Welcome to my monthly “Failures” column, where I look back at some of the films I could, would, maybe even should have watched last month… but failed to.

I often think I should make more of an effort to get to the cinema, but then I look at what’s out and think, “to see what?” Sure, I’ll inevitably watch things like video game sequel The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Jacko biopic Michael when they come to a streamer I’m subscribed to (or add them to my watchlist, at least), but I don’t feel compelled to go out of my way to see them. I should probably make an effort to support smaller titles, like Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada, but they don’t screen at my local, and once you add in the cost of travel and time to go further afield, the value proposition is even lower. It’s like this most months nowadays. Is it just me, or is it the state of modern cinema? I dunno.

Other big screen releases destined to end up on my watchlist someday included Zendaya / Robert Pattinson drama The Drama, Lee Cronin horror Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, Oliver Assayas’s political thriller The Wizard of the Kremlin, and David Lowery’s pop-music-based psychological thriller Mother Mary.

The original offerings from streamers weren’t much more edifying. World Cup adjacent comedy Balls Up? Sounds balls. Greenland sequel Greenland: Migration? I never bothered with the first one, never mind a followup. Shark movie Thrash is the kind of genre fare I probably would’ve bunged on once upon a time, but I doubt I’ll make time for it nowadays. Action-thriller Apex at least boasts Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, and Eric Bana among its cast, proving that recognisable names are still a factor in drawing a film to your attention. Literally all I know about Apple TV+’s Outcome is it stars Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz and was written and directed by actor Jonah Hill, but that was enough for me to notice it and bung it on this list. Mind you, the film I’m mostly likely to actually watch is Eat Pray Bark, because dogs.

There’s more interesting fare thanks to theatrical releases making their streaming debuts, like the revival of the Final Destination franchise, Final Destination: Bloodlines; or Zach Cregger’s Oscar-winning horror Weapons; or Richard Linklater’s Oscar-nominated Blue Moon; or Dwayne Johnson’s attempt at Oscar bait, The Smashing Machine; or Ari Aster’s Eddington; or Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing; or Crime 101, which I swear was only just in cinemas. (Those are spread around between NOW and Amazon Prime Video, if you’re interested. Don’t think there was any Netflix in there. There’s even less to say about the other streamers… so I won’t.)

A plethora of back catalogue stuff vies for a mention, as usual. Netflix seemed to mop up a bunch of Warner Bros films, possibly in anticipation of the acquisition that didn’t happen, including DC superhero flicks like Blue Beetle, The Flash, and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, none of which are new and all of which have been on my watchlist since whatever streamer they used to be on; possibly across several. I can’t quite decide if I’ve finally ‘grown out’ of superhero movies or if the ones they’re churning out now are just uninteresting. But I didn’t dislike James Gunn’s Superman and enjoyed the first season of Daredevil: Born Again (I still need to start the second), so maybe it is them not me.

What else? John Woo’s remake of his own film, The Killer, jumped from NOW to Netflix. Meg 2: The Trench also moved there from… er, wherever it used to be… reminding me that I quite enjoyed the first one and did mean to watch the second. The Magic Mike trilogy also collated itself there (I feel like those three films are constantly popping on and off various services, but are rarely to be found in one place all at once). Over on Prime Video, the 2021 Mortal Kombat popped up ahead of the forthcoming sequel, while other recent-ish things I’ve been meaning to catch up with included The Bikeriders, Freaky, and King Richard; plus, looking back some way (as in “six decades”), the third Harry Palmer film, Billion Dollar Brain.

Even worse, the stuff goading me that I bought it and haven’t watched it still: Alita: Battle Angel, the new(er) Candyman, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire all on Prime. Even worse…er: on iPlayer, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. You know you’ve left stuff a long time when it’s been on free-to-air TV. And that’s just the recent-ish films — how’s about American Gangster, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and La La Land on Netflix (all titles I’ve owned on at least two formats, including 4K, but not watched the latter yet); on iPlayer, Don’t Look Now, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and The Wicker Man; on Amazon, But I’m a Cheerleader, Heat, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Thelma & Louise, Time Bandits, all the Spider-Man films, and a tonne of Gamera films. I didn’t bother to note exactly how many — the important point is, I’ve got Arrow’s complete series set from 2020 that I’ve not started.

No box sets quite that big in April’s selection of new purchases — just a trilogy of Japanese Godfather films from Radiance and the Wandering Ginza Butterfly duo from Arrow. Talking of John Woo’s The Killer (as I was two paragraphs back), the original made it to 4K this month courtesy of Arrow. (I was tempted to put them both in this post’s header image, but… I didn’t.) Other classics (how “classic” these “classics” are, I’ll leave up to you) making their way to 4K disc included Tsui Hark’s One Armed Swordsman remake The Blade from Criterion, neo-noir Cutter’s Way from Radiance; and a pair of Hammer titles from StudioCanal, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb and Demons of the Mind. Maybe I should stop buying everything that gets put out from Hammer’s back catalogue, but, well, I’ve started now. It would be less bad if I did something truly radical and actually watched more of them…