Category Archives: Editorials

September’s Failures

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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…

The Funereal Monthly Review of September 2022

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

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

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



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

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


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



The 88th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

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

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

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



Every review posted this month, including new titles and the Archive 5


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

August’s Failures

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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.

The Predatory Monthly Review of August 2022

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Last month I said I was going to refocus my free time on films in August.

Yeeeaaah, about that…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#49 Prey (2022) — New Film #8
#50 Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972) — DVD #5
#51 Batman: Dead End (2003) — Rewatch #8
#52 Repeat Performance (1947) — Genre #4
#53 Mona Lisa (1986) — WDYMYHS #7
#54 Mirror (1975) — Blindspot #7


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in August.
  • Another month where I failed to reach my minimum target of 10 new films — and that means my monthly average for the year falls below 10 as well, to 9.88. The rolling average for the last 12 months just about keeps its head above water, though, on 10.67.
  • Five of those films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch — which, this month, was a short film.
  • Wait — a short film? Yes, I’ve counted a short as part of my 100 Films Challenge. Should I be allowing shorts to qualify? Well, why not – I never specified that they were excluded. Plus, it’s in the Rewatch category, so it doesn’t count towards my previously-unseen film tally anyway. (To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have counted it if it only qualified under something like New Films. Maybe that’s a double standard, but then I make the rules — literally.)
  • If it really bothers you for some reason, then know that I also rewatched Love & Friendship this month, so you can count that instead.
  • Also of note: I passed the halfway point. Bit late getting there, considering we’re two-thirds of the way through the year, but milestones are milestones. (If I were still doing my old-style challenge: I’m currently at #79, which is considerably behind other recent years, but still ahead of schedule.)
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Andrei Tarkovsky’s poetic evocation of memory and mid-20th-century Soviet history, Mirror. (Also, I’m still one behind on these.)
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Neil Jordan’s neo-noir filtered through a British gangland love story, Mona Lisa. (I’m still one behind on these, also.)
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Repeat Performance.



The 87th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Three quite different films vie for the trophy this month, which is like a microcosm of the problem I always have ranking films: how do you truly compare a period-set sci-fi actioner, a lightly-fantastical film noir melodrama, and a gritty ’80s gangster love story? Such different films, such different aims — all very successful at what they’re doing, but none doing the same thing, or doing it in the same way, so how do you say which is ‘better’ or ‘best’? But ties are cheating, so I’m going to say Repeat Performance, because it’s the most generally overlooked of the trio.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Here’s a toughie: do I go for the acclaimed world cinema classic that I didn’t get on with, or the ‘classic’ musical that’s often looked down upon nowadays for its outdated social values, which I didn’t like anyway because the songs aren’t great and the plot’s a bit weird? Well, in spite of that, of the two, I’d rather watch Carousel again, so Mirror takes it.

Best New Direction for a Franchise of the Month
I’m not the first person to say this, but if the Predator movies just want to copy the Prey formula, I reckon that would be good for a few more movies. Just drop a Predator into any time and place in history with a warrior culture. Predator vs samurai? Yes please! Predator vs vikings? Sounds fun! Predator vs medieval knights? Yes, yes, yes — gimme ’em all!

Most Underwhelming Film That Made Me Want to Watch the Original of the Month
Did yo know that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s very Rodgers-and-Hammerstein-y musical Carousel is based on a play, Liliom? I didn’t (until it said it quite prominently in the opening credits). I assumed this was one of those situations where “based on” meant “lightly inspired by”, but it sounds like it’s actually quite faithful — albeit with added lengthy song-and-dance numbers. The original was so popular that it was filmed twice before: in 1930 in the US by Frank Borzage, and in 1934 in France by no less than Fritz Lang. Even though I didn’t care for the musical version, I’m intrigued enough that both of those have gone on my watchlist.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Long-time readers will surely remember that reviews of new-to-streaming titles often do well for hits, and so it was again this month, with Hulu / Disney+ Original Prey easily winning this category. Indeed, it was my second most-viewed post for the month overall, which is the first time this year that a new post has placed higher than 9th on the monthly chart.



Every review posted this month, including new titles and the Archive 5


Avast, me hearties! The long-awaited treasure of Return to Monkey Island is finally released on 19th September — aka Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arr!

Okay, so that’s not a film, but me devoting a load of time to playing it is going to explain why my film viewing will be lower than it should be next month. (At least there’ll be a concrete reason for once…)

July’s Failures

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As readers of my monthly review will likely have already gathered, I didn’t go to the cinema this month. Well, if I didn’t make it out for some of the big hitters earlier in the year, I wasn’t likely to be tempted by the poorly-reviewed Thor: Love and Thunder or kiddie sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, was I? (I actually quite enjoyed the first Minions film, to my surprise, but I’m still not paying cinema prices for the sequel. Happy to wait for it to be free someplace.) Other big screen offerings this month included The Railway Children Return (never seen the original), Where the Crawdads Sing (couldn’t tell you anything about that), and DC’s League of Super-Pets (a box office flop, apparently).

