As the year reaches its quarterway point, my eponymous goal has (not for the first time) passed the halfway point. That and other equally delightful observations from my March viewing now follow…
#38 Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
#39 In & Out (1997)
#40 The Jungle Book 3D (2016)
#41 Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
#42 Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
#43 Happy Death Day (2017)
#44 Death at a Funeral (2007)
#45 Annihilation (2018)
#46 Death at a Funeral (2010)
#47 Transformers: The Last Knight 3D (2017)
#48 The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
#49 Black Narcissus (1947)
#50 Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword (1964), aka Zatōichi abare tako
#51 Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
#52 Victoria & Abdul (2017)
#53 Benji (2018)
#54 Cars 3 3D (2017)
#55 It Comes at Night (2017)
#56 The Hangover Part II (2011)
#57 Rocky (1976)
#57a The Silent Child (2017)
- This month’s 21 new feature films see me sail past the halfway mark.
- I viewed #50 on 22nd March, which is the second earliest I’ve reached that milestone (behind 2016, when it was on 6th March).
- 21 is the same number of new films as last month, both of which are ahead of January, so it again raises the 2018 average, from exactly 18 to exactly 19.
- It also surpasses the rolling average of the last 12 months, but it’s only a sliver higher than March 2017, which means it only increases the average from 15.1 to 15.2.
- The 2018 Oscar winner for Best Live Action Short Film, The Silent Child, becomes the first short I’ve watched this year. (The previous low for number of shorts watched in a year was 2014, with just two, so I only need to watch a couple more in the next nine months to avoid that fate.)
- This month’s Blindspot film: Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus, which I selected because it was on TV shortly afterwards and it’s always nice to a tie a review to something. But then I had conflicted feelings about the film, so no review yet while I continue to ponder it.
- This month’s WDYMYHS film is the Best Picture Winner that inspired a nation, apparently: the original Rocky. Now, just six more of them to go…
The 34th Monthly Arbitrary Awards
Favourite Film of the Month
There wasn’t a single 5-star film this month, but I do have a solid array of 4-star-ers to choose from for this award. Similarly, while there were a couple of very acclaimed features amongst my March viewing, I think the movie I most enjoyed was Groundhog Day-meets-Scream horror flick Happy Death Day, which I can’t help but feel has been somewhat underrated.
Least Favourite Film of the Month
There were also very few disasters this month. That said, I did finally get round to Where the Wild Things Are and was thoroughly disappointed. However, while that may’ve been the greatest gulf between my hopes and the reality, I’m still going to plump for the remake of Death at a Funeral in this category — I may’ve had low expectations, but it still didn’t meet them.
Most Prolific Director of the Month
I watched three films directed by Frank Oz this month — not deliberately, it was just one of those random coincidences. He’s only directed 12 films, so that’s a full quarter of them. They were: In & Out (which has been available to stream on Sky Cinema for years and goes on my “to watch” long-list every time I get a subscription; this year, it actually made it, on Oscars Sunday (if you’ve not seen the film, it was appropriate viewing for the occasion)); Death at a Funeral (for a while I’ve wanted to watch both this and its remake side by side, and one each was available on Netflix and Sky Cinema while I happened to have both services (a rare occurrence)); and, finally, The Muppets Take Manhattan (because I’m gradually making my way through all the Muppet movies (this is the third)). Review spoiler: I gave them all 3 stars.
