Monday Movie Meme – The Big Reveal #atozchallenge

This week, the Monday Movie Meme is based on a two-year old tradition created by Blogging from A-to-Z Challenge participant Mina Lobo, encouraging people to roll out their themes together: The Big Reveal.

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies featuring scenes where revelations impact characters.

It doesn’t matter whether these surprising moments changes a situation for the better, for the worse or even not at all, so long as something is revealed. Here are my two selections for this week’s The Big Reveal theme.

Jumping the Broom

Family secrets disrupt a bride and groom’s wedding plans, in this comedy drama about two families from different sides of the tracks whose conflicts overflow during a weekend at Martha’s Vineyard; starring Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso and Mike Epps.

The Crying Game

It seems like rude awakenings never cease to exist in this romantic crime drama about an Irish Republican Army volunteer who adopts a new identity and starts dating the lover of a British soldier he kidnapped; starring Stephen Rea and Forest Whitaker. 

Hosted by Hungarian storyteller Zalka Csenge Virág at The Multicolored Diary, the 2015 Theme Reveal Blogfest provides a great opportunity for you to get a jump start on your A-to-Z experience. Here is how it works:

Sign up on the Linky list below, and on March 23^rd (Monday) publish a blog post in which you reveal your theme for the A-to-Z Challenge. Tell us why your theme is exciting and what to expect from it! Once your blog post is up, visit all the other blogs on the Linky list to find out hints on themes being announced.

Mark your blogging calendar for March 23^rd!

What movies have YOU watched that contained big revelations?

How many people do YOU anticipate will be doing the Blogging from A-to-Z Challenge?

Monday Movie Meme – Made You Look

Let’s put a little spin on this week’s return of the Monday Movie Meme, with a theme that is all about one of the most common supporting materials for what eventually plays out on the screen. If you’re anything like me, you could easily identify songs that were on the soundtracks of many films you’ve watched over the years. Yet, recalling the poster is a bit challenging.

So that brings up some questions: Does that mean the key art for those movies suck? Or, are movie posters irrelevant in the grand scheme of things?

It’s almost hard for me to believe that I don’t remember what the posters to some of my favorite movies looked like. This week's Monday Movie Meme is an exercise in figuring out how much we really pay attention to key art....and if it's enough to get us to want to see a film.

Here are my selections for this week’s Made You Look theme.

Black Swan

The poster for this mystery drama starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis lives up to the dark and creepy nature of a movie about ballerinas. I saw this movie when it came out in the theaters, after having to travel to another town because the movie tickets for “Black Swan” in my area were all sold-out.

It’s a psychological thriller that takes viewers on quite the ride and will have you wondering what in the world is going on as you try to figure out what is real versus what’s a hallucination. Anyway, the movie poster for “Black Swan” screams “CRAZY” to me, which works since that just about the easiest way to sum up this movie.

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Both versions of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” movies, starring Michael Nyqvist opposite Noomi Rapace and Daniel Craig opposite Rooney Mara, respectively, are pretty badass and worth watching.

However, I initially procrastinated on viewing these crime thriller flicks for a good while -- even after reading all the positive buzz surrounding them as well as the Swedish novel series they're adapted from; and I wouldn’t have even considered checking either of them out if it weren’t for the poster for “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.”

It gives off a don’t-fuck-with-this-person vibe and made me curious about the plot because it just seemed like something big is going down in this movie. The characters are not playing games.

In Time

There is something about the poster for this futuristic Sci-Fi movie starring Justin Timberlake and Olivia Wilde that made me think of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” – but a much cooler version. "In Time" is about people who don’t age past their mid-twenties but the catch is they only have a short amount of time to live, unless they are among those that can afford to buy their way into an extended life.

I wanted to see this movie but never got around to it. In fact, it's probably somewhere on my Netflix queue with over 80 other flicks I either skipped out on, forgot about, or was unfamiliar with before adding them to the list.

Now, is it just me...or does it also look like this poster is channeling “The Matrix” with Keanu Reeves?

I'm Not There
Although I never went to check out this biographical music drama about Bob Dylan, starring Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett, I'd be willing to watch it. Putting the film aside, I just like the poster because it’s simple with that nice silhouette.

My guess is that Dylan’s life is quite the opposite of simplicity. So, maybe this poster is meant to signify quiet chaos or something of that nature. Who knows?! Either way, it’s among the few movie posters that I seem to be able to easily picture in my head when thinking about those that stand out among the rest.

What movie posters grabbed YOUR attention?

Did a poster ever affect whether YOU wanted to see movie or not?

Monday Movie Meme – Cry Me a River

(l-r): Charles Parnell, Kim Wayans and Sahra Mellesse in "Pariah."Here’s hoping everyone brought the New Year in on a high note…’cause this week’s Monday Movie Meme is about to get emotional!

We’re kicking off the first blog post of 2015 with a theme focused on movies that moved you to tears: Cry Me a River.

Share on your blog or in the comments section, some of the most memorable tearjerkers you ever watched. This includes films with heartbreaking scenes, underdog movies that have moments of victory or those unexpected flicks showing a turn of events that just made you cry (or want to cry).

Here are my selections for this week’s theme about tearjerkers.

Pariah
This Sundance hit drama starring Kim Wayans tells the story of a teenager struggling with identity issues while coming to grips with her sexuality. Now that I finally got around to watching “Pariah” during the holidays, it’s one of those films that has me starting to think there are times when a movie soundtrack is a huge factor in whether viewers start tearing up or not; especially during certain scenes. It's as if the producers, directors and/or editors orchestrated moments to induce tears on cue. Either way, this movie is effective in tugging at one's heart strings.

The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete
This dramatic movie starring Skylan Brooks, Ethan Dizon and Jennifer Hudson is about two boys who have to survive after their mothers are arrested.  I went to a screening of “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete” and had to catch myself during a scene in the third act that caught me off guard.

Fruitvale Station
This biographical drama starring Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer is about the encounters Oscar Grant III had before being shot on New Year’s Eve. You know that Isley Brothers song about not being able to hold back tears? Well, I succeeded with well intentions when I went to see this movie in theaters, but it was damn hard.

Revolutionary Road
OMG...horrific is one of the only ways I can describe the turn of events in this sad, sad romantic drama starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie is about a young married couple who move out to the suburbs and start a family with plans to live the life they dreamed of until realizing that circumstances have other things in store for them.

Blue Valentine
This romantic drama starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams is right up there with “Revolutionary Road” on my tearjerker scale. It has Love, Babies, Marriage, Broken dreams, Drunken arguments in the middle of the street, Drunken arguments in a cheesy hotel room and Fistfights in the workplace. However, it also has a dude serenading his future wife, on the sidewalk and and loading her up on mix CDs. That’s cute. Yeah, it’s one big ol’ rollercoaster ride of feel-good scenes and not-so-fun scenes and the latter can just be too much to handle if you let yourself get wrapped up in it all…which I did.

Set It Off
Although this is an action movie about female bank robbers starring Queen Latifah and John C. McGinley (gotta love this dude from the NBC comedy show “SCRUBS” tho!) that I've seen more than one dozen times, it's STILL hard to watch that heart-pounding car scene were a tough  janitor faces the LAPD head on. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. Even Dr. Dre had to look away from the screen!

What movies made YOU cry or tear up?