Also in cinemas — then on streaming a week later — were a pair of Netflix original movies. You don’t need to have even read Jane Austen to realise that Persuasion is not particularly faithful, even just from watching its trailer; and if you are a fan of Austen, apparently it’s a travesty. I may end up watching it at some point out of morbid curiosity, but I’m in no rush. Then there was action-thriller The Gray Man, which seems to have received universally mid to poor reviews, but which I know I’ll end up giving my time to someday. You never know: plenty of people seemed to hate Michael Bay’s Netflix movie, 6 Underground, and I found it passingly fun, so there’s always hope.

Other premieres further down the streaming hierarchy (as in, I don’t think they were granted theatrical releases) included The Sea Beast, a fantasy animation with “How to Train Your Dragon at sea” vibes that looks like it might be fun; and Rogue Agent, which is apparently a true story about a conman pretending to be an MI5 agent, starring James Norton and Gemma Arterton. I presume that one can’t be very good, because it’s had zero press that I’ve seen, but it sounds up my street. (Mind you, it’s not out in the US until 12th August, where it’s apparently getting a limited theatrical release, so if there’s any buzz to be had I guess it’ll come when US critics get their hands on it.)

As for Amazon Prime, it seems the best they could offer in the film department was remake Most Dangerous Game. Billed as a “new movie”, it turns out it was originally a Quibi series in 2020 (they never even tried to launch Quibi in the UK, so anything on there has had zero cultural footprint in the UK; which, as I understand it, is roughly the same as the cultural footprint it left in the US). As it has somewhat starry names (Liam “that’s the one who isn’t Thor” Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz), I guess someone felt it was worthwhile to repackage it as a feature film for Amazon. But before they go that far, as a series it moved to The Roku Channel, who commissioned a second season — assuming that goes ahead, I guess we might be treated to a ‘sequel’ someday. Maybe Amazon are on to something after all.

As I mentioned last month, I’ve dropped many streaming services I was subscribed to. The subscriptions for a couple of them lasted into this month — Disney+, for example, on which I could’ve watched the likes of The Princess or Flee if I’d pulled my finger out in time. (Though Flee was added on the very day my sub ended. After hearing about how good it is on Letterboxd for what feels like years, for it to finally be available to me — only to immediately not be — felt bloody typical.) Over on MUBI, there was acclaimed Nick Cave doc This Much I Know To Be True, but I never got round to the last acclaimed Nick Cave doc (One More Time With Feeling), so I feel I should see that first (probably doesn’t really matter, but you never know). Other titles of note included Paul Verhoeven’s sexy nun flick Benedetta; drama Bergman Island (it’s surely some kind of arthouse Inception when an arthouse film about the work of a famous arthouse filmmaker is available on the arthouse film streamer); Cold War (which I think is still available someplace else anyhow); and — a true rarity — titles streaming on MUBI that I own on disc! Namely, Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin and Mountains May Depart (I have Arrow’s box set; indeed, I mentioned it in June 2019’s failures. Over three years ago… jeez…

Speaking of box sets, on to the latest stuff I’ve been buying on disc, ready to leave on my shelf for years (or decades) to come before I finally watch it (maybe). This month’s brand-new releases included Everything Everywhere All at Once (imported, because there’s no UK disc release even scheduled currently), Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (what can I say? I’ve got to complete the set), The Northman, and anime Belle — all in 4K, naturally. And that’s not the end of it, because catalogue titles in 4K included Okja (also imported, because Criterion aren’t bothering to release on 4K over here, even though they’re region free so they could literally just send us the discs they’ve printed for the US); Out of Sight (also imported); Arrow’s new edition of Tenebrae (I’ve not bothered with all of their Argento 4K upgrades, but this is a significant do-over from the Blu-ray in terms of extras and packaging, no matter what the film’s PQ is like); also from Arrow, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (waited for that one to be discounted); Red Sonja (which StudioCanal didn’t see fit to give their box-o’-tat treatment, probably wisely); but they did do one for the second Doctor Who movie, Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., and of course I bought it; and, finally, Second Sight’s lavish edition of The Witch (which, in my head, I still call The V-vitch).

I think I’ve mentioned before that my strategy for importing from the US these days is wait until I’ve built up quite a few titles I’m interested in, then order them in bulk. That spreads the postage thinner and, it seems, on the site I regularly use, if you spend enough then you dodge them adding a VAT charge (gasp!) So, alongside the aforementioned US 4K titles, I picked up Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (the last Batman: The Animated Series-adjacent movie I hadn’t upgraded from DVD); Warner Archive releases of Drunken Master II and the 1951 Show Boat (never let it be said my taste is not varied); Flicker Alley’s releases of rare noir Repeat Performance and In the Shadow of Hollywood, a box set of Poverty Row titles; anime Vampire Hunter D (to go with its sequel, Bloodlust, which I bought the UK edition of years ago; no local release of the original has been forthcoming); and… Zebraman. Total punt, that, but I happened to see someone review it on Letterboxd and it sounded awesome. Yeah, that’s all it takes to get me to fork over the cash sometimes.

