Thursday Movie Picks: Period Drama

Jun 20, 2019

Happy Thursday, everyone! Brightburn is finally out in the UK today so I’m hoping to catch that tonight. I’m not setting my expectations too high, but I’m still looking forward to it. Anyway, Thursday also means Thursday Movie Picks, hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. I had to do a quick Google search to define this week’s topic of Period Drama, as I’ve always said I hated the genre without really knowing what it is.

To my joy, Google defined it as “a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television”. Well blow me down, it’s a much broader term than I thought it was! Thanks to that revelation, I’m bringing a theme within the theme this week, as my 3 Period Drama picks all star Emma Stone!

The Favourite (2018)

This, to me, is my dictionary definition of Period Drama. Women in huge, stuffy dresses and men going off to war. What convinced me to see The Favourite though was the cast, obviously including Emma Stone, and the fact that it’s directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, known for creating all things weird and wonderful. Olivia Colman won an Oscar for her performance in this, and she was so deserving of it! I highly recommended this one if you haven’t seen it already.

The Help (2011)

It’s been years since I watched The Help, but writing this has reminded me how much I want to see it again. Emma Stone plays a writer called Skeeter who decided to interview the black women who look after wealthy families. Again, the cast here is stunning and it’s a shocking look into history. The Help is worth a watch if nothing more than to see Octavia Spencer deliver arguably her most famous line ever, “Eat my s**t”.

Magic in the Moonlight (2014)

I only watched this one recently, but once I realised my first two picks shared Emma Stone in common I just had to see if I could make it a hat trick, and huzzah! Here we go. I’ve since learned that Woody Allen movies are an acquired taste, so this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I quite liked it. It had just the right amount of humour, romance, and mystery to satisfy me.

Thursday Movie Picks: Undercover

Jun 13, 2019

It’s probably about time I admitted that I’ve been undercover all this time. Secretly, I’m actually a great blogger who writes concisely and elegantly and keeps to a strict writing schedule in order to post consistently. Just kidding, sloppy, incoherent and inconsistent me is the real me – nothing is going to change about that!

I do always try, though, and keeping up with Wandering Through the Shelves’ Thursday Movie Picks is at the top of my list. This week’s theme is Undercover, and whilst there have been many iconic, serious movies that fit the subject (Reservoir Dogs, The Departed, etc) I’m not going to talk about those today. My picks are pure fun!

21 Jump Street (2012)

2012 was a magical year for Channing Tatum. He was obviously already well known for the Step Up movies but in 2012 he not only stole the hearts of women everywhere with Magic Mike, he broke those hearts with the romantic weepy movie The Vow, and then cheered us all up with the surprise hit, 21 Jump Street. It’s a remake of an 80s show where Channing and Jonah Hill play 2 cops going undercover as High School students to take down a drug ring. It’s honestly one of the best comedies of the decade!

Miss Congeniality (2000)

I just love Sandra Bullock. It doesn’t matter what the movie is, if she’s in it I’ll watch it. I haven’t seen Miss Congeniality in years but Sandra basically plays a tough cop going undercover in a beauty pageant, and it’s as funny as you can imagine. It must have done well at the time because they made a sequel, but it’s sadly nowhere near as good as the original…as always!

Point Break (1991)

Sometime, a week will pass without me mentioning Keanu Reeves. This week is not that week. How can I not mention Point Break?! Keanu plays an FBI agent going undercover as a surfer to catch a group who are suspected bank robbers. I only watched it for the first time recently (before Keanu fever hit, thank you) but it was so much fun! I ended up watching the remake straight after and actually compared them – excuse the self-promotion!

Thursday Movie Picks: Interview

Apr 18, 2019

Happy Thursday everyone! It’s almost Easter! It’s almost time for it to be acceptable to stuff our faces with chocolate, wayhey! Did I buy my toddler a chocolate egg? Of course I did. Did I pick her the one that just so happened to be my favourite too? You can bet your ass I did. Chocolate is bad for you, kiddo.

Today’s Thursday Movie Picks theme is Interview. Did I ever mention that I work in recruitment? Well, to be honest, I don’t, I’m a Sales & Marketing Administrator, but I work for a recruitment agency – so the theme is quite relevant for me! It’s a shame most real interviews don’t happen the way they do in the movies, but the consultants I work with have more than a few odd stories to share.

So, this week I’ll be sharing my favourite interview scenes from movies!

