Thursday Movie Picks: Father-daughter relationships

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Another Thursday Movie Picks, another all in the family edition. This time it's Father-Daughter relationships.

The Homesman

Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) is an independent, single and lonely woman living on the American frontier who volunteers to transport three mentally insane women across the frontier and into Iowa. In the early stages of the journey she meets George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) who is about to be hung for using a man's land as his own. With the promise of assisting Mary on her journey, George is set free and accompanies Mary as she moves the three women across the border into Iowa for better care.

John Wick

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is not the Bogeyman, he is something much more terrifying than the Bogeyman - he is the man you send to kill the Bogeyman. So, when Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) steals his car and kills his adorable little puppy his father, Viggo Tarasov (a brilliant Michael Nyqvist), realises that his son has screwed up. He sends of team of highly trained assassins to kill Wick but they fail in their attack and are easily killed by Wick's superior set of skills. Wick is now on a mission of personal vengeance.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

In secret Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) is building Ultron, a machine designed to protect the Earth from the extraterrestrial forces of evil leaving humans as the only threat to Earth. However, it doesn't go to plan, with some sort of delusion Ultron (James Spader) decides that the biggest threat to peace are the Avengers themselves and well...lots of stuff happens.

Child 44

Based on the novel of the same name by Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 stars Tom Hardy as Leo Demidov an MGB agent trying to uncover the perpetrator of the heinous crime of child murder. However, there is no murder in paradise as Stalin feels that murder is a capitalist disease spreading from the West. This means that any investigation into the crimes is a traitorous act, and when Leo continues his investigation and refuses to denounce his wife he sent into exile where a similar murder happens nearby. 

Kidnapping Mr Heineken

Daniel Alfredson's crime thriller is based on the true story of the kidnapping of Freddie Heineken (Anthony Hopkins) in Amsterdam during the year 1983. The would be criminals, led by Cor Van Hout (Jim Sturgess), are fed up with their poor financial predicament and decide the kidnap the rich tycoon and demand Holland's largest ransom. However, the stresses and pressures of the kidnapping  create friction among the group.

Thursday Movie Picks - Superhero Movies

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There were superhero films before the 90s, but it wasn't until the 90s where we began to see numerous superhero movies released every year. Ever since then the genre has gone to strength to strength. Trawling through a list of American Superhero films I am staggered by the fact that over the course of five years Marvel have yet to make an objectively bad film with Thor: The Dark World propping all post 2008 Marvel films with a 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's perhaps a testament to the talent involved that Marvel have still yet to bore everyone to tears with their endless list of Superhero films. Thus, it is not surprise a Marvel film makes an appearance in my pick of top three superhero movies.

The Women in Black: Angel of Death

One of the most controversial classifications that the BBFC have given over the past few years was the 12A rating handed to The Women in Black. Despite cuts to make it suitable for a 12A release the BBFC still received over 100 compliments by people with nothing better to do other than moan about the film's lowly rating in relation to its subject matter. The BBFC, one of the strictest film classification bodies in the Western World, have often been far too liberal for the rightwing press (Daily Mail for instance) and it's still clear that even today they put far too much emphasis on a vocal minority easily swung by journalist hacks writing hyperbolic headlines.

Black Sea

In a technological evolving society Captain Robinson's (Jude Law) position as a captain of an undersea salvage operation is now redundant, he himself is made redundant and offered £8000 for his services to the company. Angered by this, Robinson decides to get one over his company and find the rumoured Nazi gold at the bottom of the Black Sea. He recruits a team of fellow, disgruntled unemployed workers and some Russians (half and half) and sets out to seek the gold. With the help of the Russians on the quest they hire a sub from Sevastopol which can only be described as a piece of "clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk". They seek out the gold, but it slowly dawns on the captain that the crew would look to increase the size of their share in anyway possible.

2014 Catch up Part 6 (I think).

It's been a while since Bill Murray had a major leading role (many of his last roles were effective supporting roles) and it's no surprise that he is on fine form as grumpy curmudgeon, Vincent, who builds a good relationship with the kid next door. At first it seemed this kid would be a nuisance but their relationship becomes a rather moving one as Vincent and Oliver build a strong relationship despite Vincent's gambling and drinking problems. It, however turns out there is more to Vincent than it originally appears and despite the ending being a massively sentimental one it is one that is undoubtedly heartbreaking. Theodore Melfi's feature length debut is a highly agreeable one.

3/5

Thursday Movie Picks - Police Movies

Ahhh. Yes. A great week this one. One I am more experienced in having seen more films related to the theme this week than the last two weeks.

Thursday Movie Picks: Dance Movies (excluding all musicals or movies based on musicals)

Another Thursday Movie Picks for you, this time it's dance movies but they can't musicals or based on musicals. - http://wanderingthroughtheshelves.blogspot.co.uk/

Thursday Movie Picks - Teen Comedy Films.

I am going to admit that the Teen Comedy genre isn't exactly my favourite genre so my knowledge and experience of genre is pretty low (there are so many I haven't seen so I might be a bit boring this week) but however reading your choices gives me the perfect opportunity to rectify that. Anyway, here are my top three Teen Comedies. http://wanderingthroughtheshelves.blogspot.co.uk/