Tag Archives: 100 Films in a Year Challenge

Blindspot 2023

Posted on by
5

This is my 11th year doing a version of Blindspot (not to mention that various other bloggers do it too… or used to. Do other people still do this? Is there a whole world of it going on that I’m somehow cut off from? Or am I a lone proponent, still plugging ahead with a near-decade-old fad, because I really like it? I don’t know…)

Anyway, if you somehow still don’t know what it is or how it works, the premise is simple: choose 12 films you should have seen but haven’t, then watch one a month throughout the year. (My 12 also contribute to my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.)

Some people just choose their 12 films. I normally do it via an elaborate system of compiling “great movies” lists in various configurations to spit out some general consensus of which 12 well-regarded films I should watch next, rejigging which lists are included and how they’re factored in to provide new results each year. But 2023 is a bit different, thanks to a significant event last month: the publication of a new edition of Sight & Sound’s decennial 100 Greatest Movies poll, one of — nay, the most widely respected list of its kind among cinephiles. There were 27 films I hadn’t seen on the latest edition of the list — more than enough to fuel my Blindspot selections for this year.

I’ll explain how I whittled those 27 down (it wasn’t a long process, but it’s more than just “the top 12”) after listing the films themselves. In the order they ranked in Sight & Sound’s poll, this year I must watch…

Jeanne Dielman…

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Beau Travail

Beau Travail

Cléo from 5 to 7

Cléo from 5 to 7

Close-Up

Close-Up

Au hasard Balthazar

Au hasard Balthazar

Shoah

Shoah

Killer of Sheep

Killer of Sheep

Fear Eats the Soul

Fear Eats the Soul

A Brighter Summer Day

A Brighter Summer Day

Pierrot le Fou

Pierrot le Fou

Tropical Malady

Tropical Malady

Black Girl

Black Girl

With just 12 slots but 27 films I hadn’t seen, obviously I had to pare the list down somehow. One method would’ve been to just take the 12 highest ranked — they’re meant to be the best of the best, after all. But that didn’t allow for the fact that, to be blunt, there were films further down the list that I was more interested in seeing. Another method would’ve been to run the 27 films through one of my usual list-of-lists calculations and see which 12 emerged victorious. But in a year where I’d simplified the selection process, it seemed silly to overcomplicated it again.

So, here’s what happened: I already owned some of the films on disc; when the list came out, after I had a look at it, there were a couple of highly-ranked films that I’d already been considering purchasing, so I ordered them; and there were a few more that, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to, um, download. When I stopped to take stock of this flurry of activity, the number of films in my possession added up to 13. They weren’t necessarily the films I had envisioned being in my final 12 (for starters, two from the top 50 were missing), but there we were.

The only remaining question: which to ditch? It was nearly Au hasard Balthazar. I wasn’t sure I’m ready for the “a donkey’s miserable life” movie. I’m still not. But this seemed as good a time as any to bite the bullet and get it seen. What about approaching it from the other angle — which had to be included? Well, I don’t think I’m going to like Jeanne Dielman, but I’ve felt I should watch it for some time now… and, more importantly, it’s #1 — of course #1 had to go in! Then there’s the ones I already owned on disc: Shoah, A Brighter Summer Day, and Black Girl (also Yi Yi, but that was on last year’s list, so I ruled it out on the presumption I’d watch it in December. Oops). Then, the ones I’d freshly ordered: Beau Travail and Close-Up. Even if I hadn’t bought them, both are among the top four I hadn’t seen.

That just left narrowing the remaining seven downloads to six. I could talk you through my process, such as it was, on a film by film basis, but in the end it came down to a gut feeling. You can already see which films made it in — the loser, for what it’s worth, was Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life. I couldn’t really tell you why; it’s just what I decided.

One other thing: I can’t usually have wildcards from Blindspot — it’s a list of 12 films taking up 12 slots; there aren’t any to be wildcards. But this year is an exception in that respect, too: I figure that, as the entire list is chosen from Sight & Sound’s list, then the 15 unchosen films were the only other eligible options, and therefore they could be eligible for wildcard slots. Disagree? Tough, it’s my game. Will I actually watch any of them, when getting through the 12 actual picks can be challenge enough some years? Maybe not. But the possibility is there.

Before we leave Blindspot behind and head to “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” (or, if you’ve come to this post second, before you head back to your life), here’s a dash of additional info. You see, just because these 12 films were all taken from the Sight & Sound list, that doesn’t mean they don’t contribute towards my completion of other lists — unsurprisingly, there’s some degree of overlap between different “great films” lists. So, in case you were curious (because I was), other key lists that some of these films appear on (at time of writing) include…

TSPDT’s The 1,000 Greatest Films (16th edition) — all 12, ranging from 34th (Au hasard Balthazar) to 869th (Black Girl).

