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The 20th Monthly Review of September 2026

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I don’t know if I could say things went well enough in September to call it a turnaround, but they have improved. I’m currently only 11 films behind my Challenge target, which is back down to below the level of tardiness I was at in March and April.

Plus, this month alone I made the same number of trips to the cinema as in the whole of 2025, and more than in the whole of 2024! That number of trips was, um, two… but still, it’s a true fact.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#50 The Double (1971) — Failure #9
#51 Cocaine Bear (2023) — 50 Unseen #5
#52 Magnificent Bodyguards 3D (1978) — Genre #5
#53 Coyote vs. Acme (2026) — New Film #9
#54 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) — Series Progression #7
#55 Team America: World Police (2004) — Rewatch #4
#56 Belle de Jour (1967) — Blindspot #5
#57 Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1 (2012) — WDYMYHS #5
#58 Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2 (2012) — WDYMYHS #6
#59 Suspicion (1941) — Blindspot #6
#60 Topper (1937) — Wildcard #9
#61 The Set Up (1963) — Series Progression #8
#62 The Rescuers (1977) — Rewatch #5
#63 The Rescuers Down Under (1990) — Rewatch #6


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in September.
  • That makes September the best month of 2026 for new films — indeed, for film viewing fullstop — so I’m finally heading in the right direction.
  • It’s also my second consecutive month with at least ten first-time watches, which is the first time I’ve managed two such months back-to-back since October/November last year.
  • 11 of those first-timers counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with three rewatches.
  • The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under win spots by dint of being relatively short. Of course, I did want to rewatch them sometime: they’re Disney canon films I saw in childhood but have no strong memories of; but that’s hardly been a pressing project. Nonetheless, I had them ready to go, and they’re under 80 minutes apiece, so they were great for squeezing in on weeknights, especially when I’m so far behind my target.
  • This month’s Blindspot films were (to quote the original poster) “Luis Bunuel’s masterpiece of erotica” Belle de Jour, and the only Alfred Hitchcock movie to earn an acting Oscar, Suspicion.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were both parts of Indian gangster epic Gangs of Wasseypur. I’ve been planning to watch that double over a single weekend ever since I fell behind on my WDYMYHS goal (which has been for most of the year), so I’m glad to have finally pulled it off.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched films Coyote vs. Acme, The Double, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, plus TV short La cabina.



The 136th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
At one time destined to end up in the dustbin of history — literally, as Warner Bros planned to scrap it — the fact we can even see Coyote vs. Acme is something to be applauded. Heck, that’s a big reason why I went to see it at the cinema rather than just waiting for disc or streaming. Fortunately, as well as being a victory for the release and preservation of art, it’s also damn funny.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It seems almost churlish to pick on a ’60s programme-filling B-movie, but the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series are usually moderately solid but The Set Up (or, as it’s technically titled on screen, The Set up) was disappointingly weak. It’s adequately made on the surface, as the series always is, but the plot is predictable and hole-riddled literally to a fault. Or several faults, even.


I don’t really like turning film viewing into a tickbox exercise… although I guess you could argue that’s inherent in the current structure of my Challenge, so maybe I shouldn’t be so snooty. Anyway, with three months of 2026 left, if I want to complete my goal then a typical month needs to contain 12 qualifying films, made up more-or-less as follows:

  • 1 New Film
  • 2 Rewatches
  • 2 Blindspot films
  • 2 WDYMYHS films
  • 1 Failure
  • 1–2 ‘50 Unseen’ films
  • 1–2 Genre films
  • 1 Series Progression

I was hoping that summary would be neater than having to assign “1 or 2” films to some categories, but my viewing hasn’t been so neat — because it’s not just a tickbox exercise, see! Even the Series Progression number isn’t quite right: I’ve only got two to go (plus one Wildcard, so that’s sort of covered off there, even though it’s a completely different category). Heck, even saying I need to watch 12 films a month isn’t quite accurate, because the average is actually 12.3.

