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The Critical Monthly Review of April 2024

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In the introduction to last month’s review I mentioned that, among other things, I’d spent 26½ hours watching Critical Role (and related content… by which I just mean after-show Talks Machina). Well, my maths tells me that in April I watched another 48 hours. Two solid days’ worth! Sure, when you consider that in the context of 30 days it doesn’t sound a lot, but I’m not sure I spent that much time on one other single thing (excepting sleep). And I’m actually holding back a bit, forcing myself to do other things with my free time and not just stream, stream, stream. There’s certainly a lot to get through: I’m only 10% through Campaign 2 — just 630 hours to go.

And yet, despite that, my movie watching is doing ok. So ok, in fact, that in April I watched the most films of any month so far this year. As the star of one of them might say: wahoo!



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#23 The Monuments Men (2014) — 50 Unseen #5
#24 American Fiction (2023) — Failure #4
#25 The Fourth Square (1961) — Series Progression #3
#26 The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) — Wildcard #1
#27 The Inspector Wears Skirts Part II (1989) — Genre #3
#28 Spawn: Director’s Cut (1997/1998) — Rewatch #3
#29 I.S.S. (2023) — New Film #4
#30 12th Fail (2023) — WDYMYHS #4
#31 No Hard Feelings (2023) — 50 Unseen #6
#32 Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987) — Blindspot #4


  • I watched 14 feature films I’d never seen before in April.
  • As I said at the start, that’s the best month of 2024 so far, meaning it raises the average for the year to date from 10.3 to 11.3, and the rolling average of the last 12 months from 9.1 to 9.3.
  • Nine of those counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • That’s more than the usual eight needed to keep things ticking over, but not quite enough to catch up to target pace. Still, I was two behind at the end of March, now I’m only one behind. Maybe one day I’ll get ahead again, like I used to in the old days…
  • Several of this month’s Challenge films presented a choice of which category to qualify them for. For example, American Fiction could have been April’s New Film, as it was only released in February here; but as I.S.S. was actually released this month over here, that seemed even more fitting for the category. Plus, American Fiction had been in the Failures two months in a row (from its theatrical release in February and its subscription streaming debut in March), so that felt even more fitting.
  • Meanwhile, The Super Mario Bros. Movie could have been another 50 Unseen; but as that category is already halfway complete, I decided to finally inaugurate the Wildcards, counting the film as an additional Failure from March.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was the first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy, Where Is the Friend’s House?, which I’ve wanted to see since learning about it in The Story of Film nine years ago (see the reference under my comments on Part Thirteen).
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was one of the newest entries into the IMDb Top 250, Indian exam drama 12th Fail.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched American Fiction, The Inspector Wears Skirts 2, No Hard Feelings, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.



The 107th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Quality-wise, this is one of those months that felt fine but, when I look back, there aren’t a huge number of contenders for films I really loved. That makes this winner an easy pick, though: it’s American Fiction.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
The flipside is that there aren’t too many terrible films, either. By a nose, the (dis)honour goes to The Inspector Wears Skirts Part II. On the bright side, watching it now did save me from spending £30+ on parts three and four…

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Not many posts in contention this month, My review of I.S.S. interested hardly anyone, so the winner almost by default (there’s also the “failures”, of course) was March’s monthly review.



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


I’ve got some time off work at the start of May, so it may be an absolute banger of a month… or I may spend all that time watching Critical Role. Find out in 31 days!

The Eggy Monthly Review of March 2024

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In case you somehow missed it, it’s Easter weekend. That’s the only reason for the title. There are no eggs involved anywhere else in this post.

In terms of observations actually related to the blog, I only managed to keep one of my two main viewing goals ticking over — that is to say, I hit my “ten new films per month” target, but fell short of keeping my 100 Films Challenge on track (more detail in Viewing Notes, as usual). That said, I’m pleased to have achieved even that much in March, when films have found themselves competing with an uncommon amount of other stuff for my entertainment time. To be specific, I’ve started a rewatch of the ’90s X-Men animated series (I’m ten episodes in, which adds up to 3½ hours); finally been playing point-and-click adventure classic Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (for about 11 hours); and, most consumingly of all, found myself somewhat obsessed with cult-phenomenon actual-play Dungeons & Dragons series Critical Role (I’ve watched 26½ hours, plus untold more spent reading around it, and barely made a start on it); and that’s without counting up sundry other bits and pieces, like reading books and comics, or slowly rewatching Blackadder.

Anyway, to get back to the films (though there’s always the comment section if you’d like to talk about the other stuff), here’s, um, the films…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#17 Dune: Part Two (2024) — New Film #3
#18 Maestro (2023) — 50 Unseen #4
#19 The Inspector Wears Skirts (1988) — Genre #2
#20 Black Tight Killers (1966) — Failures #3
#21 My Darling Clementine (1946) — Blindspot #3
#22 My Father and My Son (2005) — WDYMYHS #3


  • I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • Just six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • That means (as I said at the start) that I exceeded my “ten films per month” minimum target — for the first time this year; also, that’s the fourth month in a row, which is the most consecutive ten-film months since a pandemic-aided run of 21 months in 2020/21. (The all-time record remains 60 months, aka five solid years.)
  • But (as also mentioned at the start) I fell short of where I should be in my Challenge — but only by two films. I’ve got the rest of the year to catch that up, so it’s far from a disaster. Yet.
  • This is also the first month of 2024 without any rewatches; although I did still manage two short films (I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I’m aiming to watch at least one of those each month too. That’s sort of an “unofficial” goal, though, in that I’m not exactly tracking it… except I am, because I keep records of all these things).
  • In terms of history and percentages and stuff, this is the best March since 2021, but because it’s still below March’s all-time average of 14.9, it brings it down to 14.6.
  • Conversely, being higher than last March means it does increase the rolling monthly average of the last 12 months, bringing it from 8.8 to 9.1. If I can continue my ten-films-per-month streak, eventually it’ll get above 10.0 again…
  • I posted my Dune: Part One review right at the end of February, fully intending to quickly follow it with my Dune: Part Two review in early March. That didn’t happen, obviously.
  • I’ve been buying Radiance releases since they sprung into existence back in mid-2022 (indeed, I’ve got 30 of the 37 titles they’ve released to date, plus several of their “partner label” releases too), but Black Tight Killers is the first one I’ve actually watched. I’m not one of those collectors who buys stuff just to keep on his self unopened… but I do have a bunch of stuff on my shelf unopened, because I am one of those collectors who’s interested in almost everything but can’t find the time to watch it all.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was John Ford’s version of the Wyatt Earp / gunfight at the O.K. Corral legend, My Darling Clementine.
  • Letterboxd informs me that My Darling Clementine was the first film I watched on a Tuesday this year. So there you go.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Turkish intergenerational family drama My Father and My Son.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Black Tight Killers.



