  Origin Story

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I’m just doing a quick list of picks today.

Gotham (2014 - 2019)
The movies usually show the scene where Bruce’s parents were killed and they skip everything else going straight to him already an adult and Batman. This pretty much tells the story from that pivotal childhood scene and sticks to it as we see Bruce the kid lives in the aftermath. I only saw the first few episodes. DC superhero stories could never sustain my interest for very long, this was no different.

Black Sails (2014 - 2017)
I have not read Treasure Island so what I know of it was from a 2012 adaptation starring Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver, which I enjoyed. Black Sails is the prequel set decades earlier and basically introduces us to some of Treasure Island’s major characters when they were younger. This series is such a fun thrilling adventure drama.
 
Mindhunters (2017 - 2019)
When I heard about this series I thought…oh no not another serial killer true crime show…there’s so much of that already. Then I read a summary and I realised it was more about the agents work and thought this could be different. Mindhunters in short is about the early years of the FBI agents in the Behavioural Science Unit as they interview serial offenders in prisons in order to gather data and creating a database so that criminal profiling can be used as an investigative tool. This was a very interesting and well made series.

 
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Thursday, June 23, 2022

Thursday Movie Picks #415: Island 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 Island Movies

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I'm picking my most recent watches.

The Lost Daughter (2021)
The characters may have not refered to the island they're on, we just see lots of beach, but the movie was shot on an island in Greece. I don't think I like The Lost Daughter. I remember it as being claustrophobic with some its close shots and just the general feeling, which I know makes sense since it is about a woman who had felt motherhood was stifling her ambitions in academia. Still I thought it was an interesting movie, the way it also weaves suspense in that potential for danger in the present day events.

Luca (2021)
Not a real island, but a fantasy one set on the Italian Riviera. The main character is a sea creature that becomes human when he is dry. He meets another boy like him on a tiny island opposite a seaside town, from which they sort of practice at being human and spy on the humans, they long to be like, across the waters. I didn't love the movie but it is cute and gorgeous to look at. Pixar does water really well.

Fantasy Island (2020)
It's in the title. I had not seen the original TV series before so the premise of the movie is all new to me. Fantasy Island was okay. Not anything memorable.

 
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Thursday, June 16, 2022

Thursday Movie Picks #414: Shopping Mall



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 Shopping Mall

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Shopping Malls. We love them here. The weather is hot and humid all year round so the air conditioning the malls have provide a refuge from the heat. There are malls everywhere, next to almost all major train stops. I used to live the near a mall when I was growing up and would have to cut through the mall to get home. After school my friend and I would often get an ice cream, frozen yogurt, milk shakes from McDonalds and when we have a little more money, an Ice Blended from Coffee Bean. The mall provide a sort of cooling break from the heat in our journey and the cold drink or snack makes the rest of the walk home more tolerable. Oh and another great thing about malls is access to clean toilets and for nursing mothers and those with babies, nursing+baby rooms. Shopping malls also serve as a great movie setting. Here are some recent movies I’ve watch and liked that are set in a mall.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
I had not seen the first two Terminator movies in full before and finally did so a few months ago. I prefer the first Terminator more because I thought the sequel’s villain the T-100 was a little too indestructible. Anyway Terminator 2 had a scene in a shopping mall in one of the earlier scenes when the two terminators come looking for John Connor as he is playing at the arcade.

Holidate (2020)
This was a surprise. I actually enjoyed it; it is a really cute romcom. Holidate follows two single people who agree to become each other's platonic plus ones for various holiday parties throughout the year and I think the characters first met at mall as they were shopping for holiday gifts. The movie also has a grand gesture that takes place in the mall at the end

Fear Street Part One (2021) and Fear Street Part Three (2021)
I was a big fan of the Fear Street series of books growing up so I am thrilled that it finally got an adaptation and that they turn out to be decent horror movies. My favourite is Part Two. Part One and Three were still good watches and significant portions of them were set in a shopping mall and that was fun and just very retro.

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Thursday, June 9, 2022

Thursday Movie Picks #413: Fantasy

 



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 Fantasy

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This is coming late so I’m just going to the quick one picking some of the smaller fantasy movies that I like.

Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997) 
There are so many Snow White adaptations. Snow White was Disney’s first animated feature so that’s really popular. Then there were the two Snow White and the Huntsman movies. So Snow White: A Tale of Terror may have gotten overshadowed over the years but I like it, more than the rest I mentioned. It is much more darker and creepier. Sigourney Weever does a good turn as the evil/crazy stepmother. 

