May’s Failures

Posted on June 3, 2023 by badblokebob

Perhaps the main failure-related discussion point this month is the announcement that Disney+ would be removing dozens of films and series. Not stuff they’d licensed where the terms had run out, or old content that they felt wasn’t of interest to modern audiences or something, but stuff that had been made for Disney+; “originals” and “exclusives” that weren’t available anywhere else — not physical media; not on other streamers; not to buy or rent. (The exception, of course, is that you can pirate them. Or some of them, anyway — there’s bound to be something missing, because piracy, in my experience, is not 100% all-encompassing.) This is relevant to “failure”s for two reasons: one, because I haven’t seen most/all of this stuff, and there are some things in there that I did want to catch, so they’re pertinent to May’s failures. They include The Princess, Artemis Fowl, Rosaline, the series remake of The Right Stuff, and the Willow sequel series. (There are various articles reporting on the full list of removals. Here’s one, for example.)

Secondly, and more importantly, it’s a failure on Disney’s part. They’re risking these modern productions becoming “lost media”, a phenomenon we all thought had been left behind decades ago, and which streaming had promised to eradicate entirely. Instead, the business models of streaming have made it all the more possible again. Sure, maybe there’s stuff in there that isn’t “worth” saving — that no one’s watching; that the people who did watch it didn’t enjoy; that no one really wants to see again, or in future — but that’s almost beside the point, because it doesn’t apply to everything. And what about rediscoveries? People can’t “rediscover” stuff that isn’t available. Not everything that deserves to be a success is a hit right out of the box.

Anyway, mini-rant over. If you want more discussion and criticism, there’s plenty of it out there, because no one apart from Disney’s management and accountants thinks this is a good idea. (Indeed, some removal choices have been so criticised that Disney have already walked them back, like the documentary about Howard Ashman. I imagine that’s going to be an isolated incident, though. I mean, if Bryan Cranston speaking out about the removal of an Oscar-nominated movie can’t save it, what can?)

Back to my usual starting place, then: the big screen. Oh look, it’s Disney again, because two of this month’s releases were the latest instalment in the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and the latest live-action remake of an animated classic, The Little Mermaid. I’m quite looking forward to the former (I’ve heard good things, and I mostly enjoyed the previous two outings), but I feel like I’m under-equipped to actually watch it. The Guardians have always been off more in their own corner of the universe than other MCU properties, but I presume I need to see Thor: Love and Thunder to find out what happened regarding Thor joining the Guardians at the end of the last Avengers team-up; and there’s also the Holiday Special on Disney+ (well, I presume it’s still on Disney+ — I can’t imagine they’re going to start wiping MCU content), which, seeing as it’s also by the film trilogy’s writer-director, James Gunn, I’m assuming is relevant to Vol. 3 to at least some degree. So, that’s kicked down the road a little bit, then. As for The Little Mermaid, I expect I’ll catch it at some point, but then I haven’t even got round to the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast yet, so who knows when.

Other big screen bows in May included the first half (or possibly the first third) of the finale to the Fast & Furious series, Fast X; the latest works from directors Ari Aster (Beau Is Afraid) and Robert Rodriguez (Hypnotic); and well-reviewed fun-looking Scandi actioner Sisu. Nothing there to tempt me out of the house, even if several will be high on my “must make an effort to get round to” list when they eventually hit streaming/disc.

As for stuff that’s already available to stream, Netflix’s main premiere this month was J-Lo actioner The Mother, while Amazon Prime had Ben Affleck’s Air make a speedy transition from its cinema release (well, that depends how you look at it: as an Amazon Studios film, is it quick to streaming, or lucky to have had any theatrical release?) In terms of true direct-to-streaming titles, the best on offer at Disney+ was kid-friendly space adventure Crater, while Apple TV+ had documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. As someone who grew up watching and loving the Back to the Future films, I really must make time for the latter.

Arguably, the back catalogue additions were more significant across all the streamers this month. Netflix debuted all eight Harry Potter films, and they promptly flooded the streamer’s top ten movies. They also added the first two Fantastic Beasts movies, which did not factor. None of those really count as “failures” — I own them all on disc anyway, and whenever my most recent rewatch was is recent enough for now — but they were a noteworthy addition to the catalogue, nonetheless. Whole cinematic series were cropping up elsewhere, too, with the complete Fast Saga (so far) on Sky Cinema (that I do want to rewatch at some point, probably after it’s all done) and the Indiana Jones tetralogy on Disney+ (I only rewatched them recently (summer 2021, so two years ago, but that’s very recent in my perception of time vis-à-vis film viewing), but then I immediately bought the 4K set and haven’t watched that yet, so rewatching them again is definitely on my radar). There were individual films of significance, too, with Amazon claiming Oscar winner The Whale as an exclusive, and the latest-but-one Marvel movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, landing on Disney+ already (personally, I’ll wait ’til a 3D version pops up somewhere online). On a more niche scale, documentary Lynch/Oz is only now getting a theatrical release this weekend in the States, but has already been on TV here, and thus streamed on Channel 4 (as Channel 4’s streaming service — previously All 4, and before that 4oD — is now known).

As ever, there was piles and piles of other stuff added to all the streamers that bulked out my watchlists, but I’m ever-hesitant to list them all here. That said, some more recent releases included Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, Freaky, The Forever Purge, Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old on Netflix; Malignant, Reminiscence, and The Suicide Squad on Amazon Prime; Rye Lane on Disney+; and Supernova on iPlayer. That’s no to mention even older titles that I want to see (like A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies on MUBI — although, at over three-and-a-half-hours long, I doubt I’m going to make time for it), nor all the stuff I’ve actually seen but have failed to review (like Confess, Fletch on Sky Cinema (highly recommend that, by-the-way), or Baby Done on iPlayer; or even my favourite film I saw for the first time in 2020, Do the Right Thing, also on iPlayer).

The only thing sadder than a film I’ve watched but not reviewed is a Blu-ray I’ve bought and not watched — and, as ever, there are masses of those to list this month. Where to begin? How about 4K discs of new titles, like Creed III, Knock at the Cabin, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (imported from the US, because we’ve not been treated to a 4K disc over here). Then there’s the 4K bows of older titles — for once, all things I’ve already seen rather than semi-random blind buys: Dragonslayer (another import); the 1970s pair of The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers; and a snazzy four-disc edition of Brotherhood of the Wolf, a film I haven’t seen for about 20 years and have been meaning to revisit for a while, finally (from a UK perspective) available in its Director’s Cut form and a good-looking 4K restoration.

Talking of 4K, David Lynch’s shot-on-video Inland Empire was remastered in 4K (using AI, I believe) for its latest releases, but I guess everyone decided the 4K version didn’t look all that, because it’s only made it to regular Blu-ray via Criterion in the US (the version I bought) and StudioCanal in the UK (a release announced after I’d ordered the Criterion disc, but each release has different special features and I think I have all the UK ones on the original DVD release, so I’m just hanging onto that). As usual, these US imports I’ve mentioned were part of a big bundle I ordered, which also included Criterion’s editions of Arsenic and Old Lace and Festen, aka The Celebration; a giallo, All the Colours of the Dark, and a giallo documentary, All the Colours of Giallo; the sequel to Searching, Missing; a drama about the creation of Orson Welles’s “Voodoo Macbeth”, Voodoo Macbeth; and the so-called “Authentic Cut” of Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt, now titled B’twixt Now and Sunrise (it’s not meant to be very good, I know, but it’s intriguing and was fairly cheap).

I say I only order US titles in bulk batches like that, but occasionally there are other ways. For example, I simply ordered Leda from Amazon. You’d be forgiven for not having heard of it — I only have because it’s been released in 3D (a rarity nowadays) and I spotted it while going through forthcoming 3D titles on Blu-ray.com. Then there was GoldenEra, the well-reviewed documentary about the GoldenEye N64 game, which I bought via eBay to get the sold-out slipcase (the regular cover looks like an N64 cartridge; the slipcase looks like an N64 box. Such neat packaging made it worth the extra expense to me). Finally, So This Is Paris is technically a US release, but I backed it on Kickstarter so got my copy that way.

Most of my UK purchases this month were new releases of older films. My second batch of titles from new label Radiance turned up, including French road trip movie Fill ’er Up with Super, Scandi thriller The Man on the Roof, psychological thriller She Dies Tomorrow, and Italian murder mystery The Sunday Woman. I finally got round to buying Arrow’s Four Film Noir Classics Vol. 2, which was released some five-and-a-half years after the unnumbered “Vol. 1”, just in time for them to announce a Vol. 3, so now I’ll need to set aside some cash for that too. Not that I’m really complaining — the more film noir the merrier.

Rounding out the month, more of my usual blind buys — basically, if Eureka or 88 Films put out a Hong Kong actioner, I’m there, and so I picked up the former’s Burning Paradise and the latter’s God of Gamblers. It’s the same with Eureka and silent cinema, though I’m not always on the ball — for example, I finally got round to buying their double-bill of early John Ford Westerns, Straight Shooting & Hell Bent, because it was going out of print. Nothing like scarcity to drive purchases.

Talking of scarcity, a quick concluding lament for Network. Rarely mentioned here because they primarily specialised in old TV — though they also released plenty of old movies, and have featured here thanks to that on several occasions — they were one of the all-time great physical media labels, filling a niche in the market with top-quality releases. They always seemed to be doing so well — releasing so many titles; their site crashing during sales periods; and so on — that it came as a shock to hear they’d gone into liquidation. But more than a shock, it was a sadness. It’s hard to imagine we’ll see their like again, and so that’s a whole area of media cut off from distribution on physical media — or probably at all, because who’s going to put that kind of stuff on streaming? They’ll be sorely missed.

