I tried to find an elegant way to use the title to express the concept “I’ve watched a third of my Challenge, even though we’re only a quarter of the way through the year”, but somehow I couldn’t condense that into just a word or two, and so I’ve resorted to echoing August 2016’s title — although then it was just bluntly factual, lacking even the trace of irony present in using ⅓ at the ¼ point. Shame on you, past me, for your lack of… eh, it’s pretension, really.

So enough of that, let’s get on with the films…

#23 Never Back Losers (1961) — Series Progression #3
#24 Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) — Wildcard #7
#25 Hooray for Hollywood (1982) — Wildcard #8
#26 The Sinister Man (1961) — Series Progression #4
#27 Lifeforce (1985) — Failure #3
#28 Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) — Wildcard #9
#29 The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) — WDYMYHS #3
#30 Revolver (1973) — Genre #2
#31 Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) — Blindspot #3
#32 The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) — Rewatch #3
#33 Mobile Suit Gundam (1981) — Wildcard #10

• I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in March.
• All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
• But most significantly, getting to #33 means I’m a whole month ahead of target.
• I think it’s the new-style Wildcards that have really made a difference — rather than rear-loading them to help me across the finish line (a plan that only worked once out of three attempts), they’ve now helped give me a healthy head start. It’s no coincidence it’s become my first completed category of the year. In my introduction I mentioned the possibility of adding a mitigating rule so that I didn’t burn through those ten slots too quickly. The fact it took me three months to get here makes me think the current, simple rules are more-or-less ok — it doesn’t need to be forced to drag further into the year just for the sake of taking longer.
• Conversely, I failed to watch a New Film in March. As someone who doesn’t get to the cinema much, it’s always harder to add to that category early in the year, but I still had options. Considering how far ahead I am overall, it doesn’t worry me — it’s an easy one to catch up later. It’s a shame not to hit the goal every month as planned, but it’s not something I’m going to lose sleep over.
• The Man with the Golden Gun could also have counted for Series Progression, because it’s part of my chronological rewatch of the Bond films (which has, ridiculously, been going since 2012), but it served a stronger purpose counting for Rewatch this month.
• This month’s Blindspot film was D.W. Griffith’s insanely-expensive anthology epic Intolerance, aka Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (I feel like it used to commonly go by the short title and now commonly goes by the long one, and there’s a reasonable argument either way).
• Not that it matters, but I bought Intolerance on Blu-ray ten years ago this month, but only just put those discs in my player. And I’m sure that’s not even close to the oldest unplayed title I own.
• This month’s WDYMYHS film was — to quote Hitch himself — “the first true Hitchcock picture”, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.
• From last month’s “failures” I watched Lifeforce.

Favourite Film of the Month
It’s sort of ridiculous and clearly more of a “cult classic” than a genuinely great film, but I really enjoyed Lifeforce. It’s a film that’s not afraid to go big and barmy, despite its limitations, and I admire that ambition. And, yeah, Mathilda May doesn’t hurt either. As I wrote on Letterboxd, “this is exactly the sort of stuff stereotypical 13-year-old boys should want to watch, not more Marvel slop.”

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It feels somewhat like punching down to pick on films from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries for this award — they’re somewhere between a ‘quota quickie’ and an anthology TV series, after all, and I’m sure no one involved thought they were making Great Art that would still be watched over 60 years later. Nonetheless, many of them are perfectly fine entertainment, so it’s still noteworthy when they fall short; and, to be honest, I didn’t watch anything else that bad this month. Of the two Edgar Wallaces I watched in March, particular dishonour goes to The Sinister Man for being casually racist — not maliciously so; more through ignorance, a lack of accurate information, and therefore poorly engaging with its own themes and content; but still, watching today, even at its best its somewhat laughable.

I got through ‘April’ in March — will I get through ‘May’ in April? Even if I don’t, I hope I don’t throw away this nice lead I’ve built up.