Peter Pan (2003)
Once again there are so many Peter Pan adaptations or movies with related stories. From Disney’s Peter Pan, Hook, Finding Neverland to the more recent Pan. All of them had pretty big stars starring in them too and I think there are two more Peter Pan related movies coming in the next year or two. Out of that I mentioned this Peter Pan movie is my favourite; it is an incredibly charming magical adventure.  

The Fall (2006)
This is one of my favourite movies, so I was surprise that it seemed I’ve never picked it for a previous TMP before. The movie follows a young girl with a broken arm in hospital who befriends a stuntman with a broken leg and he tells her a fantastical adventurous tale. This movie is visually amazing; the costumes, the locations and all shot so beautifully. I also really like the story; it’s charming and sad and the young actress is so natural as the the young girl character, it seems she isn’t acting at all, like she is just being herself…a child. 

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Thursday, June 2, 2022

Thursday Movie Picks #412: Failure to Launch



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 Failure to Launch (Movies that were supposed to launch a franchise)

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This is easy as there are just so many movies that were supposed to launch a franchise but failed to make much money and so the sequels were scrapped. There especially seem to be this scramble to make the next YA franchise, which I think began with Twilight. Before it, I don't think there had been a teen movie franchise. Twilight was the little movie that could. According to IMDB Twilight, the first movie, had a budget of 37 million and made a little more that 400 million worldwide. Next of course came The Hunger Games which was similarly as successful, it made about 9 times its own budget, but no other YA series seem to do as well. Most never got sequels, and the ones that got sequels however they tend to sort of sputtered near the end (Allegiant anyone?). So I'm going with a theme with a theme: adaptations of YA books I've read.

Beautiful Creatures (2013)
The Caster Chronicles series has four books. I've only read the first book and wasn't really into it. Felt mostly the same way about the movie. However I did sorta like the setting of movie, it had the whole Southern Gothic thing going on with the main character living in what from the outside looks like a decaying grand mansion on a plantation...it sorta look darkly beautiful. But I think they overdid with the costume choices and the story was not that strong either.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
The Mortal Instruments series has six books. I remember reading the first book and thinking why do people like this. I don't get it. It seemed as if the writer was trying so hard to make the characters cool to teens: The characters are teens who are demon hunters, wear a lot of black (leather?), are weapons experts and have magic tattoos. Well I guess because I was not a teen, they just don't appeal to me. The movie was just as unimpressive. Then when City of Bones failed to launch a movie franchise, they rebooted it and made a TV series, Shadowhunters, which lasted 3 seasons. Which is sort of unbelievable because I saw like the first two episodes and it was not an improvement from the movie. The lead female actress was super wooden and the production looked very budget. 

Vampire Academy (2014)
The Vampire Academy series has six books. I only read the first one and I can't say I like the book much, but it was definitely better than the movie. The movie could have exploited the appeal of supernatural kids in a boarding school setting (remember Harry Potter) unfortunately it didn't. The movie didn't really set up the franchise well and was not a good introduction to the Vampire Academy world and its characters. I remember being confused to the different type of vampires there were. Despite it having a theatrical release the movie also look very budget more like a TV movie with rather wooden acting. Anyway, since the movie franchise failed, it too is getting a new life as a TV series on Peacock with apparently Julie Pelc as the showrunner. If her name is familiar it's because she was the show runner for The Vampire Diaries which is also based on YA book series.


The 5th Wave (2016)
The 5th Wave series has three books. I've read the first two books. I actually really like the first book, it was I thought a pretty good YA apocalyptic book with plenty of action. The second one I didn't like so I didn't finish the series. The adaptation was pretty bad. I think it looked budgety. I saw a review that said it was a little Red Dawnish...and I kinda agree. While I thought the book was quite thrilling and action packed, the movie felt dull and like the story all feels stupid. I guess sometimes when you read something on a page it sounds okay, but when they try to realise into a movie it is just seems dumb and very juvenile.

The Darkest Minds (2018)
The Darkest Minds series has four books. I had wanted to read this book so much because I thought the  plot summary sounded interesting, however I was so disappointed when I finally read it. I think it's because by the time I read The Darkest Minds I had already ready a bunch of YA apocalyptic or dystopian novels and they all seem to have a similar basic plot which is children being taken from their parents and being put into some groups for various nefarious reasons (The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, The Fifth Wave, etc), so it was not bringing in anything new and some of the other books were better than it. The movie was sorta ok but like I said the story was unimpressive and boring, we've seen it before and done better, so I totally get why this didn't get a sequel.


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