Last month, in an effort to rebel against our culture’s tendency to wait until the end of the year to make lists of the stuff we dug, I started making end-of-month recaps of the movies, books, television shows and other stuff I enjoyed.
Here’s all the stuff I liked in February:
MOVIES
PIGGY (2022)
This absolutely stunning Spanish film is about an overweight girl who is bullied until, one day, she witnesses her bullies being abducted. Does she do something about it? Or does she let them get what they deserve? Laura Galán's performance is tremendous. This movie is going to be one of the best things I see this year, guaranteed.
DOG (2022)
Guess what? DOG is really, really great. Granted, I'm a mark for road trip comedies and YouTube videos of dogs crying at the funerals of their owners so I'm this movie's primary audience, but it doesn't make it any less true that the movie is sweet, funny, and incredibly well-made.
POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA (2021)
The second film in February I watched that features a sexual awakening during a screening of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s BLOODSPORT. Wes Hurley’s autobiographical comedy follows a young Russian boy as he moves to America with his mail-order-bride mother, discovers his sexuality, and rents Gregg Araki’s THE LIVING END hundreds of times at Scarecrow Video. A clever, charming mix between Jean Waters and Wes Anderson, this movie is so much fun.
CYRANO (2021)
Holy crap, I loved CYRANO. It’s got the energy of a scrappy high school play and the aesthetics of a Sarah McLachlan music video. Wonderful music (seriously - this might be my favorite movie musical in a long time), the acting is superb (SWALLOW fans unite!), and production design and scene competition are remarkable. I have a few quibbles, sure, but you can bet your behind that I can overlook them for how much I loved everything else. This movie is incredible - if you dig musicals and/or love stories, you're going to want to see this on the big screen. Plus, as somebody who loves musicals but carries a tune like an amputee, I have a soft spot for musicals where the cast can only kind of sing.
THE LOST WORLD (1925)
This silent film rules! Surprisingly modern storytelling (Brendan Fraser could have been the lead) and amazing stop-motion effects (dinosaur guts!) - how the heck did I go this long without watching the film before? The dinosaur-obsessed kid in me has officially woken up.
TELEVISION
WOLF LIKE ME (2022)
I put off watching WOLF LIKE ME for a long time because I wasn't sure what to do with the fact that somebody had made a werewolf TV show where one of the characters looks so much like me. Yes, I'm saying I look like Josh Gad in this show. It's not a brag - my brain just registers the similarity and I can't control it. Well, I just finished the show and - shit - it was so. damn. good. I'm not sure if they'll make a second season but I feel pretty confident in saying WOLF LIKE ME, streaming on Peacock, is one of the best slices of werewolf-related media I've ever experienced. And I know my werewolves. The show is entirely written and directed by Abe Forsythe (who wrote and directed the excellent zombie movie LITTLE MONSTERS and was - at least at one point - supposed to direct ROBOCOP RETURNS. Josh Gad and Isla Fisher star as two people trying to move past their individual deep-rooted trauma. Oh, and one of them is a werewolf. It's a character-focused slow-burn relationship dramedy that just happens to have a monster in it. It takes a while to actually see the werewolf - six episodes, to be exact, but when it gets scary, it knows how to get really scary. In other words, it's exactly the kind of werewolf story I love.
PEACEMAKER (2022)
I wrote about it here.
COMICS
SEXCASTLE (2015) by Kyle Starks
I love Starks’ comics. Absolutely love them. SEXCASTLE is a pitch-perfect celebration of ‘80s and ‘90s action films, with a wonderful commitment to the bit. The book follows a dangerous assassin as he wages war against Schwarzenegger, Stalone, Snipes, and more. Well, kinda. Funny-as-hell with wonderful illustrations.
BOOKS
SURVIVOR by Chuck Palahniuk (1999)
I revisited Chuck Palahniuk’s novel for the first time in twenty years this past month. It remains, of course, a damn fine book. It’s always nice when enough time passes between reading something where you forget the majority of the plot and the book’s surprises feel fresh and exciting. I might actually like SURVIVOR more than FIGHT CLUB, but I haven’t read FIGHT CLUB in twenty years either. I went through a big Palahniuk phase in high school but I haven’t read most of the stuff he’s written since 2005. I need to go back and catch up on all the novels and comics I missed. I’m a big fan of Palahniuk’s minimalist style - it reminds me a lot of my personal literary GOAT, Gregory Mcdonald. That said, Palahniuk’s stuff is so singular in his personal style that it’s hard for me to read too many of his books in a short period of time. My brain unfairly mushes them all together.
PODCASTS
BEST MOVIES NEVER MADE
Already one of my favorite podcasts, but the last two episodes featuring an extended Q&A with Mike Mendez is fantastic. Mendez, who has been involved in the business for nearly thirty years, details the ups and downs of his career and offers what seems like a pretty realistic look at the way most film industry professionals scrape by in their careers.
MUSIC
The entire soundtrack for CYRANO (written by members of The National) is fantastic, but I particularly loved the song “Wherever I Fall, Part 1” sung by Glen Hansard, Sam Amidon, and Scott Folan.