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April’s Failures

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I was going to go to the cinema this month, I really was, but then… I didn’t. Top contender was already mentioned in last month’s failures, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Seems like a real Big Screen experience. So when they drop it to smaller screens, but don’t even have the courtesy to drop the ticket price, it begins to seem less appealing. I’m sure my local’s smallest screen is still bigger than my TV (I use “sure” quite loosely there, in its lesser known sense of “not sure”. I mean, I’m sure it is literally bigger, but does it feel bigger when you’re sat however-far away from it?), but when a single cinema ticket is over half the cost of buying the film on 4K disc (which I know I’ll do), it lessens the appeal. Also nearly tempting me out of the house were Dev Patel’s Monkey Man (that just straight up disappeared entirely before I had the chance) and Alex Garland’s Civil War (but if I want to watch an Alex Garland film I’ve not seen, there’s Men on Channel 4 for free).

There were other theatrical releases in April, of course, which broadly break down into two groups: ones that will go straight on my watchlist when they hit streaming, and there’s a reasonable chance I’ll actually watch them, too; and ones that will go on my watchlist but probably just sit there, possibly forever. In the former, there’s Luca Guadagnino’s much-discussed tennis-themed love triangle / threesome (blurbs kinda imply the former; images suggest the latter; I’ve not read enough to know which it is; maybe both), Challengers; British period comedy Seize Them! (I don’t think these screened anywhere near me, but the trailer was funny enough); high-concept vampire thriller Abigail; and one-man-army actioner Boy Kills World (John Wick has given rise to many such movies, and, frankly, I’m not complaining). On the second pile, there’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black; horror franchise prequel The First Omen (I’ve never seen any Omen films, so this was never going to top any lists for me); Ewan McGregor and his daughter on a road trip in Bleeding Love (not to be confused with Love Lies Bleeding (though search engines do), which is out tomorrow here); and Black comedies The Book of Clarence and The American Society of Magical Negroes (feels off to define a film by race like that, but they do seem to foreground it, so maybe it’s just fair).

In theory, Netflix rolled out some big guns to compete with all that. In reality, I’m not sure they represented much of a threat, or deterrent, or alternative, or whatever they’re meant to be in this half-arsed analogy I’m already wishing I hadn’t started. We’re talking primarily about the latest from totally non-controversial, never discourse-provoking, haver of a totally normal and sane fanbase, Mr Zack Snyder, and his Star Wars inspired / ripped off (depending how you want to think of it) Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver. I’ve not seen Part One. I’m still considering just waiting for his presumably-preferred Director’s Cut versions, which have been confirmed to be forthcoming since even before the first one came out, which feels like a bit of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot marketing from Netflix — I can’t be the only person who considered waiting, and then had whatever enthusiasm they had (mine: not high, but intending to watch with relative promptness) dampened by all the piss-poor reviews.

Also brand-new on Netflix: Prince Andrew interview drama Scoop (apparently decent but sort of pointless when the actual thing is out there); another Liam Neeson actioner to add to the pile, In the Land of Saints and Sinners (there are so many films from his action star era I’ve not seen that I’d probably choose over whatever the latest one is… if I ever chose any of them, which I don’t seem to any more); and live-action manga (re-)adaptation City Hunter, which I’ve heard is good and is definitely the most likely of these four to actually get watched.

Notable films on other streamers leant more towards previously-released titles making their subscription streaming debuts. Amazon Prime added The Zone of Interest, meaning all but one of this year’s Best Picture nominees is now on a subscription service; as well as horror… tenthquel(?) Saw X, and horror of a different sort (i.e. I’ve heard it’s terrible) in Expend4bles. Over on Disney+ there was an actual Disney film — their latest canon animation, Wish — while Apple TV+ added another reason for me to resubscribe in Matthew Vaughn’s latest, Argylle. I know the notices were terrible, but the trailer amused me and I’ve generally chimed with Vaughn’s work, so I remain cautiously optimistic. As for Sky Cinema / NOW, it was an unusually underwhelming month — adult-humoured talking-dogs comedy Strays seemed to be about the biggest get, although I’ve heard rumblings that BlackBerry is good. They’re also the UK home for the massively-belated sequel to Megamind — remember Megamind? It was the other superhero-themed animated kids’ movie the year Despicable Me came out, and for my money it was the better one. The idea of a sequel is, on paper, an immensely appealing one. Unfortunately, I’ve heard Megamind vs the Doom Syndicate is terrible in a “crime against cinema” kind of way. Even Sky — who are presumably trying to persuade you to watch the stuff they have to stream, especially when it’s a brand-new direct-to-them title — display it with a 0.5-out-of-5 star rating. Eesh.