But the overall point is: it’s still a challenging Challenge. Will I get it done? The number of films I watched in September renders the answer to that a definite “maybe”.

The 20th Monthly Review of August 2026

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Back in May, I noted how far behind target I was — at the time, 15 films. Since then, it only got worse… but this month, it finally improves!

Although not even to as far behind as I was in May, unfortunately — I’m still 17 films off where I should be. That means I have to average 13 qualifying films every month for the rest of the year to make it to #100. The last time I managed that many films in a single month was December 2024, and the last time I managed it for four months on the trot was in early 2021… but there’s still hope! A fool’s hope, maybe, but that was good enough for Gandalf.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#39 Death Trap (1962) — Series Progression #5
#40 Flavia (2026) — New Film #8
#41 Thor: Love and Thunder 3D (2022) — 50 Unseen #4
#42 The Black Phone (2021) — Wildcard #8
#43 Woman in the Dunes (1964) — WDYMYHS #3
#44 The Singing Ringing Tree (1957) — Failure #8
#45 Robot Monster 3D (1953) — Genre #3
#46 Point Break (1991) — Rewatch #3
#47 Dersu Uzala (1975) — WDYMYHS #4
#48 Dragonfly Squadron 3D (1954) — Genre #4
#49 Quatermass and the Pit (1967) — Series Progression #6


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in August.
  • That makes it the first month to hit my minimum first-time watch goal since last November. Hooray!
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I last saw that rewatch, Point Break, in 2007, the first year of this blog. The same was true of This Is Spinal Tap before I rewatched it in March. It feels fitting for the blog’s 20th year to be rewatching films from its first — maybe I should try to do that for all of this year’s rewatches? Except I’ve already messed up such a plan by not doing it for the first one (The Greatest Showman, which I previously watched in 2018), so maybe I won’t bother.
  • Quatermass and the Pit is the first Series Progression film this year that isn’t from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series. Will they make up 50% of that category this year, or will it be more by the time I’m done? The next four months will, of course, tell.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were surreal Japanese drama/thriller/horror (it doesn’t often get branded a horror, but I thought it was one), Woman in the Dunes; and also kinda Japanese, but also Russian, in that it was directed by Akira Kurosawa but was funded by Russia and is in Russian and was made for Russians, Dersu Uzala.
  • No Blindspot film this month — I concentrated on getting WDYMYHS up to the same level instead.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched The Singing Ringing Tree.



The 135th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
My pick for film of the month came right at the end: Hammer’s third big-screen adaptation of a BBC TV Quatermass serial, Quatermass and the Pit, which is more driven by sci-fi ideas than you might expect of a ’60s flick from a studio renowned for their lurid horror.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Fitting more in the stereotypes of its era, Robot Monster is pulp ’50s SF in all the worst ways. I only watched it because it was shot in 3D, and that’s actually moderately successful — it resists the urge to poke stuff at the camera, as you’d expect from such a schlocky effort, but instead offers reasonable depth and dimensionality, and even a couple of sequences that play with ideas like showing different images to each eye.


September will need to be my most film-filled month of the year if I’m to even stand a chance of getting to #100 in December. But I’ve bought myself that extra time rather than it already feeling impossible, so that’s something.

The 20th Monthly Review of July 2026

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At one point this month, I really thought I was going to, finally, for the first time since November last year, hit my ten first-time watches minimum goal. And then life and stuff happened again and I didn’t.

The average number of Challenge-qualifying films I need to watch each month for the rest of the year now sits at 12.4. The average number I’ve watched each month so far this year is 5.4. Not promising… but 12.4 is not beyond the realms of what I’ve managed in the past… although the last time I had a month above 12 was December 2024, and the last five-month stretch that averaged above 12.4 was in 2021…

But you never know.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#31 Wuthering Heights (2026) — New Film #3
#32 Enola Holmes 3 (2026) — New Film #4
#33 Lawless (2012) — Wildcard #6
#34 The Sheep Detectives (2026) — New Film #5
#35 Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) — Failure #7
#36 Joyride (2022) — Wildcard #7
#37 The Odyssey (2026) — New Film #6
#38 Project Hail Mary (2026) — New Film #7


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • Five of them were films that had their UK release this year, taking my New Films category from “barely started” to “up-to-date” in one fell swoop.
  • Neither Blindspot nor WDYMYHS were progressed this month, unfortunately.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Bodies Bodies Bodies and The Sheep Detectives.



