Everybody’s Chattin’ + February Viewing Recap

On By ruthIn Everybody's Chattin', Featured Actor/Filmmaker

EverybodysChattin

February is a short month so I’m going to have to combine two posts in one.

Let’s start off with some lists and non-review posts

Wandering Through The Shelves Blog has yet another intriguing topic for this week’s Thursday Movie Picks: Father & Son Movies

Drew has been spotlighting Xavier Dolan, which he concluded with an open letter to the Canadian filmmaker

I love fun top 10 list – Nostra just picked his Top 10 Time Travel Movies!

For his Wedding Anniversary, Michael listed his fabulous 80s music picks for his Soundtrack of My Life series

Now on to reviews!

  • Stu reviewed adventure drama Tracks
  • Mikey reviewed Kingsman: The Secret Service  
  • Mark reviewed indie horror It Follows
  • Margaret reviewed Birdman (which deservedly won Best Picture, yay!)
  • Josh reviewed Jupiter Ascending
  • Rodney reviewed found footage thriller As Above So Below
  • Steven reviewed one of my all time favorites, Ben-Hur
  • Abbi posted her Film Friday reviews, including Selma & Cake

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FebruaryRecap2015

It still hasn’t been a very productive month of movie watching for me, but there are lots more movies released in March so hopefully I’ll have a longer list to report at the end of the month 🙂

BLOGATHON:

In with the New: Remakes Better than the Original

Thursday Movie Picks #32: Oscar-Winning Movies

Thursday Movie Picks #33: Movies about Father-Son Relationship

New-to-me Movies:

Jupiter Ascending

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Predestination

Nightcrawler

Theory of Everything

Frank

I’ve written my review of Nightcrawler to post next week. Suffice to say I think Jake Gyllenhaal was robbed! Theory of Everything was quite moving and I’m glad the story is as much about Jane Hawking than Stephen Hawking’s struggle with ALS. It’s definitely a juicy role for any actor, and something that The Academy usually loves, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised Eddie Redmayne won. I’ll update this list tonight after I figure out what to watch after dinner, today’s technically still February 😉

Rewatches:

Belle

Somewhere in Time

Pride & Prejudice

Face/Off

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Phantom of the Opera

Movie of the Month

SunsetBlvdPosterSunset Boulevard

Yet another Blindspot list make my Movie of the Month!
It’s a pretty easy choice though, it’s definitely earned its classic status. As for contemporary films, I’d put Nightcrawler as my pick of February.

Hope you enjoyed today’s post… enjoy your weekend everybody!
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37 thoughts on “Everybody’s Chattin’ + February Viewing Recap”

      1. BTW, the restaurant where Louis Bloom interviews his apprentice, Dinah’s, is well-known around these parts. In fact, we and a few dear friends were there yesterday. I asked the manager the effect of having provided that location shot for NIGHTCRAWLER has changed things for them. He said many patrons now want to sit in that booth and have their picture taken. In fact, a few of our friends did “selfies” there last night.

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  2. Pretty awesome month of viewing and reading, Ruth. Thanks so much for including moi in this. Glad, too, you caught up to “Sunset Blvd.” “Belle” will soon to screened for me, as well. Many thanks.

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    1. So did you do anything special for your Anniversary? 😉

      Glad I finally caught up w/ Sunset Blvd, and I’m anxious to hear what you think of BELLE. Hope you get around to seeing that soon!

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    1. My pleasure! Matthew’s sooo good even in his brief scene, hope you get around to seeing the whole film, and that you’ll love it as much as I do 🙂

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  5. Stu

    Thanks for the mention Ruth, much appreciated. Glad you like Nightcrawler too…that was one of my favourite films of last year so I look forward to reading your review next week. What did you make of Frank?

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    1. You’re so welcome! Oh I like Frank but I don’t know if I love it. There are things I like but overall it didn’t grab me as much as I had hoped.

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  6. So Ruth after finally seeing Nightcrawler… who’s creepier? Gyllenhaal or Travolta. LOL.

    Glad you got to see Sunset Blvd. A true classic from Wilder. Such a great script with such quotable lines.

    I’m binging on House of Cards this weekend. Gotta love Kevin Spacey. Definitely deserved his Golden Globe last year as Frank Underwood. Just watched the finale of season 2 of Broadchurch. Looking forward to season 3. Lastly enjoying the heck out of Better Call Saul the spin off of Breaking Bad. Always been a fan of Bob Odenkirk going back to Mr. Show with David Cross on HBO.