BBC’s The 100 Greatest Foreign-Language Films — Jeanne Dielman; Beau Travail; Cléo from 5 to 7; Close-Up; Au hasard Balthazar; Shoah; Fear Eats the Soul; A Brighter Summer Day; Pierrot le Fou.

BBC’s The 100 Greatest Films Directed by Women — Jeanne Dielman; Beau Travail; Cléo from 5 to 7.

iCheckMovies’s Most Favorited — Jeanne Dielman; Close-Up; A Brighter Summer Day.

Letterboxd’s Top 250 Narrative Feature Films — Jeanne Dielman; A Brighter Summer Day.

IMDb’s Top 250 — nothing (can’t say I’m surprised).

The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge, Mk.II

Posted on by
17

Alright, here we go: after spending the first week of 2023 wrapping up 2022, it’s finally time to move on to the new year.

For the 17th year in a row, I’m going to attempt to watch 100 films in a year. But, for the second year in a row, that’s not just any old 100 films: following on from last year’s grand re-envisioning of the challenge, it’s 100 films that fulfil certain categories and criteria. Those categories and criteria have undergone some changes, however — hence Mk.II.

When I conceived of this new-style challenge, it was always my intention to vary the categories somewhat year by year (there was a reason last year’s goal of watching 12 film noirs came in a category called “Genre”, not “Film Noir”), but actually undertaking it for a year has thrown up a few pointers about how it could work better, or cases in which the rules needed to be clearer. Consequently, some of this year’s categories are mere refinements on what went before, while others are the same but with new contents, and a couple have been replaced wholesale for the sake of variety.

The one rule that applies across all categories: a film can only count once. Sounds kinda obvious, but the categories are not mutually exclusive — I could watch a DVD of a film in this year’s genre that’s also part of a series, and technically that could count in any one of three categories. Similarly, if I rewatch a film that I’ve already counted, the rewatch can’t count. As a separate viewing, it sort of still fulfils the criteria, but I feel it’s better to have 100 totally unique films. (It also means I can accurately track my progress in a list on Letterboxd, whereas I couldn’t if repeats were allowed.)

With that said, this year’s categories are…

New Films

x12. Any film that’s general release date (i.e. not festival screenings, etc) in the UK (i.e. not in the US, nor any other country) is between 1st January 2023 and 31st December 2023. Maximum one per month (but rolls over if I fail to watch one).

Rewatches

x12. Any film I’ve seen before (unless it’s already been counted in 2023’s Challenge). Maximum one per month (with rollovers, as above).

Blindspot

x12. Films I feel I should have seen, or that “great movies” lists tell me I should have seen. Not just any old films, but 12 films specifically chosen and named in advance. Designed to be watched one per month, but doesn’t have to be. I’ll name this year’s 12 in their own post soon. Teaser: the recent publication of Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade poll has had a significant bearing on this year’s choices…

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

x12. Similar to Blindspot, in that they’re 12 specifically chosen films to be watched one per month, but these are all based around a theme. This year’s theme: film noir. “Hold up,” I hear you say, “wasn’t film noir a different category last year?” Why yes, it was 2022’s Genre. What’s different about it being 2023’s WDYMYHS theme? I’ll explain when I name the 12 specific films in their own post, soon.

Failures

x12. Every month, I list my “failures” — new releases or purchases that I failed to watch in the previous month. Sometimes, I catch up on some of them. Often, I don’t. Making it a Challenge category will hopefully force my hand. As with new films and rewatches, it’s a maximum of one per month, but rolls over if necessary.

Genre

x10. Any films from within a specified genre. Unlike most of the above categories, these can be watched at any time — maybe I’ll spread them throughout the year; maybe I’ll binge them all back to back. Most likely it’ll be somewhere between the two. This year’s genre: giallo.

Series Progression

x10. Any instalment in a film series I’m already watching (there’s a Letterboxd list of them here). If I start a new series, either by accident or choice, the first film can’t count, but any further films can. I thought about replacing this category, but while I’ve still got so many series on the go, I wanted to keep the incentive to push on with them.

Physical Media

x10. Last year, I had a whole category dedicated to DVDs, because I’ve got so many of them that I’ve never watched. Frankly, it’s a category I thought I’d change — but I have so many unwatched discs, it needs to stick around if it’s to make any serious dent in its purpose. However, I’ve widened it this year, because I also have a massive pile of unwatched 3D and UHD Blu-rays. So, not any physical media counts, just those three formats. I know that makes the category title inaccurate, but “DVDs and 3D Blu-rays and 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays” seemed unwieldy. As with genre and series films, these can be watched at any time.