That should be more than enough… but no, my lack of self control knows no bounds. For new releases of catalogue titles, well, I can scarcely resist a Shaw Brothers film nowadays, so of course 88 Films got me with Martial Club, and also The Seventh Curse; while Eureka tempted me with a trio of old Universal horrors in their Boris Karloff-starring Universal Terror set. And then there were the sales! From Dogwoof, documentaries Max Richter’s Sleep (the concept of which fascinates me, so a doc on it seems a good punt) and David Byrne’s American Utopia (a doc in technicality only, because it’s a concert film; one I adored). And HMV had one of their regular 2-for-£15 offers on their Premium Collection range, and (as usual) I couldn’t resist. Four titles this time: more Jackie Chan in Mr. Nice Guy; more noir in The Set-Up; more classic horror in The Mystery of the Wax Museum; and an upgrade from my old two-disc DVD for A Streetcar Named Desire.

Now, that’s plenty, right? …right? Nah, we haven’t even got to the stuff I bought on a random whim yet! Brothers Till We Die, In the Cold of the Night, Knight and Day, Sorcerer… Sometimes I think I might have a problem…

The Melting Monthly Review of July 2022

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Hello, dear readers! No, this month’s heatwave didn’t melt me away to nothing (though it tried its damnedest), but this is a rare sighting of a post on this blog nowadays. I hadn’t intended to be so quiet this month (well, I never do), but, you know, life. Nothing serious, just a mixture of work and personal commitments.

It’s been the same story with my film viewing, which once again fell short of my ongoing aim of watching at least ten new films a month. And as for my 100 Films Challenge, well, that’s way behind where it should be. To reach #100 in December at a steady pace, I should be at #58 by the end of July. As you’ll soon see, I’m not even close.

What I did spend a fair amount of time on this month was catching up with TV — things like Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, which I seemed to enjoy more than most, and Apple TV+ spy thriller Slow Horses, which is as good as the reviews say — so I intend to refocus on films in August. We’ll see how that pans out.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#44 Ambulance (2022) — New Film #7
#45 Johnny Gunman (1957) — Genre #3
#46 A Better Tomorrow (1986) — WDYMYHS #6
#47 Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015) — DVD #4
#48 Calamity Jane (1953) — Rewatch #7


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • Four of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • Those are the kinds of numbers there’s not much to say about: they’re nothing special, but they’re not spectacularly bad, either.
  • That said, I’ve slipped further behind in my 100 Films Challenge — as I noted at the start, I should be at #58 by now. I now need to watch, on average, more than 10 qualifying films each month for the rest of the year to complete the challenge.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was John Woo’s classic action-thriller that defined the ‘heroic bloodshed’ subgenre, A Better Tomorrow.
  • I remain a film behind in my WDYMYHS challenge, and now the same is true of Blindspot too, as I didn’t watch one of those this month. At least there’s still five months left for me to catch up.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Ambulance.



The 86th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
When Michael Bay is on form, there’s no action director quite like him — and, for my money, Ambulance is Michael Bay very much on form.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing absolutely terrible this month, which leads me to name Johnny Gunman for this category. It suffers for being a low-budget independent film in an era when low-budget independent films weren’t really yet a thing — it’s solid enough for the forgiving viewer, but does suffer from some weak acting and novice-like filmmaking choices. I didn’t dislike it, but, in the context of the rest of this month’s viewing, it doesn’t quite measure up.

Bickering Old People of the Month
45 Years depicts a couple’s sudden relationship difficulties after four-and-a-half decades of marriage with such scathing realism that I have to give this to The Bucket List for being fun bickering. But I think we all know which is the better film, really. Only one of them is in the Criterion Collection, after all.

Best Weather of the Month
A scathingly realistic drama about a couple having sudden relationship difficulties after four-and-a-half decades of marriage, in part because their emotional communication is inadequate, set in grey, misty, wintry countryside? 45 Years is British through and through, not least that weather. Oh, it looked so beautiful, especially watching it on a hot summer day — personally, I long for our winter to come again.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
After a couple of months where this category has been dominated by my ‘failures’ posts, they dipped to second place in July. Instead, the victor was something of a surprise, but a pleasant one: my review of undeservedly forgotten 1930s melodrama Bank Holiday.



Every review posted this month, including new titles and the Archive 5


More films, hopefully.

June’s Failures

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The ‘big news’ this month that’s relevant here is I’ve finally decided to cancel most of my streaming subscriptions — namely: Sky Cinema, MUBI, Apple TV+, and Disney+. Yes, it’s crazy but it’s true: I’ve had all of them on the go at once, along with Netflix (though I share someone else’s account, so at least that’s free to me) and Amazon Prime (which has its own extra benefits, of course). My existing payments don’t run out on most of them until various dates in July, so they’ll still be a part of failures both this month and next. And that’s part of why the streamlining was necessary: there’s stuff I want to watch on all of these services, but I’m not getting around to enough of it to justify the cost. I might start bringing them back in, one at a time; but when there’s all of Netflix, Amazon, and my ever-growing Blu-ray collection to choose from, I hardly need them. And, frankly, for some of those services, I’ve paid for month after month without watching anything at all. Morally, I feel I’ve more than earnt the right to acquire anything already on my watchlist from (*ahem*) somewhere else, if or when I really want to see it.