The 134th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Sometimes I feel like so much of what I watch these days is middling — as I’ve discussed before, I don’t know if I’ve just become a harsher critic as I’ve got older (I guess gaining experience will do that to you — fewer things feel unique) or if the quality of films I’m choosing to watch has declined — but every now and then something does come along and blows me away, and this month it was Project Hail Mary.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Certified (inter)national treasure Olivia Colman shows off / labours under (deleted as applicable; I have no idea if it was good or not) an Irish accent throughout dramedy Joyride, which is… kinda fine? Some of it was funny, which rubbed a little awkwardly against when it got a bit Serious.


I’m gonna call it now: if August is the month that brings about a turnaround in my film viewing fortunes, I will be very surprised. I’m not going to do a Werner Herzog and commit to eating a shoe or something, but I’m pretty damn certain that in a month’s time I’ll be writing about a new high average that I need to hit for the rest of the year. In fact, it might finally reach the point of feeling insurmountable. We’ll see in 31 days.

The 20th Monthly Review of June 2026

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And we’re halfway through the year! But my Challenge? That’s not even a third completed…

To be honest, without wanting to go into too much detail, this year has been a struggle on a personal level, so it’s no wonder my film viewing has slipped so drastically. My current plan is to continue just picking away at it and I’ll see what happens. I’m not going to outright abandon it, but I’m not going to stress about it too much either, because I have other things to do that about.

In that spirit, onwards with the usual bits and pieces…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#27 Is This Thing On? (2025) — New Film #2
#28 The Choral (2025) — Wildcard #5
#29 Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025) — Failure #6
#30 The Prince of Egypt (1998) — Blindspot #4


  • I watched four feature films I’d never seen before in June.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, but no rewatches.
  • That’s more-or-less on-brand for 2026: my monthly average thus far has been just 5.0, when it needs to be 8.3 to reach 100 on schedule.
  • It has left me 19 films behind target, though. Yes, I should be at #49 by the end of June — you can thank the uncommon shortness of February for slightly unbalancing that target.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Disney-esque Dreamworks musical animation The Prince of Egypt.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film… wasn’t.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.



The 133rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing I really loved this month, to be honest. I guess Is This Thing On? was the one with the most high-quality moments, even if overall it felt too long-winded and could’ve done with being tighter.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I don’t remember The Prince of Egypt making much of a splash back when it came out (almost 30 years ago!), but it seems to have amassed a strong reputation since. Personally, I didn’t much care for it and don’t really understand its renaissance, but there you go.


Keep on keeping on.

The 20th Monthly Review of May 2026

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Here’s the latest update on the slowly-unfolding disaster that is my 2026 Challenge…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#22 Locker Sixty-Nine (1962) — Series Progression #4
#23 Jaws 3-D (1983) — Genre #2
#24 The Blade (1995) — Failure #5
#25 The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) — Blindspot #3
#26 Puss in Boots 3D (2011) — 50 Unseen #3


  • I watched five feature films I’d never seen before in May.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • Unfortunately, that’s a slip back from last month‘s nine. May started well, but life got in the way later on and I couldn’t capitalise on that good start.
  • It also means I’ve slipped further behind my target pace: I was five films behind by the end of January, nine by the end of February, and 12 by the end of March, which I at least held steady in April. I’m now 15 films behind.
  • Every ‘Series Progression’ film so far in 2026 has been an Edgar Wallace Mystery, which was not the plan! Though it was, perhaps, inevitable that this would happen someday. I’ve been watching them since April 2023 and still have almost 30 to go, so it may well continue.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. It was supposed to be part of WDYMYHS 2019, but I didn’t complete my list that year — it’s only taken me another seven years to rectify that.
  • I had a plan in mind for this month’s WDYMYHS film(s), but didn’t manage to execute it and ended up not watching any.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched only The Blade.



