365 Days, 365 Movies: February

This year, I made a resolution to keep track of everything I watch and listen to: movies, television, podcasts, live performances, etc. I also resolved to watch 365 different movies over the course of the calendar year. After January, I realized that it won't be easy, it won't be pretty, but, godammit, somebody needs to do it.

February was a big one, with The Oscars and the Series Finale of Parks and Recreation. But those two events didn't make up the entirety of my month. Not hardly. Without further ado, I present all of the pop culture I consumed in February of 2015. Don't judge me; I'm actually proud of this:

You Wouldn't Like Judi Dench When She's Angry...

Based on this episode of the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast, wherein Scott Aukerman interviews Doug Benson, I made this photo of gamma-roided out Judi Dench. Because when Dench angry, Dench smash.

I may never understand why Doug Benson feels that the latest James Bond movie has too much Judi Dench in it, but at least I now know the appropriate reaction.

"Comedy Bang! Bang!" is Back on IFC Tonight!

Comedy Bang! Bang! is one of my all-time favorite podcasts, and IFC (one of my favorite channels) up and made an amazing TV show loosely based on that podcast. It's hosted by comedian/raconteur Scott Aukerman, and his band-leader is the musically/comedically gifted Reggie Watts. It's sort of a talk show, with each episode featuring a celebrity guest and a bunch of comedians and actors doing characters and seemingly having a lot of fun.  Michael Cera was murdered in one episode, though, so fun for everyone is not necessarily on the table.

Anyway, the second season begins tonight on IFC at 10/9c, with more special guests than you can shake a stick at (if you're so inclined). So, watch it! Also, if you do listen to the podcast, I made a Mona Lisa inspired GIF of the show. Because reasons.

Film Review: Win Win

I went into Win Win with relatively few expectations. Multi-hyphenate (writer, director, actor) Thomas McCarthy did write and direct two of my favorite films of the past decade, The Visitor and The Station Agent. However, he also acted in Little Fockers, so it was a pretty even playing field.

Deleted Scene?

Let me just say now that Win Win is as close to a perfect film as I have seen in the past few years. It’s a quiet, unassuming movie that grabs the audience with wonderful character notes, impeccable acting, and natural dialogue and scene progression. It follows the life of Mike Flaherty (played by Paul Giamatti), a New Jersey lawyer and wrestling coach who suffers from anxiety attacks brought on by the stress of a failing practice, an about-to-fall-over tree in his front yard, money problems, the lies he’s telling his wife (the wonderful Amy Ryan), and the general, self-perceived suckiness of his life. Through a series of gentle lies, he takes on guardianship of one of his clients in order to stave off financial ruin. He soon takes responsibility, not only for his elderly client (Burt Young’s Leo Poplar), but also for the old man’s abused, wrestling savant grandson Kyle Timmons, played with stone-faced, flat-voiced depth by newcomer Alex Shaffer. Mike finds a joy through Kyle’s skill in the wrestling arena but is plagued by the knowledge that the lies he has constructed may fall down at any moment.

In his previous films, McCarthy specialized in men separate themselves from the world only to have life forced onto them by outside forces.  Peter Dinklage’s Finbar McBride in The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins’s Walter McVale in The Visitor, and Ed Asner’s Carl Fredricksen in Pixar’s