Wildcards

x10. Last year, every category had 12 films, leaving an awkward four spare. My solution was to make them ‘wildcards’ that could be added to any category, thus turning a bug into a feature. That feature had the potential to be so useful that I’ve expanded it.

You see, towards the end of 2022, the Challenge was dictating my viewing more than I would like. I wanted to catch up on recent releases, and also watch some Christmassy fare, but none of those films would have qualified for the Challenge, and I still had a couple of dozen films left to complete it, so I felt forced to watch DVDs and film noirs and so on instead. Okay, that’s partly my own fault for not getting on with them earlier in the year; but this new-style Challenge was always going to be a work in progress, so I thought that, for Year Two, I’d build in a potential fix. Hence: the revised wildcard category.

As you can see, I’ve more than doubled the quotient, and I’m removing the limit of one wildcard per category (as there are only eight other categories, that wouldn’t work anyway). These ‘new’ wildcards still need to be attached to an existing category, but it can happen as often per category as I want (provided the category’s requirements have already been met, e.g. no 11th Genre film until I’ve filled the original ten). I imagine, therefore, that these will mostly get used on additional new films, perhaps rewatches and failures, but who knows? We’ll see how it goes… and change it again for 2024, if needs be.

All that make sense? If not, let me remind you that you don’t really need to worry about any of this — it’s only me who has to work it out.

As the year goes on, you can follow my progress on the Challenge Tracker page, and also via my monthly reviews; or there’s always my Letterboxd for the guaranteed most up-to-date status of my film logging.

2022: The List

Posted on by
2

Things have been a bit different at 100 Films this year. Was it only a year ago that I relaunched the site? Somehow it feels like it’s always been this way… Well, that’s because the new style is quite well bedded in now, and I haven’t had to really think about it for ten or eleven months.

But now that the year is over, the fact things have changed reemerges, with the question: how does it affect my end-of-year roundup posts? I’m afraid I’ve been a little unimaginative, because the answer is “not very much”. The main change is a new addition: the Final Standing I posted the other day, showing the end position of my 100 Films in a Year Challenge. Other than that, anyone who’s been reading the blog for 13 months or more is going to find what follows pretty familiar.

In this post, there’s a list of all my first-time watches in 2022, as well as any rewatches that have received (or I’m intending to give) the “Guide To” treatment. There’s also links to my monthly progress reports, using their header images to present a kind of visual summation of the year — although that’s now a visual summation of my progress with the Challenge, rather than everything I watched.

Future posts will also continue as in previous years: first, a statistical breakdown of all my viewing; then, lists of my favourite and least-favourite films I saw for the first time this year.


Below is a graphical representation of my viewing for the 100 Films in a Year Challenge, month by month. Each image links to the relevant monthly review, which contain a chronological list of my Challenge viewing, as well as other exciting stuff, like my monthly Arbie awards.

Leaving the Challenge behind, here is an alphabetical list of all my first-time watches during 2022. That’s followed by a list of rewatches that have had (or will have) ‘Guide To’ posts, then short films I watched for the first time. Where a title is a link, it goes to my review; when there’s no link, it’s because I haven’t reviewed it yet.

The 100 Films Guide To…
Shorts
  • Absence (2015)
  • The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)
  • The Infernal Cauldron (1903), aka Le chaudron infernal
  • Life of an American Fireman (1903)
  • Lupin the Third: Is Lupin Still Burning? (2018)
  • The One-Man Band (1900), aka L’Homme orchestre
Ambulance

Carry On Spying

Cobra

Disenchanted

Enola Holmes 2

The Flying Deuces

He Walked by Night

Jackass: The Movie

Manhunter

The Monolith Monsters

Ode to Joy

Prey

See How They Run

The Thrill of It All

Tintin and the Lake of Sharks

A Woman Under the Influence

Scream

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

.

The above list gets analysed to pieces in my annual statistics breakdown (hurrah!)