The 132nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Two 3D movies this month! On the positive end of the spectrum, one where the typical swooping camerawork of CG animation really helps the depth and dimensionality to sing. I love a good swashbuckler and Shrek spin-off Puss in Boots definitely fits the bill.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
After finding Jaws 2 surprisingly enjoyable despite its reputation, I was somewhat looking forward to Jaws 3-D — I wasn’t foolish enough to expect a masterpiece, but maybe it would be fun, especially in 3D? Oh, no. No, no, no. It’s a terrible movie with mostly unremarkable 3D. I’ll still watch Jaws: The Revenge someday to be completist, but I hope it goes even further and actually reaches “so bad it’s good” territory.


As 2026 nudges towards its halfway point, I’ll once again reassess if there’s any hope of turning around my Challenge for this year.

Before that, this month’s “failures” column is likely to be another delayed one, because I’ve got a busy week and I’m not sure I’ll even have a chance to consider writing it before Thursday.

The 20th Monthly Review of April 2026

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We’re one-third of the way through 2026, but my film viewing hasn’t even reached the one-quarter mark of my Challenge. Oh dear.

Still, April was the strongest month of the year so far, and the goal isn’t out of reach yet. More about the exact numbers behind those observations in my viewing notes; first, the films I did watch:



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#13 Breakout (1959) — Series Progression #3
#14 Ordeal by Innocence (1984) — Wildcard #2
#15 One Battle After Another (2025) — Failure #4
#16 Nonnas (2025) — Wildcard #3
#17 3-D Rarities (2015) — Genre #1
#18 Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) — Blindspot #2
#19 Conclave (2024) — 50 Unseen #2
#20 Hope Gap (2019) — Wildcard #4
#21 A Wednesday (2008) — WDYMYHS #2


  • I watched nine feature films I’d never seen before in April.
  • That makes this the best month of 2026 to date by some margin, although it still falls short of my ten-film target.
  • All nine counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, but no rewatches this month.
  • The target for the end of April is #33, so I’m still 12 films behind.
  • With 79 films to go in the next eight months, that’s a required average of 9.88 Challenge films per month — slightly up from 9.78 after March. Still some work to be done to stand a chance of catching up, then.
  • 3-D Rarities is my first Genre film for 2026, making that the last category to get underway.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was French New Wave drama Hiroshima Mon Amour.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Indian antiterrorism thriller A Wednesday.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched only One Battle After Another.



The 131st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
It was the most recent Best Picture winner and a Paul Thomas Anderson film — two things that some people (not necessarily the same people) would take as an unimpeachable mark of quality, but which are very much “wait and see” indicators for me. But as it turns out, they were right, and I thought One Battle After Another was fantastic.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I imagine that, back when it was released in 2008, A Wednesday felt timely and relevant. Nowadays, it’s dated both stylistically (its camerawork and editing is heavily indebted to other early-21st-century works in the genre) and politically (its chosen antiterrorism angle feels ickily far right in light of the present-day landscape).


I’ve got a very busy May coming up — I wouldn’t be surprised if progress gets knocked back again. And I can state with a high degree of confidence that, if I’m ever going to turn things around and re-start publishing reviews, it won’t happen next month.

The 20th Monthly Review of March 2026

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I ended last month’s review with a note of hope that the progress of 2026’s Challenge was at a tipping point; that things would imminently improve.

Reader, they did not.

Well, technically they did a bit — March has the most Challenge films of any month this year so far — but it wasn’t enough to consider me ‘back on track’. Why is this year going so poorly? What have I been doing instead of watching films? Well, it’s certainly true that I continue to spend leisure time on other things as well (books, games, TV), but I was also doing that last year. Am I choosing those more often than films now? I guess I must be. Still, it never feels like there’s enough time for any of it. Somehow, days just evaporate.

