Entertainment /
Get Reel: February’s Must-See Movies
This month's picks include a screwball Coen Brothers comedy, a quirky superhero and what just might be the scariest film of the year.
In Theatres
Hail, Caesar! (February 5, Universal)
Photo Credit: Universal/youtube.com
The Coen brothers make a long-overdue return to the slapstick territory of O, Brother Where Art Thou? with this star-studded send-up of Hollywood, circa the 1950s. Their No Country for Old Men star Josh Brolin heads the ensemble as a professional fixer/scandal squasher who faces his greatest challenge yet when the world’s biggest star (George Clooney) is kidnapped from the set of a sword-and-sandals epic by a group calling themselves “The Future.” Thus begins a madcap quest to track him down and get the cameras rolling again, with a little help from the A-list likes of Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill and Tilda Swinton.
Deadpool (February 12, Fox)
Photo Credit: Fox
After a string of box-office bombs, Canadian hunk Ryan Reynolds looks to have a hit on his hands with this charmingly offbeat R-rated superhero romp. He stars as Wade Wilson, a smart-mouthed mercenary who, after finding out his body’s become riddled with cancer, undergoes an experimental procedure which eradicates the disease (and much of his handsomeness) while greatly enhancing his butt-kicking abilities. The only problem: the seedy organization that fixed him up is also looking to enslave him as their personal assassin — something Wilson isn’t inclined to go along with . . . at least, not before chopping off a few heads with his signature Samurai swords.
The Witch (February 19, A24)
Photo Credit: A24
One of the toasts of the 2015 festival circuit, don’t let the arthouse sensibilities of this horror flick throw you off — 90 minutes of unparalleled terror and dread await all who dare to gaze upon The Witch. Set in 17th-century New England, the film follows a family of Puritans as they forsake their community for a life alone in the wilderness, where a creature unlike any they (or their audience) has seen before awaits, eager to feast upon their bodies and souls in equal measure.
On DVD
Suffragette (February 2, Universal)
Photo Credit: Universal/biography.com
Director Sarah Gavron dramatizes the true story of the women’s suffrage movement in early 20th-century Britain. Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter and The Hour’s Romola Garay star as the front lines of the women’s rights movement, taking to the streets and braving arrests, assaults and all manner of public debasement to wrestle the right to vote from the rigid patriarchy that’s been oppressing them for centuries.
The Leftovers: Season 2 (February 9, HBO)
Distinguishing itself as uniquely raw, powerful, bleak and an all-round moving show on TV in season one, this HBO drama upped its game even more for the sophomore run, turning in a 10-episode masterpiece that nimbly sidestepped the occasional inconsistencies of season one.
Hitting the reset button, we find Kevin (Justin Theroux), Nora (Carrie Coon) and their kids packing up and heading for Miracle, Texas, the one town on earth seemingly unaffected by the mysterious event that caused two per cent of the world’s population to vanish a few years back. Alas, what they find there is not a paradise, but more people struggling to cope with the pain, uncertainty and existential horror of a world that’s searching for a reason to go on.
Spotlight (February 23, eOne)
Photo Credit: eOne
A Best Picture frontrunner at the upcoming Academy Awards, this fact-based drama lives up to the hype it’s been generating since TIFF. A marvelous ensemble cast headed by Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo brings to life the chilling tale of a team of Boston Globe journalists who, back in the ’90s, exposed a horrifying pattern of sexual abuse and cover-ups perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Massachusetts, in the process helping rip the mask off a globe-spanning epidemic involving 87 priests in the Boston area alone, not to mention countless ruined lives.
Main Image Photo Credit: Fox
Matthew Currie
Author
A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...
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