The 106th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I confess, I didn’t have any particular expectations of John Ford Western My Darling Clementine. Not that I thought it would be bad, but — despite it clearly having enough acclaim to get onto my Blindspot list — I didn’t sit down expecting a masterpiece or something either. Perhaps that’s what allowed it to blow me away, first from a visual standpoint (this is a film where even the day-for-night photography looks good) and then by… well, everything else.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This has to be Alan Bennett adaptation Allelujah, which for much of its running time is an amiable-enough pro-NHS / anti-cutbacks polemic, before a final-reel twist threatens to undermine the whole thing. What a way to mangle your own point.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Now, technically — technically — the winner for this month was February’s Failures, which was way down the overall chart. I stress technically because I’m going to say the award actually goes to something I posted in February… but I posted it on February 29th, so it didn’t have much of a chance last month; and February 29th isn’t a real day anyway, so it’s sort of part of March. Very tenuously sort of. Anyway, that makes the winner my review of Dune: Part One, which actually cracked the overall top ten (at #8).



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


What balance will my entertainment choices level out at in April? Find out next month!

The Leaping Monthly Review of February 2024

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It’s coming up to nine years since I started naming these monthly progress reports, which means this is the third leap year they’ve existed in, and yet it’s the first time I’ve thought to reference that in the name of February’s update. I don’t know if I should be ashamed of that because I didn’t do it sooner, or because it suggests I’m running out of fresh ideas. Either way, clearly it’s not good. Or maybe it just doesn’t matter. (Yeah, that’s the one.)

Anyway, on to the films…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#10 The Kitchen (2023) — New Film #2
#11 Despicable Me 3 3D (2017) — Series Progression #2
#12 RRR (2022) — 50 Unseen #3
#13 Ambulancen (2005) — Failures #2
#14 Dune: Part One 3D (2021) — Rewatch #2
#15 The Innocents (1961) — Blindspot #2
#16 Wild Tales (2014) — WDYMYHS #2


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in February.
  • That makes this the third month in a row with ten new films. Compared to my history, it’s baby steps (the record is 60 months), but it’s two years since I last managed three consecutive months, so it is worth noting.
  • Six of the ten counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • The usual monthly average for the Challenge is eight, but February being short (even with the extra leap day) means it only needs seven, so I remain on target.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was classic British Gothic (in the true sense) horror The Innocents. Maybe I should have tried to save that for October, but any intentions I have to watch horror movies in October usually fail to pan out. To be honest, I chose it now because it’s the only film on this year’s Blindspot that I don’t own on disc, so I thought I’d free up some space on my TV hard drive for other stuff I’ve downloaded. Sometimes my viewing decisions are as pragmatic as that.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Argentinian revenge anthology Wild Tales. That’s another one deleted off the hard drive.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Ambulancen and The Kitchen.
  • Also this month, in aid of my Genre category, I compiled a list of all the martial arts titles I own that I haven’t seen (it’s on Letterboxd here) and it came to… 213 films! And I’ve got more on preorder, and even more that are coming out soon that I will order; and I even left some off that I wasn’t sure counted (although I also included some I wasn’t sure about, so maybe that part balances out). Anyway, my point is: setting a target of “ten” barely scratches the surface here — even less than it did last year with giallo, where my similar list featured just 50 titles. Maybe, rather than try to think of more genres for that Challenge category, I’ll just set it on a triennial loop of noir, giallo, martial arts…



The 105th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I enjoyed most of the films I watched this month, some very much, but nothing came close to the marvel that is RRR.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Proving that star ratings aren’t everything (or possibly that I need to rethink mine), I rated My Son two stars, but its three-star The Kitchen that I feel I enjoyed least from this month’s viewing. I’ve been assigning ratings to films solidly for over a decade-and-a-half now (the blog passed its 17th anniversary this week, by-the-by) and yet how many stars I should give a film, and how my ratings compare to one another, still regularly gives me pause for thought.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Now that I’m getting back into the swing of reviewing (touch wood), there’s more stuff to compete in this category — that makes a nice change from most of last year. And yet, despite that, it’s my monthly review of January that comes out on top here. It even cracked the overall top ten for the month, which is an uncommon achievement for a new post. (In second place, the highest charting film review was Barbie.)



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


Returning to the cinema* to return to Arrakis.

* shockingly, it’ll be my first visit since Oppenheimer last July.