Anyway, on to actual titles. The big film at the cinema this month was… Top Gun: Maverick again, really, as its phenomenal popularity led it to become the first billion-dollar-grossing film released in 2022. When it comes to Cinema, Tom Cruise doesn’t mess around. Trying to face up to it, the likes of Jurassic World: Dominion and Lightyear seemed to find it something of a struggle, apparently hampered by poor reviews. Maybe critics do still matter after all. Also filling out the multiplexes have been Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, horror The Black Phone, and whatever exactly Alex Garland’s Men is. Also worth a mention, I hear, is Good Luck to You, Leo Grande for a first-rate performance from Emma Thompson, which isn’t likely to get much awards season buzz because the film is going direct to streaming in the US, rendering it ineligible for the Oscars. That said, with BAFTA increasingly going its own way, she’ll still stand a reasonable (perhaps even higher, now it’ll be the only opportunity to reward here) chance this side of the pond.

Talking of Alex Garland, I heard someone describe Spiderhead (Netflix’s biggest original of the month) as “Ex Machina but you can go make tea and not miss anything”, which is amusing but also means it’s still on my watchlist (I would never go make tea during a film without pausing, personally, but nonetheless, I get the point that’s being made). They also had a new Adam Sandler thing, Hustle, which I shouldn’t really mention because it’s going nowhere near my watchlist. I think I heard some people say it’s not too bad, but I’m not a Sandler fan and the plot is something to do with one of those sports only America really plays seriously, which makes it triply uninteresting (because sport would make it doubly so, and American-only sport even more so again). Meanwhile, their surprise hit of the month was apparently Interceptor, an action thing which received poor notices (19% on Rotten Tomatoes) but nonetheless hit #1 in many territories, sparking sequel discussion. It’s on my watchlist, but it’s hardly a priority.

The other streamers’s offerings were even less impressive, believe it or not. I mean, Amazon’s main original offering this month seemed to be Force of Nature, a Mel Gibson-starring (already a bad sign) cop drama (hardly popular right now) that was released elsewhere back in 2020. Oh dear. It doesn’t look good. Alternatively, there’s time-travel rom-com Press Play, which mixes things up by making it the woman who’s time-travelling for a change. Innovative. Doesn’t mean it’s any good though, with 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and low viewer ratings on the likes of IMDb. As for Sky Cinema, they had Gerard Butler vehicle Last Seen Alive, which my boss — who’s the kind of guy who likes Gerard Butler films — watched and said was awful. (I should probably stop bothering to mention all these films I’m never intending to actually watch…) The only thing that looked halfway decent was also a ‘Sky Original’, Dual, which I gather is some sort of clone-on-clone action thing starring Karen Gillan… but my Sky Cinema subscription has already expired, so I won’t be watching that anytime soon.

Also new to Sky this month (and therefore not actually getting watched) were reboot Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which I heard nothing good about, and Clifford the Big Red Dog, which I also heard nothing good about. Poor old Sky, they do seem to be struggling nowadays. Though they did have The Matrix Resurrections — which I’ve seen, and should have reviewed; and bought on disc, so should watch again — and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, which seemed to get divisive reviews, but is Edgar Wright, so I’ve blind bought it anyways. Noteworthy catalogue additions to the other streamers included, on Netflix, The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (I say “noteworthy” — I liked the first one enough that this sequel earns a spot on my watchlist, but it’s hardly a major title) and The Devil’s Men (a film made before the ’90s on Netflix? Why, wonders will never cease! Stops me forking out for the Indicator Blu-ray, too); and, on Amazon, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a Best Picture nominee that I know isn’t meant to be very good, but, as well as being on my ‘to see’ list because of the Oscar nom, it was also on my 50 Unseen list for 2012, and I think this might be the first chance I’ve had to watch it for free in almost a decade).

And, if you’ve not seen Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, you can now stream it on Netflix… or Disney+… all All 4. For all the flack that film gets on Twitter, plus the facts that it’s been shown on TV and is currently on multiple services, I noticed that it had rocketed to #1 on Netflix the day after it was added. For all that certain cinephile hate it, I get the impression normies love it, or at least like it. So did I, so I ought to watch it again (I do own it on 4K disc, though).

Disney+’s biggest add this month was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, racing there so quickly from the cinema that it’s gained a rare two-months-in-a-row mention in my failures. Technically there are several Marvel things I should watch before I get to it, but as I’ve already jumbled up my viewing order, I might skip to it sooner rather than later. I’d quite like to see it in 3D, but as Marvel’s home-3D releases only happen in Japan nowadays, I think that would mean waiting until something like September. Maybe I should just hang back — it’s not as if people are still quiet about spoilers from it.

As ever, all of the streamers added tonnes of other stuff that I’ve bulked out my watchlists with, but if I started listing it all we’d really be here forever. I haven’t even discussed anything from iPlayer, MUBI, or Apple TV+, but little of it seems worthy of mention. MUBI’s sole brand-new addition, straight from a limited theatrical release, was Pleasure, which has been discussed in some circles for its unflinchingly graphic portrayal of the porn industry. Frankly, I’m not sure I care. And Apple TV+ had a different kind of festival darling, Cha Cha Real Smooth. I have no idea what it’s even about. I saw people logging it on Letterboxd when it played festivals, but I’ve heard it’s one of those kinds of films that people who go to film festivals enjoy while they’re there, but doesn’t merit much consideration outside of that context. Hardly praise to rush it up my list, that.