Now, we’ve reached the part of the column where I say, “as always, there was loads of back catalogue stuff too”, because, yes, as always, there was loads of back catalogue stuff too. Ones that provoked a particularly “ooh, I have been meaning to watch that” reaction — before getting added to my watchlist and forgotten about again — included Assassination Nation on Netflix; The Prince of Egypt on Amazon Prime; Magic Mike and Mary Queen of Scots on iPlayer; and a whole host on Channel 4: Pig, Freaky, Riders of Justice, Monos, Eagle vs Shark, X, I’m Your Man, Hit the Road, Titane… It’s their ad breaks that put me off, really. Plus I never trust the TV-based streamers to show things in the highest quality. It’s all those years of both NOW and iPlayer maxing out at 720p, and ITV not seeming to move behind SD (have they now? I’m not sure).

Oh, and that’s all without mentioning the never-ending guilt trip of the streamers adding stuff I already own on disc and haven’t watched yet — Jurassic World: Dominion and Supernova on Netflix; Green Zone and Thelma & Louise on Amazon; Apocalypse Now: Final Cut and The Martian (I bought but never watched the extended cut) on iPlayer; and, again, a pile on Channel 4, including Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Censor, Desperado, Possessor, Weathering with You, The Long Good Friday, The Mist, Time Bandits… And MUBI were really rubbing it in by adding a movie I took a punt on preordering — two, technically, as Trenque Lauquen comes in two parts.

And that’s without even getting on to stuff I’d like to think about rewatching.

…instead of which, let’s jump on to purchases, because, good golly, there were plenty of them too. I can’t help myself! No, I really can’t, because this month I ended up placing two large-ish orders from the US; a mix of stuff my trigger-finger had been itching to get, and then somewhat-random other things (stuff I did want — I don’t literally buy anything, you know — but that I only bought now because if you get a Deep Discount order to a high enough value they stop charging VAT, somehow). I do sometimes get buyer’s remorse when I see the state of my bank balance, but actually receiving the parcels is like Christmas.

So, deep breath, those US parcels included a bunch of 4Ks: Criterion’s The Last Picture Show (imported to get sequel Texasville included, which has to be dropped from the UK release); both versions of The Manchurian Candidate; David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises; Oliver Stone’s JFK and Natural Born Killers (both films I’ve been meaning to revisit since before this blog began, which is insane if you stop to think about it); then ’80s sci-fi comedy The Man Who Wasn’t There, which is in 3D and, yeah, that’s why I bought it; and on regular Blu-ray, silent epic Foolish Wives; intriguing Dracula adaptation The Last Voyage of the Demeter (which hasn’t had UK release of any kind yet); a new restoration of The Lion in Winter; and a handful of Fritz Lang’s Hollywood work: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, While the City Sleeps, and You and Me. Heck, I even bought a DVD: Warner Archive’s Philo Vance Murder Case Collection of six ’30s and ’40s detective movies, starring the likes of Basil Rathbone and William Powell. The latter has no overlap with the Blu-ray set Kino are putting out later this month, which will surely make its way into a later order.

None of which means I dampened down my home territory purchasing. New 4Ks included a bunch of Indicator titles: their latest Jean Rollins, The Nude Vampire (subtle) and The Demoniacs, plus Ozploitation thriller Snapshot; plenty of martial arts action with Eureka’s release of China O’Brien 1&2 and a sale pickup of Enter the Dragon (to join the DVD and two Blu-ray copies I already have and won’t be getting rid of, either because of special features or because they’re part of a box set); and I finally caved on Arrow’s edition of Michael Mann’s Blackhat, although that’s more about the director’s cut exclusively included — but only in 1080p — on disc two. Talking of Michael Mann and caving, I also finally picked up 88 Films’ edition of Miami Vice — that would’ve been an instabuy last year if they’d managed to get it out in 4K, but, alas, no; so I tried to resist (it’s the first UK HD release of the director’s cut, but I imported the US edition donkey’s years ago), but new special features and including both cuts was always going sway me in the end. And that’s another film I’ve been meaning to revisit since before this blog even began. Jesus.