The Welcome Monthly Review of January 2024

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Welcome to 2024 — almost a quarter of a century on from the millennium! Jesus. Think of all those bold predictions they had about how amazing life would be by the year 2000. Imagine what they would’ve thought another quarter-century would bring. And look at the shit we’ve actually got…

But anyway, let’s leave the depression of the wider world aside for a moment, because the new year is actually off to a pretty decent start here at 100 Films — including more film reviews in one month than I published in the whole of 2023. More of that later. First, as always, my Challenge progress…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#1 Lift (2024) — New Film #1
#2 Only Yesterday (1991) — Blindspot #1
#3 Jackass Forever (2022) — Series Progression #1
#4 Barbie (2023) — 50 Unseen #1
#5 Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) — Failures #1
#6 The Best of the Martial Arts Films (1990) — Genre #1
#7 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 3D (2018) — Rewatch #1
#8 Bottoms (2023) — 50 Unseen #2
#9 In the Name of the Father (1993) — WDYMYHS #1


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in January.
  • Meeting my “10 new films a month” minimum target has been problematic for the last couple of years, so it’s nice to see 2024 off to a good start.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I managed to spread those around enough that I’ve started all eight ‘proper’ categories (the exception being Wildcards, which is a category, obviously, but also… isn’t, in that the defining feature is they’re extra films for the other categories).
  • Talking of categories, Jackass Forever was the first film of the year where I had a choice: it could qualify as either 50 Unseen or Series Progression. I chose to watch it because it qualified for the former, but I decided to actually count it as the latter. That leaves an extra slot open to help encourage me to watch even more Unseens, and also helps ensure variety in Series Progression (I was worried it would end up full of Edgar Wallace Mysteries). Either way, it wraps up the Jackass film series (I’m not counting all the .5s and spinoffs), thus finally reducing the number of series I have on the go. I feel like I’m just constantly adding to that list, so it’s nice for something to come off it.
  • Just under five years since I imported the Blu-ray from Australia, I finally watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 3D. I’d say it was worth the wait, but there didn’t need to be a wait; but if the wait had been enforced, it would’ve been worth it, because the 3D is incredible. As is the movie, but I knew that.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Isao Takahata anime Only Yesterday.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was miscarriage-of-justice thriller In the Name of the Father.
  • As my WDYMYHS challenge this year is tied to the IMDb Top 250, it’s possible that qualifying films will shift throughout the year. I mention this now because it’s happened already: in the last month, Poor Things had entered the chart, and both Gangs of Wasseypur and the 2015 remake of Drishyam have dipped back in. When I conceived of doing this, I had 17 films to see; now, it’s up to 23. If it carries on at this rate, it’ll be two years’ worth of WDYMYHS…
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched just Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.



The 104th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
There may be multiple films that end up with a five-star rating this month (I haven’t quite settled on a couple), but only one film this month — heck, only one film in the past 18 years — has inspired me to watch it again immediately after my first viewing, and that was Bottoms.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing outright bad this month, so I look to the gaggle of three-star-ish films. I expect such mediocrity from the likes of Lift or Jackass Forever, but Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget being no more than “fine” is disappointing from Aardman.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
For the first time in almost a year, this award is a reasonable competition — it’s not just a two-way face-off between the previous month’s review and “failures”, but includes all my year-in-review posts about 2023, as well as some actual film reviews. Indeed, it was the latter that won, with 2024 Week 2 — which contained reviews of Lift (as a new Netflix release, this is likely what did most of the, er, lifting), Only Yesterday, and Jackass Forever — not only being the top new post, but coming 2nd overall. Neat.



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


The shortest month of the year, for slightly longer than usual (because it’s a leap year).

The “An Attempt Was Made” Monthly Review of December 2023

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Happy New Year, dear readers!

But before I start thinking too much about 2024, I’m going to do as I’ve done every year for the past decade-and-a-half(-and-a-bit) and spend a fair amount of time going back over the previous year. First up: the final monthly review of 2023, in which we find out if I managed to complete my 100 Films Challenge.

You may remember from last month that I had 17 films left to go — more than I’ve watched in any single month since 2021. Doesn’t bode well…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#84 You Hurt My Feelings (2023) — New Film #12
#85 Little Shop of Horrors (1986) — Rewatch #12
#86 From Beijing with Love (1994) — Failures #11
#87 A Haunting in Venice (2023) — Failures #12
#88 Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) — Blindspot #9
#89 The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971) — Genre #5
#90 Shadow of a Doubt (1943) — WDYMYHS #10
#91 Out of the Past (1947) — WDYMYHS #11
#92 Mildred Pierce (1945) — WDYMYHS #12


  • I watched 14 feature films I’d never seen before in December.
  • That means it ties with July for my best month of 2023.
  • It also means I reached my ten-films-a-month target, but for only the fifth time this year. That’s equal to what I achieved in 2022 — although last year I watched 111 new films overall, for a monthly average of 9.25, whereas in 2023 it was just 103, for a monthly average of 8.58.
  • However, I rewatched 28 films last year, up from 20 in 2022. Added to new viewings, that means I watched 131 films in 2023 — exactly the same number as in 2022. So that’s, you know, a coincidence.
  • But 14 is not 17, is it? To be precise, eight of December’s new films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • As I entered December, six of my nine categories still needed completing. That sounds like a lot, but it’s mostly part of the plan: five of them are designed to end in December.
  • I watched films that qualified in all six of those outstanding categories. New Films and Rewatches were finished off early on; two more categories would follow, but two would wind up incomplete.
  • One of the latter was Genre. It was only this month that I hit its halfway point — when you consider that, it’s no wonder I didn’t get to #100. After the first couple of months, when it became clear I wasn’t going to steadily watch gialli throughout the year, I thought I’d have a bit of a marathon at some point, racing through six or seven or eight titles in a moderately condensed period. But that never happened, and so it ends as this year’s most-failed category, just 50% complete.
  • Talking of failures: having failed October’s “failures” again in November, this month I caught up by watching From Beijing with Love.
  • And from last month’s “failures” I watched A Haunting in Venice, making Failures the sixth completed category.
  • Meanwhile, the other failed category was Blindspot. The one film from that selection I did watch this month was The Greatest Film Of All Time™, at least according to Sight and Sound voters: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Unfortunately, that left three unseen for the year — aka 25% of my target. Shame.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite of his own works, Shadow of a Doubt; Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, formerly known in the UK as Build My Gallows High; and Michael Curtiz’s family melodrama Mildred Pierce. And that burst of activity made it 2023’s final completed category — hurrah!