April’s Failures

Posted on May 5, 2023 by badblokebob

April saw the first billion-dollar-grossing movie of the year in cinemas, animation The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Mixed reviews make it sound like your typical Illumination fare — slick, colourful, and vacuous — but I’m sure I’ll catch it someday. Elsewise, it seemed like horror was the order of the day, from the likes of The Pope’s Exorcist, Renfield, and Evil Dead Rise. The latter seemed to receive the strongest notices, but also looks terribly hardcore. I don’t know if it’ll be one for my stomach. Not that I’ve even watched the 2013 Evil Dead yet, nor the TV series; and I haven’t seen the original trilogy for so long that they’re well overdue a rewatch too. Maybe at some point I’ll do the whole shebang. Other big screen bows included a belated UK debut for Searching sequel Missing (already out on disc in the US; I’ve ordered it and had expected my copy to be here before the UK theatrical release, but the whole order got held up); the new Makoto Shinkai, Suzume; the new Ben Affleck, Air; and the first half of a two-film French adaptation of the classic swashbuckler The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan. I was pleased to see the latter getting good reviews, because I’ve been looking forward to it since it was first announced a couple of years ago; though I’m going to have to wait for a disc release to actually see it. The second half is apparently due before the end of the year.

The streamers couldn’t really equal such might, despite their best efforts. Apple TV+’s Ghosted was a wannabe blockbuster in every sense: two fairly big stars (Chris Evans and Ana de Armas), a hot director (Dexter “Rocketman” Fletcher), and an audience-friendly comedy-action-thriller-romance premise. Yet somehow it looked like one of those fake movies-within-movies you get when a character is an actor, and reviews suggest the final result isn’t much more convincing. Plus it’s on Apple TV+ — who has Apple TV+? (Besides me.) Disney+ could have fared better with their latest live-action remake, Peter Pan & Wendy, but reviews were middling. It’s helmed by David Lowery, who apparently did a bang-up job of reimagining Pete’s Dragon, alongside his excellent adult-facing features like The Green Knight, and, based on what I’ve read, that’s what saves it from being another mess of a Disney live-action remake. Definitely on my to-see list, but I’m hardly racing right for it. (I’ll probably end up watching it later this week now I’ve said that.) Meanwhile, the best Netflix could muster was TV series sequel/finale The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die; Sky Cinema snaffled up Zach Braff’s Florence Pugh-starring A Good Person as an “original”; while Amazon Prime’s biggest title was Florian Zeller’s followup to The Father, The Son, which I’ve heard is terrible. But then, they had a super-expensive new spy show to be promoting instead.

Other subscription streaming debuts this month were mostly on Sky, with the likes of Jordan Peele’s Nope (though I already bought that on 4K), Idris Elba vs a lion in Beast, animation DC League of Super Pets, and The Forgiven, a thriller starring Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain, and Matt Smith, which I don’t think got particularly good reviews, but I remember the trailer looked promising. Jumping higher up my watchlist than any of those, however, was Korean action-thriller Hunt. The directorial debut of actor Lee Jung-jae (best known as the lead in Squid Game), it’s about uncovering a North Korean mole in the ’80s. Reviews cite a dense and confusing plot, but that it’s absolutely stuffed with action. Sounds worth a go to me. As for recent-ish fare on other streamers, it was mostly documentaries: on Netflix, David Bowie retrospective Moonage Daydream; and on Channel 4, cinema analysis in Lynch/Oz.

The latter also had perhaps the most interesting catalogue title of the month in The Death of Dick Long. I think you’d be forgiven for not having heard of it, but it’s a film directed by one half of Daniels, i.e. the chaps behind Swiss Army Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Unfortunately, I missed my chance to see it. Other titles of note included a Michael Mann I’ve not seen, The Insider, on Disney+, and a Martin Scorsese I’ve not seen, Cape Fear, on Prime Video. The standout title on iPlayer was Blazing Saddles, because it reminds me I owe it a rewatch. It’s a beloved comedy classic, but I didn’t much care for it when I saw it the first time — which was sometime before this blog began, so probably 20 years ago. And talking of a couple of decades, sticking out to me amongst a handful of interesting titles on MUBI was The Warrior, the debut feature from Asif Kapadia (who’s gone on to make more of a name as a documentary director, with the likes of Senna and Amy). I remember buying it on DVD back around when it first came out — in the early 2000s, when I was first getting into Cinema — and, er, never watching it. But I’ve been meaning to get round to it… for over 20 years. Oi. Well, here it’s in HD, vs my crummy SD DVD, so maybe I’ll finally watc— oh, who am I kidding?

Recently I’ve been training a new starter at work, and she’s only 19, which means I own DVDs that “I haven’t quite got round to watching” for longer than she’s been alive. Insane. And yet, I keep buying those shiny round discs. Not so many DVDs anymore, of course, but the Blu-rays keep pouring in. April’s haul is headlined by a few 4K debuts: from Second Sight, Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (I owned it on DVD, but at least I never bought it on BD, so that’s something of a saving); and from Arrow, David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (first time I’ve ever bought that — hurrah!) And if that wasn’t obscure enough for you, how about a couple of Jean Rollin vampire features courtesy of Indicator, The Shiver of the Vampires and Two Orphan Vampires. Indicator have said there’s more Rollin to come, and those releases are numbered #402 and #417, so I guess by “more” they mean “at least 15”. Whew. I ought to get round to watching them, really, so I can decide if I want to buy the rest…

The 4K market is a funny place right now, with relatively obscure titles as likely to get a lavish box set as anything famous, and random shit making it to disc before highly-regarded classics — as one disc-related Twitter account observed the other day, we’re getting shit like Skyline on 4K before the likes of Aliens, The Terminator, The Abyss, A.I., Minority Report, Avatar, and The Fly. All of which is a long-winded segue into saying I do buy more “mainstream” stuff too, like Babylon, Collateral, and Saw (the Steelbook, but only because it was significantly cheaper than the regular release). Also The Trial, which is a Kafka adaptation by Orson Welles released by a major-ish studio, so kinda falls between the two stools.

Back in good ol’ 1080p land, most of my purchases seemed to come from Eureka, and in bulk: a quintet of silent works by director F.W. Murnau in the going-out-of-print Early Murnau set; a quartet of classic Universal horrors in Creeping Horror, their latest box set collecting sundries from the studio’s 1930s–’40s output; and a quartet of Westerns from the Masters of Cinema line, thanks to a random sale, the best known of which is easily Shane, but also Andre de Toth’s Day of the Outlaw, Anthony Mann’s The Man from Laramie, and John Ford’s Two Rode Together. Finally, a new release: The Bullet Train — not to be confused with the recent Brad Pitt vehicle, this is a ’70s Japanese disaster movie that inspired Speed (it’s about a train with a bomb that’ll go off if it slows down).

Finally, Arrow had a sale last month, in which I picked up a quintet of Sonny Chiba titles across two box sets — The Executioner Collection (the second one’s called Karate Inferno, which might be the greatest sequel subtitle ever) and The Street Fighter Trilogy — plus Lovecraft adaptation The Dunwich Horror. And, finally-finally, a Kickstarter reward came through: a new restoration of the 1911 adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, aka L’inferno; although apparently the “restoration” is pretty poor. Oh well.

March’s Failures

Posted on April 2, 2023 by badblokebob

Box office-related chatter this month has mainly been asking, is the superhero boom over? With last month‘s Ant-Man 3 doing weaker business than expected, and now Shazam! Fury of the Gods underperforming, has given people cause to wonder if the near-monopoly the genre has exerted over the box office might finally be crumbling. I don’t wish for superhero movies to die off completely, but a little less dominance would be nice.

In their place, other films have flourished: Rocky spin-off sequel Creed III; horror franchise revival sequel Scream VI; fantasy reboot Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves; and, of course, the latest instalment in the popular gun-fu action series, John Wick: Chapter 4. The fact those are all still sequels or IP continuations might make some feel we’re just jumping out of the superhero frying pan into a different kind of IP fire, but at least there’s some variety of tone and style and content there.

Also reaching UK cinemas this month was the pulpy-looking Adam Drive vs dinosaurs adventure 65; a pair of Mia Goth-starring horrors, Pearl and Infinity Pool; a delayed bow for Warner Bros animation Mummies, a film I’ve heard so little chat about that I keep looking it up to check it’s real; and a bit of copyright exploitation (set to become a theme/genre unto itself over the next few years — it’s gonna need a catchy name, a la blaxploitation and sexploitation) in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Funny concept, maybe, but I heard it was not good.

Meanwhile, Marlowe — the new film by director Neil Jordan, starring Liam Neeson and a fairly name-y supporting cast (Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston, etc), adapting a story about Raymond Chandler’s famed detective — went straight to streaming as a Sky Original. Oh dear. I’ve heard it’s as weak as that situation suggests. Still goes on my watchlist, though. Netflix’s headline premiere of the month was a revival of another popular detective, albeit a more recent creation, in TV series continuation Luther: The Fallen Sun. They actually put it into cinemas last month, presumably in an attempt to head off greater-than-usual accusations of it just being a TV movie (I mean, a new instalment of a TV series being released in such a way that you can only watch it on your TV? Of course it would’ve been fair to call that “a TV movie”.) They had another animation that seems to have flown under the radar, The Magician’s Elephant. Maybe it’s just me, but a lot of Netflix’s original animations seem to pass me by, only to then turn up with an Oscar nomination or something (cf. The Mitchells and the Machines, The Sea Beast, and others), so maybe it’ll enter my sphere of awareness again at a later date. Finally, Apple TV+ just debuted Tetris, about the creation of the eponymous video game. Maybe they couldn’t make a Pixels-style adaptation work.