The Failed Monthly Review of December 2022

Posted on by
1

The end of the first year of new-style 100 Films is here, and what has it brought? Failure, that’s what. But I’ve already talked about that (although I’ll mention it again before this post is done), so let’s move on to what I did watch last month…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#82 Doctor Who Am I (2022) — New Film #12
#83 Quatermass 2 (1957) — Series Progression #8
#84 Christmas Holiday (1944) — Genre #9
#85 Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) — Blindspot #11
#86 Avatar (2009) — Rewatch #12
#87 I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (1948) — Genre #10
#88 Jackass 3D (2010) — Series Progression #9
#89 Mr. Soft Touch (1949) — Genre #11


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in December.
  • That means I failed to reach my ten-film target for the seventh time this year.
  • That’s a very different story to last year, when December tallied 20+ films for the first time ever; the final month to do so. In 2022, no month reached 20 films — the first time that’s happened since 2014.
  • Back then, the best month was September with 17 films. This year, it’s February, with just 13. That makes it the lowest “best month” since 2012, when (coincidentally) it was also February on 13. They’re tied (along with February and March 2011) as the lowest “best month of a year”s ever.
  • Falling short for more than half the year is reflected in the monthly average for 2022, which ends up at 9.25.
  • Seven of the eight films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • It would’ve been more if I hadn’t decided to abandon the Challenge shortly before the end of the year. There’s an explanation about my reasons for doing so at that link, so I won’t rehash them here; but I will add that, with hindsight, I made the right decision. Rather than having a hectic last week or so where I rushed to cram in qualifying films, I’ve had a leisurely and relaxing Christmas. (And I’ve had a rotten cold, so I needed that rest.)
  • All of this month’s Genre (i.e. noir) films were Christmas-themed ones. They’re not a natural fit, the optimism of Christmas and the bleakness of noir, but some filmmakers tried nonetheless; not many, but a few. In fact, I did have a couple more lined up, but didn’t get round to them. Maybe this time next year.
  • I didn’t get to the cinema for Avatar: The Way of Water, but I did rewatch the original film, for the first time since I saw it in the cinema, 13 years ago. Despite owning four different versions of it on Blu-ray (three different cuts in 2D, plus the theatrical cut in 3D), I was at my parents’ so we watched it on Disney+. Typical. (Sadly, they haven’t yet put up the revised version that had a cinema release earlier this year (I believe it was re-rendered in 4K with some use of HFR). I guess that’ll arrive, possibly with some fanfare, at a later date.)
  • Despite its title, I watched Jackass 3D in 2D (which is still titled Jackass 3D — obviously, otherwise I’d’ve used a different title). I did try to find a true 3D copy, but failed (I don’t think it was ever released on 3D Blu-ray; I guess it never will be now).
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Les Enfants du Paradis, aka Children of Paradise. That means I failed to watch one film from this year’s list, Yi Yi.
  • There were no WDYMYHS films this month, unfortunately, meaning I failed to watch The Name of the Rose or The Transformers: The Movie. Even considering that I abandoned the Challenge, I should’ve really tried harder to get at least one of those in. Oh well.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched Doctor Who Am I.



The 91st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
A couple of enjoyable flicks this month, but the artistic standout is French epic Les Enfants du Paradis. Once voted the greatest French film of all time — and, by implication (because you know the French), the greatest film of all time — it’s the kind of standing it deserves to be re-elevated to.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing truly terrible this month, which always makes it a bit hard to judge this category. I mean, it feels kinda cruel picking, say, Doctor Who Am I, because it wasn’t bad — it’s been widely praised, even — but it didn’t deliver all I might’ve hoped for. Alternatively, there’s Jackass 3D, which, again, isn’t bad — assuming you don’t just fundamentally object to the premise, that is — but does feel a bit like it’s a franchise running on fumes. And it bugged the hell out of me that I couldn’t watch it in 3D.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Far and away my most popular post this month — not just of new posts, but all-time; and with ten times as many hits as the post in second place — was my summation of Sight & Sound’s The 100 Greatest Films of All Time (2022 edition). I guess it was timely and newsworthy (even if I posted my piece about 24 hours after the news broke), and people love a list.



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


Although the new-style 100 Films Challenge has reshaped things somewhat this year, this is the last post that will focus on it. Over the coming days there’ll be my usual array of look-backs at the year just gone, with a list of all the new films I watched this year, plus statistics and my Best and Worst lists drawn from that pool.

And then it will be on into 2023, with a slightly rejigged Challenge that I’ll hopefully find more completable.

100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022: Final Standing

Posted on by
2

As the challenge tracker page will soon be replaced with a version keeping tabs on 2023’s effort, here’s an archive of how it looked at the very end of 2022 — sadly incomplete, after I chose to abandon it. Hopefully I’ll fare better in 2023.

On this page, I’ll track my progress with The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge. Learn more about the challenge here.

