Happy February
February 1st, 2008, 7:55 am · Post a Comment · posted by patrickdonohue
Don’t hate on the shortest month in the calendar year, there’s lots of reasons to be excited about February. I’ll give you a few.
•The continuation of the newest season of Lost. The season premiere was last night and though I will have to go back and watch it again to really get everything, I’m glad it’s back.
•The Super Bowl. The biggest spectacle in American sports. Whether you’re watching the game as a fan or just watching for the commercials, which are on the whole disappointing and not funny, the Super Bowl is essentially a civic holiday.
•In Bruges. This film comes out in limited release on Feb. 8. I saw the trailer before Michael Clayton and it looks like a hilariously fun, kind of heist film in the same vein as Snatch and Lock, Stock… It features a pretty fantastic cast including a pair of Harry Potter alums (Brandon Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes) and the normally regrettable Colin Farrell, who could actually be quite good in this movie. The film is directed and written by first-timer Martin McDonagh, who won an Oscar in 2005 for his live-action short, Six Shooter. The film opens in limited release and hopefully goes nation in short order. Let us hope this movie proves to me more Snatch and less Shoot ‘Em Up.
•The New Nada Surf record. If you stopped listening to this band after their huge hit, Popular, you’ve missed quite a bit. This is a band who has quietly been putting out some of the best rock records of recent memory. Their last studio record, The Weight is a Gift, is one of my favorite albums of all-time and their newest offering, Lucky, hits stores on Tuesday.
•Great DVD releases. Some of the year’s best films come out on DVD this month and my Netflix queue is the better for it. Just to give you an idea: American Gangster, Redacted, Rendition, The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford, Michael Clayton, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
•Jumper. This is a movie that I haven’t been too excited about, having seen the trailers many, many times and the prospect of a movie that stars both Hayden Christensen and Samuel L Jackson in some sort of weird white wig doesn’t make me horribly optimistic but the film’s director has me slightly optimistic. Doug Liman, director of The Bourne Identity, returns to direct this sci-fi action flick about a guy who can teleport himself anywhere, anytime. Think Nightcrawler from X-Men. It could be one of those movies that’s just good, mindless fun. It could also be dreadful.
•The New Mike Doughty record. The former Soul Coughing frontman releases, Golden Delicious, on Feb. 19. Hopefully not an album about produce, I’ve seen Doughty live and I really enjoyed his latest album, Haughty Melodic, which featured a somewhat forgettable duet with Dave Matthews on Tremendous Brunettes, a song I enjoy much more sans Matthews. What Doughty does incredible well are earnest, funky love songs like Unsingable Name and Madeline at Nine. Let’s hope Golden Delicious has a couple.
•Vantage Point. This is the most-highly anticipated movie of the month for me. I’ve seen the trailer a bunch of times and the cast is great (Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver). The film is basically about the assassination of the president told through five different story arcs. It could be great beyond words (kind of wish it wasn’t PG-13) and it could easily be a muddy disaster. Guess, we’ll find out on Feb. 22 when the film opens.