I didn’t see tell of any brand-new originals on Amazon Prime, but they did add Palme d’Or winner and Oscar nominee Triangle of Sadness; and, from the less auspicious end of the spectrum, belated threequel Clerks III. Disney+ did their usual thing of rushing everything to streaming lickety-split, this time with Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light; although MUBI also pull a similar trick nowadays (though it feels more understandable with their smaller-scale, indie-type releases), this month with Iranian serial killer thriller Holy Spider. Meanwhile, Netflix seemed to get plenty of eyeballs onto their debut of extreme climbing-related thriller Fall, as well as sci-fi-horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II. That moved over to them from Sky Cinema, which still seems to be home to the most subscription streaming debuts. This month they included The Black Phone, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Elvis, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Where the Crawdads Sing, and the film that generated a tonne of awards season chatter thanks to the campaign for Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie.

As ever, I could go on and on about deeper catalogue titles across all the aforementioned services — plus titles on BBC iPlayer and All 4; and ITVX has quite the film section, though it’s hard to browse for new additions — but then we’d be here forever. Instead, let’s move right along to all the stuff I bought on disc this past month.

Perhaps the most noteworthy new release this month was Second Sight’s long-awaited 4K release of George A. Romero’s Martin. I do actually own the Arrow DVD from many moons ago and, in typical fashion, have never got round to watching it, so I wasn’t quite as itching for the very chance to see the film, as some have been; but it’s always nice to have something in tip-top quality. It also means I now own the vast majority of Romero’s filmography on Blu-ray or 4K (the only one I’m missing is Bruiser, which has only had an HD release in Germany and France). I ought to get on with watching them, really… Also coming to 4K this month, another relatively-minor feature from an acclaimed horror director, Red Eye. I previously owned it on DVD, which I only bought, cheap, a whole decade ago, because a Blu-ray wasn’t forthcoming and I wanted to rewatch it. That disc never entered a player. So, that rewatch is long overdue, and hopefully the 4K disc will be spun soon. In a similar situation of continual neglect is The City of Lost Children, released on 4K tomorrow (my copy trend up early). I’ve previously owned it on DVD and Blu-ray, but never seen it. Yeah, I’m a fool for this kind of thing. Anyway, another one that goes on my “really should watch this very soon” pile.

Other upgrades this month included 88 Films’ 4K reissue of Jackie Chan / Sammo Hung / Yuen Biao actioner Dragons Forever (it’s been out a while, but I’ve been waiting to snag it on an offer as, again, I hadn’t actually watch my Blu-ray copy); their newly-restored reissue of Chan’s Snake & Crane Arts of Shaolin; and Criterion’s Infernal Affairs Trilogy set (again, benefitting from waiting for an offer price). As if that wasn’t enough action from Hong Kong, I also picked up Eureka’s new releases of In the Line of Duty III and IV (following on from the series’ first two films, Yes, Madam and Royal Warriors, in December and January respectively); and another Jackie Chan title from 88 Films, Gorgeous. It felt to me like these classic HK/Chinese actioners were hard to come by in the UK in recent years (the Hong Kong Legends label used to do sterling work, of course, but that’s been defunct for some time), but we’re definitely spoilt now, with multiple labels regularly releasing high-quality editions. I’m doing a pathetic job of getting round to watching them (ain’t that true of everything?), but I continue to lap them up to sit on my shelf.

Similarly, almost anything put out by Indicator finds its way onto my shelves, and this was true again this month with their bundle of moderately obscure titles from the 1930s (and one from the ’40s). Those included Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby and Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (I enjoyed the box set of his silent work that Eureka put out many years ago, so I’ve always been interested in seeing more of his Hollywood productions, with the famed ‘Lubitsch touch’); James Whale’s The Kiss Before the Mirror; and Frank Capra’s State of the Union.

The rest of my purchases this month were similarly based on reputation alone, usually of the filmmaker rather than the film itself, although all slightly older releases I’d waited for discounts on. Therein are the likes of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s La Prisonnière; Criterion’s releases of Jim Jarmusch’s “acid western” Dead Man and Kasi Lemmons’s Southern Gothic drama Eve’s Bayou; and, finally, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz — technically a 14-episode miniseries, but there were at least some theatrical screenings of the entire 15-hour piece, so it’s not wholly egregious to mention it here. Though considering I struggle to find the time for those 90-minute-ish comedy-actioners, when I’m going to get round to a 15-hour series about “misery, lack of opportunities, crime and the imminent ascendency of Nazism” in Weimar Germany, I don’t know.

February’s Failures

Posted on March 2, 2023 by badblokebob

What’s the big story at the box office this month, then? Normally a new MCU film would walk it, but Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is reportedly struggling. Well, it’s still making a tonne of money, but not as much as usual for these affairs, and not compared to its staggeringly over-large budget. Has the much-heralded end of the superhero boom arrived? Or is this just a blip? Probably Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in May will be a better indicator.

Also playing this month was the new M. Night Shyamalan, Knock at the Cabin, which seemed to be as divisive as Shyamalan movies always are nowadays. I’ll definitely catch it at some point, but I still haven’t got round to Old. Then there was Cocaine Bear which, based on the early reviews I saw, sounds to be as delightfully trashy as its premise promised. Again, though, not something that’s actually tempted me out to the cinema (we might have to wait until a certain Part Two in November for that; but we’ll see). There were belated UK bows for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Whale, and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (which I was going to watch and review, until it turned out I’d been sent a faulty disc. The replacement turned up too late to hit the release date). I should also mention Magic Mike’s Last Dance. I’ve never seen a Magic Mike film, though they remain on my list due to Steven Soderbergh’s involvement.

Originals of note were in even shorter supply from the streamers. All I have jotted down to mention are Amazon’s Somebody I Used to Know (which I’m not sure I saw any significant discussion of beyond its poster), Netflix’s We Have a Ghost, and Apple TV+’s Sharper (which I did hear some good things about, but not many, because who watches Apple TV+? Hardly anyone). In “fresh from the cinema” stakes, Disney+ offered Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, though personally I’ll wait until I can find a 3D copy (not to mention that I’m multiple MCU films behind, so it’s a few down the line for me anyway); and, on a more low-key note, Sky Cinema had British indie comedy Brian and Charles. (More noteworthy additions to the latter’s catalogue might be Top Gun: Maverick, but I’ve seen that, and Bullet Train, but I already bought that (cheaply), so they’re not really “failures”. Not for this month, anyway.)

In terms of older films popping up, as ever I added multiple titles to all my watchlists, but little seems particularly worthy of note. Maybe submarine flick Black Sea on Netflix, which I vaguely remember coming and going with little fanfare back in 2014, but I saw someone describe as an “underwater heist” movie, which tickled my interest. On MUBI, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul would merit a mention if I hadn’t already downloaded it for my Blindspot challenge; the same could be said for Wild Tales, which is one of the handful of films I haven’t seen from IMDb’s Top 250.

I did rent something for the first time in yonks, though: Confess, Fletch — partly because I’ve heard good things, partly because Amazon were having a sale for Prime members. If that isn’t part of my March viewing, I’ll have wasted £1.99.

Talking of spending money, of course I bought more discs this month — fewer than normal, based on the length of my list, but still a definite pile of stuff. My 4K collection was emboldened by two labels: A24, from whom I imported The Green Knight (I already own the regular 4K release, but this has a bunch of exclusive special features, not least a whole new short film) and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (which, as previously mentioned, it turned out was faulty and I had to wait for a replacement); and Arrow, who this month brought out The Last Emperor (one of those ’80s historical epics I’ve yet to see) and The Sisters Brothers (a film I’ve consistently not got round to watching while it was on Netflix and iPlayer and possibly other streaming services, and now I can not get round to watching it on disc).

Indeed, breaking this section down by label is probably the right way to go about it, because so many of my purchases these days are random films — sometimes things I’ve never even heard of — which I blind buy because I trust the label (though there’s no label I blindly buy everything from — there has to be something about each release that piques my interest). In that sense, Indicator dominated the month with five titles: Spaghetti Western The Big Gundown (which pairs nicely with Eureka’s Run, Man, Run from last month. Just need someone to bring Face to Face to Blu to complete the trilogy of Sergio Sollima’s work in the genre); Mexican wrestler action in a box set of the first two Santo films, Santo vs. Evil Brain and Santo vs. Infernal Men (this is a real “well, if Indicator are releasing it…” punt, combined with the enjoyment I got from Mystery Science Theater 3000’s recent Santo episode); and then, right at the end of the month, Death of a Gunfighter, The Night of the Following Day, and the only one of these six films I would’ve classed as a “want to see” before Indicator announced them, Sherlock Holmes riff They Might Be Giants. The latter comes with three cuts of the film, so I’m gonna have to choose one somehow…

The only other label to mention this month (I said it was a smaller one) is Eureka, who continued their recent output of classic “girls with guns” / Michelle Yeoh titles with Magnificent Warriors and expanded their Masters of Cinema line with yakuza thriller Violent Streets; plus I dove slightly into their back catalogue (all the way back to October) and bought the Maniacal Mayhem set of three Boris Karloff / Universal horrors (to go with the Universal Terror set I already had and in anticipation of the Creeping Horror set that’s coming in April, not to mention their other collections of classic Uni monster/horror flicks).