Most Number of Film Series I’ve Been in the Middle of Watching at Once (Probably)
While I was watching Rocky towards the end of the month, I realised that technically meant I’d embarked on watching the Rocky series; and that made me realise how many film series I’m in the middle of right now. Not counting ones that we’re all in the middle of while we await further instalments to be released, but including rewatches as well as first-time viewings, I reckon I’m currently partway through fourteen different series (“series” being anything that’s a trilogy or greater). Those include, in alphabetical order: the Back to the Future trilogy, Die Hard, the Disney canon, the Hangover trilogy, James Bond, Jaws, the Man With No Name trilogy, Mission: Impossible, the Muppets, Rocky, Shrek, Terminator (though I only really intend to follow up December’s viewing of The Terminator with T2 in 3D and then stop, so maybe it shouldn’t count), Twilight, and Zatoichi. Phew! (And I still feel like I’ve forgotten something…)
The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
For much of the month my review of much-discussed Netflix “original” Annihilation was in pole position here, but in the last week it’s been pipped by my monthly TV column — the first time that’s bagged the award this year, but (based on last year) surely not the last.
After last month’s larger-than-average selection, this one is half as big… but that still leaves me slightly ahead of target.
#11 Bad Boys (1995)
#12 The Jungle Book (2016)
#13 Bad Boys II (2003)
Like The Love Punch last month, The Jungle Book earns a speedy rewatch by being all-round family entertainment (and by being freshly added to Netflix the day we watched it, too). Similarly facilitated by a streaming service, I’ve been intending to rewatch and reassess the Bad Boyses for a while, and the opportunity presented itself while I had Sky Cinema to watch the Oscars.
Next month, hopefully I’ll get back to my Shrek and Mission: Impossible series rewatches. Plus, perhaps a Marvel or two before Infinity War arrives.
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Episode XIX.
When the first season of Jessica Jones debuted 28 months ago it was practically a cultural phenomenon. Its fresh, unique take on the superhero genre marked it out as noteworthy even at a time when there are innumerable other films and series in that space. A large part of that was the intelligent and grounded way it engaged with some thorny issues, making it a critical darling and attracting audience admiration too. So I’ve been a little surprised that no one really seems to be talking about season two. Perhaps it’s just me and my little internet bubble, but since the flurry of pre-release reviews I’ve heard nary a whisper. I’m sure there must be reviews and recaps out there, which I wasn’t seeking out so as to avoid spoilers, but I didn’t stumble across any either.
And that’s not to say these series never work in episodic form. For instance, events at the start of episode five, AKA The Octopus, see Jessica begin to force herself to be a better person. It’s one of the season’s strongest episodes, in part because of this burst of character development. Okay, it’s a bit blunt, in that she’s told she needs to improve and we see her consciously trying, but it pays off in a scene where she has to be empathetic to question a mentally-impaired witness. It’s not only Jessica who benefits from development: supporting cast members like Malcolm, Trish, and Jeri get meaty subplots to tuck into. Jeri’s is the best — indeed, her storyline might be the strongest bit of the entire season. There’s a fantastic, nuanced performance from Carrie Anne Moss — it feels like they’ve really worked to make use of her in a storyline that’s far more emotional and nuanced than what she’s had previously in these shows.
For me, it lost its way a bit again in the final pair of episodes — there are still really good bits, but others feel like a wearisome rehash of plot beats familiar from other superhero/thriller series. Eventually it comes to a good ending — there’s a surprising resolution to the plot, plus an epilogue that lays some intriguing hints for a third season (an inevitability, surely?) — but the faffery of episodes 12 and 13 to get us there… there were more streamlined ways to do this, I think. Or, considering the mandated episode count they have, more interesting ways to have spent the time. So it’s not perfect, but it’s still one of the best of the half-dozen Netflix/Marvel shows.