Anyway, let’s get into the detail of how things are going on the film front.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#8 Different from the Others (1919) — Blindspot #1
#9 PK (2014) — WDYMYHS #1
#10 Kung Fu Panda 4 3D (2024) — Failure #3
#11 This is Spinal Tap (1984) — Rewatch #2
#12 The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) — 50 Unseen #1


  • I watched four feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I should have reached #24 by the end of March to be on target, so I’ve only watched 50% of the Challenge films that I should have by this point.
  • Kung Fu Panda 4 is my first 3D film this year, but doesn’t count towards my 3D Challenge category because it’s not classic 3D — by which I mean old rather than, y’know, A Classic. Not that it’s the latter either. But it is older than I thought: it came out two years ago! Where does time go?!
  • Talking of time disappearing, I first and last watched Spinal Tap in 2007 (as #15 that year, to be precise) and the receipt in my Blu-ray copy tells me I bought it in 2011, so I’ve been meaning to rewatch it for at least 15 years. These are the kind of ridiculous timescales I operate on. While I liked it back then, I loved it now, so maybe the wait wasn’t such a bad thing.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was the oldest on the list: Different from the Others. And not just old but historically important, being one of the earliest films to openly engage with themes of homosexuality.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was comedic sci-fi / religious satire PK.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched Kung Fu Panda 4.



The 130th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
These categories feel a little meaningless this year, when the pool of ‘nominees’ is so slim every month. Nonetheless, The Ballad of Wallis Island is a good film — much funnier than I was expecting, while still hitting home with its more dramatic parts.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing outright bad this month, although several sit in the middle of the road. However, perhaps the least enjoyable viewing experience was Different from the Others. It’s an historically significant film and undoubtedly worthwhile for that reason, but huge chunks of it are missing, and even with photos and title cards to plug the plot gaps, it’s quite a disjointed watch.


Join me for the next instalment of the 48 Films in a Year Challenge!

…doesn’t have the same ring, does it? But it’s the current trajectory. That said, 88 films in 9 months works out at under 10 films per month on average, and 10 new films + 1 rewatch has been my monthly goal for a long time — and I’ve achieved it more months than not (before this year, anyway). In other words: hope remains that 2026 will turn out alright.

The Aramánian Monthly Review of October 2025

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The much-anticipated (if you move in circles that anticipate such things) fourth Critical Role campaign started this month, with a quartet of ‘overture’ episodes that set the scene for a different-feeling but hopefully-epic new adventure — or set of adventures, with three groups in play. It felt like watching the start of something like The Wire or Game of Thrones, in the best possible way. If you’ve ever been curious but never started, it’s a great time to dive in… so long as you can find 18 hours a month for it, that is.

Despite all of that (including staying up overnight twice to watch episodes as they premiered), I still found time for enough films to keep my Challenge on track. Indeed, I head into November the furthest ahead I’ve ever been in the new-style Challenge era…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#81 The Tough Ones (1976) — Genre #7
#82 The Woman in Cabin 10 (2025) — New Film #10
#83 Bride of Frankenstein (1935) — Rewatch #9
#84 Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage (1989) — Failure #10
#85 Slap the Monster on Page One (1972) — Genre #8
#86 Tenebrae (1982) — WDYMYHS #10
#87 Häxan (1922) — Blindspot #10


  • I watched ten feature films I’d never seen before in October.
  • That’s the sixth month this year to land on exactly ten new films, but the first since May.
  • Six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • This month’s Blindspot and WDYMYHS films — silent witchcraft documentary Häxan and Dario Argento giallo Tenebrae, respectively — were ones I’ve been saving most of the year to watch around Halloween. They didn’t make the lists for that reason, but it was a fortunate side effect. In the end, my schedule meant I watched them as a double-bill on the night itself — kinda perfect, really
  • I’ve also been saving Midsommar for the same reason. At one point I was aiming to watch all three in the run-up to Halloween, sacrificing the intended ‘one per month’ structure for seasonal appropriateness; but then I realised that, with Halloween falling on a Friday, the first weekend of November is also Halloween-y — so I could both watch one a month, as intended, and watch them all at Halloween. Now I just need to make sure I actually do that today or tomorrow…
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Crime Hunter: Bullets of Rage.



