February saw another drop in my movie watching, but I kind of made up for it by powering through all of Season 5 of Mad Men and all of Season 4 of Sons of Anarchy. Mad Men just keep me coming back. The characters in this show are absolutely addictive. Season 4 of SOA started (and ended) a little rough, but the middle had me watching 4 episodes a day (twice). But the ending really felt like they had jumped their entire motorcycle club over a giant shark. We’ll see how Season 5 is when it comes out on DVD this fall.

Best movie of the month (in a very limited selection) goes to Undefeated, a documentary about a high school football coach in Memphis, Tennessee. While I’ve previously said I’ve fallen off the football bandwagon because of the violence, sometimes the violence the players cause on the field is less than what they live off the field. It was quite a moving story.

Worst movie of the month, by a landslide, was Taken 2. The dialogue was just awful, and it still elevated the plot. In the earliest part of the movie, Liam Neeson’s daughter has failed her driving test for the 3rd time. Three days later, she’s a stunt driver in Istanbul spinning a stick-shift 180 degrees and roaring down tight alleys without missing a beat. Avoid this movie like the plague.

I enjoyed 2 kids movies this month – The Lorax and Treasure Planet, but the morality of The Lorax felt a little heavy-handed. As an adult, I can see through the heavier parts, but when watching it with my kids, I worried that they don’t have the ability yet to understand the issues being addressed. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all-in on the environmental movement. But I understand why the right hates Hollywood liberals after seeing that.

Listed below are the movies and TV series I’ve been watching since Part X of this series:

• [x] = Number of Episodes watched if TV show
• ( y ) = Rating out of 5.
• Items in bold = ones I highly recommend

Theater

• None

TV Series (watching as aired)

• Gold Rush
• Castle
• Chicago Fire
• Big Bang Theory
• Downton Abbey

DVD

• Game of Thrones: Season 2 [1] (3)
• Homeland: Season 1 [1] (4)
• Mad Men: Season 5 [3] (5)
• Taken 2 (1)
• The Bourne Legacy (3)

Instant Watch

• Cosmos: The Complete Collection [1] (3)
• Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (3.5)
• Ken Burns Presents: The West [3] (4)
• Once Upon a Time: Season 1 [10] (3)
• Sons of Anarchy: Season 4: [13] (4)
• Treasure Planet (3.5)
• Undefeated (4)