Thursday Movie Picks #424 TMP Television Edition - Boarding School

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 is TMP Television Edition - Boarding School

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When I was a kid I thought it must be a wonderful adventure to attend a boarding school...I guess I was influenced by all those children's books that idealised romanticised boarding schools. Then I did kinda get to stay at one, because my school, which was just regular school, had some sort of thing with a boarding school so some of us had a chance to stay for a few days at a boarding school. For a short stint, it was ok, but no way would I have been okay going there full time. I like my after school hours to not be at school and I like watching TV too much, which I suppose at a such a place there would be a time limit so in reality boarding school would have been awful for me. Anyway...when I came up with this theme I must have had the impression that because I've seen plenty of boarding school movies, I must have seen plenty of boarding school TV series too. Turned out that's not true. I've seen very few and none that I love.

 

Fate: The Winx Saga (2021 - )

This is the live action adaptation of the Winx cartoon series about young fairies going to a boarding school to learn to use their magic which I have never seen before. It is aired on Nickelodeon and from the images I saw of the cartoons, seems like it is for very young kids. This live action series though seems more directed at tweens and older and it is actually not bad. Quite entertaining and not as juvenile as I thought an adaptation of a kids cartoon series would be, though I suppose it probably isn't as faithful? One criticism is that they seem to have a very tight budget and not enough for adult extras; the series takes place at a boarding school, but there are basically only 4 to 5 teachers that we see and hardly any school support staff. It's basically weird to see a show set in a school with so few adults even in the background non-speaking roles.

Tiny Pretty Things (2020)

Based on a YA book series following a girl who got accepted into an elite ballet boarding school when a place opened up for her after a ballet student got into a mysterious accident. The book was okay. The TV series was a little too raunchy and inserted a lot more drama, more cattiness and just more scandalous stuff. It just seemed like it was trying so hard to be a ballet school drama version of Gossip Girl/Pretty Little Liars.

 

Hex (2004 - 2005)

I saw this a long long time ago, so I can remember very little. Something to do with witchcraft and fallen angels and demons all set in a British boarding school. I think I found it quite entertaining. If you like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Buffy or Angel, you would probably like this, though this is a little more raunchy. This was I think the first time I had seen Michael Fassbender in anything; he played the devilish fallen angel Azazeal and I had thought he was pretty menacing in it.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #423: Dark Academia

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 Dark Academia

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This is a genre rising in popularity in the literary scene and a book that is said to have inspired its popularity is Donna Tartt's The Secret History which I did not like (instead I'd recommend If We Were Villains). Anyway that has yet to be adapted so I thought it would be interesting to see what movies could fall in the Dark Academia genre which generally features idealised romanticised view of education in institutions with old often gothic architecture, great libraries, preppy uniforms, moody atmospheres and where things are not all warm and cozy as it appears on the surface. Here are the ones I like, and since I've picked them for other themes before and I'm lazy, I'm going to copy and paste some of my previous comments.

Cracks (2009)

Girls in a swim team look up to their swim teacher, the glamorous Miss G who charms them with romantic tales of adventure but the arrival of a new girl changes the dynamic of the team. I really like this one. It has very beautiful costuming and scenery which is a nice contrast to the dark turns the story eventually takes.

The Chocolate War (1988)
A boy rebels against his school's secret society by refusing to sell chocolate boxes for the school fund raiser and inadvertently escalates the power struggle between one of the society's leaders and the school's corrupt headmaster. Love the book and while the movie falls a little short, still a worthy watch. If you can't find the movie go read the book.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

On a day trip to Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day, a few students from a girls' boarding school and a teacher disappear. One of my favourites, which I have also read the book, and have picked the movie multiple times before. Similar to Cracks it has beautiful costumes and scenery but the story is more haunting and eerie.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #422: Ageing Leading Actors Cast as Much Younger Men Playing Alongside Much Younger Actresses

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 Ageing Leading Actors Cast as Much Younger Men Playing Alongside Much Younger Actresses

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I'm always annoyed when I watch a movie where the actor is like 40 or 50 but is playing a much younger male character of 20+ to 30+ while the actress they are acting alongside is actually around the age or the female character which is 20+. I mean what were the producers thinking? The actor may look good for their age but they definitely don't look 20 years younger good. Here are a few movies guilty of such.

Rear Window (1954)

There are so many Hitchcock films that cast male leads that are usually nearly 20 years older than the female leads: North by Northwest, Vertigo, To Catch a Thief...But I'm gonna pick Rear Window, because in it, the nurse who comes to care for the male lead who has a broken leg is played by an actress who was about 6 years older than James Stewart, but she plays sort of the older maternal woman and in one of the dialogue as she is giving relationship advice she refers to him as a "young man". When I saw Rear Window the first time a long time ago, I had thought the couple played by Stewart and Kelly were having a May December romance. However, upon watching it the second time and having heard the nurse refer to James Stewart's character a "young man", only then did I realise that he was playing a much younger character, someone closer in age to Grace Kelly's character. Seriously? Stewart looks closer to 50 than 30. 

47 Ronin (2013)

Keanu Reeves plays a man who grew up with and falls in love with his master's daughter. The age his character is supposed to be is never mentioned but it seemed to imply that he is a young man, so 20 to 30 plus, at least that is how young the female character, the love interest, looked like and the characters are supposed to be close in age since they grew up together. Keanu Reeves when this movie was released was almost 50, and while he does he does look young for his age, he does not look 30 and the age difference is so obvious when he shares the same scene with the actress playing the love interest.

The Mummy (2017)

I could really pick quite a number of movies Tom Cruise has starred in the past 10 years: American Made, Edge of Tomorrow and Mission Impossible...they all had him star alongside actresses, who are often playing the love interest, who are close to 20 years younger him. Cruise's character's age is also almost never mentioned but I'm guessing he is always playing someone who is perpetually in his mid 30s. You know what, I'm waiting to see a movie where he actually plays a grandfather, with a partner who is also in their 60s.

 

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Thursday Movie Picks #421: Math in 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 Math in Movies

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I'm doing a real quick one. A lot of movies that feature a lot of math are about geniuses. I'm steering away from that and just pick those that do feature people that are very good at math just doing their jobs or outwitting a system.

My quick picks are: Hidden Figures (2016), The Martian (2015), Moneyball (2011) and 21 (2008)

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