The 125th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Widely regarded as one of Dario Argento’s best, Tenebrae mostly lives up to that hype. I’m not convinced the plot entirely hangs together, but the sheer abundance of gorgeous style is enough to carry it.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
While I didn’t outright dislike it, The Woman in Cabin 10 is a by-the-numbers holiday-paperback of a thriller.


2025 races toward its conclusion! There are 13 films remaining to complete my Challenge, which should feel surmountable (the end felt comfortable last year, and I had 15 left at this point), but so much of this year has raced by, and the state of my calendar makes it feel like Christmas is the day after tomorrow… Well, I can but try.

The Steamy Monthly Review of September 2025

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Ooh, saucy…

Nah, actually. The title was inspired by this turn of events: I recently won a Steam Deck (yep, won — lucky me!), and have consequently spent a disproportionate amount of my free time playing around with it, and generally getting back into gaming along with it. I imagine at some point the shine of newness will wear off, though hopefully not entirely because I’ve gone a bit crazy with buying stuff to play. Brand-new high-profile titles are insanely expensive nowadays, as the gaming media will often harp on about, but older games and indie titles regularly go for insanely low prices — which is great if you’re catching up on the past 20-ish years of the medium… though it does lead to your library bulging pretty quickly. Or it does if you’re me.

Anyway, naturally there was a knock-on effect on my film viewing. Not disastrous, but it does mean I failed to achieve ten first-time watches for the second time this year. Well, next month is always a fresh chance to start a new run.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#73 7 Women and a Murder (2021) — Rewatch #8
#74 KPop Demon Hunters (2025) — New Film #9
#75 An Aleutian Adventure (1920s) — Failure #9
#76 The Italian Connection (1972) — Genre #6
#77 Rebel Without a Cause (1977) — Blindspot #9
#78 9 (2009) — 50 Unseen #9
#79 The City of Lost Children (1995) — WDYMYHS #9
#80 Drive-Away Dolls (2025) — 50 Unseen #10


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in September.
  • Seven of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I remain ahead of pace for the year (to be at pace, September would end on #74), though the “whole month ahead” lead I had back in March, May and June is definitively over for the year (I would’ve needed to get to #83 to achieve it this month).
  • I say “definitively” because of the limitations on certain categories: there are five that should feature every month, meaning the highest point I could end October is #90, and pace for the end of November is #91.
  • Of course, as I mentioned in the intro, I didn’t hit my monthly target of ten first-time watches, so it’s not all sunshine and roses.
  • The Italian Connection is the second film in director Fernando Di Leo’s Milieu trilogy. Its predecessor, Milano Calibro 9, was the first film I watched for this year’s Genre category. I’ll give you one guess which film I’ve got earmarked to include among the remaining four Genre films…
  • I’d owned 9 on Blu-ray for 15 years, never played, before I finally watched it this month. I’m ridiculous like that — 9 is far from alone in suffering such a fate. And it might have stayed unplayed and mostly forgotten (as I’m sure many other things are, especially titles on DVD), were it not for it being on one of my 50 Unseen lists, which means it gets brought to mind every now and then, whenever I peruse that catalogue of failures for something to belatedly watch. I don’t watch as many of those as I’d like nowadays, but they’re still a useful reminder.
  • Talking of 50 Unseen, I finished that category this month. The final tally sees half of the films coming from last year and half from years before that. Seems like a pretty good balance to me.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was ’50s teen classic Rebel Without a Cause.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was dark steampunk fairytale The City of Lost Children.
  • When I decided to watch The City of Lost Children, I thought how it was nice that for once I was watching a disc I’d only bought relatively recently. Then I looked it up and discovered I purchased it 2½ years ago. Oh well.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched An Aleutian Adventure and KPop Demon Hunters.