New Films

  1. Mass (2021)
  2. The Misfits (2021)
  3. Django & Django (2021)
  4. Death on the Nile (2022)
  5. Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)
  6. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
  7. Ambulance (2022)
  8. Prey (2022)
  9. Persuasion (2022)
  10. Scream (2022)
  11. See How They Run (2022)
  12. Doctor Who Am I (2022)

Rewatches

  1. Gosford Park (2001)
  2. A Room with a View (1985)
  3. West Side Story (1961)
  4. The Father (2020)
  5. On the Town (1949)
  6. Top Gun (1986)
  7. Calamity Jane (1953)
  8. Batman: Dead End (2003)
  9. Paddington 2 (2017)
  10. The Two Faces of January (2014)
  11. Enola Holmes 2 (2022)
  12. Avatar (2009)

Blindspot

  1. L’avventura (1960)
  2. Los Olvidados (1950)
  3. A Man Escaped (1956)
  4. High and Low (1963)
  5. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
  6. Paris, Texas (1984)
  7. Mirror (1975)
  8. La Grande Illusion (1937)
  9. Come and See (1985)
  10. A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
  11. Les Enfants du Paradis (1945)
  12. Yi Yi

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

  1. Flight of the Navigator (1986)
  2. She’s Gotta Have It (1986)
  3. Cobra (1986)
  4. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
  5. Pretty in Pink (1986)
  6. A Better Tomorrow (1986)
  7. Mona Lisa (1986)
  8. The Mission (1986)
  9. Howard the Duck (1986)
  10. Manhunter (1986)
  11. The Name of the Rose
  12. The Transformers: The Movie

Decades

  1. Broken Blossoms (1919)
  2. The Navigator (1924)
  3. Shot in the Dark (1933)
  4. Penny Serenade (1941)
  5. The Monolith Monsters (1957)
  6. Carry On Spying (1964)
  7. The Hobbit (1977)
  8. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
  9. In the Line of Fire (1993)
  10. Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper (2004)
  11. Voyage of Time: An IMAX Documentary (2016)
  12. Free Guy (2021)

DVDs

  1. Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise (2007)
  2. Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969)
  3. The Flying Deuces (1939)
  4. Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015)
  5. Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972)
  6. Clerks (1994)
  7. Walk the Line (2005)
  8. The Mindscape of Alan Moore (2003)
  9. The Blues Brothers (1980)
  10. 3 to go…
  11. 2 to go…
  12. 1 to go…

Genre: Film Noir

  1. Escape in the Fog (1945)
  2. My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)
  3. Johnny Gunman (1957)
  4. Repeat Performance (1947)
  5. He Walked by Night (1948)
  6. The Guilty (1947)
  7. Killer’s Kiss (1955)
  8. The Killing (1956)
  9. Christmas Holiday (1944)
  10. I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (1948)
  11. Mr. Soft Touch (1949)
  12. 1 to go…

Series Progression

  1. Jackass Number Two (2006)
  2. Encanto (2021)
  3. Scream 2 (1997)
  4. The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Case (1932)
  5. Scream 3 (2000)
  6. Scre4m (2011)
  7. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
  8. Quatermass 2 (1957)
  9. Jackass 3D (2010)
  10. 3 to go…
  11. 2 to go…
  12. 1 to go…

Wildcards

  1. Munich: The Edge of War (2021) — additional ‘New Film’ in April
  2. Scream (1996) — additional ‘Rewatch’ in June
  3. The Thrill of It All (1963) — additional ‘Decade’ for the 1960s
  4. Where will it go?

Abandoning the 100 Films Challenge 2022

Posted on by
3

There are 10 days of the year left — 11 if you include this evening — and I have 11 films left to complete my 100 Films Challenge (you can see the state of things on the tracker, here). It seems almost like a match made in heaven. But it isn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Which is why I’ve decided to abandon the challenge at this point.

Why? When I’m so close and it seems so possible, why?

Well, it may look doable on paper, but it isn’t in real life. Not this particular real life, for me, here in 2022. Not for any grand or scary reason; just simple scheduling.

Here’s the problem: having to watch specific films. The old-style “any 100 films in a year”? Easy peasy. Done it already, in fact (I mentioned it in November’s review). That’s why I created the new system: to make the Challenge more of a challenge. But it’s turned out to be too challenging this year. It’s my own fault — I was too laissez-faire earlier in the year. “There’s plenty of time to catch up.” Reader, there was not plenty of time. Or if there was, I still let it run out.

With the days of the year that are left, and knowing my personal schedule (of family get togethers and whatnot), some of it is still possible. Three DVDs? Not too hard. Three ‘series’ films? Yep, could do. One more film noir? A doddle. A wildcard attached to one of those three categories? Hardly a wildly difficult task.

Here’s the rub: Yi Yi for Blindspot, and The Name of the Rose and The Transformers: The Movie for WDYMYHS. One of them? Plausible. Two of them? At a stretch, possibly. All three? Nah. And with the aforementioned categories as well? Not on your nelly. I’ve just run out of time to make them all work with the other stuff I have going on for the rest of the year.