Ted (2012)

I don’t think I could even type out what Ted said in his interview for the job at the grocery store it was so obscene, but it’s one of the best bits of the movie! I still can’t believe my brother convinced our mum to watch this movie…

The Imitation Game (2014)

Based on the true story of Alan Turing, The Imitation Game is far from a comedy, but the scene in which Alan is interviewed for the job of cracking the code is deadpan humour at it’s finest!

Nightcrawler (2014)

It is so much easier to get a job in movies! All Rick needed was a driving license, a cell phone, knowledge of LA and the freedom to start the job immediately. I had to laugh when he revealed that he worked as a landscaper until he realised he had hay fever.

Thursday Movie Picks: Unrecognizable Actor Transformation

Apr 4, 2019

It’s the first Thursday Movie Picks of the month, and it’s April already! Excuse me 2019 but where do you think you’re going? Can we slow down a little? I’m not ready to face my 30th Birthday yet…

This week in the series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves we’re talking about unrecognizable actor transformations. Sometimes it isn’t enough for actors to mentally transform themselves for a role, they have to change themselves physically too, and that’s really quite incredible to me. Trying to eat sensibly a couple of weeks before a wedding is daunting enough!

Anyway, without further ado, here are my picks this week…

Christian Bale, The Machinist (2004)

Let’s be honest, we could all fill our lists simply with Christian Bale roles this week. The man is nothing but committed to his job. But none of his transformations shocked me more than his in The Machinist. It’s one thing to lose some weight for a role, but he looked like a corpse! He went down to 110 pounds for the role which is shocking enough, but the role he took on next? Batman Begins! Talk about yo-yo dieting! For what it’s worth, The Machinist is a fantastic, twisty movie. I’ve seen it twice now and I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Tom Hanks, Cast Away (2000)

I spent a long time in the shower ~~hiding from my toddler~~ thinking of options for the theme this week when I suddenly remembered Cast Away. I haven’t seen it for years but it was possibly the first Tom Hanks movie I ever saw. During pre-production, Tom Hanks put on 50 pounds in order to appear middle-aged, and then he was given a year off to transform himself into a real cast away. He stopped shaving and cutting his hair, and shed 55 pounds with a tough diet and exercise regime. I’m feeling hungry just thinking about it.

Matthew Lewis, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

I can’t talk about dieting anymore, so let’s turn to the biggest transformation shocker of the Harry Potter universe, the moment Matthew Lewis turned into bumbling fool to stunning heartthrob. Okay, his transformation may be something he didn’t really have any control over, but at the time he was living proof for all awkward teenagers that there was hope for us yet!

Thursday Movie Picks: Private Eye

Mar 21, 2019

Does anyone else find that the Thursday Movie Picks weeks they think are going to be the easiest, turn out to be the hardest? This week’s theme is Private Eye, and I love a good detective thriller, but as I scrolled and scrolled through my film diary it turns out most of the ones I’ve seen are to do with police departments rather than private detectives.

That said, I still found 3 good picks for this week – but I’m really excited to see everyone else’s as I know I’ll be adding a lot to my watch list! As always, let me remind you that Thursday Movie Picks is hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Check out the schedule and join us if you don’t already!

Without further ado, here are my 3 favourite movies featuring private detectives…

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

When a family member disappears without a trace 40 years ago, her uncle suspects murder and hires a journalist and hacker to act as private detectives. It’s based on a book which is an excellent read and although the 2011 remake by David Fincher is still a very good movie, the 2009 original is far better. It’s darker, grittier, and stays truer to its source material. I haven’t seen the very latest one yet but I know it can’t be as good.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Based on the classic Agatha Christie novel, Murder on the Orient Express is arguably a bit style over substance, but it’s a fun watch regardless! When a murder occurs on the train he’s a passenger on, detective Hercule Poirot is hired to solve the case. I haven’t read the book to know how accurate the adaptation is, and although I wouldn’t say its a very in-depth mystery, it makes a good Saturday night with a takeout movie.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

If you’re looking for a detective story that’s darker and packs an emotional punch, look no further than Gone Baby Gone. Directed by Ben Affleck, it’s the story of how a 4-year-old girl goes missing, how the local cops are helpless in trying to solve the case, and how the girl’s aunt hires 2 private detectives as her last resort. The movie’s tagline is “Everyone wants the truth…until they find it”, which I think is perfect.

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies You Thought You’d Hate But Ended Up Enjoying

Mar 14, 2019

Happy Thursday, everyone! That’s a weird sentence to type, especially as it’s technically Monday right now. I missed out on last week’s topic of Cold War so I’m being extra-organised this week. Before I begin, let me remind you that Thursday Movie Picks is hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves, check out her blog if you’d like to join in!