The 124th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Last weekend came in swinging here: September had been an above-adequate (no bad films) but unexceptional month (like much of 2025 has been — my 5-star list is looking very thin), but then I watched a trio of films that impressed me mightily. Of those, my pick is probably Rebel Without a Cause. I thought I knew what it was going to be, and it wasn’t; not exactly. Also, James Dean really was very good.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This feels harsh — as this category sometimes does by its very nature (I’m not going to go out of my way to watch one certified-awful film every month just to guarantee a ‘winner’) — because 9 actually has some very strong points… it just drops the ball on some of the fundamentals underpinning those, and thus is the least-good film I watched this month.


It’s creepy and it’s kooky, mysterious and spooky, it’s all together ooky… and yet it’s all just because of one day right at the end. Any excuse, I guess. Certainly, I’ve got a few horror and horror-adjacent films lined up to try to watch in October, and maybe I’ll focus on finding some more too.

The August Monthly Review Club

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August has been a funny old month. On one hand, it’s felt like there’s been no time to get anything done — just like every month nowadays, really. But on the other, it seemed very long — it feels like ages since I wrote the July monthly review.

In a similar vein, whereas I struggled (and ultimately failed) to hit my viewing targets in July, I made it past ten new films this month without even particularly trying. Considering I’ve both been extra busy at work and had a host of other options and distractions taking up my free time — some of them excitingly new, as well as the old favourites — it’s a minor miracle. Indeed, I’d basically written off getting to ten films this month (once you’ve failed once, what does failing again the month after matter, eh?), only to succeed regardless. Wonders will literally never cease.

As for how this month’s viewing translates specifically to my Challenge… read on.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#65 Candidate for Murder (1962) — Series Progression #9
#66 The Power of the Dog (2021) — 50 Unseen #7
#67 Gwen and the Book of Sand (1985) — Failure #8
#68 Girl, Interrupted (1999) — Blindspot #8
#69 The Road to Hong Kong (1962) — Series Progression #10
#70 The Thursday Murder Club (2025) — New Film #8
#71 Project A (1983) — WDYMYHS #8
#72 The Wild Robot (2024) — 50 Unseen #8


  • I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in August.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • No rewatches this month, which is a shame as I’m meant to get in at least one a month. Still, it’s not the first time I’ve had to catch up on them this year, so, y’know, these things happen. (Should I be injecting more fake jeopardy into my commentary when I fail like this?)
  • I needed to get to #74 to be a whole month ahead of pace again. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I’m still six films in the clear, which is a nice buffer.
  • Part of that included finishing off the Series Progression category for 2025. 40% of the qualifying films this year came from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series of British crime B-movies, which is perhaps more than I’d’ve liked (I’ve got so many series on the go, I’d appreciate the incentive to progress some others). That said, it was almost worse: it was set to be 50%, but then I watched something else that counted…
  • To wit: I finally finished the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope ‘Road To’ series. I watched my first of those back in 2007 — this blog’s very first year. And that’s why I like (or need) a tangible incentive to get on with these things.
  • Speaking of tangible incentives, this month’s Blindspot film was the gender-bent remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (okay, that’s a tad harsh, and it’s not literally that… but it certainly feels like it in places), Girl, Interrupted.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Jackie Chan’s piratical actioner Project A.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Gwen and the Book of Sand.



The 123rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m struggling for standout films this year — it’s been one of those years where you begin to think, “have I just seen all the great films already?” The closest I’ve come to having my faith restored is this month’s favourite pick, cosy sci-fi animation The Wild Robot.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Greatness may be in short supply, but there’s also nothing terrible this month — although there was plenty of mediocrity. I don’t know if it was the outright worst film I saw, but the biggest letdown was The Thursday Murder Club. So much potential, and it got some of it right, but some poor adaptation decision scuppered the overall effect.


The year’s final third begins. It’ll be Christmas before we know it…