I’m still not done though, because Eureka also put out Blu-rays of Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary, which I’ve wanted to see for a while, and Jet Li superhero-ish actioner Black Mask; plus another poliziotteschi from Radiance-affiliated Raro Video, The Boss (part of a loose trilogy with Milano Calibro 9, which I have the 2015 Arrow release, and The Italian Connection, which someone now needs to release in the UK, please); and, for a bit of real culture, the new Ian McKellen Hamlet. It runs under two hours. For Hamlet! Remarkable. Maybe that will help persuade me to actually pop it in and watch it. I really should do that with discs more often…

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!

March’s Failures

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As I mentioned at the start of my March review, I’ve spent a lot of time this past month on things that aren’t films. Does that mean my pile of failures is even more shocking than normal? No, not really — I mean, it could scarcely get much bigger, could it? And I actually went to the cinema once this month too, so there’s even one less title in that paragraph than there’d normally be.

In fact, I’d hoped to make it to the cinema twice this month — Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire was my other targeted release — but family Easter weekend plans got in the way. I’m busy next weekend too, but maybe I’ll find a weeknight for it or something. I’m sure it’s the kind of film that would benefit from the big screen (I felt the same way about its predecessor, which I only saw at home, thanks in part to it coming out in The Covid Times). I nearly made it three trips, even, because I was tempted by Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. I knew the reviews would be poor to middling, but they were so bad it put me right off. I’ll definitely catch it on disc, though. Other silver screen releases this month that I’ll definitely catch on disc were Kung Fu Panda 4 (I enjoyed the first three, but not enough to make the effort for this one at the cinema) and the latest semi-Coen brothers film (in that it’s directed by just one of them), Drive-Away Dolls, which looked fun.

I thought the streamers’ premieres this month would fare better, but I didn’t make time for several of those either (maybe choosing to spend so much time on other stuff had more of an impact than I allowed in my opening paragraph). Top of my watchlist were Netflix’s fantasy actioner Damsel and thoughtful sci-fi Spaceman, plus Amazon Prime’s remake of Road House — not that I’ve ever seen the original, but this version boasts Doug Liman as director and Jake Gyllenhaal as star, both of which appeal to me. Well, now they’re here to count towards my Challenge in the Failures category next month, so that might improve their chances (for at least one of them, anyway).

Other films premiering on streaming included football (aka soccer) true story The Beautiful Game (not a sport I care about, but this boasts a cast led by Bill Nighy), a new all-action remake of The Wages of Fear, Pierce Brosnan in Fast Charlie (which I seem to remember seeing a trailer for and thinking it looked fun enough), and slushy romcom nonsense with a nigh-unsayable title, Irish Wish. I only mention that last one because everything about it seems like a total disaster. I won’t be watching (so it’s not really a “failure”, but I think we long ago passed that being a genuine litmus test for what I mention in this column).

Other big-name titles making their subscription streaming debuts included Ridley Scott’s Napoleon on Apple TV+; Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla on MUBI; three-and-a-half-hour concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on Disney+, which also had Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins and six-time BAFTA nominee All of Us Strangers. Talking of awards nominees, Oscar winners abound, from Poor Things on Disney+ (much to the confusion of many Americans, based on social media), to American Fiction and Anatomy of a Fall on Amazon, to 20 Days in Mariupol on Channel 4, via all sorts of stuff on Netflix: acting nominees Nyad and Rustin; documentaries American Symphony and To Kill a Tiger; shorts The After and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar — the latter of which was one of four Wes Anderson Roald Dahl shorts that he apparently insisted were released as individual films so no one would judge them as a portmanteau feature, but which Netflix have now made available as a portmanteau feature, title The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More.

