3 March 2022

February Recap

February flew by, did you catch our Valentine's Day Special? The year on the blog pretty much goes downhill from that list unless we go to TIFF so apologies in advance.



Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

If you missed it, I put up a terrible review of one of Anita Shreve's oldest novels on the blog this month. You can read it here if you care. - MG

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares 

I read this over a ~48hr period this month and will have a review in the coming weeks. - MG

The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

Ben and I were stuck in isolation for the last week of February and I read the newest Chuck Klosterman book over the weekend. If you have any interest in pop culture then you'll likely enjoy this. Review coming soon! - MH

Chuck Klosterman


Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

This was an interesting read because it is set in Russia (specifically on a peninsula in the far east) and focuses on a lot of the indigenous population there. It was kind of weird to be finishing a book primarily dealt with living in Russia with everything going on in the news the last week. Review coming soon. - MH



Inventing Anna

This is really popular right now on Netflix and it's an interesting story about a young woman who sort of cons NYC business people into thinking she was rich with lots of investment potential. I really liked it until the final two episodes which felt sloppy and out of sync with the rest of the show. I think what's cool about this story is it's so current that the real people it's based off of are active on socials, etc. to respond to the adaptation. This is also true about the popular new Netflix documentary, The Tinder Swindler, which was also interesting but nothing to write home about. - MG

Julia Garner as Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna


Love is Blind S2

Speaking of popular on Netflix right now... this show is like a heroin injection for reality tv junkies who are a sucker for watching real people make absolute fools of themselves on national television (me). There is nothing sophisticated about the plot despite the fact that the hosts (Nick and Vanessa Lachey- if that tells you anything) continue to call it an 'experiment'. It's just plain dumb and makes a total mockery of the ritual of engagement, but it's soooooo good. In my opinion, all the wrong couples got married this season and if I see Shayne and Shaina together at the March 14th reunion I will flip a table. - MG

Mackenzie Davis in Station Eleven


Station Eleven

I finally got to tackle Station Eleven after having two of my favourite TV critics call it their show of the year for 2021. I read the book at the very beginning of Covid-19 and have been awaiting this adaptation for what feels like years. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone because it is definitely tough to be watching people wearing masks and losing all their loved ones. The disease in this show has a 1 in 1000 survival rate, so it is a lot more disastrous than what we are dealing with, but it still hits a bit close to home. I've been listening to the score on repeat. - MH



Step Up (2006)

This was my Valentine's Day movie choice (Scott's was City of Angels and let me tell you, there are bad movies and then there's City of Angels...) and who wouldn't love to swoon over 25 year old Channing Tatum and 25 year old Jenna Dewan falling in love as they dance together on screen. It's just so fun to watch. RIP to the happy couple but highly recommend to anyone who wants to lose themselves in the love and music for a few hours... - MG

Alexa, play "Step Up" by Samantha Jade


Logan Lucky (2017)

Clearly on a Channing Tatum streak, no thanks to the women of the Ringer "Tea Time" podcast who have been doing "Chanuary" for their cringe mode movie reviews. This is such a fun movie!!! It feels like if Letterkenny met Ocean's Eleven and Scott and I were cracking up for pretty much the whole run time. Riley Keough is so good and it's my second favourite role for Adam Driver (next to Girls). - MG

Licorice Pizza (2021)

I literally gasped in my room when I saw that Paul Thomas Anderson's newest movie Licorice Pizza would be playing IN THEATRES in Saint John. I have never been a die hard PTA fan, but always look forward to anything new he puts out. I would say I usually either love it (Phantom Thread) or hate it (Inherent Vice - which Meg famously reviewed as "this movie could have ended anywhere and it would have made just as much sense to me.") I would say Licorice Pizza was one of PTA's I enjoyed a lot. It's about a 15 year old boy who relentlessly pursues a 25 year old woman and their relationship. It's got a great 70's Hollywood vibe. - MH

a still from Licorice Pizza
a still from Licorice Pizza


Wild Things (1998)

This movie is batshit insane and I loved watching it. We are doing "sexual thrillers" for movie club this month and most of them are from the 1990s. This movie stars Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell, and Denise Richards. I literally cannot believe that Richards is real. The amount of twists in this movie had Ben and I cheering on the couch. Another highlight of movie club was my re-watch of Cruel Intentions which is also insane. - MH 



Mark Walberg on Chatty Broads

I feel like I just included an epsiode of Chatty Broads in a recap but they recently had Mark Walberg (host of Temptation Island, not to be confused with the Mark Wahlberg) on for an extended episode and it was a great listen. Obviously, if you've followed this blog for the last few years, I am obsessed with Temptation Island. Walberg is a fantastic host, really overstepping his boundaries into psychotherapy on the show, and he's on Chatty Broads talking about cheating, relationship rules, and overcoming temptation (my favourite topics). It is really, unfortunately long, but I understand how they couldn't cut anything. You can listen here. - MG

Mark Walberg, who looks suspiciously like Chris Harrison

Chuck Klosterman on The Bill Simmons Podcast and The Big Picture

I hate Bill Simmons and have stopped listening to his podcast altogether, but am still subscribed incase he gets Klosterman on as a guest. With Klosterman promoting his new book (mentioned above) he was on two Ringer podcasts. A lot of his book deals with movies of the time (The Matrix, Titanic, etc) and this is what he talked about on The Big Picture. - MH 

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