on this day in movie related history...

Victor Garber as Thomas Andrews in TITANIC (1997)Happy February 7th! Especially if its your birthday.

We realize that not doing these posts every day possibly defeats the point but after realizing that two sort of infamous men were born on this day who both were featured in Best Picture winners, we kinda sorta had to start this again.

Birthdays and film-related anniversaries after the jump...

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Soundtracking: "Pretty Woman"

by Chris Feil

Decades later, it’s still easy to fall for the charms of Pretty Woman - despite maybe being a problematic fave for how it softens the struggles of sex workers. That feel-good fantasy is aided by a pleasing adult-contempo soundtrack, and one that half-comments on the situation as it charms us. It’s a modern variation on the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady archetype and packed with musical moments, so it makes sense that it is on its way to a stage musical treatment. Go West’s “King of Wishful Thinking” makes for a buoyant opening number of wishful love to start our hearts fluttering, before fading into equally crowd-pleasing tracks that dance around the love story’s circumstance.

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YNMS: Life of the Party

Seán here with an Awards Season Palette Cleanser to help you see beyond March 4th and onward to early summer. And what better way to note the passing of the seasons than with a Melissa McCarthy movie? Life of the Party, directed by McCarthy's husband, Ben Falcone, and written and produced by the two of them is set to be a scud missile of McCarthy's talents. But for every Spy there's a Tammy (and The Boss, and um, Ghostbusters) but by now there's no going back on the fact that a Melissa McCarthy film is something of a modern day event picture.

In Life of the Party, McCarthy plays Deanna Miles, a recently divorced suburban Mom who decides, decades later, to go back to college and finally get her degree. The catch? She ends up in the same class as her daughter! Uh-oh! It feels a little obvious when writing it down, but with McCarthy deeply involved in the project you can't feel anything but optimism...

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Doc Corner: Ranking the documentary short nominees by 'How much politicians could learn from them'

by Glenn Dunks

Last year we had fun (well, about as much fun as could be had) ranking the Best Documentary Short Subject nominees by how depressing they were. And while this year’s collection of nominees tackle subjects like racial police brutality and the opioid crisis, the five selected titles are somewhat lighter in their touch. If this category is too often (yet not exactly unfairly) criticized for being a home to just the most miserable bunch of films imaginable, this year’s nominees should at least leave audiences with a bit more hope and inspiration.

So let's instead rank the Best Documentary Short Subject nominees in order of which we would most like to force our current political leaders to watch if given the chance. Documentaries can be extremely powerful in changing people’s perception of the world around them – and while we are politically more divided now than ever, I’d like to believe that if people with power actually watched these shorts (totalling around two and a half hours) then maybe they would think twice. Maybe. Probably not. But we’d like them to try...

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26 days til Oscar. (From Here to the 26th Annual Oscars Eternity)

by Nathaniel R

With but 26 days left until Hollywood's High Holy Night, it's time to get cracking on film year wrap-up everything so expect a few more Oscar chart revisions very soon plus the Film Bitch Awards and such. But until then, let your minds drift back to the dirty sexy 26th annual Oscars when Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, and Monty Clift all got filthy for From Here to Eternity (1953) which took Best Picture and seven other Oscars but none for the three leading actors.

The Best Picture nominees were...

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