Talking of the Oscars, every February/March I get the offer of a cut-price Sky Cinema subscription from NOW, which used to be great for watching the Oscars on Sky. But, starting this year, here in the UK the ceremony is now broadcast free on ITV, so I don’t need to get Sky even at that budget price — hurrah! Except they’re still the streaming home to tonnes of recent movies, of course, so I took the offer anyway. That means my watchlist has been flooded with a mass of stuff that was previously locked away. We’re talking The Beekeeper (wasn’t that only in cinemas, like, the other week?), Michael Mann’s Ferrari (apparently a “Sky Original” — oh dear), Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (eesh, I haven’t even watched The French Dispatch on Disney+ yet), Fast X, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, No Hard Feelings, Polite Society, Gran Turismo, May December, Violent Night, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, Renfield, Beau Is Afraid, She Said; plus superhero movies I kinda want to see even though they’re meant to be awful, like The Flash and Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods; and more back catalogue stuff that I’ve added to my watchlist but don’t even care enough to list here, so I’m not likely to actually watch any of it, am I? (But you never know…)

As if that wasn’t enough, the other streamers are also always bolstering their back catalogue. Most noteworthy among these also-rans for me was RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop on Amazon Prime. This making-of documentary is meant to be so good that I nearly bought it on Blu-ray. It’s not even just “a documentary”, but a four-part series totalling almost five hours. As making-ofs go, that’s rather incredible. I mean, I remember when the Twelve Monkeys DVD was exalted for having an hour-long making-of. Obviously, things like the Lord of the Rings appendices reshaped expectations in that regard, but those remained a rarity, and similar extravagances have been cut back with time (nowadays, even huge popular blockbusters typically get no more than 45 to 60 minutes of behind-the-scenes material, often split across multiple sub-ten-minute featurettes). That said, when I’m likely to make time for such an undertaking, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never actually got round to watching those Rings appendices, and I’m a much bigger fan of those films than I am of RoboCop.

Though that was one title I avoided buying on disc, this month (as with most months, to be honest) the streamers have been flooded with stuff to remind me I haven’t yet watched my bought-and-paid-for copy —from things I’ve never seen, like Michael Mann’s Ali and The Last of the Mohicans, the new Candyman, Drive My Car, The Kid Who Would Be King, Legends of the Fall, The Long Good Friday, Mazes and Monsters, Out of Sight, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Weathering with You; to things I’ve upgraded but not watched my new copy, like Drive, The Godfather trilogy, The Guest, La La Land, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; to stuff I’ve simply been meaning to revisit, like Catch Me If You Can, The Martian, The Matrix Resurrections, and The Third Man. And those are just some edited highlights.

Then there’s all the new discs I’ve been buying to further enlarge my collection. Only a handful of them were 4K this month: Ozploitation sci-fi horror Patrick from Indicator; bodyswap sci-fi horror Possessor from Second Sight; and folk horror Witchfinder General from 88 Films. Horror always seems to be at the forefront of new formats… though I’m not sure we can still call 4K a new format at this point. But nonetheless, plenty of deeper-cut horror movies are finding their way onto 4K discs while studios still twiddle their thumbs about releasing major titles on the format, so my point stands. That said, some much-anticipated studio titles did make it to the disc this month, in the form of a trio of long-awaited James Cameron films… and they were pretty universally derided for their ‘restored’ (read: modernised) picture quality. I’ve wanted True Lies on disc for decades, but I’m skipping it based on what I’ve read and seen (for now — maybe I’ll cave when it’s cheap. I mean, it’s likely this is the only version we’ll ever get). The one I did pick up is apparently the least-bad, The Abyss. Frankly, the DVD is so ancient, almost anything will be an improvement.

That aside, I have no other ‘major’ titles to mention this month, only new releases of older films from boutique labels. As seems to be commonplace nowadays, lots of martial arts-related titles, with a duo of duos from Eureka — the two Bodyguard Kiba films, and a double-feature of influential titles, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen and The Mystery of Chess Boxing — plus a box set of the Bounty Hunter trilogy from Radiance and The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 from 88 Films. Indicator mix things up with a trio of lucha libre films: Santo vs. the Riders of Terror, The Panther Women, and The Bat Woman (which I’ve sort of seen thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000 taking it on last season). Rounding things out, some releases I can’t neatly combine in thematic bundles: the latest silent movie restoration from Redwood Creek Films, the 1928 version of The Fall of the House of Usher (at least the third screen adaptation of that story I own); River, another time loop film from the makers of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (which I also haven’t watched); and Italian gangster actioner Tony Arzenta (aka Big Guns or No Way Out), which reportedly plays like a sequel to Le Samouraï (another film I’ve been intending to watch for decades).