My final purchase of the month is an oddity: a DVD (the only format it’s available on) of a Christmas movie (seasonal!) — or, rather, a Christmas TV special. And its only DVD release (that I’m aware of) was a freebie with the Daily Mail years ago, and it was that that I picked up from an eBay seller (for a reasonable price, considering most copies of it are advertised for £16+. Seriously). I’m talking about The Greatest Store in the World, which I’ve always felt would be remembered as something of a Christmas classic if it had been released as a proper movie rather than a BBC special in 1999. Or maybe the memory cheats? It hasn’t been repeated often, so I haven’t seen it for years. Well, I’m not about to watch it anytime soon — it’s a Christmas movie, remember! It’ll have to wait ’til December.

January’s Failures

Posted on February 2, 2023 by badblokebob

I can’t speak for the whole country, but Avatar: The Way of Water seems to have still been the big title at the cinema here throughout January. By which I mean, my local still had it on their largest screen in most of the prime time-slots. But then, there’s been nothing else truly “blockbustery” to challenge its need for the grandest scale possible. There have been significant releases, sure; and there’s always the “every film should be seen on the biggest screen possible” argument; but nothing else came out in January that’s so expressly about visual spectacle. Any crowdpleasers that have turned up — horror M3GAN; Gerard Butler vehicle Plane; Tom Hanks comedy A Man Called Otto — hardly feel of the same scale.

I use the term “crowdpleasers” to differentiate those films from most of the UK’s January release slate, which is, as usual, dominated by awards season stuff that we’ve had to wait for: Babylon, Empire of Light, The Fabelmans, Tár, Till… Plus, limited releases that caught my eye included the new one from Mark “Bait” Jenkin, Enys Men (out on Blu-ray from the BFI in June), and Iranian thriller Holy Spider (which will be on MUBI in March and Blu-ray in April).

The streamers also seemed to be mainly trading in hangovers from last year, with Netflix releasing starry period mystery-thriller The Pale Blue Eye (reaction seems to have been mixed, but it looks really good), Amazon Prime offering Emma Thompson sex drama Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Disney+ generating plenty of discourse with The Menu, and even MUBI getting in on the act with awards contender Aftersun. Netflix did premiere a few brand-new things, though I’ve not come across a single mention of Bank of Dave, word has been poor about race/generation-based comedy You People, and the new sci-fi from Train to Busan writer-director Yeon Sang-Ho, JUNG_E, didn’t receive strong notices either. This is why I ended up watching Shotgun Wedding as my new film for January…

There was the usual mass of catalogue additions across all the streamers to bulk out my never-ending watchlists. Particular titles of note included, believe it or not, Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of Halloween, which I only note because it was on my first-ever list of 50 missed films but, in the intervening decade-and-a-half, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it on a streaming service before. Maybe it’s a sign I should give it a go. Maybe not. That’s on Netflix, along with The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (I liked the first one enough to put the second my watchlist, but not enough to rush to see it, clearly), Mars One (I’ve actually no idea what this is, but it keeps coming up on my Letterboxd under “popular films you’ve not seen”), and Vesper (a low-budget British young-adult sci-fi that I heard about somewhere and sounded quite good). Moving on to Amazon Prime were Judas and the Black Messiah and Mortal Kombat (the recent one), while I was surprised that Sky Cinema became home to David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. I think I’ll wait for Second Sight’s 4K disc release, thanks.

A couple of the streamers boasted themed seasons this month. MUBI had a run of debuts, featuring filmmakers as diverse as Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Love Is Colder Than Death, an awesome title) and Paul W.S. Anderson (Shopping). All 4 have had a run of Steven Spielberg’s major works, all of which I’ve seen, but it did remind me that I bought his brilliant The Adventures of Tintin in 3D yonks ago and still haven’t got round to watching it. Plus I loved it, so it’s long overdue a rewatch anyway.

Talking of purchases, of course my habit continued unabated throughout January. It began with some hangovers from last year — orders from the US and Australia that took longer than expected to turn up, thanks to postal strikes and general season delays. From Oz, some new Imprint titles, including the second volume of their After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema series, ’50s post-apocalyptic sci-fi On the Beach, and Akira Kurosawa’s Russian feature, Dersu Uzala. My order from the US was an even more ragtag bunch, starting with a few recent classic 3D releases: The Diamond Wizard and I, the Jury, the latter of which also comes with an apparently-underwhelming 4K copy. Also on 4K were George Miller’s latest, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Kino’s release of The Usual Suspects (which I never bought on Blu, so that’s a healthy upgrade), and, on something of a whim, Shout’s The Company of Wolves. Also in the box were a couple of titles I’ve had on standby for a while ready to bulk out a US order: Criterion’s edition of Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman and Warner Archive’s release of A Night at the Opera. Finally, the US-only “yellow” set from Arrow’s Giallo Essentials range, which includes Strip Nude for Your Killer, Torso, and What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

I was buying that anyway, but after deciding to make gialli a category in my 2023 Challenge, I also picked up a couple more titles that caught my eye while going through lists of the genre; namely, Death Laid an Egg and The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh. Those were both UK releases; I’ve got my eye on a couple more next time I do a US bulk order. I also upgraded my copy of Arrow’s Phenomena to the 4K version, having noticed that some of their Argento 4K sets are beginning to go out of print (replaced by standard editions, at least) and this one did look like a noticeable upgrade (I didn’t bother with Bird with a Crystal Plumage because it didn’t seem that big a jump from the existing Blu-ray).

There’s normally a trickle of 4K titles in these failure posts, and I’ve already mentioned six, but there were even more this month: Arrow’s recent-ish reissue of Silent Running; Jordan Peele’s Nope on offer; similarly, the Bad Boys trilogy and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood all in a 2-for-1 type deal; plus nice editions of The Green Mile and Reservoir Dogs (the Steelbook with the slipcover that makes his ear come off. Hilarity). Finally, the second volume of the Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection, which I’d intended to get at some point anyway, but was on a reasonable offer and includes Shadow of a Doubt, which I’ll be watching sometime this year for WDYMYHS.

All those titles — so, so many titles — and I don’t think I’ve mentioned a single brand-new release yet. Most notable there is my first batch of titles from new label Radiance, all of which are blind-buy punts (well, so is an awful lot of what I buy, to be fair, but I don’t think I’d even heard of any of these before I dived in). They include yakuza classic Big Time Gambling Boss, Palme d’Or-winning social drama The Working Class Goes to Heaven, ‘lost’ ’60s serial killer thriller A Woman Kills, and a crime comedy from the director of the brilliant Grosse Pointe Blank, Miami Blues. They’re all very handsome editions, so hopefully the content lives up to the thoughtful packaging. I’ve already got a few more of their releases on preorder.

Talking of preorders turning up, I spent far too much money in All the Anime’s pre-Christmas preorder announcements/sale, but its finally beginning to bear fruit, with Liz and the Blue Bird and The Deer King both turning up (weeks before their official dates) this month. I didn’t realise the former was a spinoff from the series Sound! Euphonium — I’ve heard of it (and decided to buy it) because it’s a staple of the mid-range on Letterboxd’s official list of the 100 highest-rated feature-length animated films. I was briefly worried (“will I need to have seen other stuff to ‘get’ it?”), until I remembered the Letterbox list explicitly excludes “sequels to shows or anime series […] that need greater context before watching are not included”. Phew!

Finally, in the new-new pile we can also find Eureka’s editions of Sergio Sollima Spaghetti Western Run, Man, Run and — last but not least, one of the film’s in this month’s header image — Michelle Yeoh actioner Royal Warriors.

December’s Failures

Posted on January 2, 2023 by badblokebob

13 years ago, I went to see Avatar on opening day, because it was the only chance I’d get over the Christmas period. This year, with long-delayed sequel Avatar: The Way of Water releasing at the same time, I… didn’t do the same thing. But it’s been a massive hit (even without my one ticket purchase? Shocking!), which means it’s still regularly playing, so I might catch it this week.

It’s fair to say there’s been nothing else quite so notable on the theatrical release slate, partly because everything cleared out of Avatar‘s way. The parting shot from the rest of cinema at the start of the month was Santa-based actioner Violent Night, which sounds fun in concept but I heard was disappointing in execution. I guess I’ll try to remember to catch it on streaming next December. Otherwise, it was mostly small independent-type titles or limited-release Netflix flicks. Either way, not much of that plays around me (as ever, by “around me” I mean “not at the cinema that’s a five-minutes drive away”. If I were prepared to travel 30–60 minutes (not that far, in the grand scheme of things), I could choose to see more of this stuff. But as getting off my arse to go to that five-minutes-away cinema is hard enough, I’m hardly likely to trek further afield.

Of course, nowadays there’s less need to, with stuff making it to streaming quicker than ever. Or even to TV, with latest Bond flick No Time to Die receiving its UK TV premiere yesterday, just 15 months after its theatrical release. Remember when we had to wait three to five years for that kind of thing? And it’s not just shorter windows, what with streamers producing their own high-profile content. There were more big titles premiering on Netflix this month than at cinemas. Chief among them, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (to give it its full, unwieldy, unnecessary title). I’m very much looking forward to it — so much so that I didn’t watch it, because I had a rotten cold over Christmas and knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it properly. Another one to slot in this week, then.