Also: even if I could get it done, it’d be pretty unrelenting, with little or no room for ‘free viewing’. Catching up on some 2022 misses? Forget it! Christmas films? Not bloody likely! A relaxing something-and-nothing flick on a lazy holiday afternoon? Get back to it, Challenger!

By choosing to abandon the uncompleteable challenge, I give myself permission to (perhaps) watch some of those things. Might I still tick off a few more films — watch some DVDs; progress some series; maybe even allow a little more noir into the white of Christmas? Perhaps. Perhaps not. That I don’t have to doesn’t mean I won’t. But choosing to declare the completion of the Challenge dead at this point means I can just enjoy the last week-and-a-half of the year, without the constant background nagging of how many films I still have to try to squeeze in.

So, was this new experiment a failure? Well, technically, yes — obviously, because I failed it. But that’s my own damn fault. It’ll be back in 2023, in a revised form. It was always my intention to revise it year by year (there’s a reason the film noir category is called “Genre”, not “Film Noir”, for example), and hopefully 2023’s version will be a little more completable.

Plus, I must try to remember that leaving such a big chunk ’til the last minute is not a very workable plan.

Anyway, hopefully this won’t be the last you see of me in 2022 (I’d like to get a bit more caught up on reviews); and then it’ll be the start of 2023 — time to look back at 2022 (I’ve got my usual suite of year-end posts planned (yep, there are gonna be statistics!)), and to begin afresh (for my 17th year).

The Greatest Monthly Review of November 2022

Posted on by
1

A slightly aggrandised title, and not necessarily an applicable one — I mean, what’s so great about this monthly review? That said, as I won’t review November 2022 again, it is my greatest review of this month.

Whatever — the adjective was actually prompted by my coverage of Sight & Sound’s 2012 Greatest Film of All Time poll (something I’ve been meaning to write up since the blog’s new era began in January) and their release today of the 2022 poll results (due at 7pm GMT).

Putting that aside for now, here’s the regular monthly business…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#71 See How They Run (2022) — New Film #11
#72 Come and See (1985) — Blindspot #9
#73 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) — Series Progression #7
#74 The Mindscape of Alan Moore (2003) — DVD #8
#75 Howard the Duck (1986) — WDYMYHS #9
#76 Killer’s Kiss (1955) — Genre #7
#77 The Killing (1956) — Genre #8
#78 The Blues Brothers (1980) — DVD #9
#79 Enola Holmes 2 (2022) — Rewatch #11
#80 Manhunter (1986) — WDYMYHS #10
#81 A Woman Under the Influence (1974) — Blindspot #10


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in November.
  • Nine of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches — one of which I’d only watched for the first time earlier in the month. What larks!
  • The film in question was Enola Holmes 2, which wasn’t eligible for any category on my first viewing (the “new film” slot having already been taken by See How They Run), but when I came to rewatch it could count as November’s rewatch.
  • That said, arguably the rewatch slot should have gone to The Blues Brothers, but it was more useful to count it as a DVD. It’s not my disc, so breaks the intention of the DVD category, but as Walk the Line already did that (see last month) it seemed silly to start applying higher morals now. (But if the DVD category continues into 2023, it’s getting reworded. Only I can save me from myself.)
  • While we’re on specific films, this month’s Blindspot films were A Woman Under the Influence and Come and See. After failing to watch the latter for last year’s Blindspot list, I said I wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving it until December again — and I didn’t! That said, it was the shortest of the four films I had left in this category, so, in that sense, watching it first didn’t make my task any easier. Indeed, having also watched A Woman Under the Influence, I’ve left the two longest-of-all films — totalling over 6 hours combined — for December. Oops.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were polar opposites in terms of reputation: the notoriously bad Howard the Duck, and the notoriously “good but overshadowed by subsequent films in the same franchise” Manhunter. I loved one and quite enjoyed the other, but I’ll leave you to speculate which was which.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched The Lost City.

Now, a more statistical bent…

  • I reached #100!
  • …under the old system (i.e. counting all new films, but only new films), which isn’t my actual challenge anymore. Oh well.
  • But, for what it’s worth, that’s the latest I’ve done it since… the last time I failed to even get there, when I only reached #97 in 2012. The last time it took until November was 2013 (when I got there on the 13th; this year it was the 15th) — every year since has been earlier.
  • On the bright side, totalling 12 new films makes this the first time I’ve got above my target of 10 per month since June.
  • It also makes November the first month of 2022 to beat its equivalent from 2021. There has never been a year of 100 Films without at least one month that beat its own tally from from the year before, so I’m glad to have dodged that ignominious all-time first.
  • It also means I have good news to report in the averages stakes, for the first time in a while, with November beating all the averages I regularly mention: the average for 2022 to date (previously 9.1, now 9.4); the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 9.9, now 10.3); and the average for all Novembers (previously 10.8, now 10.9).
  • On a bit of a downer: I’d hoped to get to #85 in my challenge, because I had 30 left to go after October and that would’ve meant a neat 15 in November and 15 in December. Never mind.



