As you stuff yourself full of last night’s spoils (not that I imagine anyone who reads this actually goes trick or treating — my spoils are all the leftovers from buying too many sweets just in case), why not learn how I got on last month? What better thing to peruse while rotting your teeth?

See Saw

Talking of Halloween, you may have noticed that I’ve been re-posting all of my Saw reviews. Now seemed as good a time as any. To accompany that, I wrote some new words on my opinion of the franchise as a whole. If you missed it, you can read those here.

What surprised me is that I kinda miss the Saw films. They’re mostly quite poor (the first one is actually rather the good; the best of the rest tend to be “good, for a Saw film”), but they kind of sucker you in. Maybe one day I’ll re-watch them…

And talking of quality…

Quality check

2012 has felt like a bit of a slow year, quality-wise. Perhaps I’m just getting more discerning, or perhaps I’ve made some appalling viewing choices this year, but where my running list of “films I might include in my year-end best-of” usually stands at 60%+ of my viewing, this year it’s been closer to the 30% mark. I have made a conscious effort to be tighter on it — come December it’ll be whittled down to only 10 titles, so there’s no need to include any “well, if there’s nothing else…” level films — but, still, that’s quite a lot tighter than usual.

I mention it now because, after many slow months, it all seems to be kicking off recently — nearly every new film you see below is on the long list, for starters. Most of the old ones would be too, if that was allowed by my rules. (From Russia With Love? Goldfinger? Of course they merit top-ten consideration!) And this is definitely a good thing, because it’s nice to be watching some great filmmaking. There’s even three five-star (new) films this month, which is a third of my entire tally for the year so far — again, proof that I’m either being more stringent in my marking or poorer in my viewing decisions.

October’s films

#81a Dr. No (1962)
#82 RoboCop 2 (1990)
#83 Prometheus (2012)
#83a From Russia With Love (1963)
#84 Bill Cunningham New York (2010)
#85 War Horse (2011)
#85a Goldfinger (1964)
#86 Skyfall (2012)
#87 Birth (2004)

The namesh Bond…

You’ll notice four Bond films in that lot. With the release of the big, faintly disappointing Blu-ray box set (I mean, it’s good really, but so many missed opportunities!) and the 50th anniversary of the series, I’ve once again embarked on my long-held goal of watching all the films in order. Naturally I intend to cover them here as I go, in decade-sized clumps. I’m aiming to watch one a week and kept it up mostly, but after the brilliance of Skyfall I’ve struggled to bring myself to watch Thunderball (always one of my least favourite), so we’ll see.

Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…

Yes, that’s right, we’ll see next time. As well as more new films, of course. I’m one behind where I was last year, when I only reached 100. Can I go higher than my own goal, for only the third time? That surely won’t be answered until December, but November will be instrumental in it even being possible. And the only times I’ve ever done it, I was already there in October. But there’s a first time for everything…

Desperately forced jeopardy! That’s what trailers are all about!