While that ended up dominating the conversation (and Netflix’s viewing chart), in December they also brought us Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a racy (read: sex-filled) new adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Scandi monster movie Troll, computer-animated festive musical Scrooge: A Christmas Carol with a starry British voice cast (Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Jonathan Pryce), and The Big 4, a new one from the director of Headshot and The Night Comes for Us, Timo Tjahjanto, which I hear has suitably extravagant action scenes. As if that wasn’t enough, I also spotted 7 Women and a Murder, an Italian comedy mystery about seven women trapped in a mansion solving a murder, making its international debut as a “Netflix Original” a year after being released in its native Italy. I guess they bought it in as something to offer people who’d just watched Glass Onion. Also of note, apparently, was Medieval — I’ve not heard anyone mention it, so I’ve no idea quite how this happened, but it was Netflix’s 3rd most-watched movie at one point over Christmas. Apparently it’s the story of a Czech commander who never lost a battle, and it stars Ben Foster, Michael Caine, Til Schweiger, and Matthew Goode. I guess “historical war movie with a few recognisable faces” appealed to people browsing Netflix for something new to bung on.

Other streamers focused on the Christmas period for their original titles, ticking the usual rom-com boxes, with the likes of Your Christmas or Mine? on Amazon Prime and Sky Cinema offering perhaps the most generically-titled movie ever, This is Christmas. Apparently it’s actually rather good (according to the one review I happened to read). Sky also premiered animated Terry Pratchett adaptation The Amazing Maurice, along with streaming debuts for the likes of Dreamworks animation The Bad Guys, “grey pound” target The Duke, Stephen King remake Firestarter, plus blockbusters (that I own on disc and really should’ve watched by now) The Batman and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Also The Nan Movie, but the less said about that the better. Amazon, meanwhile, had the streaming debut of Alex Garland’s Men, and gave a big push to Wonder Woman 1984 — bit odd, considering how long it’s been around. That said, I’ve still not seen it, so…

Over on Disney+, it was the usual deal of stuff rushed fresh from cinemas: their latest canon animation, Strange World, a riff on pulp sci-fi-/fantasy adventure flicks that I guess should be up my street, but doesn’t scream “Disney”; plus adult-focused fare, both acclaimed (Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin) and, um, less so (David O. Russell’s Amsterdam). Debuts elsewhere included Park Chan-wook’s latest, Decision to Leave, on MUBI, and Will Smith slavery action flick / wannabe-awards-contender Emancipation on Apple TV+.

As for the free TV-tied streamers, I’m sure they offered replays of their Christmas-schedule premieres, but I’d seen most of those already (except for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which I actually own on 3D Blu-ray. I presume I heard the 3D was good or something, because the fact I still haven’t watched it indicates my broad level of interest). Anyway, catching my attention on iPlayer were the likes of A Bunch of Amateurs (about the amateur filmmakers of the long-running Bradford Film Club) and older flicks I really should’ve seen by now, like The Others and Out of Sight; plus obscure spy thriller When Eight Bells Toll, which I missed earlier in the year so appreciate getting another go at. As for All 4, they cycled in a bunch of stuff they’ve shown before and I’ve not got round to but, hey, you never know, maybe this time. We’re talking Black Rain, Monos, Wild Rose, Saint Maud, Rosemary’s Baby, The Red Turtle, several others… Someday.

Finally, as always, stuff I forked out for (or, as it’s Christmas, was given) on good ol’ shiny disc. This was set to be a pretty huge list (when isn’t it?), but the UK’s postal issues have delayed a couple of large overseas packages. I just hope they’re not lost… Anyway, there were plentiful additions to my 4K Ultra HD collection last month. Films I’d never seen included Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and David Lynch’s Lost Highway (I imported Criterion’s release from the US via Amazon, and it took three goes to actually deliver me a copy that wasn’t damaged). On the rewatch pile, there were lavish editions of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (the PQ doesn’t seem that much better than the old Blu-ray, to be frank, but there was more in the box, and I wanted to support Masters of Cinema going 4K) and Casablanca (although I also decided to keep my equally-lavish old Blu-ray edition, so I probably should’ve just bought the cheaper regular 4K release. Oh well). In more standard packaging, but welcome nonetheless, were Mike Hodges’ Croupier, Walter Hill’s The Driver, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. I’ve owned the latter so many times, I was loathe to buy it again; but then I saw the picture comparisons…

On regular ol’ Blu-ray, Sight & Sound’s new list inspired some prep for next year’s Blindspot (ooh, preview!) by picking up Criterion’s editions of Beau Travail and Close-Up (another import that Evri tried to destroy: a neighbour found my parcel halfway down the road in a hedge, soaked through from the stormy weather. I shit you not. Luckily, although the package was a mess, the contents were fine). Brand-new releases were limited to Phil Tippett’s stop-motion nightmare Mad God, but catalogue titles making their UK disc debut included a couple from Eureka — “girls with guns” classic Yes, Madam! and Bob Hope-starring comedy/horror double-bill The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers — plus a Kickstarter edition of 1926 horror The Magician.

Finally-finally, I actually bought a DVD — wonders will never cease (although it’s one of a couple I’ve picked up this year, so maybe not that exceptional). Spied in Network’s pre-Christmas sale, it’s The Edgar Wallace Anthology, a collection of noir-esque British B-movies from the 1960s. The set contains just a couple of films to get through — 54, to be exact. That should keep me busy for a while…

November’s Failures

Posted on December 2, 2022 by badblokebob

So, what’s the big cinema release of the month? Is it the latest instalment in the MCU, and the first direct sequel to that franchise’s only Best Picture nominee, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Or is it the limited theatrical release Netflix afforded to Knives Out sequel Glass Onion? Apparently it was such a roaring success during its one-week engagement, it left cinemas begging Netflix to extend its run and the box office commentariat noting Netflix’s obsession with avoiding/killing theatrical releases is seeing them leave millions (perhaps tens or even hundreds of millions) of dollars on the table. Funny days we live in.

There were a bunch of Netflix titles in cinemas this month, in fact, though none near enough to me to truly consider, so I’ll mention them when they actually arrive on the streamer. That said, if you’re outside the UK and Ireland, Matilda — or, to give it its full proper title, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical — will be a Netflix Original when it premieres there at Christmas. Here, it’s a StudioCanal release with regular theatrical distribution (and a Netflix debut next summer). It’s an adaptation of the highly-acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company stage production, with songs by the wonderful Tim Minchin, which I’ve wanted to see since it opened (12 years ago) but have never found myself getting round to it. And now, frankly, I feel a bit weird going to see a children’s/family film in the cinema on my lonesome, so I guess I’ll be waiting for Netflix too. In the meantime, I’m just going to listen to Revolting Children on loop…

Also getting UK theatrical releases (of one scale or another) last month were Bill Nighy-starring Ikiru remake Living; fine dining thriller The Menu; festival favourite Aftersun; star-studded Armageddon Time; another attempt to reignite the “Jon Hamm is a leading man” spark in Confess, Fletch; real-life #MeToo retelling She Said; cannibal drama Bones and All; and under-promoted Disney animation Strange World. Plus a bunch of other titles I noted down but now can’t remember what they are, so I guess they’re not too significant.

Over on the streamers, Netflix tried to score blockbuster-style impact with the likes of Slumberland, an extravagant-looking (read: lots of CGI) family fantasy starring Jason Momoa and directed by Francis “Hunger Games” Lawrence. There was also the new work from Cartoon Saloon (last seen going Apple TV+ exclusive with WolfWalkers), the even-more-kid-focused My Father’s Dragon. And period drama The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, provoked some chat for its “this is a film” opening shot/voiceover, if nothing else. And yet they were all topped by Falling for Christmas, a made-for-TV-level piece of festive churn starring Lindsay Lohan (yes, apparently she’s still working) and with no one else of note involved. Normally I wouldn’t mention shit like this, but it was Netflix’s #1 movie at one point (yes, really), plus I saw a review on Twitter that said it was so unremittingly terrible it made for a hilarious watch. I doubt I’ll actually test that assessment, though.

Apple TV+ went down a bigger-budgeted festive route, with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell starring in yet another remix of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this time a musical one titled Spirited. I’ve not really heard any reactions to it, probably because it’s on Apple TV+. Sky Cinema’s HBO Max affiliation granted them A Christmas Story Christmas, but as the original Christmas Story never seemed to be as big a deal here as it apparently is in the US, I doubt anyone will care. No such jollity on Prime Video, whose main original offering was My Policeman, which I’d heard of primarily because it stars Harry Styles and Emma Corrin, and Amazon’s promotion did little to enlighten me further, going with just a photo of Styles in a policeman’s uniform as the poster and key art. It looks like a period drama. I doubt I’ll watch it. Of more interest is Good Night Oppy, a documentary about the Mars rover that was expected to last 90 days but went on exploring for 15 years. Feels like exactly the kind of thing I put on my watchlist and maybe get round to on a whim one day in four or five or six years’ time.

Meanwhile, MUBI’s biggest debut wasn’t really a film at all: following restored releases of Lars von Trier’s ’90s miniseries The Kingdom and The Kingdom II, they’re currently premiering weekly new episodes of the third and final season, The Kingdom Exodus. I’ve been interested in the series for a while (I own the original two runs in a Second Sight DVD box set that Amazon tells me came out in 2011), but finding time for 13 episodes of TV is always a challenge these days. In a similarly TV-ish position, the most noteworthy thing on Disney+ was The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. It falls into the same “one-off special” bracket as Werewolf by Night last month, although I think this one sounds more explicitly TV-like; but it apparently contains some Guardians continuity stuff that will likely feed into the third film. Lines, blurred, etc.