The 90th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
There were several films I enjoyed a lot this month, and may even find it onto my end-of-year best list (partly because it’s been feeling like a pretty poor year, for whatever reason), but only one prompted me to write “where has this been all my life?!” on Letterboxd, and that was Manhunter. (The answer being “probably being overshadowed by Silence of the Lambs”.)

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Easily the biggest disappointment this month was belated-but-awaited sequel Disenchanted — a disappointingly fitting title for a film that lost the magic of its wonderful predecessor. Maybe “it’s such a shame they never made a sequel to Enchanted” would have been a better legacy.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
There was only a small handful of posts to choose from this month, but the clear victor was my summary of Sight & Sound’s The 100 Greatest Films of All Time (2012 edition). Is that because everyone loves a list? Or because it was a new feature for the blog? Or because the 2022 edition is imminent (the results are out later today, at 7pm GMT)? Who knows. Maybe time — and further entries in this sporadic series — will tell.



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


I’ve got 19 films to go to complete my challenge. That’s bringing back memories of 2008, when I also had to get through 19 films in December to hit my target. I managed it, but only just: I watched three qualifying films on New Year’s Eve to get over the line. Hopefully this year will be less stressfully down to the wire…

The Screaming Monthly Review of October 2022

Posted on by
2

Alright, Halloween’s over — but, later on, there are a few statistics about how far off-track I am in completing my 100 Films Challenge this year, and that gave me the heebie-jeebies, at least.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#61 The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Case (1932) — Series Progression #4
#62 The Two Faces of January (2014) — Rewatch #10
#63 Walk the Line (2005) — DVD #7
#64 The Thrill of It All (1963) — Wildcard #3
#65 Scream 3 (2000) — Series Progression #5
#66 Scre4m (2011) — Series Progression #6
#67 The Guilty (1947) — Genre #6
#68 The Mission (1986) — WDYMYHS #8
#69 Scream (2022) — New Film #10
#70 La Grande Illusion (1937) — Blindspot #8


  • I watched six feature films I’d never seen before in October.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with four rewatches.

The rest of this week’s observations fall into a few different categories. First, some thoughts on the films themselves and the Challenge categories they qualify under…

  • I had drafted a rather long bit here about the first of those rewatches, because originally I counted a rewatch of Encanto — but I’d already counted Encanto earlier this year, the first time I saw it. Technically my rules state that “a film can only count once”, but what I really meant was “a viewing can only count once”. I rarely watch the same film twice within a year, so it didn’t cross my mind to anticipate that in my rules. Nonetheless, I was torn about whether counting the same film twice, albeit on different viewings, was ‘legal’. Then I happened to rewatch The Two Faces of January, which didn’t qualify under any other category, so I thought I may as well count that instead. Quandary solved! But I might need to rethink and be more specific for 2023.
  • The next rewatch is also a little contentious for me. The point of the DVD category was to make me watch more of my DVDs, and I watched someone else’s copy of Walk the Line (because I was at their house; meaning my copy still sits unplayed, 15+ years after I bought it). But, referring to the rules again, I didn’t make it hard-and-fast that it had to be my DVD that was watched (it’s just heavily intimated). If I was closer to my target, I might let this go uncounted; but with things looking tight, I feel like I have to exploit my own unintended loophole.
  • The Thrill of It All was also a DVD, also owned by someone else, but I dodged the issue this time by counting it as the Wildcard for the Decades category. That’s a funny one, because basically any film can count — it’s just got to have been released in, er, a decade. Daft, maybe, but them’s the rules. And so, as the first new film I watched (that didn’t qualify for another category) since I completed Decades last month, The Thrill of It All just happened to be in the right place at the right time to be a Decades wildcard.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Jean Renoir’s anti-war prisoner-of-war classic, La Grande Illusion.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was The Mission. Arguably I should’ve left that until last, as it was a stand-in for another film, but eh, I fancied watching it, so I did.
  • I didn’t watch anything from last month’s “failures”.