The 103rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
A few strong contenders this month, including two that didn’t qualify for the Challenge (anxiety-inducing comedy-drama Shiva Baby and classic Christmas rom-com Remember the Night), but on balance I have to give it to the very last film I watched this year, Mildred Pierce, which takes James M. Cain’s familial drama and restructures it into a nonlinear murder mystery noir, and then excels on both fronts.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Christmas cheese-fest A Castle for Christmas might seem a shoo-in here — not the kind of Christmas fare I normally watch, but it was… recommended, sort of. But it was also kind of just what I expected it to be (“daytime TV movie”-esque and, well, cheesy), whereas Mexican murder mystery A Deadly Invitation was billed as “for fans of Agatha Christie and Glass Onion” and did not live up to that. It’s like an AI version of a murder mystery: it sort of knew how to look the part, but was devoid of what genuinely makes it tick.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
In a rarity for 2023, there were more than two posts competing for this award in December. Gasp! That said, there wasn’t much interest in my quick post about a new directors page banner (can’t say I’m surprised), so it remained a two horse race between November’s failures — which finished far ahead of the directors banner, but equally far behind the winner — which was November’s monthly review. That means 2023 ends with a 7-2 victory for monthly reviews over failures (the exceptions were January’s gong, which went to my Best of 2022 list; February, which went to some actual reviews; and April, which was a draw).


2023 has been a quieter year than normal here on 100 Films — probably my quietest ever, with just the pair of monthly posts to keep things ticking over for most of the year. But that doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. Whether 2024 turns out to be another 12 months of just summaries and failures, or sees my reviewing somehow rejuvenate into full swing, I intend to still be here.

Of course, before I get started on 2024, the next week or so will have my usual array of posts dissecting 2023.

The Timey-Wimey Monthly Review of November 2023

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♫ Diddly-dum diddly-dum diddly-dum ooo-wee-ooo… ♫

If you somehow missed the news, Doctor Who hit the big six-oh this month. (It feels like only a couple of years since I was reviewing the 50th anniversary special. You don’t need a TARDIS to reach the future at astonishing speed — life will just do it for you.) As a lifelong Whovian, naturally I’ve devoted a fair amount of time to celebrating that milestone — something I’ve mentioned before in these monthly reviews, because it’s surely had an effect on my film viewing, simply by dint of eating up so much of my free time. (Were my time my own, I would’ve been able to syphon off a smaller amount for my Who celebrations; but gotta put bread on the table ‘n’ all that.) To give you an idea of just how much more Doctor Who-ing I’ve been doing than film watching, this month I’ve included a section all about it, and it’s taken over the header image too.

Before I come to that, it’s business as usual. I did still manage to watch some films; and with this having been the penultimate month of the year, obviously my Challenge is getting towards the pointy end. Am I within sight of completing it this year? Well, let’s take a look…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#81 Quiz Lady (2023) — New Film #11
#82 Doctor Who (1996) — Rewatch #11
#83 The Killers (1946) — WDYMYHS #9


  • I watched three feature films I’d never seen before in November.
  • Two of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • And that rewatch was how Doctor Who even managed to invade my Challenge viewing! #82 is perhaps better known by one of its official subtitles: The Movie (on DVD and Blu-ray releases) or The TV Movie (on novelisations and its iPlayer listing) — but, of course, the onscreen title is simply Doctor Who. Does a TV movie count as a movie? Especially as it was produced as a “backdoor pilot”, i.e. although officially a one-off, the intention was it would lead to a series. Well, back in 2008, I counted the 24 TV movie (which they made between seasons 6 and 7, and whose story leads directly into season 7), so if that counts, this one has no problem, right? Well, I make the rules (literally), so I say it does (especially as it’s ‘only’ a rewatch, a designation I feel a little more lax around).
  • If you really object, maybe just imagine I counted my rewatch of The Day of the Doctor instead — another feature-length TV special really, but one that actually had a theatrical release, so is arguably even more of a film (certainly, I counted it as one back in 2013).
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Robert Siodmak’s film of Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Killers. It’s been filmed at least twice more since this, but it’s hard to see why they bothered when the original is so good.
  • Nothing from Blindspot, though, which leaves me with a helluva lot to catchup next month — not least because three of the four outstanding films run over three hours each.
  • From last month’s “failures”, I failed to watch anything. Oh dear.
  • All told, that means I go into December with 17 films left to complete my Challenge. The most films I’ve watched in a month fullstop this year was 17 (hurrah!), but my monthly average is closer to 10½ (boo!), and all the inevitable Christmassy family stuff to come means I won’t really have a full month left to finish it off. Oh dear…
  • Last year I abandoned the Challenge at #89, so I’m hoping to at least surpass that. Six films is certainly a more feasible goal than 17.



The 102nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
My WDYMYHS film noirs have been doing very well in this category so far in 2023, and that continues this month, with The Killers being a pretty easy pick. With three WDYMYHS films left to hopefully squeeze in next month, the category might have another victory yet to come.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Well, this feels harsh. I only have three films to choose from this month, and I liked them all. I guess the loser, almost by default, is the 2015 version of Far from the Madding Crowd. It’s a good film, but not as exceptional as The Killers, and not as entertaining as Quiz Lady.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
As has been the case almost all year now, just two posts battle it out for this award this month: my October review and my October ‘failures’. Neither challenge the upper echelons of the overall chart, either (still dominated by old TV reviews, the first two Harry Potters, and — bizarrely — a little-seen Chilean film that I only saw because we were screening it at a festival I worked on). Anyway, of the two posts in contention, it was the overall October review that narrowly, but definitively, came out on top this time.


As I mentioned at the start, I thought I’d just include a rundown of all the watching, reading, and listening I’ve been doing to mark Doctor Who‘s 60th birthday, as an indication of just how much time I gave over to this — time I’d often (though, in fairness, not always) have spent watching films. These are more-or-less in the order I progressed through them, which is more-or-less in chronological order within the Whoniverse (as it’s now officially called).