As always, dozens (maybe hundreds) of back catalogue (re)releases on all the streamers further bulked out my watchlists, or made me annoyed that I hadn’t yet watched the disc I bought (I’m looking at you, Another Round, which after a period on Sky has now shifted to Netflix, to doubly rub in that the Blu-ray still sits unseen on my shelf). Despite the prominence of other outfits, Sky Cinema do still seem to get the big-name titles first, this month adding the likes of Morbius, The Northman, The Outfit, and The Phantom of the Open. Your mileage may vary on how much those are “big-name titles”, but I didn’t note anything of comparable scale making its streaming debut anywhere else. However, making noteworthy comebacks were both How the Grinch Stole Christmas — the live-action one with Jim Carrey — on Netflix, and The Grinch — the CG animation with the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch — on Prime Video. Choices, choices. I could keep going with all the stuff that’s popped up on streamers — not just those already mentioned, but also the free TV-based ones like iPlayer, All 4, and now ITVX too (apparently ITV’s new streaming service is finally in HD. Or some of it, anyway. Hopefully that applies to the films, because they have an interesting selection), but, seriously, we’d be here forever.

So it’s on to my purchases, then, with a list that looks surprisingly short this month. Well, I’m waiting on a lot of stuff to be delivered — both preorders and stuff delayed by the postal issues we’re currently experiencing in the UK — so December might be a bumper month. That said, if I were listing individual titles we might be here a while, because surely the month’s headline release is Arrow’s Shawscope Volume Two, featuring 14 more movies (plus a couple of alternate cuts) from the Hong Kong studio best known (at least in the West) for its prolific martial arts output. Plus, Indicator started a new range of box sets — this time collecting Universal Noir — so that’s another six films on the watchlist. Other brand-new releases included Bullet Train (the trailer looked fun, even if reviews were weak, and the disc was heavily discounted shortly after release, so I took the punt), and a 4K double-bill of Top Gun (now the third copy in my collection, after a special edition DVD (kept for its extras) and the 3D Blu-ray) and Top Gun: Maverick). New editions of archive titles included Arrow’s 4K restoration of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the BFI’s 4K-but-on-regular-Blu-ray release of The Draughtsman’s Contract.

Despite Black Friday and general end-of-year offers, my sale purchases were limited to a couple of BFI titles (noir comedy Beat the Devil, and Jean-Pierre Melville / Jean Cocteau collaboration Les enfants terribles), a couple from HMV’s Premium Collection range (vampires a la Tony Scott in The Hunger, and the 1944 American remake of Gaslight), and Masters of Cinema’s release of silent drama The Love of Jeanne Ney.

But after all that, likely to grace my player first is a niche documentary: Doctor Who Am I, coming to disc shortly after a brief theatrical run that also saw it mentioned in last month’s failures. But, unlike when I knew I’d never catch it on the big screen, I fully intend to actually watch it this time.

October’s Failures

Posted on November 2, 2022 by badblokebob

There can be only one release to kick off this month’s failures. Not because it was somehow the ‘most failed’ (it only came out yesterday, and — for various reasons — I didn’t get my copy until 10pm), but because it’s so long-awaited. Ever since StudioCanal started doing their lavish tat-filled 4K box sets a few years ago, I’ve been hoping they’d do one for Highlander (knowing that they owned the UK rights and had a 4K transfer ready, having released it on regular Blu-ray back in 2016), and it’s finally here. Hurrah! I haven’t actually watched Highlander since before Blu-rays were a thing (I bought a previous BD edition in 2009 and, shamefully, I’ve never watched it), so I’m looking forward to finally revisiting it.

Anyway, highlighting that has messed up the usual order of things, so let’s get back on track with what hit the big screen this month. Frankly, nothing that came particularly close to tempting me out the door. I guess The Banshees of Inisherin, maybe, as I love In Bruges, but I’m also happy to wait to watch it at home. Maybe I’d’ve been lured by documentary Doctor Who Am I if it had actually been playing near me. I’ve already preordered the Blu-ray that’s out later this month, mind. As for the ostensible blockbusters — your Black Adams and your Halloween Endses — I intend to watch them someday, but there’s so certainly no rush on my part. Same goes for most of this month’s other cinematic releases: Amsterdam, Barbarian, Bros, Decision to Leave, The Lost King, The Woman King… All stuff that will go on my watchlist when they come to a streamer I’m subscribed to, but I’m not sure there’s anything I’ll check out before that.

As for said streamers, Netflix score perhaps the most noteworthy release of the month with the new German adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front. Not “noteworthy” in the sense of generating column inches (I’ve barely seen it discussed), but in terms of quality, perhaps the winner (when I have seen it discussed, it’s with nought but praise). As if to balance the books, they also had lamentable YA adaptation The School for Good and Evil. Despite the disparity in critical reception, I bet it’s the latter that gets more viewers, sadly. Higher up my “to see” list than either is the new film from Henry “the actual director of Nightmare Before Christmas” Selick, Wendell & Wild. I don’t know anything at all about it, other than it’s stop-motion animated (natch) and was cowritten with Jordan Peele, but “the new film from the director of Coraline” is more than enough to convince me it’s a must-see. Also premiering this month was family-friendly Halloween-targeted The Curse of Bridge Hollow (I thought the trailer looked fun enough, but I imagine I’ll promptly forget it exists), some thriller starring Joel Egerton and Sean Harris called The Stranger (mmm, generic title), and Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain in The Good Nurse. Redmaybe and Chastain in something based on a true story? Sounds like it should be an awards contender or something, not limited to a passing reference buried at the end of my Netflix roundup, but I’ve barely seen it mentioned (I’ve only vaguely picked up on the “true story” thing too, so I might not even be right about that).

Also worth a mention on Netflix was Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, which I concluded is actually a TV series — an anthology of eight one-hour episodes — but there are some pretty big names starring in them, and some of the directors are familiar, too. In reliable “we still don’t really have proper rules about TV” fashion, Letterboxd have listed all the episodes individually, giving some credence to the idea of counting them as films… but Letterboxd also do that with Black Mirror, which similarly has name-y casts and directors (sometimes), but is definitely a TV series (aside from the odd special, arguably), so I’m not about to start counting either towards my 100 Films Challenge.

Talking of “TV that’s sort of a film”, Disney+ had the latest addition to the MCU, Werewolf by Night. It is, according to their branding, a “Special Presentation”. But in an era when Disney are happy to premiere big releases from their major studios (Pixar have suffered the brunt of this) on Disney+, what makes it “not a film”? Only its 50-something-minute runtime, I guess. It would’ve been a good one to watch in the lead up to Halloween (I mean, that’s why they released it when they did), but I didn’t make the time. And I haven’t decided if I should count it or not anyway (50 minutes is above the American Academy-derived 40-minute rule I use for differentiating features from shorts, but does that stop Werewolf by Night from being a ‘TV special’?) The only other brand-new thing on Disney+ I’ve noted this month is Rosaline, which has an intriguing premise (it’s about the girl Romeo loved before Juliet), but I’ve not encountered much discussion of it, which doesn’t bode well for it being worth paying attention.

Over on Amazon, they had the new film from writer/director Lena Dunham. Remember her? Lucky you if not. That nearly made me ignore Catherine Called Birdy entirely, but the trailer autoplayed at me and tickled me enough to put it on my watchlist. More likely to get me pressing ‘play’ is The Sound of 007, a documentary about (you guessed it) the music of the James Bond films. Considering how vital and influential the music of Bond is — both the scores and the title songs — it seems a worthy subject for such in-depth exploration. Its release was timed to coincide with the complete back catalogue of Bond films returning to Prime. Considering they own them now, when they’re available or not feels a bit like artificial scarcity. Anyway, they’re all in 4K, which is nice; but as I’ve had the “Bond 50” Blu-ray set for ten years and not finished getting through it yet, I doubt I’ll jump into Amazon’s offering. (Though Goldeneye has a notoriously weak transfer on Blu-ray, so subbing in the streaming 4K when I get there is tempting.)

Continuing in non-‘original’s territory, Amazon win the month with the streaming debut of “Nic Cage as Nic Cage (literally)” action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. They’ve also now got X, the horror movie that only came out back in March and has already been sequelised (though apparently said sequel doesn’t have UK distribution, which perhaps doesn’t speak well of the first film’s success here). The best Netflix could manage in this field was… um… no, I got nothing. On the other hand, Sky Cinema (which, despite my attempts to wean off subscribing to so many streamers, I now have again thanks to a dirt-cheap offer) this past month premiered Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (I enjoyed the first more than I expected), The Lost City (strong Romancing the Stone vibes, in a good way), and Foo Fighters-starring horror Studio 666.

On to the final streamer I still pay for (unless I’m forgetting one, which is depressingly possible), and MUBI this month debuted Hit the Road, which I heard good things about when it played festivals last year so I’m looking forward to finally seeing, and The Wolf House, which I only know of because of its high ranking on Letterboxd animation lists, but I want to take this (thus far, rare) chance to see due to its high ranking on Letterboxd animation lists. (Now I’ve just gotta not forget those films are there and actually make time to watch them…) They also built up to Halloween with a whole season fo Dario Argento films — most of which I’ve not seen; all of which I own on disc, mostly thanks to Arrow. We’re talking The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Phenomena, Tenebrae…

Of course, horror movies were popping up left, right and centre throughout October. The one I really should’ve watched is Rosemary’s Baby on All 4, because it’s something I really need to tick off a few Letterboxd lists. Plus because it’s meant to be a great film, obv. But it’s gone now, so that ain’t happening. Other horror streaming for free included, on All 4, Monster House, the remake of The Ring, and Saint Maud; and on BBC iPlayer, Ghost Stories, His House (formerly a Netflix Original, but apparently it was a BBC co-production and so always destined to jump services), lockdown favourite Host, the original Poltergeist; and piles more that I’ve either seen or own on disc. People really do go crazy for the ol’ horror films in October, huh? I always feel I should watch more, but I’m never organised enough.

