Thursday Movie Picks: Mother-Son Relationships (Biologically Related)

This week’s theme has been surprisingly difficult, and I had to break the rules a little too. If you’re not familiar with the Thursday Movie Picks, it’s an amazing thing hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Each week brings a new theme, and all you need to do is pick 3 movies that fit the bill to discuss. This week is one of many 'All in the Family Editions', this time featuring Mother-Son relationships.

Only God Forgives is probably the anti-choice for this week’s themes, as I can’t imagine the mother has a ‘Best Mum Ever’ mug at home for her actions. Ryan Gosling’s character’s brother is murdered and his crime lord mother compels him to hunt down his killer and cause trouble. Still, I’d like to think it shows how much he loves his mother to go and do this at her command, but maybe he’s equally afraid of her? This movie made little sense at the best of times!

How to Train your Dragon 2 introduced us to a character we thought was long gone, Hiccup’s mother! (Not a spoiler - much to my disappointment this was all over the trailers). Getting to see Hiccup reunite with his mother after all those years and to see the similarities in the two of them was heart warming and a real highlight of the whole film. If only it could have been kept as a surprise.

Here are my three:

Who doesn't love Shaun's mum in Shaun of the Dead and who wasn't completely heartbroken when he realised she had been bitten.  As well as the awkward everyone threatening to stab each other stand off while there is a gun pointed at his mum!   It was one of the really emotionally moments in this zom-com that made us all fall in love with the Cornetto trilogy.

At the beginning of this movie, Trevor's mom, Arlene (Helen Hunt) is a bit of a waster, she keeps letting her alcoholic, abusive ex (and Trevor's father) back into their lives while apparently skipping on much of her parental duties.  However, as the film moves forward you learn more about Arlene and what she has been through and she also realises what her son actually needs from her.  Its great to watch Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) be the parent in there relationship and to see the tables turn as the story progresses.

This is where I am technically cheating because the reason I chose this film was because of the relationship between Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock) and Michael (Quinton Aaron), hence the cheating as they are not biologically related.  However, the more I thought about it the more I considered her relationship with her biological son SJ (Jae Head).  He has been raised with all the luxuries in life and has never wanted for anything and yet he is willing to share his whole life with Michael because of the way he has been raised.  My all time favourite scene in this movie is after the boys are in a car crash while Michael was driving, Leigh Anne is running down the street shouting 'My kids, they are my kids...' such a heart-warming moment.

Review: Memento (2000)

After watching The Usual Suspects a while ago, I put the feelers out on the IMDB boards for suggestions of films with a similar, plot-twist theme. I love these kind of movies, ones where you have to really sit and think, but you definitely have to be in the right mood to put one on. Memento was suggested to me, and I noticed that it's also in the IMDB Top 250 list, so I couldn't say no.

Memento (2000) is a mind bending film about Leonard (Guy Pearce) who suffers from short-term memory loss. He's on a self-given mission to find the man who murdered his wife, which, given his condition, is a near impossible task.

He writes himself notes constantly to remind him of things he's been told, and takes photos of places that he;s visited and people he has met to remind himself who they are, and whether they are trust worthy or not. He also tattoos the key facts he learns about his wife's murder on his body.

I just love how this film is sequenced. In the opening scene, we see Leonard kill a man called Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) who he believes is the 'John G' he's been looking for. Doubt gets put into your mind instantly because either this John G is a very good liar, or there's a fair chance Leonard has caught the wrong man.

The rest of the film plays almost in reverse; the next five minutes or so of footage ends where the previous part began. It really confused me at first but after a while my head got round it. I've never seen a film like it before so it was a great experience.

This Teddy turns out to be a main character in Memento, as well as a lady named Natalie (Carrie-Ann Moss). They both seem to be trying to turn Leonard against the other, although it's not clear what the link between Teddy and Natalie is. Throughout the story we also get another timeline running through of Leonard on the phone to somebody talking about Sammy Jankis.

Leonard has a tattoo on his arm telling him to 'Remember Sammy Jankis', and he talks in great details about the insurance case that he was involved in before his accident. These scenes threw me off a little every time, just when I thought I was working out what was going on.

Just when I thought I was never going to work out what was happening, the twist came and threw me completely. There was even a huge hint at it which I thought I saw but completely dis-regarded it. I have to say, it was a brilliant twist, although really quite saddening.

Memento was a fantastic film experience for me, and I'm definitely going to see it again sometime. Apparently there's a special edition DVD you can get where you can watch the film in exact chronological order - that would be a real treat to see!