The Oscar Project
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It’s the first weekend in February and I hope you had a great January. There wasn’t too much new at the movies to check out, but new movies are definitely picking up this month. With that said, it’s time to make your pick for your week six movie in the 2023 Movie Challenge, A Film With Subtitles.
Now, I guess you could get a little creative here and pick something like a science fiction or fantasy film that has made up languages that need to be subtitled (I’m looking at you Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.) but if you want to stick with the idea of category, I would ask you to pick something in a real foreign language that is primarily subtitled through the entire film. The Academy has rules on how much of a film has to be in a different language to be eligible for the Best International Feature category, but try to find something that really needs the subtitles in order to get the point of the film. If you need help picking a film, check out this list that TimeOut put together of the Top 50 Foreign Films of All Time. My Selection-8 ½
Believe it or not, this is my first Fellini film and the first Italian film I can remember in a while. For some reason I tend to gravitate to Japanese, French, or Spanish films when I’m watching things with subtitles, so I’m so excited to finally check what many people believe to be Fellini’s best film off my watchlist.
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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and we receive a commission if you visit a link and buy something on our recommendation. Purchasing via an affiliate link doesn’t cost you any extra and the opinions expressed in this post are the author's own. For more details see our disclosure policy and privacy policy. 80 for Brady I can't say I'm disappointed that Tom Brady isn't in the Super Bowl this year, and with his announcement earlier this week, I really hope it sticks this time and we never see him play in a Super Bowl again. Don't get me wrong, I respect his career and give him full props for what he's been able to achieve over the last two plus decades, but it's time to let other folks win some Super Bowls. That said, despite my annoyance with Brady as a football player (mainly because he never played for my team) I am interested in this movie. I might not seem like the target demographic for this, but it is truly trying to bridge two groups of movie fans, older women like the protagonists, and football fans. Granted there is already some crossover in that audience, but this might be just the movie to get the 65+ female crowd back to theaters in a big way, and with no football games this weekend (other than the flag football Pro Bowl) if you want your football fix, this might be just the way to get it until next week. I also will love to see how these actresses are still at it in their 70s, 80s, and even 90s! Knock at the Cabin For a long time, M. Night Shyamalan has been a bit hit or miss when it comes to directing. He broke onto the scene with his 1999 film The Sixth Sense and followed that up with another Bruce Willis film, Unbreakable. Overall, his films have been up and down over the years, with his most recent outing (Old) not doing very well at the box office or with critics. Unlike many of his films, this is based on an existing story, the book titled The Cabin at the End of the World, by Paul Tremblay. My biggest hope for this movie is that it's better than the book, which I read last fall in anticipation of this movie's release. Throughout the novel, I kept thinking that certain scenes would be better portrayed on screen and the novel just kept things far too drawn out for my liking. The ending was especially disappointing and I am curious to see what the end of the film is like. My other interest in this film is seeing Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint in villain roles. We've seen Bautista in some "non-hero" roles in the past, but I haven't seen Grint in anything since Harry Potter, so I hope he is able to make that shift. Limited ReleasesThere are a bunch of options for limited releases if you aren't interested in the films above.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and we receive a commission if you visit a link and buy something on our recommendation. Purchasing via an affiliate link doesn’t cost you any extra and the opinions expressed in this post are the author's own. For more details see our disclosure policy and privacy policy. This is probably one of the categories that I have the least insight on so far this Oscar season. As of this writing I have only seen two of the three films, but hoping to catch Elvis and Banshees this weekend as both are available on HBOMax. Looking into some background on this category for this post, I learned that there was a 33-year period from 1981 to 2013 where every Best Picture winner was also nominated for the Best Film Editing category, with about a third of them winning the Editing prize as well. This year the category is filled with first time nominees, with only one receiving their second nomination. The Banshees of InisherinMikkel E. G. Nielsen is now a two-time Oscar nominee in the Best Film Editing category, after winning the aware on his first nomination two years ago for Sound of Metal. Nielsen is only on his fifth feature as film editor and first with Banshees director Martin McDonagh. ElvisFrom what I’ve seen of this film, I can tell why it was nominated for this category. Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond and receive their first nomination for editing and some of the fast-paced cuts are something else. Timing those cuts to many of Elvis’s best loved songs was surely no small feat and both Villa and Redmond worked with director Baz Luhrmann on The Great Gatsby. Everything Everywhere All at OnceI can attest to the tremendous editing of this film firsthand. There are some amazingly fast sequences cut together within a single universe, but even more impressive are the sequences cut together with multiple perspectives in play on screen at the same time. I also have to mention the restraint during sequences like the conversation between Evelyn and Joy in the rock universe, allowing the scene to play out with just the “conversation” telling the story. I would love to see editor Paul Rogers take home the Oscar for Best Film Editing. TárPerhaps the longest working name on this list is Monika Willi with editing credits going back to 1997. This is her first recognition by the Academy though she previously worked on the Academy Award nominated film The White Ribbon. Top Gun: MaverickIf anyone on the list has made a name for editing fast-paced action flicks, it’s Eddie Hamilton. He has worked on the two most recent Mission Impossible films as well as Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. He also edited for Guy Ritchie’s film Swept Away. Even with that vast body of work, this is his first nomination from the Academy and I think another strong front runner to receive the award with all of the quick cutting aerial battles in this film.
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Today is the first day of February and there is a lot going on lately at The Oscar Project. If you haven’t checked out any of my Oscars 2023 coverage, I have posts on the nominees for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling with another post planned later today for Best Film Editing. Each post gives you some background on the individuals nominated in those categories along with some of my thoughts on the films that I’ve seen already.
But this post is about my fifth film in the 2023 Movie Challenge a fun little film from early in Tom Hanks’s career called Bachelor Party. The premise of this film is simple. Hanks stars as Rick, a man who makes his living driving a school bus and tells his group of friends that he’s getting married to his girlfriend Debbie (Tawny Kitaen). In true bro fashion, his friends decide to throw him a bachelor party, complete with “chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze” according to his pal Rudy (Barry Diamond). If you’ve ever seen a movie like this, you probably know how the rest of the film goes. The boys get a hotel room and end up with most of Rudy’s requests (I don’t remember any guns or fire trucks) while Debbie and the bridal shower try to foil the boys’ night of excess by sneaking into the party dressed as hookers.
The cast in the film is not really notable other than Hanks and Kitaen. If you’re a Hanks completist, you’ll have to watch this, but I would definitely put this quite low on his list of best films. That said, there are glimmers of future characters throughout the film. This film was Hanks at some of his most manic and comedic, something that has become softened over the years. Interestingly, I saw Hanks’s most recent film, A Man Called Otto, just a few days before watching this film, and his perfect line delivery is still there nearly 40 years later, but it’s a bit more subdued. Hanks seems to have learned that you can deliver a bitingly sarcastic line quietly and have it be just as effective, if not more so, as yelling it across a hotel room full of bachelor party guests.
One of the other voices I couldn’t help hear throughout was one of Hanks’s most beloved characters, Woody from Toy Story. Several times when Hanks delivers lines with that voice that rises in pitch and intensity, I immediately though of Woody getting exasperated with buzz under the tanker truck at the Dinoco station (“YOU…ARE…A…TOY!!!”). And wouldn’t that be a movie premise. If Andy never gave Woody away at the end of Toy Story 3, but kept him around and brought him to a future bachelor party. I don’t know about you, but I’d watch that movie.
In the end, Bachelor Party is not a great movie. It follows in the line of over the top comedies akin to Animal House, or maybe even a bit of Porky’s (though slightly less graphic). There are definitely some film descendants of this movie in films like American Pie (traditional sex comedy) and Meet the Parents (wedding weekend comedy). If you’re a fan of those types of films, you can get some enjoyment out of this movie, but I wouldn’t really recommend it as one of the best of those genres. Hanks is Hanks, and that helps make this one go down a bit easier.
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AuthorI'm just a film buff who wants to watch great movies. Where else to find the best, than the list of those nominated by the Academy each year? Archives
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