The important thing to take away from all that is… I need more time to watch movies. But hey, at least there’s plenty of choice to fulfil the Failures category next month.

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!

February’s Failures

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We begin this month with a vision of the future — the future being… erm, yesterday? Timelines get confusing when you’re writing about February in early March, but you’re also doing that writing before the post is posting… Anyway, what I’m getting at is, I went to see Dune: Part Two yesterday, which is a March release, but has a bearing on February’s failures insofar as it means this could be the last month of 2024 where I begin this column with a comprehensive(ish) overview of major UK cinema releases. (Do I really think I’ll make it to the cinema every month for the rest of the year? No. But do you have any idea how tough it is to find a broadly-interesting and/or fresh way into this column every month?)

So, what films did I miss in February? Well, there was Sony’s latest attempt at crashing the rep of the MCU by playing on the general public’s lack of awareness about the difference between a Marvel Studios movie and a movie based on a Marvel comic, Madame Web, which is reportedly at least as terrible as the trailers promised. Once upon a time this would be a definite “catch it later”, but I’ve still not seen Venom 2 or Morbius (fellow Sony Spider-Man-derived films), nor a whole bunch of actual MCU films, so… More likely to get a play as soon as it’s available at home (in this case, when it becomes part of an Apple TV+ subscription) is the latest from director Matthew Vaughn, Argylle. That also attracted much derision on social media, but, well, I actually liked the trailer, and I’ve enjoyed most of Vaughn’s films (even the maligned ones like Kingsman 2), so I’m still cautiously looking forward to it.

Elsewhere, there were alphabetically-opposed Oscar nominees American Fiction and The Zone of Interest; a belated UK release for The Iron Claw, and an even more belated theatrical bow for Pixar’s Turning Red; filthy-mouthed Britcom Wicked Little Letters (another I look forward to streaming eventually); and some other stuff that, frankly, I don’t even care to bother mentioning. There’s always a bunch of “other stuff” in cinemas, but if it’s not actually screening near me or I don’t have a strong compulsion to catch it eventually, is it really a “failure”?

So, on to the streamers. The only true new release there that I’ve noted this month is Orion and the Dark, a kids’ animation on Netflix from Charlie Kaufman. Wait, what? Am I sure it’s for kids? Well, it looked like it, but his last animated film certainly wasn’t, so maybe I’m mistaken. Not that I’m not interested, but you can tell my level of interest from the fact I’m not sure. Actually, of more interest to me on Netflix this month was 12th Fail, an Indian film that jumped high onto the IMDb Top 250 late last year, and thus is eligible — nay, should be a key objective for — this year’s WDYMYHS challenge. Just need Poor Things on subscription streaming and Godzilla Minus One to get some kind of home release, and I’ll have the full complement available to me again. Other notable Netflix newcomers included another 2024 Oscar nominee, Past Lives; Ken Loach’s latest, The Old Oak; Mark Rylance gangster thriller The Outfit; and tennis biopic King Richard.

Other recent films making their subscription streaming debuts included The Marvels on Disney+ (I’ll wait until I can pirate the Japanese 3D Blu-ray, thanks… then add it to my pile of MCU flicks I’ve not seen) and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City on Sky Cinema / NOW, who also had a few other bits and bobs I won’t watch for years, if ever, so why list them? Not a streaming debut (it’s already been on MUBI), but new for a wide audience, Aftersun aired on the BBC this month, and so was on iPlayer afterwards. Does that change how likely I am to get round to watching it? Well, I had access to MUBI the whole time it was on there, so…

Talking of MUBI, their big add this month (at least in terms of actually seeing it promoted) was La Antena — the first movie they ever streamed, apparently, making its return after… however long. I saw it 15 years ago on TV and enjoyed it a lot. I’d like a decent and accessible disc release, but failing that, I ought to take the opportunity to catch it while it’s streaming. Other films of note on the arthouse streamer this month were François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim and Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy — Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero — all of which are acclaimed to one degree or another, so I ought to watch them all.