The latest Strike adaptation (and the last for at least a couple of years) was the best so far, I thought — a mysterious, reasonably complicated case, and plenty of character stuff for our likeable pair of heroes, too. The latter is certainly a big part of the series and its appeal, sometimes to the detriment of the actual investigation storyline, I suspect. By which I refer to the fact that some fans of the books have complained that the series isn’t devoting enough time to each adaptation, necessitating big cuts to the plot to fit into just two hours. I’ve not read them myself, and such editing didn’t feel noticeable during 
In almost the polar opposite to Strike, Shetland is no longer based on the books that inspired it (even though I believe there are one or two they’ve not adapted), and it takes a whole six episodes to tell its story. Actually, I feel a bit daft calling Strike’s case “complicated” now, because it’s as nothing to this series of Shetland, which sees DI Perez and his team struggling with both a 23-year-old cold case, which has resurfaced because the convicted murderer has just been awarded a mistrial, and a new murder with clear echoes of the first. If that wasn’t enough, the investigation leads them to Norway, where both the suspicious activities of an oil drilling firm and the plotting of a far right nationalist group come into play. Shetland has always had a bit of Scandi Noir about it (must be something to do with the cold northern environs), but it strays even further into that territory by, you know, actually going there.
Not a reality show about manicurists (that’s what it sounds like, doesn’t it? If I was making a reality show about manicurists I’d be annoyed this took my title), but rather Netflix’s answer to The Great British Bake Off (possibly literally: they were miffed they didn’t get a chance to bid for it when it went to Channel 4). It’s not about super-skilled amateur bakers, though, but rather normal folk who attempt the kind of grand bakes you sometimes see online… and fail miserably. It’s like that bit of An Extra Slice where they look at viewers’ photos, only turned into a whole programme. It’s also very American — brash, loud, fast, unnuanced… It’s also the way it’s shot and edited, very much more like American reality series than British ones, but I shan’t bore you with a Media Studies-esque explanation of that.
Having finally finished Castle last month, there was a gap in our viewing schedule for a light crime-of-the-week cop show. Lucifer seemed to fit the bill. For one thing, it’s been knocking around for a few years now, meaning there’s a nice backlog of episodes to get through. Loosely inspired by a DC comic, it’s about the actual Devil quitting Hell and setting up a life in Los Angeles, where — for one reason or another — he ends up helping the police investigate murders. Meanwhile, he enters therapy, and there’s an angel knocking around who wants to drag him back to Hell. The series nicely balances the bog-standard US-cop-show case-of-the-week stuff with the ongoing fantastical subplots, powered by a cast of engaging characters with conflicting motives. Best of all is the lead, Tom Ellis, giving a deliciously charming and slightly camp turn as the Prince of Darkness himself as he tries to become a better person. I’m not sure the series has really made any waves (especially on this side of the pond, what with it being an Amazon Prime exclusive here), but it’s really rather good. I mean, it’s not going to be challenging Quality TV for greatest-of-all-time status — it’s still a case-of-the-week buddy show when you boil it down — but it’s done well and a lot of fun.
This month, I have mostly been missing The X Files season 11, which finished earlier this week in the US (and comes to the same end here in the UK with a double-bill on Monday). I watched (and reviewed, natch) its first episode 
Adapted from the series of novels by Robert Galbraith — the mystery-writing pseudonym of one J.K. Rowling — you might’ve assumed this would’ve followed in the footsteps of the author’s other literary series and have Hollywood come a-knocking. Maybe they did, but TV is a more natural home for the material: it’s a decent low-key murder mystery with appealing lead characters, which is the sort of stuff that can generate TV ratings but doesn’t spell box office nowadays (well, unless it’s Murder on the Orient Express, with its $350 million worldwide gross, but that’s a different kettle of fish). While the general shape of the drama is familiar from, well, every other TV detective show, Rowling’s well-known interest in social issues regularly comes through — not least in its two main characters, one of whom is a war veteran living with the realities of an amputation, the other a talented woman finding equality in the workplace. I suppose that’s all very timely.
