Twitter Thoughts—February 2016 Week 3

Featured films:

Abe Lincoln In Illinois (1940) ****

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon (2015) ***

Marooned (1969) **

Teen Witch (1989) zero stars

The Thin Man (1934) ****

The Magnificent Seven (1960) ***

Race (2016) ***

A Boy and His Dog (1947) **

The Fortune Cookie (1966) ***

A Star Is Born (1976) ***

An even ten movies graced my eyes and brain this week. It started on a high note with the classic political drama “Abe Lincoln In Illinois”, which in light of this year’s political campaign reveals surprising parallels between Lincoln and Trump. Next I learned more than I knew about National Lampoon and discovered that “The Martian” had already been made as the 1969 visual effects Oscar winner “Marooned”, except that version lacked the charm and wit of Matt Damon and the vision and tension of Ridley Scott’s direction.

Twitter Thoughts—February Week 2

Featured films:

Swing Shift (1984) ***

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) ****

Key Largo (1948) ***½

I Origins (2014) ****

The Wind and the Lion (1975) **

Logan’s Run (1976) ***½

Deadpool (2016) ***½

Gigi (1958) *½

The big story of the week was “Deadpool”, which blasted the doors off the February box office, setting many numbers of records, including biggest February opening, biggest R-rated opening, and biggest opening by a first time director. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but my favorites of the week were the Kurt Cobain HBO documentary “Montage of Heck”, which does a great job of depicting the immense psychological pain the reluctant rock star endured; and the greatly undervalued sci-fi flick from the writer and director of “Another Earth”, “I Origins”. Once again, filmmaker Mike Cahill gives us a compelling science fiction that takes place in a world we can believe is our own reality. In it a scientist sets out to prove once and for all that God does not exist by isolating the tangible element that makes up what we feel is the soul and inadvertently may end up proving that reincarnation is real.

Twitter Thoughts—February Week 1

Featured films:

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) ****

Battle of the Bulge (1965) ***

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) ****

Backcountry (2015) ***

Cool Hand Luke (1967) ****

Hail, Caesar! (2016) ***

The Apple (1980) ½*

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Canon Films (2015) ***

Neighbors (2014) ***

The Dirty Dozen (1967) ***

It Happened One Night (1934) ***½

Once again, I’m running behind, but not by a whole month this time. I think maybe by the Oscars I’ll have this new routine down. As you can see the first week of February was a productive one. 11 movies in total over the course of a week. That’ll help me with the Doug Loves Movies Challenge of watching 366 movies in 366 Days. It was mostly good fare, with a few greats and one sour apple thanks to the podcast How Did This Get Made? 

Twitter Thoughts—January Edition 2016

Featuring the films and television shows:

Selma, Thor: The Dark World, Jessica Jones, The Hateful Eight, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Beasts of No Nation, Brooklyn, Love & Mercy, The Revenant, The Big Short, Astor Barber All-Stars, Kazaam, Bone Tomahawk, Galaxy Quest, Mad Max: Fury Road, Streets of Fire, Cutthroat Island, Clouds of Sils Maria, Lost River, and Anomalisa.

I fear I’ve already failed with this new feature as I forgot to tweet many of the films I watched in January and I intended to do this as a weekly post for those who don’t follow me on Twitter. But better late than never, I suppose. I should have a new set for my first week in February ready soon. Like my old Penny Thoughts feature, these aren’t necessarily reviews as much as quick impressions in 140 characters or less. I’ve retained all hashtags, which sometimes refer to podcasts and other people and things related to each film. I’m also participating in Doug Benson’s 366 movies in 366 days challenge, which he does for one of his podcasts. You’ll notice the numbering system show up in the latter half of the month, so you will also be able to follow my progress in this challenge. I’ve definitely watched a film a day in a year before. I’ve reviewed a film a day before, but I’ve never really tracked it like this during a leap year. Again, it’s important to remember for the challenge that I forgot to post a bunch of the films I watched in the middle of the month.