This week’s theme is Movies You Thought You’d Hate But Ended Up Enjoying, suggested by Brittani at Rambling Film. This is going to be such a fun and varied week, I can’t wait to read what everyone else chose! It was reasonably difficult to think of 3 movies, only because I tend to avoid movies I think I might hate. If I do end up watching one I normally do hate it, which to be honest is fun to blog about but it’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a movie!

Here are my choices this week…

It Follows (2014)

It’s not that I thought It Follows was going to be a bad movie – in fact, I chose to watch it because it got great reviews – but it was approaching Halloween a few years ago and I was desperate to start watching more horror movies. I was expecting to find myself watching behind a cushion for a while before giving up and turning it off but I was gripped. It scared the pants off me and haunted me for at least a week afterward but it was so good! I definitely recommend it to any other scaredy cats out there like me wanting to dip their toes into the genre.

The Boxtrolls (2014)

I was so salty when the Oscar nominations came in and The Lego Movie didn’t get any love. In my mind, it was the winner so it was a huge snub, and the fact that The Boxtrolls, a movie I’d barely even heard of was there was just despicable. So much so that I vowed to boycott the movie and never watch it. I don’t know why I gave it a chance, in the end, maybe I wanted to prove to myself how undeserving it was but I absolutely loved it when I finally gave in!

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Maybe it was Henry Cavill (I just don’t like him that much) or maybe it was something else, but I wasn’t bothered at all by the trailers for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It just looked like another average action movie to me and I’d seen a lot of them around that time so I just kind of forgot about it. It was only when multiple people raved about it to me after it’s DVD release that I gave it a go and really enjoyed it. It was so funny, and Henry Cavill was actually amazing, and I was sold in literally the first 5 minutes.

I think what I’ve learned this week is that between 2014 and 2015 I was very grumpy and didn’t give enough movies the chance they deserved! I’m much more open-minded now.

Ultimate 2000s Blogathon: Donnie Darko (2001)

Mar 13, 2019

The wonderful blogging duo Drew (Drew’s Movie Reviews) and Kim (Tranquil Dreams) are back again with the next Blogathon in their Ultimate series. They started with the 80s which I *think* I recall taking part in on my previous blog, then moved to the 90s, giving me the chance to talk about Liar, Liar (1997). Last year they went back further to the 70s and now in 2019 they’re giving us the chance to share our favourite movies from the 00s.

The 2000s is such a difficult decade for me to pick my favourite movie from. I’d finally reached an age in the 00s where I was watching movies for myself, and I’ve seen so many! Once I really made myself choose a single movie however the choice was clear, it had to be Donnie Darko (2001).

If you’ve been living under a rock since then, Donnie Darko is a fantastically weird Thriller/Sci-Fi movie that demands to be watched at least twice. Teenage me had found herself obsessed with Jake Gyllenhaal, and spent hours on eBay tracking down second-hand copies of his movies, a trend that still very much lives on in me but has been made much easier thanks to the likes of platforms like Netflix. I couldn’t have been older than 14 at the time and I was terrified of the movie, but found it fascinating.

Donnie is a troubled teen with a history of violence. He takes medication but has recently stopped of his own accord. One night he sleepwalks and meets Frank, an eery-looking rabbit who warns him that in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds, the world will end. That same night, a jet engine crashes into the Darko’s house, destroying Donnie’s bedroom. Had he been home in bed, he would be been killed.

Donnie Darko is the movie that sparked my love and curiosity for dark and weird movies with endings that leave you with more questions than you started with. Donnie himself is a role that only Jake Gyllenhaal could pull off, and he does it so well!

I haven’t seen it for a few years now, but off the top of my head, these are what I remember to be my favourite things about it:

“Oh please tell me Elizabeth, how exactly does one suck a f**k?!”
Those stoners talking about Smurfette. A conversation I didn’t really appreciate until I was a bit older.
Time travel!
The moral issue of finding a wallet on the ground. You have to take into account the whole spectrum of human emotion!
Donnie throwing shade on Jim Cunningham – it was hilarious.
“I made a new friend…”
Did I also mention Jake Gyllenhaal’s in it?

It wasn’t until reasonably recently that I learned a sequel was made, S. Darko (2009). A quick search of it on IMDB tells me that it’s currently rated #89 on IMDB’s Bottom Rated Movies list. Ouch. If you know me though, you know you can probably expect to see a review of it on my blog fairly soon. I can’t help myself. Any excuse to watch the original again too, I guess!

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