Films Released in February: A FilmAttic Guide

February proves to be a month of impressive variety.

A broad selection of films will be on offer in February, but with a lack of big blockbusters this could be exactly what’s needed to detox from all those mega hits and Oscar contenders from an intense last few months.

Having said that, the remnants of Oscar hyped films are released this month with Dallas Buyers Club (7th Feb) and Her (14th Feb.) The former looks set to be yet another career best performance from Matthew McConaughey as a man who is diagnosed with AIDS and finds ways to get medicine for patients outside of the law. If you’ve caught a trailer by now, you’ll know he’s lost a lot of weight for the part, and with a reasonably untested screenwriting team, it’ll be interesting to see what this can achieve. The wild card for Best Picture is Her, with Spike Jonze writing and directing the unusual futuristic romantic love story. Joaquin Phoenix plays the lead and with clever, heart warming trailers this could be one that does very well at the box office as well as with awards ceremonies. The Oscars ceremony is on Sunday 2nd March so you’ll have less than a month to catch these before they win or lose awards.

Action-packed options are limited this month with only Robocop (7th Feb) and Non-Stop (28th Feb) really standing out. Robocop sees the tin man return after a twenty-year absence from the big screen and could do well with little competition and a new, more flexible, painted black suit for the well known hero. We’ll be covering the Robocop franchise this month so keep an eye on the site around the launch of the new film.

Liam Neeson seems to enjoy action thrillers now, especially after 2008’s Taken. His biggest similar hits since then have been Unknown, The Grey and of course, Taken 2, but none of these has impressed audiences or critics as much. Non-Stop follows Neeson as an Air Marshall on board a plane that’s being manipulated by a mysterious figure. The trailers make this really stand out from anything else this month, and with Neeson in the role it we’ve got high hopes.

As we all know, LEGO is unstoppable as a toy and game series, but it’s most probably to become a film series too. The LEGO movie sees Emmet, played by Chris Pratt, find himself fulfilling a prophecy to save the universe, and although the plot sounds pretty naff, LEGO has always done well recently at reinventing old stories with tongue in cheek humour with it’s game series including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman and Harry Potter. The film even includes various characters from these series and more so should be a great film for kids, families, and comedy lovers. We’re predicting this to be one of the biggest films of the month.

Cuban Fury is the biggest British film out this month, coinciding with a Valentines Day release, and stars Nick Frost as a salsa prodigy who begins a comeback to impress his female boss. This will be Nick Frost’s first lead character role in a feature and looks like an interesting blend of traditional romance and oddball British humour provided mainly by Frost and co-star Chris O’Dowd. As a small film, we’re expecting this to get reasonable support here in the UK, and could be the best option for couples i.e. men who don’t want to sit through a conventional romance for Valentines Day.

You probably have a clear opinion on Shia Lebeouf due to his recent plagiarism problems; do you hate him or do you love him? Well, it might be worth reserving judgement for the moment, at least on his acting career, as this month sees two (well technically three) of his films released in UK cinemas. Charlie Countryman will be released on the 14th February and is set to be a great drama surrounding Lebeouf’s title character. The brilliant Mads Mikkelson and young up-and-coming stars, Rupert Grint, Evan Rachel Wood and James Buckley, accompany him. This is one film I’m really looking forward to this month and hopefully it won’t disappoint. Lebeouf’s second film has been split into two, aptly named Nymphomaniac: Volume I and Nymphomaniac: Volume II. This follows him and other characters on a journey of retelling a life of sex addiction and with unpredictable art house director Lars Von Trier helming, it’s hard to tell at this stage whether this will be one of Trier’s more engaging film’s or not. If you’re a hardcore fan then you’ll surely not be disappointed, but going by the trailers and with the amount of sex and nudity on show, this isn’t one for the squeamish.

Check out our list of up and coming movie highlights for February and let us know via Twitter or Facebook what you thought.

7th February

Dallas Buyers Club
Robocop
The Invisible Woman
The Patrol

14th February

Les Salauds
Bette Bourne: It Goes with the Shoes
Charlie Countryman
Cuban Fury
Her
The LEGO Movie
Love is in the Air
The Monuments Men

21st February

Winter’s Tale
Stalingrad

22nd February

Nymphomaniac: Volume I
Nymphomaniac: Volume II

26th February

The Book Thief

28th February

Non-Stop

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