To briefly outline what was going on here: I wanted to choose one piece of media I’d never experienced for each official TV Doctor. That sounds kinda highfalutin’ written down, but it’s because I was keeping it broad. Doctor Who may primarily be a TV show, but it’s also existed in books, comics, audio drama, and more down the decades. I wanted to include as much of that as possible; and because there’s so much of it I’ve never seen/read/heard, I wanted to keep it all-new (to me). With that in mind, this is what I ended up with…

Who? What? Why?
First Doctor Marco Polo novelisation by John Lucarotti Target novelisation of the oldest missing TV story.
Second Doctor Fury from the Deep animation 97 episodes of Doctor Who are missing apart from their soundtracks. Some have been animated to fill in the visuals. This is one of them.
Third Doctor Inferno TV story, recently voted by readers of Doctor Who Magazine as the best starring the Third Doctor.
Fourth Doctor Doctor Who and the Star Beast 1980 comic book story, originally published in DWM, by Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons, which inspired the first episode of the forthcoming 60th anniversary episodes.
Fifth Doctor The Five Doctors 40th Anniversary Edition Recently-released enhanced edition of the 20th anniversary special, with new special effects and surround sound mix.
Sixth Doctor Timelash The only Sixth Doctor TV story I’d never seen. Also considered one of the worst stories in the programme’s history, so that’s fun.
Seventh Doctor Timewyrm: Genesys by John Peel First of the New Adventures, the series of original novels that helped keep the series alive during the Wildness Years.
Eighth Doctor The Scent of Blood by Andy Lane A BBC Audio original audiobook, read by Dan Starkey.
War Doctor The Day of the Doctor in 3D The 50th anniversary special, which introduced us to the War Doctor. Obviously I’d seen it before, but never in true 3D.
Ninth Doctor Ravagers Debut box set of audio adventures for the Ninth Doctor, produced by Big Finish, who’ve been making new Who on audio for almost 25 years.
Tenth Doctor Revenge of the Judoon by Terrance Dicks Novel from the Quick Read initiative, written by Terrance Dicks, the godfather of Who fiction thanks to the mass of Target novelisations he penned.
Eleventh Doctor minisodes from series 6 and 7 13 short episodes/scenes included as extras on the Series 6 and 7 Blu-ray releases.
Eleventh & Twelfth Doctors Regeneration Impossible As well as full-cast audio dramas, Big Finish also do short stories as audiobooks. This is one.
Twelfth Doctor Dark Water / Death in Heaven in 3D This was a bit of a bonus: the Series 8 finale (so I’d seen it before), but converted into 3D for cinema screenings (and released on Blu-ray in the US).
Thirteenth Doctor The Wonderful Doctor of Oz by Jacqueline Rayner First in a series of novels from Puffin in which various Doctors encounter classics of children’s literature.
Fugitive Doctor Origins Comic book series — not from DWM, but Titan Comics — exploring the origins of the mysterious Fugitive Doctor.
Spin-offs K9 and Company Representing the wide world of Doctor Who spinoffs, the original: a one-off special from Christmas 1981.
“No sir, all thirteen…” 13 Doctors, 13 Stories anthology Short stories / novellas that marked the show’s 50th anniversary, written by a raft of celebrity authors including Eoin Colfer, Patrick Ness, Malorie Blackman, Charlie Higson, and Neil Gaiman.

And that doesn’t even include the stuff that’s been on TV and radio during this period — like series two of podcast drama Doctor Who: Redacted; Radio 2’s Doctor Who @ 60: A Musical Celebration concert (on both radio and TV); the archive-diving Talking Doctor Who documentary; multiple radio documentaries, covering topics like the Wilderness Years and the A-Z of fandom; the Children in Need sketch; classic serial The Daleks re-edited and colourised; the (revised) repeat of An Adventure in Space and Time; Channel 5’s cash-in documentary on the programmes’ “secrets and scandals”; and — of course — the first of the brand-new episodes starring David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor… and the three-and-a-half hours (yes, really, that much) of official behind-the-scenes content released in its wake.

Crikey.


There’s still more Doctor Who on the telly (two more specials with David Tennant, then Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa debuts in a Christmas special), but it’s going to be less all-consuming going forward.

But its damage may already be done. As I mentioned at the end of my Viewing Notes, with 17 films still to go to hit 100 — and most of them very specific ones, constraining me either by type (giallo) or to a set shortlist (Blindspot and WDYMYHS) — and not even a full month to watch them in — I’m not sure it’s even physically possible to complete my Challenge for 2023.

Well, within the entire realm of physics, yes, of course it is. But within the realm of physical reality (where I also have to spend time with family, and doing my day job, and eating, and sleeping, and so on and so forth)… yeah, I’d err on the side of “it’s probably not happening, is it?”

The Tumultuous Monthly Review of October 2023

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Well, I don’t know about you, but October’s been a funny old month around these parts. On the one hand, my minor medical maladies continued when I caught Covid. Fortunately, it was no worse than a bad cold, although it managed to linger somewhat in the form of a cough and a certain amount of lethargy, which ultimately led to me missing one of the two films I’d booked at FilmBath Festival. Disappointing, but at least it was one I’ll have a chance to see again in the future. The other screening — the one I made it to — included Danny Boyle’s rarely-seen short Alien Love Triangle, so I was glad not to miss that.

Also in the “negatives” column (as far as film viewing was concerned) was my personal marathon of various media in honour of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary. Again, that robbed time from possible film watching, but not as much as feared after the BBC announced the new 60th anniversary specials won’t begin airing until 25th November. I’d been cramming stuff in aiming for 11th November, so I gained a bit of leeway once that news broke. Naturally, some of my re-gained time has been applied to movies.

And so, after all that tumultuousness, the past month in my Challenge ended up going as follows…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#73 Road to Utopia (1945) — Wildcard #9
#74 Partners in Crime (1961) — Wildcard #10
#75 Close-Up (1990) — Blindspot #8
#76 Flora and Son (2023) — New Film #9
#77 Nothing Sacred (1937) — Failures #10
#78 The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) — New Film #10
#79 Sing Street (2016) — Rewatch #10
#80 The Possessed (1965) — Genre #4


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in October.
  • Yes, I’m back up to my minimum monthly target! At this point, I’ll save any more commentary on that until after we see how November and December play out.
  • Seven of those films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I completed my third Challenge category this month. After concluding Series Progression in August and Physical Media in September, this month it was the turn of the Wildcards. So much for them possibly being useful in December! The final two were spent on, funnily enough, a Series Progression and a Physical Media. Don’t expect any more to be crossed off until December now — two of them can’t be, due to their own rules; two of them shouldn’t be, because they’re designed to be paced throughout the year; and the other one is just too far off being done.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Abbas Kiarostami’s drama/documentary line-blurrer Close-Up.
  • No WDYMYHS film this month. More on that in the “next month” section.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched Nothing Sacred.