Now, statistical stuff…

  • With just six new films watched, October ties with September for the weakest month of the year so far. But there were an uncommonly high number of rewatches, so in that respect it’s not so bad.
  • Indeed, thanks to those rewatches — and that all the new films I watched qualified for the challenge — this is actually the most successful month for 2022’s 100 Films Challenge since January!
  • I also watched three short films this month, which doesn’t get mentioned anywhere (until their reviews turn up, eventually), but is the most for a single month this year. So, despite how it looks at first glance, October wasn’t so bad after all.
  • That said, it doesn’t sit well statistically, lowering every average you care to mention: my average new films in October (from 13.2 to 12.7), the average new films for 2022 to date (from 9.4 to 9.1), and the rolling average of new films for the last 12 months (from 10.2 to 9.9).
  • It’s also the sixth month this year that’s failed to reach my minimum target of 10 new films, which makes 2022 the least successful year in this regard since 2013.
  • Such a poor run means that, with 83% of the year gone, I’ve only completed 70% of my 100 Films Challenge.
  • The only other occasions on which I’ve been in comparably poor shape heading into the final two months of the year were 2008 (when I ended October at #73) and 2009 (when I was at #66). In 2008, a last-minute push saw me just reach #100 after watching 11 films in six days. In 2009, if I’d pulled off the same feat again I could’ve made it… but I didn’t, and ended on #94.

There’s more about what all this means for the last two months of 2022’s 100 Films Challenge in the “Next Time” section at the end of this post.



The 89th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
This month’s viewing included a highly-acclaimed anti-war classic and a Palme d’Or-winning multi-Oscar- and BAFTA-nominee — very worthy films no doubt, but often they’d be usurped by something more populist that I just enjoyed more. Scream (2022 version) comes closest, but not quite close enough. As for the other two, I think I give the edge to The Mission.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I guess, on balance, this goes to B-league film noir The Guilty. I didn’t dislike it at all — it’s a perfectly respectable slightly-above-run-of-the-mill B-noir — but the other new films I watched were just that bit better, overall. (I was going to deliberately watch a bad film last night to stop this from happening, but I ran out of time.)

Best Scream of the Month
In typical me fashion, I started my rewatch of the Scream films back in June, aiming to space them out up until Halloween, but ended up not watching the second until the end of September and the rest this month. Oh well. But of the three I watched this month, which is the best? I say Scre4m. The 2022 one is good, but the 2011 film got to the “legacy sequel” thing first and did it near-perfectly. Still, whichever way you cut it, I think the good Scream films now outnumbered the bad (or, at least, lesser) ones, so that’s nice.

Best Early-Cinema Short Film of the Month
As I mentioned earlier, I watched a few short films this month, all from the early days of cinema — titles like The Sick Kitten, which is basically the world’s first cat video (it’s little more than a 30-second close-up of a kitten. I won’t be reviewing it). There was also Life of an American Fireman, which was once hailed as the first example of crosscutting (between action inside and outside a burning building), until it was discovered that was a re-edit decades later, and the original cut actually played the action in full twice. Oops. Of higher quality were two films by the great Georges Méliès: The Infernal Cauldron, in which some devilish business sees people thrown in a burning cauldron; and The One-Man Band, which uses trick photography to have multiple Méliès play in a band together. Maybe nowadays we can see the seams a bit in how it was done, but the filmmaker’s sense of fun and experimentation for the sake of it radiates off the screen.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
No posts particularly shone in October (y’all weren’t interested in my Scream coverage, huh?), with the victor being the monthly review of September. Previously it’s been a rarity for a monthly review to win here (this may be only the third time it’s happened), but that’s now two months in a row. On the one hand, weird. On the other, I do like my monthly reviews — to me, they’re the backbone of the blog, with their regularity and their neat little summaries of things. So, if y’all want to start treating them that way too, that’s cool by me.



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


As we head into the final two months of the year, the number of films I have left to watch for my 100 Films Challenge are, frankly, a lot higher than I’d like — they should average 8.3 per month, but for November and December it’ll need to be 15.0.

On the bright side, those numbers break down neatly across most of the remaining incomplete categories: each month should have three film noirs, three films that progress a series, two Blindspot films, two WDYMYHS films, one new film, and one rewatch; plus, there are five DVDs to split between them, and a single wildcard to go somewhere, which may well end up being a 13th DVD, or perhaps another film noir, or another series entry. I’m not sure things will pan out quite so neatly, but maybe they will — it’s something concrete to aim for in each category, after all.

More importantly, is that doable? My averages across 2022 so far suggest not. But I’ve pulled things out of the bag in December before now (see the last bullet point under “Viewing Notes”), so only time will tell…

The Funereal Monthly Review of September 2022

Posted on by
6

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.

The Predatory Monthly Review of August 2022

Posted on by
2

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…)