Having blown the doors off its own enjoyable premise with a clever twist at the end of 
Stana “Beckett from Castle” Katic stars in this mystery-thriller, an Amazon exclusive in the US and UK (and everywhere else there’s Amazon Video, I presume). She plays FBI agent Emily Byrne, who was declared dead in absentia after she disappeared while on the hunt for a serial killer. Six years later, she turns up alive, apparently having been held captive all that time — even though the main suspect was convicted of her murder and has been in prison. Events quickly take a turn where her former colleagues wonder if Emily was in on it too, meaning she has to go on the run to prove her innocence. Of course, none of those people ever stop to wonder what she’s actually been up to for six years (it’s not like the killings continued), or why she’d decide to fake her comeback now, or… all sorts of other things. A subplot with her kid — who was too young to remember her, and now has a new real mom because his dad remarried — has emotional potential, but goes a bit too swimmingly at first and then is soon abandoned in favour of shoot outs, and unearthed skeletons (both figuratively and literally), and all that mystery-thriller stuff. So this isn’t one to think about too much, in any respect, but it’s passably entertaining as a pulp thriller. I’m going to stick with it until the end, at least, but I kinda hope it doesn’t try to end on a cliffhanger — I’m not sure I want a whole other season (or two, or three, or more).
The second season of The X Files since its revival only recently started airing in the UK, but we’ve caught up as far as episode three now. Well, the broadcasts have — I’ve only watched the first episode, and it was so goddamn terrible I’ve not had the heart to continue. (I will, I’ve just not mustered the motivation yet.) Said opener was My Struggle III, continuing the series’ never-ending mythology arc plot, which last season (two years ago now!) was covered in My Struggle I and My Struggle II. Well, at least the mythology episodes are clearly marked these days — there’s a My Struggle IV later in the season, for our sins.
I’ve had this knocking around waiting to be watched for yonks after I picked up the complete series DVD set on offer. (“For yonks” being “since 2015” in this case.) I remember seeing some episodes as a child and enjoying them, though I don’t remember any specifics. I guess they were from the show’s later, crazier, full-colour years, because these early black-and-white adventures don’t quite chime with that vague sense-memory of what the show should be. That said, although they start out almost serious (as ’60s spy-fi goes, anyway), by just a couple of episodes in there’s already a kookier side on display. Anyhow, I expect the best is yet to come.
This one-off feature-length comedy aired at the end of last year, presumably timed to tie-in with the theatrical release of Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express — as the spoofing poster highlights, of course. (Who thought I’d wind up referencing that film twice in a TV column nearly four months after it came out? I really ought to get on with reviewing it…) Truthfully, that poster is probably the best thing about this. There’s a large cast, all recognisable from a host of British sitcoms, but half of them go underused. Those that do have a part to play get material that’s fairly amusing, amid a plot that’s somewhere between predictable and too mad to be guessable. It was funny enough on balance, but it didn’t live up to its full potential.
This month, I have mostly been missing Altered Carbon, Netflix’s cyberpunk murder mystery. Reviews looked to be mixed, so I haven’t actually decided whether to bother with it or not. Two series I will definitely (intend to) get round to, but I’m saving up to binge once they’re done, are: BBC Two’s starry political thriller Collateral (led by Carey Mulligan, John Simm, Billie Piper, and no doubt some actors who haven’t had significant roles in Doctor Who. FYI, it’s coming to other counties as a Netflix “Original” next month); and the latest run of Scottish detective drama Shetland (the last series of which was 
Despite the massive hype, I missed this when it aired. I say “missed” — I always intend to watch these big natural history shows, then never get round to them. I confess, it was new tech that persuaded me: after I saw it was all available in UHD on iPlayer, I had to give that a go. And…
Now, I didn’t do a comparison to the regular HD stream, so I can’t really say how much better the UHD made things, but I do have a few observations. Related to it looking “more real”, after viewing I saw a good resolution photo taken for the series of one creature (
As I mentioned 
This month, I have mostly been missing the BBC’s pair of big, grim January dramas, McMafia and Hard Sun. They both seem to have received a very mixed reaction (not that I’ve been following too closely because, y’know, spoilers), but both have intriguing setups: the former a drama about the global business of the Russian mafia inspired by a non-fiction book; the latter a pre-apocalyptic sci-fi/crime thriller from the creator of 
100Films.co.uk 