The 101st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
There are multiple possible interpretations of “favourite” in this context. The usual one is “best”. Another might be “most enjoyable”, which is more what I actually aim for. This month, I’m slightly realigning that to be “one I’m most glad I’ve seen”. I may have seen ‘better’ movies this month, but Danny Boyle’s short Alien Love Triangle was really good and, thanks to its extreme rarity, I’m pleased I even got the chance to see it. I hope it’s made more widely available sometime, because it’s fun and deserves an audience, and because I’d like to see it again.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I guess this goes to the Edgar Wallace Mystery Partners in Crime, which wasn’t bad — as a series of B-movies, they’re mostly solidly entertaining — but everything else I watched this month was slightly better.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
My continued lack of posting in between these monthly reviews means this category was once again a two horse race. Although, as if in a vain attempt to keep things moderately interesting, this month it was September’s Failures that was victorious. Neither set the chart alight, mind — it’s still my old TV columns that do most of the business.


As we head into the final 50 ‘useable’ days of the year (approximately. It’s family and Christmas stuff that take out the rest), I’ve got 20 films to go to complete my 2023 Challenge.

That includes four for both Blindspot and WDYMYHS. Sounds pretty equitable, right? Ah, but not all films are created equal! Those four WDYMYHS noirs have a combined running time of just under 7 hours, while the four remaining Blindspots add up to a little over 18 hours. Yeah, I’ve accidentally saved the three longest for last, again. Oops. History suggests I’m going to fail to pull it off, but you never know…

The “All Is Not Lost” Monthly Review of September 2023

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You may remember that, at the end of August’s monthly review, I forecast some potential problems for this month with regards to staying on track with my Challenge; but that there was also the potential boon of some time off. Of course, as anyone who read my mid-month update will already know, that spot of good fortune quickly disappeared thanks to some additional hurdles.

Nonetheless, all is not lost. Although I had hoped for a successful September, but have ended up with a lesser one, it wasn’t a total disaster: a few well-chosen watches kept the Challenge ticking over, and I’m notably ahead of where I was at this point last year. Of course, I ultimately chose to abandon the Challenge in 2022, so it’s hardly a positive benchmark. Still, despite September’s woes, I’m hoping to avoid such a fate this year.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#66 The Pied Piper (1986) — Failures #9
#67 The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) — Genre #3
#68 Spy (2015) — Rewatch #9
#69 Fisherman’s Friends: One and All (2022) — Wildcard #7
#70 Nightmare Alley (1947) — WDYMYHS #8
#71 Death on the Nile (2022) — Physical Media #10
#72 The Man Who Was Nobody (1960) — Wildcard #8


  • I watched six feature films I’d never seen before in September.
  • Four of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with three rewatches.
  • I’m two films behind where I should be at the end of September to keep my Challenge on perfect track, which obviously isn’t ideal, but also isn’t the end of the world. Really, it just means I have to average 9.3 films per month for the rest of the year instead of 8.7 — which, either way, rounds to 9.
  • As you may have noticed, two more Wildcards were used this month. Fisherman’s Friends 2 is an additional rewatch, while I’ve counted Edgar Wallace mystery The Man Who Was Nobody as Series Progression #11 (it could equally have been Physical Media #11, as it was on DVD).
  • I’ve taken so long getting round to watching gialli for my Genre category that this month’s — only my third — bumped my first off the bottom of my Recently Watched page.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Nightmare Alley — the 1947 original, of course, not Guillermo del Toro’s re-adaptation. Though I’m even more curious to see that now, for the comparison.
  • Really, I needed to watch two WDYMYHS films to catch up; though with things being how they were, even watching one feels like an achievement. Certainly, I didn’t watch any Blindspot films — so both categories enter October in catch-up mode.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Pied Piper.
  • A final point: despite all my aforementioned struggles, if we count both new films and rewatches, at the end of September I hit exactly 100 feature films watched in 2023. So that’s nice.

And talking of 100 somethings…



The 100th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

100 — it’s a big and significant number. Heck, I’ve themed an entire site around it. Although, with a monthly event like the Arbies, it’s a bit of an odd one: it represents 8⅓ years of awards-giving. Hey-ho, let’s roll with it.

To mark the occasion, as well as the usual three awards I hand out these days (I keep meaning to go back to the old five, but it takes that bit more time each month and so I keep putting it off), there’s the “Arbie of Arbies” — my most favourite of the 100 films to win Favourite Film of the Month. More on that at the end. First, this month’s favourite…

Favourite Film of the Month
Only six films to choose between this month, but several were worthy of this honour. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage might be the best giallo I’ve seen so far (out of, um, three), but The Pied Piper is a truly remarkable feat of animation, silent filmmaking, and Gothic storytelling.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
With only six films to choose from, competition was hardly fierce; indeed, the winner of this category was an easy pick: Edgar Wallace programmer The Man Who Was Nobody. “Easy” in this case not because it’s a terrible film, but because the other five were so much better — this was certainly the least successful at what it set out to do.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
In a minor change from most of 2023, there were three posts eligible this month — the usual review and “failures” from the previous month, plus my mid-month progress update. None really set my stats alight, but — for the fifth month running — it was the monthly review that won out.

And the “Arbie of Arbies” goes to…
With 100 films to choose from, this was naturally a tricky proposition. Some were ruled out easily — the fact my Favourite Film is awarded from each month’s pool of new viewing means some films were good for that month but perhaps not so fantastic overall. Conversely, films that have grown in my estimations over time may have missed out due to being beaten by something even better (or that seemed even better at the time) in their original month. Never mind — it’s all just a bit of fun, anyway.