Last — but most certainly not least — all the discs I’ve been spending too much of my money on in the last month. The headliner this month has to be The Batman, one of those films I would say I’m really keen to see but have consistently failed to watch both at the cinema and on disc since it arrived a few weeks ago. It comes with two problems: it’s three hours long, so I’ve got to find the time (at the moment, I seem to be able to just about squeeze in a 70-minute noir of an evening, if I make a concerted effort); and my anticipation for it is so high, I can’t simply bung it on and hope for the best — I’ve got to be Prepared. So, goodness knows when I’ll get to it, but it’s right at the top of my “soon” list.

The only other brand-spanking-new release I picked up this month was Michael Bay’s Ambulance, which I feel like I’m more likely to get round to because, well, it’s Michael Bay — no need to engage brain there, right? But I’ve heard it’s one of his best films, hence why I’ve blind bought it immediately. For all the criticism he’s received down the years, when he’s on his game, Bay is one of the best pure action directors ever.

So, everything else I bought was either a new release of a catalogue title, or a slightly older release on offer. To stick with 4K, in the “new release” camp were The Untouchables and Wild Things, both blind buys but films that seem possibly up my alley. More of a known quantity was Drive, in a very lavish edition from Second Sight. I’m looking forward to revisiting it, because I put too much pressure on it to be an instant favourite first time I saw it. I didn’t dislike it, but I’m hoping I’ll like it even more on a rewatch. And, thanks to box set sales, I finally got round to picking up both the first Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection (the one with The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo, the latter being the one I most need to revisit) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I shall refrain from ranting about the shitshow Warner Bros made of that release. Suffice to say, I’m not actually happy to have ‘had’ to buy the barebones films-only edition, but here we are.

Everything else cuts even deeper into moviedom’s back catalogue. Indeed, it’s mostly films I’ve never even heard of, frankly, but which are part of series or from labels that I trust. We’re talking stuff like Columbia Noir #5 and The Pemini Organisation from Indicator; Execution in Autumn and Outside the Law from Masters of Cinema; ’70s martial arts titles like The Killer Meteors (starring Jackie Chan and Jimmy Wang Yu), Monkey Kung Fu, Shaolin Mantis, and The Shaolin Plot; and both volumes of the BFI’s British horror short film anthology, Short Sharp Shocks. Finally, from a new StudioCanal line of cult movies, two Italian films directed by Enzo G. Castellari: High Crime (the original title translates as The Police Prosecute, The Law Acquits, which, as long Italian genre titles go, is a bit nothingy) and Spaghetti Western Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a superb title).

I’ll tell you something: for all being a physical media addict costs my bank account, you certainly don’t stumble across any of this kind of stuff on the streamers.

The Halfway Monthly Review of June 2022

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Another month gone, and suddenly we’re halfway through 2022. Whaaaat?!

To mark the occasion, the Viewing Notes section is a little longer than usual, taking a look at how the rest of the year might shape up — or might need to shape up, considering my new 100 Films Challenge is currently running behind schedule…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#36 Top Gun 3D (1986) — Rewatch #6
#37 Scream (1996) — Wildcard #2
#38 Escape in the Fog (1945) — Genre #1
#39 Pretty in Pink (1986) — WDYMYHS #5
#40 Paris, Texas (1984) — Blindspot #6
#41 The Flying Deuces (1939) — DVD #3
#42 Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022) — New Film #6
#43 My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) — Genre #2


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in June.
  • Six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
  • Wait, two rewatches? Yep, because I’ve deployed my second wildcard of the year to count Scream as a second rewatch for June. That means I can’t count two rewatches in a single month again this year; but, as it marks the beginning of a rewatch of the Scream series, it does open up the rest of those films to counting under Series Progression. Nifty.
  • Genre was the only category I hadn’t started when June began. Escape in the Fog changed that, meaning all 11 categories are officially underway — and all still ‘in play’, with none completed — as I reach the halfway point.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, starring Harry Dean Stanton as a dad trying to bond with his kid.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was the John Hughes-penned Pretty in Pink, co-starring Harry Dean Stanton as a dad who’s really good with his kid. I remain one behind here, but there’s still plenty of time to catch that up.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched The Contender.
  • I also watched a short film this month — my first this year! I often feel like I should watch more shorts, especially as I own hundreds on disc (a handful of dedicated collections, and then loads included as special features here and there). Maybe I should make it some sort of official goal. 100 Short Films in a Year? Sounds doable — but in addition to what I already aim for? Maybe not.

