I’m not, by nature, a royalist (although I’m not sure that I’d vote for their abolition, if it came to it — I’d rather the certainty of Charles III and William V than risk the whims of the UK public vote giving us something like President Boris), but I know history when I see it, and there’s no doubting that the death of the Queen — and all the ensuing pageantry — was history, on a scale we’ll probably never see again.

So that’s my excuse for this month’s relatively paltry film viewing: I watched a lot of news and TV coverage. Plus, a known quantity: the much-anticipated release of the long-hoped-for Return to Monkey Island, which I spent most of my free time on for the best part of a week. It was worth the wait. If I included non-film stuff in my “best of” lists and whatnot, it’d be a shoe-in.

Anyway, enough about other timefillers — let’s look at some films…

#55 Clerks (1994) — DVD #6
#56 Persuasion (2022) — New Film #9
#57 He Walked by Night (1948) — Genre #5
#58 Paddington 2 (2017) — Rewatch #9
#59 Broken Blossoms (1919) — Decades #12
#60 Scream 2 (1997) — Series Progression #3

• I watched six feature films I’d never seen before in September.
• That’s my worst month of the year so far. In fact, it’s my worst month since December 2019. Oh dear.
• That means my average for 2022 drops further below my goal of 10 — last month it hit 9.88, now it’s 9.44. The rolling average of the last 12 months just keeps its head above water, though, dropping from 10.67 to 10.17.
• Four of the seven counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches — one under my Rewatch category (natch), the other under Series Progression, as my Scream series rewatch finally moved forward.
• Indeed, Scream 2 is the first Series Progression entry since April. I really thought I’d do better with that category. I’m gonna be progressing a lot of series in the last three months of the year if I want to reach #100…
• In better news, Broken Blossoms completes the Decades portion of my challenge — the first category to be finished! It started off as the easiest to do (almost any film I watched counted; I completed 58% in January alone), but as it went on it became a bit harder. Turns out I don’t watch many films from the 1950s (that took until May), and even fewer from the 1910s — which I knew, and is the kind of reason the category exists.
• Back on the downers now, because I managed no Blindspot or WDYMYHS films this month. Oops. As I was already one behind on each, that’s something else I need to up the number of in the year’s closing months.
• In related news, Second Sight have confirmed that their 4K restoration of The Hitcher won’t be completed until next year. That means I need to choose a substitution for this year’s WDYMYHS. I’ve gone for that year’s Palme d’Or winner, which was also an Oscar and BAFTA Best Picture nominee, The Mission.
• From last month’s “failures” I watched absolutely nothing.

Favourite Film of the Month
I finally saw it and, just like almost everyone else, I loved it. It’s a small field this month, I know, but Top Gun: Maverick is both an easy victor and likely to find a place somewhere on my “best of year” list come December (well, January; it’d be a miracle if I got my list together in December).

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I enjoyed it more than I expected, but Persuasion was still the weakest link amongst this month’s viewing.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
My review of Love on a Leash made a resurgence in the chart this month. (It looks like it actually started last month, but was overshadowed by Prey doing so well.) No idea why that’s happened. As for what this award is actually about — i.e. new posts — the winner is a rarity: the monthly review of August. The last time that happened was May last year — and it might’ve been the first time, too (back then I couldn’t be bothered to dig through 71 previous awards, and I can’t be doing with that now, either).

Ambulance	Apollo 10½
Easy A	The Flying Deuces
My Name Is Julia Ross

Halloween — one night of the year that, if some people were to be believed, goes on an entire month (at least). Regular readers will know I don’t celebrate it too heavily, but this year I am intending to offer a series of “Guide To” posts covering the Scream series.