So, having gone back all over all 100 winners (including this month’s, obv), and narrowed it down to a quick initial shortlist (of 16), then halving that number, then umming and ahhing over the remaining eight (for a relatively short period of time because, as I said, it’s just a bit of fun), I’m declaring the winner to be Mission: Impossible – Fallout. It was a tough choice (the remainder of the “top eight” included another Mission: Impossible, two Denis Villeneuves, a Christmas classic, at least one modern action masterpiece, and several films that spoke to me personally even if the broader reception was more divided), but this is what I’ve landed on today.


I’m hoping to get at least somewhat back on track. As I said earlier, I’m not actually far off it, but with several categories complete or almost complete, it’s the others (Blindspot, WDYMYHS, and, especially, Genre) that really need attention. The biggest potential barrier (as mentioned in my mid-month piece) is that I’ve committed myself to a pile of Doctor Who watching, reading, and listening in honour of the series’ 60th anniversary. Will that ruin my film viewing? Will I be able to find a harmonious balance? Only time will tell (appropriately enough).

Also next month, it’s the FilmBath Festival. I haven’t actually attended for a few years, but I’ve got a couple of tickets booked this time — though I think only one of the films I’m seeing will qualify for the Challenge. Nonetheless, more on that next month.

And then there’s the Halloween of it all. Not for me, spending a whole month watching just one genre. Though I feel like I should do it one year, just to have done it. But 2023 will not be that year.

The Bicentennial Monthly Review of August 2023

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A couple of months ago, a new person joined my team at work. She’s 19 years old. Part of me still processed that as “just a few years younger than me, then”. Of course, that’s just my mind cheating me. When I started this blog — 200 months ago — I was 20 years old. She would’ve been about 3. Why is it that, as you get older, the world seems to conspire to make you feel it?

(For what it’s worth, because I didn’t do these monthly reviews from the very start, this is, to be accurate, the 160th monthly review; and the 99th in (more-or-less) its current format, as chronicled by the numbering of the Arbies. I still kind of think of these monthly columns as “something I started doing later”, when in fact I’ve now been publishing them for 80% of the blog’s lifetime.)

I predicted at the end of last month’s update that August was going to be an inauspicious celebration of that landmark; and while the month wasn’t anything spectacular, it turned out mostly ok — as we shall see…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#59 The Imitation Game (2014) — Rewatch #8
#60 Santo vs. the Zombies (1962) — Series Progression #10
#61 Marriage of Convenience (1960) — Physical Media #7
#62 Murder on the Orient Express (2017) — Physical Media #8
#63 Greatest Days (2023) — New Film #8
#64 Urge to Kill (1960) — Physical Media #9
#65 65 (2023) — Failures #8


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in August.
  • That’s the second month in a row I’ve hit my minimum target of 10 new films. And it’s the first time I’ve managed to reach 10 in consecutive months since February 2022. You wouldn’t think it was so hard, but it seems — for me nowadays — it is.
  • Five of those films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
  • This is one place the month was less than ideal, because I should have reached #66. But being only one film behind target isn’t so bad, especially when you consider I thought this month might be a total disaster.
  • Though, to continue with the negatives, after spending two months triumphantly getting back on track, unfortunately I didn’t find time for either Blindspot or WDYMYHS during August. I’m hoping to get on top of them (again) in September.
  • In brighter news, I completed my first Challenge category, Series Progression. I’ve currently got over 30 film series on the go, so it’s not really a surprise that I found this category fairly easy. (Not to mention that five of the nine categories are consciously designed to not be finished until December; and Wildcards rely on other categories’ stipulations being completed; so really there are only three categories that are likely to wrap up first.)
  • Right behind is Physical Media, now only one film away from completion.
  • Meanwhile, Genre is still 80% incomplete. I’m gonna have to do some kind of giallo marathon at some point, I think.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched 65.
  • And yes, I did deliberately pace my viewing so that 65 was #65.



The 99th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Slim pickings this month, to be honest. Some of August’s ten new films have managed to make the long list for my end-of-year “best of”, but then I’m quite lax about what gets on the list so I have maximum options when I come to decide (in case of opinions changing on reflection). I won’t be surprised if they all get culled fairly easily, come the time. That said, I was a lot fonder of Amazon Prime spy thriller All the Old Knives than most reviewers. It’s not up to Le Carré standards, but it’s pretty good if you’re a fan of that kind of spy tale.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Conversely, this has to go to another spy flick. Despite a strong cast (Sirs Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier) and director (Terence Young, who helmed three Connery Bonds), and interesting real-life inspiration (the defection of Kim Philby), The Jigsaw Man is an undercooked disappointment, with almost no redeeming features whatsoever.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
August 22nd was the six-month anniversary of the last review posted to this blog, which even then was just a shorts roundup. I haven’t reviewed a feature since February 10th. 2023 is turning out to be something of a disaster in that regard. More pertinently, it means this month’s audience award has just two competitors once again — namely, July’s monthly review and its failures. Of the two, it was (as the bold link may’ve given away) the former that triumphed, meaning the review has beaten the failures four months in a row.


The centenary-related celebrations aren’t over because, by sheer coincidence (I certainly didn’t plan it this way back in 2015), next month is the 100th edition of my Monthly Arbitrary Awards, aka the Arbies! Do I have anything special planned to mark the occasion? No. Will I think of something in the next 30 days? Maybe.

Over in the real world, I’m leaving my current job to start a new one. Sounds time-consuming and antithetical to getting films watched, doesn’t it? Oh dear. On the bright side, I have a small amount of time off in between roles, so hopefully i can cram a bunch of films in then. I’ve certainly got plenty that I want to catch up on.

The Cinematic Monthly Review of July 2023

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For a self-avowed film fan and film blogger, I don’t get to the cinema all that much. From the 16 completed years of this blog (2007–2022), only three have a number of cinema visits in double figures, and only two of those exceed a once-per-month average. Long-time readers may remember that I didn’t go at all in 2013 or 2014.