    Watched an interesting movie the other day. Obvious Child starring Jenny Slate, formerly one of the cast members of SNL. A really offbeat, indie rom-com. Probably not for everybody because it deals with abortion but not in a real heavy kind if way. Certainly not like the very heavy Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. There was a kind of honesty about that I just haven’t see in many other movies about the topic. Probably because it was written, directed and was produced and starred by mostly women. All that said it turned out to be a funny and sweet movie.

    Being Oscar month (and unemployed… working now… yea!!!) I got caught up on a LOT of movies. Some are probably from the end of January too.

    A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor strikes again. Like it was made in the 70’s. Issac channeled his best Pacino and it was my favorite role yet from Chastain) American Sniper (The combat scenes were some of the best since Black Hawk Down), The Theory of Everything, Birdman, Foxcatcher (Carell was brilliant and Tatum was really believable as a wrestler. Not since Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler have I seen an actor put that kind of physicality into a role), Selma, Nightcrawler (Jake… what a creeper), The Imitation Game, Gone Girl (I thought it was Affleck’s most mature role to date), Interstellar (a bit long but it was a lot better than I thought the reviews were), Coherence (a lot of confusing fun if Primer was your cup of tea), The Interview (probably should have shelved the movie), Whiplash (In a word… J.K. Simmons), What We Do In The Shadows (Hands down the funniest movie I saw all year), Top Five (Chris Rock finally writes and directs a movie worthy of his stand up brilliance) and the Polish film Ida (The movie was a little slow for me but the B&W cinematography was stunning and the film felt like it could have been shot in the late 50’s or early 60’s. Timeless).

    Lastly I saw two must see docs. Citizenfour (Watching the events play out in real time in front of the camera, even before anyone even heard of Edward Snowden was just so engrossing), Virunga (A sad but gripping doc about park rangers trying to save protected animals in Congo’s Virunga National Park).

    Whew… that’s just off the top of my head.

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    1. Awesome comment as always Dave!! Sorry I have no interest in Obvious Child, I can’t imagine an *offbeat* film about abortion.

      Oh I REALLY want to see A Most Violent Year, Whiplash and What We Do In The Shadows soon. That last one sounds hilarious indeed, I was laughing so hard even just watching the trailer! That Jemaine Clement is a hoot! Hey, would u be willing to do a quick review of What We Do In The Shadows?

      I put Citizenfour as one of my top 10 of the year, not sure if you saw my list or not, but yeah that was a top notch documentary. That Virunga one sounds pretty gripping as well!

      P.S. Congrats on your new job! I didn’t know you were unemployed for a while, glad that’s no longer the case.

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  8. LOL, thanks for the linkage, Ruth! I’ll check out some of these other reviews soon. Oh, and I’m so glad you finally got to check out Nightcrawler… Loved Jake in that one, and Rene Russo deserved an Oscar nom in my opinion. Moreso than Streep, anyways.

    Nice stuff!!!

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    1. You’re welcome Rodney! Oh man I so agree w/ you Rene Russo is also robbed of a Best Supporting Actress nom, and YES she’s far better than Streep in Into The Woods which is a far inferior movie than Nightcrawler too.

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  12. Hi Ruth, busy you were, yes? One of your fans saw Virunga–I hear it’s outstanding. I am trying to get a hold of a copy. Nothing to see in the theaters right now. I’m trying to watch some classics and docs. Have a warm weekend!

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    1. Hi Cindy! I actually didn’t get to see as many movies, but it’s usually slow in the beginning of the year. I think March will have more movies that I’m interested in but hey, classics and docs sounds like a great viewing idea!

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  13. A bunch of great posts you’ve linked to. I’ve read most, trying to get around to the others. Thanks for promoting the In with the New Blogathon.

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    1. You’re welcome Abbi! Yeah Nightcrawler was definitely excellent. Glad to hear you love SELMA, it was definitely snubbed by the Academy 😦

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  16. I also managed to watch Kingsman last Friday and I very much enjoyed it. Curious to read your thoughts on it.
    I also think Gyllenhaal deserved a lot more love for his incredible portrayal in Nightcrawler, but perhaps the film was too dark and controversial to be embraced by the Academy. Moving onto your review right now…
    Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Hi Niels, pardon the tardy reply. Glad to hear you like Kingsman, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I hope Gyllenhaal got more recognition later this year, seems that he has some interesting projects he’s working on.

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