Talking of free streamers, this month I discovered that the ITV Hub actually has a load of interesting films on it. For some reason I didn’t think their streaming service offered many films at all; and if they did… well, I have low intellectual expectations for the kinds of films ITV would show. Clearly I’ve misjudged them, because they have stuff like Belleville Rendez-Vous, Dogtooth, A Ghost Story, I’m Not There, My Left Foot, Son of Saul, Sophie’s Choice, and more (plus some of the kinds of things you might expect ITV to show, which is less interesting, but fair enough). The only downside is that they’re only available in SD, because ITV technology is dated like that. Maybe the forthcoming launch of ITV X will solve the problem… although as that’s a subscription service, I don’t know if they’ll bother to upgrade their free catchup.

Speaking of expensive things, here’s what I’ve been spending all of my money on this month — in addition to the aforementioned Highlander set, obvs. Normally I’d begin the list with brand-spanking-new releases, but I don’t think there were any this month. Top Gun: Maverick came out here yesterday, but I’m still a bit torn between getting it by itself or in the 4K double-pack with the first film, so I haven’t ordered it yet. As for new editions of older films, 88 Films delivered Hong Kong thriller Righting Wrongs with a choice of four cuts of the film, and Italian crime thriller Blood and Diamonds. Giving Highlander a run for its money in the “chunky box set for a single title” stakes was 101 Films’ Blu-ray reissue of Ghostwatch. Okay, that’s a TV programme, but as a one-off feature-length drama you could argue it’s a TV movie. I’ve still never seen it (another one where I’ve just missed the prime night of the year to watch. Oh dear). In a similar horror vein, I imported the new 4K edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It only adds Dolby Vision encoding (which I have switched off because I’m not convinced by how my TV handles it) and a couple of slight new extras, but I never picked up the previous 4K disc, so it was an easy choice. (I didn’t have to import it — it was released here as a Zavvi exclusive — but the import was cheaper.) And, still technically horror but moving ever further away from it, Eureka brought us the 1923 iteration of The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Lon Chaney.

Sticking with the genre theme, I actually bought quite a few horror titles this month — not intentionally, but I guess it was an accident of what was on sale. So, from Network I picked up a few British classics (“classic” in the sense of “old” rather than “revered”), like The Dark Eyes of London starring Bela Lugosi, and The Ghoul starring Boris Karloff. From Arrow’s annual ‘Shocktober’ sale I snagged A Ghost Waits (which has a lovely textured slipcover, incidentally), and the two Giallo Essentials sets they’ve released in the UK (I may have to import the US-exclusive third one sometime just to complete the set). I also snagged a few horror titles from Indicator’s sale — or Hammer titles, anyway, which doesn’t necessarily mean horror. Those included the standard editions of The Full Treatment and The Snorkel, along with a spare empty Hammer Volume Two box, which is the set they were originally released in. I already owned the standard editions of the other two films from that set, so now I’ve got something that’s almost the same as having the real thing (I’m only missing the booklets and the bellyband). That means I now have all of Indicator’s Hammer sets bar the first, which I’ll never pick up because I won’t pay silly second-hand prices for it. That’s kind of a shame. Anyway. Also from Indicator: Fanatic (one of the films from that first Hammer set), early Mexican horror La Llorona, and experimental ’70s British horror Voices. Finally, as part of that US order with Dracula, I snagged George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park, Kino’s 4K of Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’78, and Shout’s 4K release of the original Candyman (I already owned Arrow’s regular Blu-ray box set, which is a nice set with good nice physical extras, but their 4K release just emulates it, whereas Shout’s adds a bunch of new on-disc extras. So, I’ll be keeping both). Plus, not strictly a horror title but it is relevant: the 4K edition of Batman: The Long Halloween. It cost literally twice as much as just buying the UK 1080p disc. Whether it’s worth it, I’m not sure.

Lest you think I deliberately went round hoovering up horror because it was Halloween, nearly all of those orders also included non-scary stuff. Like, from Network I also bought thrillers Defence of the Realm and The Quiller Memorandum, plus I finally gave in and upgraded The Story of Film: An Odyssey to Blu-ray. From Indicator, I grabbed spiritual drama Immaculate Conception and Western A Time for Dying. My US order was rounded out by Ex Machina in 4K (again, dodging an expensive Zavvi-exclusive UK version for a cheaper but feature-filled US release), noir double-bill The Guilty (which I’ve already watched, so it’s not a failure, so it’s not in bold) and High Tide, and a classic 3D triple(!) bill of Jivaro, Sangaree, and Those Redheads from Seattle. Even Arrow don’t just include horror in their sale, and from them I also picked up a couple of Japanese films: war drama Red Angel and classic movie homage To Sleep So as to Dream.

And, you know, that’s not even quite everything, but I think it’s more than enough.

September’s Failures

Posted on October 2, 2022 by badblokebob

Arguably my true failings his month were not watching any Blindspot or “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen” films, plus all the other 100 Films Challenge categories I’m behind on. But, as usual, this column will focus on all the new releases and purchases of interest that I didn’t see either.

The season for big-name blockbusters may have ended at cinemas, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t films worth mentioning — like George “Mad Max” Miller’s latest, Three Thousand Years of Longing; or a limited UK release for David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future; or Kevin Smith’s return to the milieu that made his name in Clerks III — and there were certainly films that generated blockbuster-sized numbers of column inches, like Don’t Worry Darling and its endless behind-the-scenes controversies. In and around those were the likes of starry whodunnit comedy See How They Run; George Clooney / Julia Roberts romcom Ticket to Paradise. Also, a bunch of horror and/or horror-adjacent movies that seem to have accidentally released a month early: Fall; Bodies Bodies Bodies; Smile… Plus, horrific in a different way, the belated debut of Michael Flatley’s Blackbird.

And yet, for all that, the biggest of them all was arguably a re-release: James Cameron’s Avatar returned to the big screen for its… fourth? fifth? (I forget, but it’s had a fair few re-releases at this point) go-round at box office glory. I don’t think it topped the chart, but it certainly kickstarted conversation about the film’s merits (or lack thereof) and enduring influence (or lack thereof). I haven’t seen it since it was first in cinemas almost 13 years ago, so I probably ought to revisit it before the sequel arrives in a couple of months. The only question is, which version? Even without finding a cinema showing, I can choose from the theatrical cut in 3D, or two different extended cuts…

And talking of social media chatter, the only thing with even more than Avatar was Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe kinda-biopic Blonde, which some people would have you believe you’re an evil degenerate for even considering watching it. I’m 50/50 on its director, Andrew Dominik (I adored The Assassination of Jesse James; Killing Them Softly bored me), and, to be honest, he’s given some spectacularly tin-eared interviews in promotion of his new work. I don’t morally object to it, I’m jus not sure I care enough to give it nearly three hours of my time. We’ll see.

Other Netflix premieres included Lou, which I only heard about due to the Netflix Twitter account sharing some behind-the-scenes footage of Allison Janney’s fight training. But that day it was #1 in their films category, so maybe I missed some other promo. I also didn’t see any official promo for Athena, but I did see a couple of critics saying it was very good (while expressing their disappointment about it going direct to streaming — it was worth seeing on the big screen, apparently. Oh well, we’ll never know). Meanwhile, seemingly the best Amazon could offer was another mistimed horror remake, Goodnight Mommy with Naomi Watts, and horror-comedy My Best Friend’s Exorcism, which I just happened to see advertised on their app last night, hardly a ringing endorsement. (I call all of these horror movies “mistimed”, but there are people who spend the entirety of October just watching horror movies, so it’s a boon for them.)

Disney+ were getting in on the act too, with the debut of Hocus Pocus 2. I’ve never had any interest in the original, so I doubt I’ll be watching this either. Earlier in the month, discussion focused around the Robert Zemeckis-helmed live-action remake of Pinocchio. Even the best reviews couldn’t drum up much enthusiasm for it, but it goes on my watchlist — alongside the various other Disney live-action remakes I still haven’t got round to (Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast, etc), so who knows when, if ever, I’ll actually watch it… As for new-to-streaming titles, I think Disney+ also had the most noteworthy of the month with the latest divisive MCU instalment, Thor: Love and Thunder. Also catching my eye were a variety of short films — something streamers could do a lot more with in general, I feel — including Hard Way: The Action Musical (sounds… interesting) and The Devil’s Harmony, which I actually watched back in 2020 when it was Short of the Week someplace online, but I never got round to reviewing it. It was quite good.

Actually, maybe beating that Thor flick was Amazon bringing Everything Everywhere All at Once to the UK (it did have something of a theatrical release here, but Amazon are pushing it as an “Exclusive” as if it didn’t), which I only didn’t note more prominently because I’d already imported the 4K disc (see July’s failures). Other streaming debuts or re-appearances filling out my various watchlists included, on Amazon, Cyrano (the new one with Peter Dinklage, directed by Joe Wright), Chopping Mall, and Selma; on Netflix, Kajillionaire and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre (which has already been removed again); on MUBI, Olivier Assayas’s Demonlover and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers (do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Almodóvar film? Ought to correct that); on BBC iPlayer, Journey’s End, The Sisters Brothers, Stan & Ollie, and Blazing Saddles (which I’ve seen but owe a reconsideration); and on All 4, Bacurau, Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, Monos, and True History of the Kelly Gang. I think some of these are available on other streamers already (especially when it comes to stuff on the TV-tied ones like iPlayer and All 4), but them getting added (or removed) does help remind me of their existence.

