4 Things to Look Forward to in February

Culture

Mostly to get myself hyped for the month ahead, I’m going to be doing a, “What to be excited about this month” post to kick off each month. In essential blogging fashion, I will limit this to broad topics like sports, movies, and TV and not the things I’ll personally be looking forward to like what I’m going to send my ex-girlfriends for Valentine’s Day (I still haven’t decided!!!). Here you go:

1. Sports: The Super Bowl

Kind of cheating to label this under sports when it’s really being celebrated as the USA’s fourth biggest holiday behind Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July. It’s not like anyone but gays (49er fans), criminals (Ravens fans), and gamblers (NFL fans) are excited for the actual game. But as I wrote about extensively last year, the fashion options, commercial appeal, and the food make this a big event. Oh, the food!

How excited should you be? If you’re an American, and not some kind of liberal, this excited:

 

2. Movie: Snitch

It’s hard for me to turn my back on A Good Day to Die Hard because John McClain was kind of my first action hero love, but as we mature, our tastes mature as well. And by maturing, I mean we find something new and young to replace the now old thing we once loved (writing that sentence kind of hurt my soul). I’m sorry, Bruce. Hello, Dwayne. The Rock is finally headlining his first can’t-miss flick since Gridiron Gang. Here’s the plot to Snitch, opening on February 22: A father goes undercover to take down a drug cartel and win his son’s freedom. If Mila Kunis shows up as some drug-addled floozie that The Rock has to sleep with to not blow his cover, then this will be a perfect movie.

How excited should you be for this? If you can smell what The Rock is cooking in 2013 (seriously, all those movies, Royal Rumble Champion and Wrestlemania!?), you should be more excited than the first time you experienced the most electrifying move in sports entertainment:

 

3. Television: House of Cards

 

I know that The Walking Dead is coming back on February 13, but the past two seasons did a good job of satiating my “how many ways can you explode a zombie head” curiosity. And while The Americans is looking like the best show of the new year, it only premiered in late January. House of Cards is the second show to premiere on Netflix and is the first one that won’t suck ... and it's available to you on February 1. I don’t really care too much about the implications for Netflix, but seeing Kevin Spacey act conniving in a world of political subterfuge is going to be one great Saturday: 13 episodes, two pizzas, and a bag of Doritos will guarantee I enjoy watching this.

How excited should you be? If you like the idea of Keyser Soze taking down the President of the United States, then you better be a Netflix subscriber. If you don’t like that idea, then it depends on what this poster does for you:

 

4. Music: A Whole Lotta Stuff

 

This portion of  the blog is brought to you by my Writing Bareback partner, the man with the golden ears, Tommy Cooksey.

Based on my musical interests (and deep research) it looks like February is shaping up to be a rather slow month in the Music Alley. You know, unless new Tim McGraw, Buckcherry, and LL Cool J albums really get your motor running. I’d personally love to see the individual that ranks those three “artists” at the top of their music list. The only thing those three “artists” have in common is likely their love of wearing white wife beaters.

But I digress, as I tend to do. I’ll take a quick second before diving in to plug our new user forum where we invite any questions you’d like us to answer, suggestions for topics, music you’d like to share, random thoughts you want us to judge, etc. Since my musical taste is limited to what I enjoy, I look forward to being exposed to new music and more concerts from you guys!

The two albums I’m most intrigued by both drop on February 5, and are virtually polar opposites from a style/sound stand point.

Coheed & Cambria is the first, with their new album The Aftermath: Descension. This is Coheed & Cambria’s seventh full-length album and it's being released 11 years to the day of their very first album (pretty cool little tidbit if I say so myself). I initially fell for Coheed’s unique rock sound with “Blood Red Summer” some eight years ago:

Several years later they released The Aftermath: The Ascension, the prequel to their upcoming album. The song "Domino the Destitute" was a big hit, and a pretty killer video as well!

The second album I'm gearing up for is Frightened Rabbit Pedestrian Verse. These guys hail from Scotland and they’ll be dropping their fourth full-length album with Pedestrian Verse. Not sure much about the history here, since I really just stumbled upon them, but I think they're a safe bet after enjoying songs like "Living in Colour":

… and “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”

I’m looking forward to seeing what they come out with next.