As I was saying, now that we’re halfway through the year, here’s how things are shaping up overall…

  • I should be at #49 now (not #50, thanks to the first six months of the year being slightly shorter than the second six). Although I’m short of that, at least I’m not a whole month’s worth short (the target for the end of May is #41), so that’s something. Nonetheless, I need to push a bit harder for the rest of the year: the monthly average to reach 100 in 12 months exactly is 8.3 films per month, but for the rest of the year I need it to be 9.5.
  • As a point of comparison, so far this year I’ve averaged 7.2 Challenge films per month, so it’s a bit of a step up.
  • But I’ve averaged 10.5 films per month overall, so if I just make more of them Challenge-compliant going forward then I should be fine.
  • Were I still doing my old-style 100 Films Challenge (just watching any new-to-me 100 films in a year), I’d currently be at #63 — which would be my poorest performance at this point since 2014.
  • All of which sounds fine and dandy, until you remember this: I typically watch fewer films in the back half of the year.
  • That’s not just a casual observation: I have numbers on this. For example, I can tell you that, out of 15 years of running this blog, I did actually watch more films in the back half of the year five times. And on a further three occasions, the second half was within 10% of the first half’s tally. So, it’s not as if the two halves are often wildly different. Which is funny, when you think about it, considering my overall annual tallies can be so very different — historically, anywhere from 94 to 264 films in a year.
  • Anyway, what do the stats foretell for this year? Based on my all-time average first-half-to-second-half ratio, I would watch 122 films this year. Narrowing that to just the last five years, I would make it to 108. And if we look at just years where I’d made comparable progress by the end of June — which happen to be 2010 to 2014, when I’d reached between #55 to #64 by this point — they too reckon I’d make it to 122.
  • Which is all well and good for my old target, but what about the New 100 Films Challenge? Well, so far my ratio of new films to films that count is roughly 1.47:1. If that holds, then watching 122 new films would mean I watch only 83 that count towards my Challenge. So, as I said earlier, I need to up the number of compliant films. Or, of course, just watch more films.
  • As to that final point, the last time I watched more films in the second half of the year than the first was in 2015, driven by pushing myself to make it to #200. But such a goal isn’t always necessary: in 2014, I did an even greater percentage of my viewing in the back half, but only to make it to #136. And goals aren’t a guarantee of anything: in 2016, I watched more in the first half of the year than I had in 2015, but so much less in the second half that I only made it to #195.

All of which goes to prove one thing: when it comes to my film watching, statistics may be fun, but they’re useless at predicting the future.



The 85th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Quite a few more-than-solid films this month, but the one that comes closest to jumping out at me is also one I’ve been meaning to see ever since it came out, 12 years ago now. That would be political thriller The Ghost Writer (originally released as The Ghost here in the UK, but now under its international title on Netflix). Why does it sometimes take me so damn long to get round to things I was actually quite keen to watch? Goodness only knows. And it’s things like this — where, as I expected, I enjoy them a lot — that prove I shouldn’t let such delays happen.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Apologies to any Laurel and Hardy fans reading this, but my first real experience of their work didn’t really make me laugh, and a comedy that doesn’t make you laugh isn’t much of a success, so The Flying Deuces takes this (dis)honour.

Most Timely Viewing of the Month
Here in the UK, we got a bonus Bank Holiday if June, to celebrate Queenie’s Platinum Jubilee… and, on the first of them, I watched the fairly-obscure (I’d certainly never heard of it before) 1938 film Bank Holiday. The film and modern real-life event aren’t really connected in any way (no Jubilee going on in the film), but hey-ho.

Best Accent of the Month
Accents in films are a funny business. Sometimes, people don’t even bother: witness My Name Is Julia Ross, a Hollywood production set entirely in London and Cornwall, where half the cast don’t even bother to attempt English accents. Sometimes, you wonder if people needed to: take The Ghost Writer, where it feels like everyone’s doing one accent or another, be it Scots and Americans doing English, or Brits doing American. And then there’s films that are a wonder unto themselves, like House of Gucci, where the entirely-English-speaking cast are doing ‘Italian’ as if they’re in a Dolmio advert. “I cooka da pasta” indeed.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
For the second month in a row, my monthly failures roundup — namely, May’s Failures — has topped the chart. I say “topped”: it was the highest new post, but 29th overall. I guess my new reviews just haven’t been that interesting. (My ‘mistake’ has been stopping TV reviews: 24 of the 28 posts above May’s Failures were old TV columns.)



Every review posted this month, including new titles and the Archive 5


Y’know, I still haven’t been to the cinema yet this year. I keep meaning to see Top Gun: Maverick, but things keep getting in the way. But, as of today, my local cinema have put it back on to their biggest screen for the weekend, so maybe I’ll finally pull my finger out and get there in the next couple of days.

As for the rest of the month… oh, who knows!

May’s Failures

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Ever since the pandemic, the cinema has been “back” multiple times. The latest film driving that claim is Top Gun: Maverick, the belated-in-every-sense sequel (it’s both 36 years since the original film and something like three years since this one wrapped shooting, its release delayed until well after Covid was ‘over’) that’s been garnering rave reviews from almost everyone. Obviously, I didn’t see it (it self evidently wouldn’t be topping my ‘failures’ column if I had), but maybe next month. I’m sure it rewards the big screen experience as much as everyone says.