As ever, that’s just a few selected highlights — stuff comes and goes from these guys all the time, and I follow it all because I like to have an awareness of what’s available to me, but if I listed it all we’d be here forever (and these columns are long enough as it is). One streamer I haven’t mentioned is NOW, aka Sky Cinema, which I’ve just resubscribed to. I was supposed to be cutting down on streamers but I’ve ended up back on MUBI, Apple TV+, and now NOW! But they offered me two months (with their Boost add-on, which is essential because it’s how you get HD) for a total of £7 (vs £30 at regular rates), so I took it. I’m sure there’s a whole load of stuff on there I need to catch up on (I noticed they added Belfast at the beginning of the month), but I’ll look into that for next month.

Finally, as always, new additions to my disc collection. Almost all were brand-new releases this month, because the boutique labels just keep putting out interesting stuff, and there are more of those guys than ever — I remember when we basically just had Eureka/Masters of Cinema in the UK, and then Arrow came along, and now we’ve also got Criterion over here, and Indicator, and 88 Films and Second Sight have stepped up their games, and Radiance is on the way… Whew!

Anyhow, let’s begin with 4K. The highlight of the month there is surely Eureka’s first foray into the format, a box set of Jackie Chan’s Police Story Trilogy. I got my copy early, even, but unfortunately haven’t had a chance to watch any of it yet. 88 Films also made their 4K debut with Drive — not the Nicolas Winding Refn / Ryan Gosling cult fave (that came from Second Sight earlier in the year, you’ll remember), but the 1997 actioner. I remember the DVD cover; it was the kind of cheap-looking title I used to avoid that nowadays I kinda revel in. As for major label 4K titles, there was a nice box set for The Lost Boys (a film I’ve been meaning to revisit for years, and what better time?) and the regular release of Jurassic World Dominion (which I’ve not heard anything good about from anyone, but, hey, gotta complete the set).

No other brand-new films made their way into my collection this month, but plenty of other new releases from the boutiques did. To go label by label, from Arrow there was a pair of films with superb titles: Japanese epic crime drama A Fugitive from the Past and Indonesian action throwback Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash. Another title I love is All Deceased… Except the Dead (what does it even mean?), billed as a “mid ’70s Italian horror combining the aesthetics of Giallo with an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery” (sounds like my idea of a good time), which came from 88 Films, along with Yeun Biao thriller On the Run and Sherlock Holmes drama The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (which, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve never seen but am now buying for the third time. Anyone want the US Blu-ray? I think it might even still be sealed…) Indicator finally brought The Swimmer to the UK (if you don’t know, their releases are numbered, Criterion-style, and while some of their new titles are into the 300s now, this is #46, suggesting they’ve been working on it for a looong time). It’s missing the feature-length documentary from the US release, but I managed to, er, find a copy of that elsewhere. They also put out a two-film Robin Hood at Hammer set, which seemed worth a punt (I enjoy Hammer films; I enjoy Robin Hood films), and Madigan, which I confess I only bought to get the bundle discount (and because it sounded potentially up my street — believe it or not, I don’t buy just anything).

As for labels who only put out one title of interest this month (or where I mentioned the other title(s) already)… more martial arts action from Eureka in an Angela Mao double-bill of Hapkido (aka Lady Kung Fu) and Lady Whirlwind (aka Deep Thrust); Tom Hanks-starring ‘satanic panic’ Dungeons & Dragons-aping TV movie Mazes & Monsters, a worldwide HD premiere from Plumeria Pictures; Katsuhiro “Akira” Otomo-led anime anthology Memories from All the Anime; and 101 Film’s clone of Severin’s AGFA release Smut Without Smut, Volume 1, featuring two X-rated genre movies with the ~~good~~ naughty bits removed, to better allow you to focus on the genre stuff. They also include the uncut versions, ~~fortunately~~.

And that’s it for another month! I say “that’s it” as if I haven’t just listed about as many movies for one month as I’ve watched in the entire year to date…

August’s Failures

Posted on September 2, 2022 by badblokebob

In terms of what people are buzzing about — even ‘film people’ — I don’t know that it’s been that much of a movie-centric month. Of course, Jordan Peele’s latest, Nope, generated discussion, but that was a little while ago because the UK release was slightly later. Instead, I feel like movie folk were mostly nattering about the release of a novel: Michael Mann’s Heat 2. Not to mention all the cultural air being sucked up by two massive fantasy TV series: HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, which is two episodes in and has been met with acclaim from critics and viewers alike; and Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which debuts its first two episodes today, but seems to have been getting strong notices. And that’s before we even mention Netflix’s The Sandman, which has managed a good few weeks of chatter before these behemoths turned up.

But anyway, let’s turn back to the big screen, because Peele’s flick wasn’t all that’s on offer — there was also Bullet Train, which I thought looked fun from the trailer but didn’t seem to garner great reviews; and horror… prequel? Sequel? Spin-off? I don’t know. I don’t care. Whatever, I’m talking about Orphan: First Kill. I shouldn’t really mention it, because I’ve not seen the first one, nor whatever it’s spun off from (I think it’s a spin-off? I might be confusing it with something else), and I have no intention of watching this one either, so it’s not really a “failure” in that sense. More worthy of mention, because I will watch them someday, are Idris Elba vs a lion in Beast, and cosy Britflick sequel Fisherman’s Friends: One and All. I’m sure that’ll be cheesy but heartwarming.

As for feature-length entertainments on the small screen, both Amazon and Netflix seem to have picked up the pace this month — and that’s without mentioning Hulu/Disney’s Prey (because I watched it) or Apple TV+’s big-budget-looking animation Luck. Guess it must be something to do with the end of the traditional summer season (what big-name theatrical releases there were seem to have tailed off too, as evidenced by the relatively-anaemic previous paragraph).

Amazon probably thought they were onto a winner with Thirteen Lives, a true-story flick about the Thai boys football team who got trapped in a cave, directed by the reliably solid Ron Howard and starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, and Joel Edgerton. Then they released it the same weekend as Prey and The Sandman, and I don’t think I saw a single person say anything about it. They also debuted a new Liam Neeson actioner, Memory, directed by Martin Campbell and co-starring the likes of Guy Pearce and Monica Bellucci. Are such names big enough to overcome the usual terribleness of “Liam Neeson actioner that’s gone direct to streaming”? Not according to the review scores. Similar can be said of Sly Stallone’s venture into the superhero genre, Samaritan. The best thing I heard about it was that it’s workmanlike, so hardly big praise. And yet, for some reason, it remains on my watchlist.

Indeed, it’s been a strong month for growing my Amazon watchlist: beyond their slate of originals, this month they became the streaming home for inventively-titled Channing Tatum dog movie Dog; Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, Licorice Pizza; Roland Emmerich’s latest ludicrous disaster… sorry, disaster movie, Moonfall; plus Bollywood actioner Shamshera, which I saw a clip of on Twitter the other week and looks awesomely insane. I probably ought to get round to RRR first, though…

Maybe it’s just be, but Netflix’s offerings feel thinner than all that. Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco in vampire action-comedy Day Shift? I guess it might be fun. Hugh Bonneville turning villain in I Came By? Honestly, the promo interview I read, which emphasised its timeliness with regards to real-world social shifts, just made it sound heavy going. Best of the bunch might be Carter, which I skimmed right past when I saw the title on my “new on Netflix” site, but then happened to see someone on Twitter explain that it’s from the director of The Villainess and the whole movie is one (fake-)single-take 139-minute action sequence. Well, that sounds awesome. So awesome that I haven’t made time for it yet. Well, it’s not special in that regard.

After making a big deal of cancelling a load of streaming services for that very reason, I’ve ended up keeping MUBI (they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, apparently) — so I should note that their offerings this month included animation The Illusionist and Zhang Yimou wuxia House of Flying Daggers — and realising my parents still had a Disney+ account that I could co-opt — perfect for watching Prey, and intending but not getting round to Lightyear, plus MCU series like She-Hulk.

As for the free streamers, I just feel the need to note that this month iPlayer offered the Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, and not for the first time. I’ve re-bought Apocalypse Now on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, and I’ve still only watched it once, many years ago, on the original Redux DVD I bought. And the Final Cut has been on TV four times already — yes, four TV screenings, plus all that attendant time available on iPlayer. I despair of myself.

But that doesn’t stop me, because — talking of purchases — here are some of this month’s. Let’s start with the latest additions to my Ultra HD collection, which included lavish new editions for Dog Soldiers from Second Sight and Get Carter from the BFI. Never seen either; now I have no excuse. There was a more standard release for Michael Mann’s Heat, which met with some points of controversy in Blu-ray fan circles, but the right people liked it so I convinced myself to pick it up. I also upgraded Spartacus on the cheap (another film I’ve now owned on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K but never seen), and realised there was a UK 4K release for The Green Knight, so picked that up too.

On regular ol’ Blu-ray, Masters of Cinema’s latest addition to their Buster Keaton catalogue — The Saphead — also led me to pick up a second-hand copy of their Buster Keaton: The Complete Shorts collection (second-hand because I wanted the 184-page book that the initial print run came with). They also put out a double-bill of Hong Kong action in Johnnie To’s Running Out of Time 1&2, while 88 Films had a triple-bill of similar in the Tiger Cage trilogy. I guess it was that kind of month, because I also randomly upgraded my old DVD of Shoot ’Em Up to the equally-as-old Blu-ray, and — speaking of The Villainess earlier — I finally bought The Villainess, too. And the random upgrades didn’t stop there: Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (completing my set of Batman: The Animated Series-related series and films in HD); TRON: Legacy in 3D in a dirt-cheap second-hand copy, alongside Piranha 3D. I have no particular hopes for that beyond the 3D making it hilarious. Fingers crossed.

And that’s not even everything, but I’m going to stop there because, dear God, I have to stop somewhere.

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Category Archives: Failures