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 guess the big theatrical release of the month was the third entry in James Cameron’s sci-fi opus, Avatar: Fire and Ash, though I don’t feel like I heard much hype for it. That said, I’m kinda out of the loop on that nowadays, so who knows? The second one was unexpectedly huge at the box office, so I wouldn’t bet against this one doing big numbers also. I’ve still not seen the second one, Avatar: The Way of Water, which I think also counts as a December failure because the release of a followup should have been the perfect motivation to finally bung the disc in (yes, I own it. Of course I do).

The film that almost actually tempted me out of the house and into the multiplex this month was the long (long) awaited release of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. It’s only taken us 22 years to get here! My local only had one screening and the time didn’t work for me, so that ended up being a no-go. Really hoping it gets a disc release. I also would have liked to have seen the BFI’s release of Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases, a bundle of examples from their project to restore the Stoll Picture / Eille Norwood series of silent-era Sherlock Holmes films. I couldn’t find a screening reasonably near me though. Another one I’ve hoped would come to disc for a long time (since before they announced the restoration project, but with renewed hope since they did).

Most blockbusters run in fear of a new Avatar, but the remake (or whatever — I saw Jack Black promoting it somewhere and it sounded more ‘meta’ than that) of Anaconda was the first to brave following in its wake, and I guess it was some kind of counter-programming to release a ping pong biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme. Also out was youth-aimed video game horror sequel Five Nights at Freddy’s 2; James L. Brooks’s first directorial effort for a decade-and-a-half, Ella McCay; Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great; and a bunch of other stuff even less worthy of a mention (or I’ve forgotten why it’s on my short list and probably should have Googled it, you choose). Oh, and a pre-Netflix theatrical debut for Kate Winslet’s Goodbye June, which also then came to Netflix within the month.

Speaking of Netflix (yeah, I did a link), the biggest streaming debut of the month was undoubtedly the new Knives Out Benoit Blanc mystery, Wake Up Dead Man, but I actually saw that, so, um, moving on… Honestly, though, there’s not much else worth mentioning. I mean, Prime Video’s dog-based romcom Merv goes on my watchlist because I like dogs, Charlie Cox, and Zooey Deschanel, but it’s hardly a high-profile must-see, right? Though I feel like it’s a better bet than the film they did push, Michelle Pfeiffer-starring Christmas comedy Oh. What. Fun. I’m certainly not going to catch up with that in January.

There was more noteworthy stuff making its post-theatrical streaming debut, as a few big(ish) guns were wheeled out for the holiday season. I suppose chief among them was A Minecraft Movie on Sky Cinema / NOW, what with it being one of the biggest hits of the year. Joining it there was franchise-amalgamating legacy sequel Karate Kid: Legends (I feel like I need to finish Cobra Kai before that, even though I don’t think it directly follows on), Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme (I’m three or four behind on new Anderson films now), Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (which I already own on disc), and, um, Tinsel Town, a probably-should-be-a-TV-special festive romp with Kiefer Sutherland slumming it (although, where’s his career at these days, so maybe not) alongside Danny Dyer, Rebel Wilson, Jason Manford, and Derek Jacobi. Feels kinda random, but there you go.

Elsewhere, Apple TV+ dropped F1: The Movie, the nearest I’ve come to watching a movie on my phone (the trailer with haptic feedback was cool. Don’t know if they’ve done a version of the whole movie with that… and even if they did, I wouldn’t actually watch a movie on my phone); and Disney+ made a bid for middle-brow British audiences with Olivia Colman- and Benedict Cumberbatch-starring remake The Roses. Looping back round to Amazon, we also find David Mackenzie’s thriller Relay and a couple of those “it’s now in the public domain so we can make it into a horror movie” films, Bambi: The Reckoning and Popeye the Slayer Man. I guess we’re going to be seeing those pop up for years to come. Their existence amuses me, but I have no desire to watch any of them. Talking of rubbish, they also offered the new Red Sonja, which I rented for actual money (albeit discounted) and watched just last month. If I’d known it was coming as part of my Prime subscription, I wouldn’t have bothered… which I guess is why they don’t warn you.

Things that caught my attention among the back catalogue shifts included Netflix simultaneously adding both 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas and 2018’s The Grinch, which stood out because I’ve never read or seen any version of that story, which caused me to get a question wrong in a work Christmas quiz (his dog is called Max, FYI). More significantly, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is now on iPlayer (I wonder if they considered holding off on it ’til Wimbledon season), and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is now on Prime — not truly a ‘significant’ film, but I did enjoy the first one. There are just so many superhero movies around nowadays, I never really know where to start with catching up… or, more accurately, don’t feel enough desire to dive into them. Maybe I should just give in and watch the key ones? But I digress.

As for my usual roundup of “stuff I own on disc but haven’t watched that is now also on streaming to remind me of my self-control problems”… well, the king of this category is Prime Video, and there I spy David Cronenberg’s The Brood, the 2021 Candyman, poliziotteschi Rulers of the City, and Voodoo Macbeth, plus a tonne of stuff I’ve meant to rewatch, a sampling of which includes Annihilation, Black Hawk Down, Collateral, Peter Jackson’s King Kong, The Limey, Man on Fire, The Prestige, Saving Private Ryan, David Cronenberg’s Scanners… and that’s not even all of them. iPlayer gave them a run for their money this month, though, with Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Get Carter (the original, obv), How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (they always show those at Christmas, for some reason), Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and both Puss in Boots and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. But they also dove into the rewatch category, with the likes of Double Indemnity, The Godfather trilogy (including the Coda version of Part III, which I’ve never seen), Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (which I feel like pops on one service or another every month), The Third Man, and Unforgiven. It’s not news but, yeah, I should buy less stuff.

And I… am still buying stuff, of course, but I feel like this list isn’t as long as it used to be. Nearly everything is in 4K this month too, which is nice. The only exceptions are Masters of Cinema’s box set of 1960s Fantômas films, Fantomas Returns!, and the BFI’s recent release Battleship Potemkin with a score by the Pet Shop Boys. Elsewise, there’s a surprising amount of horror: giallo The House with Laughing Windows (an import of Arrow’s US release rather than settling for the UK equivalent); H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Re-Animator; Richard Stanley’s Dust Devil (which is also bundled with another Lovecraft adaptation, Color Out of Space); and a pair of Hammer horrors released by StudioCanal, The Horror of Frankenstein and Scars of Dracula; plus a non-horror title from Hammer themselves, crime drama Whispering Smith Hits London. Further on the non-horror front, Dust Devil was an import from Umbrella in Australia, which I accompanied with their releases of Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg and the second film from Cube director Vincenzo Natali, Cypher.

We finish the month with a third David Cronenberg: Criterion’s release of A History of Violence, which I don’t think I’ve watched since I saw it at the cinema back in 2005, despite owning it on DVD for most of that time. Well, a 4K release is the perfect excuse for a rewatch, isn’t it? Right after I get to the hundreds of other things I’ve said that about…