That wasn’t the only biggie in cinemas this month though, with multiverses causing buzz aplenty between Marvel’s latest, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the UK bow of Everything Everywhere All at Once — another film we’re urged to see ASAP, and therefore on the big screen. Again, I didn’t have a chance this month, but maybe next. Other cinema releases look like small fry by comparison, even if they include a Stephen King adaptation (Firestarter) and Mark Wahlberg vehicle (Father Stu). Coming highly recommended, but limited (so far) to a single simultaneous global screening, was Andrew Dominik’s new Nick Cave documentary, This Much I Know to Be True. Hopefully it’s not one of those “you had to see it at the time” jobs and it’ll be on disc and/or streaming eventually.

Talking of streaming, the true headline-grabbers this month were new TV series, primarily Stranger Things 4 on Netflix and Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+. By comparison, original debuting films were thin on the ground. The only one I’ve got noted for Netflix is a new Ghost in the Shell animation, but it’s not a true new film because it’s one of those “cut down a season of TV into a feature” ones — full title Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Sustainable War — which popped up a couple of weeks before a new season of the show itself. I’ve never got round to watching the original incarnation of SAC, never mind the less well regarded (as far as I’m aware) 2045-set revival. Amazon Prime, meanwhile, offered up a Chris Pine vehicle, The Contractor, and a Zac Efron one too, Gold. Neither seem particularly noteworthy.

As far as new-to-subscribers additions go, Netflix arguably had the biggest hitter with Bollywood crossover hit RRR — even if it wasn’t in the original language (exclusivity for that has been nabbed by another streamer) and, I read, not in the original aspect ratio. It’s enough to put you off watching it… were it not for the piles of praise I’ve seen it attract. Naturally, being a product of the Indian film industry, it’s really long, so I just need to find the time for it. The next most noteworthy title on my list is another international hit, two-time Oscar and two-time BAFTA nominee The Worst Person in the World, which is on MUBI. Once upon a time Sky Cinema were king of this category — the whole reason it exists, even — but this month the best they could do was Dear Evan Hansen. Oh dear. Meanwhile, Amazon added C’mon C’mon, which seemed to garner a lot of praise on Letterboxd at one point last year, but that didn’t materialise into much during award season. It didn’t even make my 50 Unseen list for last year in the end. Still, it goes on the watchlist now.

Indeed, my watchlists on all these services were padded out with piles of catalogue additions; so many it would be far too dull to list them all, especially as sometimes it’s just a film jumping from one service to another (looking at you, Ammonite and Chaos Walking). There also seemed to be a particularly large number of things I’ve been meaning to watch on disc but haven’t, which always elicits mixed feelings — a blend of “well why did I bother buying it then” and “I really should’ve watched that by now”. It was, in fact, All 4 that were worst for the latter this month, airing several titles I’ve owned on disc for ages, including The Handmaiden, The Kid Who Would Be King, and Zhang Yimou’s Shadow.

Talking of stuff I own on disc, let’s just move onto that, because I certainly bought more than enough stuff this month. No new-new releases (i.e. recent films new to disc) this month. I’m not sure if that’s because there’s been a dearth of them or because none have interested me. There have been plenty of new editions of catalogue titles, though, mainly foreign genre titles thanks to the boutique labels: martial arts movies like Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Hero, and Human Lanterns from 88 Films; a pair of poliziotteschi from director Sergio Sollima, Violent City and Revolver (coincidentally released in the UK on the same date by two different labels. Maybe the rights just became available or something, because there certainly wasn’t any apparent cross-promotion effort); and a whole box set of neo-noir titles from Australia’s Imprint label, titled After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema Collection One. “Collection One”? Promises, promises.

The latter I ordered as part of a bundle of all of Imprint’s releases this month, which also included Paul Greengrass’s superb drama about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday (it featured on my 100 Favourites list back in 2016); political thriller The Contender (never seen it, but it was more-or-less free by ordering the discounted bundle rather than just the other three titles, and I do like a political thriller); and Walter Hill’s The Warriors, a two-disc edition featuring the original theatrical cut on disc for, I believe, the first time. It’s the kind of release I’ve wanted for that film ever since I first saw it in 2018, so I was thrilled to get my hands on it. Just hope we don’t get someone like Arrow doing an even-more-bells-and-whistles version for the northern hemisphere anytime soon…

Talking of imports and genres, I picked up Arrow’s US-only releases of The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and Come Drink with Me, which cost more than their UK counterparts but also boast considerably more special features. While I was getting those, I bulked up my order with a punt on the new 4K release of Heavy Metal, which comes bundled with its less-remembered sequel, Heavy Metal 2000; plus the latest classic 3D title to make it to disc, Treasure of the Four Crowns, a film I’d never heard of, but I’m always keen to support the continued release of genuine 3D content; and also a couple of films I had seen that don’t have Blu-ray releases on this side of the pond, steampunk animation April and the Extraordinary World and Clint Eastwood’s true-crime Southern Gothic Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