In that respect, 2020 was shaping up nicely — I’d been four times by the end of February, and if I’d continued at that kind of rate it would’ve been a personal record-breaker — and then the pandemic happened. I was lured back late in 2021 for Bond and then Dune, but then another lull kicked in: for one reason or another, I didn’t make it out to anything else for almost two years, until this very month.

And then, a few days later, I went again.

And the week after that, I went again.

I didn’t do Barbenheimer, though.

So I’ve already beaten 2022 (zero) and 2021 (two), and just one more trip will equal 2020 (four). (Now, if only I’d done Barbenheimer…) I can’t see myself going often enough across the rest of the year to reach the giddy heights of 2019 (which holds the record for my blogging era, on 19. Somewhat ironically, I went to the cinema a lot more often in the early/mid ’00s, just before I started this blog. If I’d been doing this in 2005 and 2006, those years would likely be stuffed to the gills with cinema trips. Or maybe I didn’t go quite as often as I thought and having historical stats would reveal that? I guess we’ll never know… unless I went back through the films released in those years and I worked out how many I saw on the big screen. Sounds like a lot of effort. But now that I’ve thought of it…)

Anyway, hurrah for my return to the cinema! It’s quite good, isn’t it?



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#47 Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (2022) — Failure #7
#48 John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) — New Film #6
#49 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) — New Film #7
#50 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) — Wildcard #4
#51 Santo vs. Infernal Men (1961) — Series Progression #9
#52 Oppenheimer (2023) — Wildcard #5
#53 Living (2022) — Wildcard #6
#54 Night and the City (1950) — WDYMYHS #5
#55 The Asphalt Jungle (1950) — WDYMYHS #6
#56 Sweet Smell of Success (1957) — WDYMYHS #7
#57 Beau Travail (1999) — Blindspot #7
#58 Black Dynamite (2009) — Rewatch #7


  • I watched 14 feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • As regular readers will know, I aim to achieve at least 10 first time watches every month, so hurrah — especially as that’s just the second time I’ve managed it in 2023, and only the third time in the last 12 months.
  • 11 of those films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • If you check out my Recently Watched page, you’ll see three rewatches scatted amongst this month’s first-time watches. Why didn’t the other two count? The other two were stumbled upon on TV and, in one respect or another, only half watched; and yet, that half was enough to feel like I’d seen them again… sort of. Not like a full rewatch, really (hence why I didn’t allow them to count), but enough of a refresher that, if I ever watch either of them again, I don’t expect it to feel like a “second watch”. (For more philosophical musings along these lines, check out my reviews of the pair on Letterboxd.)
  • More importantly from my Challenge, reaching #58 means I’m back on target. That’s after ending the last two months behind. And it’s actually nearly three months that I’ve been lagging: the last time I was on target was 7th May.
  • Part of that was achieved via the use of three Wildcards. I didn’t necessarily want to burn through my Wildcards in the middle of the year; but, equally, I don’t have to save them for the end. And as I seemed to be struggling to watch other Challenge-qualifying films, I need the numbers where I can get ’em.
  • Under the Challenge rules, I should count one New Film a month. This month, there are four. I didn’t log one in May, so that needed catching up; then there’s the one for June; and then two more as Wildcards. I didn’t watch that many brand-new films in the first half of the year (just enough to keep the category ticking over), so it’s kind of nice to feel so inundated. Also, I’ve got loads to catch up on!
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Claire Denis’s Beau Travail, keeping that category on track too.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were archetypal heist thriller The Asphalt Jungle, London-set Night and the City, and battling newspapermen in Sweet Smell of Success. And watching three here means this category is back on track too, as per the catchup for Blindspot I wrote about last month.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, John Wick: Chapter 4, Living, and Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical.



The 98th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
If you’d asked me to predict this category before the month began, I’d’ve said M:I-7 was a strong frontrunner. But, while I did enjoy it a lot, I didn’t think it was good as the last two in the series (though I have a feeling I’m going to appreciate it more on a rewatch, divorced from all the expectation); plus, I happened to watch several other exceptionally great films this month, to the extent it was never really in contention here. Indeed, two other 2023 releases rose above it (namely, John Wick: Chapter 4 and Oppenheimer). In the end, I’m going to plump for an older film, because I greatly admired Jules Dassin’s British noir, Night and the City. (I have a sneaking suspicion those three films may end up getting rearranged somewhat by the time I get to my end-of-year best-of, but you never know. Only time will tell.)

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This is a little easier. Really speaking, it should be one of the two Santo films I watched this month. I kinda enjoyed them, but they’re not good, especially compared to everything else. That said, I did enjoy them, which isn’t necessarily true of Beau Travail. Saying Denis’s film is worse than any Santo flick would sound ridiculous to most cinephiles — objectively (in as much as art can be judged objectively), it’s a better film. But, while I did like or admire parts of it, it’s not really to my taste; and even though they’re trashy and poorly made, I ultimately got more enjoyment from the Santo films.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Here’s a date for your diary: August 22nd. That’s the six-month anniversary of the last film review posted here. I had the best of intentions this month — having seen the likes of Indy 5, M:I-7 and Oppenheimer at the cinema, I wanted to review them promptly — but… well, it didn’t happen, did it? And so, for the fifth month in a row, this award has just two posts to choose from; and, once again, neither performed spectacularly on the chart. That said, one did do notably better than the other. When I turned my “failures” section into a series of standalone posts (back in February 2022), they were initially much more popular than the monthly reviews they’d spun out of. At this point, the tables have quite firmly turned. Yes, the victor here is my June monthly review.


It’s the 200th month of 100 Films!

And it looks set to be a challenge to my Challenge — having just got back on track, I’ve now got a busy work and personal calendar that’s liable to get in the way of film watching. Oh no! Can I nonetheless make it to my August target of #66? Join me in 31 days to find out. (Ooh, such drama!)