And that’s not even all! There were more poliziotteschi in Free Hand for a Tough Cop (great title) and Silent Action (aka The Police Accuse: The Secret Service Kill, which sounds much cooler); a couple of things I heard recommended so picked up half on a whim, like single-take sci-fi Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and Woman at War; and a bunch of stuff that’s been lurking on my “consider buying” list for months/years and finally was on offer, like Irezumi, Over the Edge, A Silent Voice, The Spy in Black, and The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (talking of cool titles…)

Finally for this month, the greatest frustration of all disc collecting: two re-releases of titles I already owned and hadn’t intended to re-buy but ended up caving on. First, Arrow’s 4K edition of Dario Argento’s Deep Red. I’ve largely been ignoring their 4K Argento reissues because I already bought them all on Blu-ray and, frankly, haven’t watched any of them, and the ‘only’ thing the new editions add is the 4K transfer (which isn’t always that much of an upgrade — I haven’t bothered with their 4K of Donnie Darko for that very reason). But I discovered this month that Deep Red actually added a host of bonus features, plus packaging more in line with their other Argento titles; and the screen caps do make the quality of the transfer look noticeably better, so I caved. Secondly, Eureka’s Blu-ray edition of Vampyr. I seem to remember when they released it on DVD (back in 2008) they decided the print quality wasn’t up to HD standard (although they released their first Blu-rays in 2009, so maybe I’m misremembering), but it’s since been restored; plus they’ve added new special features and a big ol’ booklet. It’s a film I had mixed/muted feelings about when I finally watched it last year, which was part of my reluctance to upgrade, but then I guess I got FOMO about a limited-edition pretty Masters of Cinema release. But hey, the film merits a revisit, and this will encourage me to do so… some day…

The Jubilatious Monthly Review of May 2022

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Of course, May had nothing to do with the jubilee (other than some precursor events), and the actual long weekend doesn’t start until tomorrow, so this post title is… not the best. But we’ll probably have forgotten it ever happened in 30 days’ time, so I’m not holding back the reference ’til June’s review.

Anyway, let’s put largely irrelevant naming issues aside and get on with last month’s viewing…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#31 The Monolith Monsters (1957) — Decades #11
#32 Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) — WDYMYHS #4
#33 Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) — New Film #5
#34 On the Town (1949) — Rewatch #5
#35 To Be or Not to Be (1942) — Blindspot #5


  • I watched seven feature films I’d never seen before in May.
  • Four of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • Those are less than ideal numbers — I should be at #41 by now, really. Next month marks the halfway point of the year, of course, but I’m really going to have to step things up to get to #50 by then.
  • One of the films I watched this month that didn’t count was Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. It’s part of an ongoing series I’m watching — the MCU — so why doesn’t it count for Series Progression? Well, my personal rule when I count ‘series I’m in the middle of watching’ is that they’re series that have already finished, or where I’m catching up. Series where the next instalment isn’t even out yet can’t count because it doesn’t ‘exist’ yet. Sometimes, however, a new release can count, as with Encanto for Disney Classics last month, because I’m still watching older films as part of my catchup, so new releases get added to the end of the list. Does that make sense? Is it fair?
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Ernst Lubitsch’s anti-Nazi satire To Be or Not to Be.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Woody Allen’s comedy-drama Hannah and Her Sisters. Regular readers may remember I needed to watch two WDYMYHS films this month to catch up. Well, I didn’t, so that goal is now bumped to next month.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Monolith Monsters (from Eureka’s Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror set).



The 84th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing truly exceptional this month, as is perhaps given away by the fact I’m going to choose an MCU film as my favourite. Obviously Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ticks the usual MCU boxes, but it mixes in a healthy dose of martial arts action-fantasy filmmaking — another (sub)genre I enjoy — making for an all-round entertaining MCU debut for the eponymous hero. It’s not the kind of film that’s going to convert nonbelievers, but it’s good fun.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This is easily This Means War, the action-adventure/rom-com mashup starring Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as BFF CIA agents who both fall for Reese Witherspoon. It’s kinda adequate as a movie desperate to appeal to both male and female viewers, but kinda fails both by trying to be two different things at once and nailing neither.

Monster That Isn’t Really a Monster of the Month
I guess The Monolith Monsters was so titled to cash in on the popularity of monster movies in the ’50s, but the titular terror isn’t really a monster at all — it’s an extraterrestrial geological phenomena. On the bright side, at least that’s something a bit different.

Most Aspirational Lifestyle (for Some People) of the Month
In my review of tick, tick… BOOM! this month, I wrote that it would appeal to some people who dream of living that lifestyle. The same could absolutely be said of Frances Ha, which is about twentysomethings failing at life… but coolly, in black & white, in New York City. Well, if you only dream of failure, at least you’re less likely to be disappointed by reality, right?

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
A series of posts I started this year has been growing in popularity month on month… Well, I say that: I’m not sure its actual numbers have been going up, so much as the rest of the viewing chart has been falling away around it. Anyway, for the first time, this month’s most-viewed new post is a ‘failures’ post; namely, April’s Failures (of course). I guess people are more interested to read about what I didn’t watch than what I did. Weird.



Every review posted this month, including new titles and the Archive 5


…marks the halfway point of the year — yes, already! — so I might indulge in a few bonus statistics.