Amazon Prime are conspicuous by their absence so far, considering they often rival (or attempt to) Netflix for splashy premieres or big streaming debuts. Maybe they were focused on launching a series or something instead, I don’t know. Even their back catalogue additions that caught my eye this month were deep, old cuts, like Images, the 1972 British psychological horror film written and directed by Robert Altman; or It Happened Tomorrow, a sci-fi fantasy film from 1944; or The Long Night, a noir starring Henry Fonda and Vincent Price; or Lured, a British serial killer thriller starring Boris Karloff, George Sanders, and… Lucille Ball? And directed by Douglas Sirk? You what? I really should watch some of this stuff… Well, that’s the whole point of this entire column, isn’t it?

But what I really should watch more of are all those Blu-rays I keep buying. Yes, there was another plentiful pile this month. Let’s start at the top end, i.e. 4K Ultra HD, with prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes — the only brand-new film I bought this month, actually, with everything else being catalogue titles. Sticking to 4K, those included Arrow’s box set of The Conan Chronicles (aka Conan the Barbarian, which I have seen before, and Conan the Destroyer, which I haven’t), StudioCanal’s remaster of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, and the Masters of Cinema edition of Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. Also from Eureka was a double-bill of Japanese gangster thrillers in Yakuza Wolf 1&2 (the film’s subtitles — I Perform Murder and Extend My Condolences — sound almost like Spaghetti Westerns or poliziotteschi, which feels promising). Talking of poliziotteschi, 88 Films returned to the genre with Street Law, while Radiance offered their typically eclectic stylistic spread with a bundle of releases that included historical drama Allonsanfàn, ’60s spy-fi adventure Black Tight Killers, and an “ambitious revision of the yakuza movie”, By a Man’s Face Shall You Know Him.

Aside from new releases, pickups of older titles (thanks to various multibuys and offers) included Warner Archive’s release of noir Angel Face, Criterion’s edition of Häxan, Flicker Alley’s collection of Georges Méliès Fairy Tales in Colo[u]r, and a couple of multi-film releases of independent utlra-low-budget genre exercises via 101 Films: Wakaliwood Supa Action Vol.1 (including cult favourite and former Letterboxd Top 250er Who Killed Captain Alex, which I’ve seen and will happily revisit, and the director’s later Bad Black), and Treasure of the Ninja, which also includes several other works by director and martial artist William Lee, chiefly Dragon vs. Ninja. Some people say physical media is dead, but you’re not likely to find wonders as diverse and obscure as this on any streamer.

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.

January’s Failures

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Let’s start this month with a double failure: having missed Poor Things at FilmBath back in October, I now haven’t seen it on its general release either. It’s still screening near me though, so there’s still a chance I’ll temporarily get over my laziness and head out to see it. Certainly, there’s not been much else on the big screen this month to tempt my out of the house. I’m certain that I’ll eventually watch the likes of Jason Statham actioner The Beekeeper, musical remake Mean Girls, and Christmas-themed The Holdovers (oh yeah, smart idea to release that in January), but they’re also the kind of thing I can wait til streaming for. I know, I know, I’m a bad movie fan. Whatevs. Also on the big screen this month — and more-or-less as likely to make my streaming watchlist someday — were Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, biopic One Life, British post-apocalyptic thriller The End We Start From, haunted swimming pool (I shit you not) horror Night Swim, romantic fantasy All of Us Strangers, and another musical remake, The Color Purple.

Shifting to the streamers, I feel like Amazon scored the most-talked-about film of the month with Saltburn. Proof once again that a theatrical release before a streaming debut helps generate views and chatter, because various other direct-to-streaming debuts — Netflix’s Lift; Amazon’s action comedy Role Play — don’t seem to have generated nearly as much buzz. Heck, Netflix debuted a British sci-fi thriller co-written and -directed by Daniel Kaluuya, and I first heard about it from my mum because she’d seen someone interviewed on The One Show. (That was The Kitchen.) When my mum knows about a film like that before me, I feel like the marketing has gone awry somewhere. On the flipside, Disney+ did such a good job of making me aware The Creator was available to stream, it stopped me buying the physical media release. I nearly did anyway (physical is best; support non-franchise movies; etc), but there’s so much other stuff to fork out for nowadays.

That aside, Sky Cinema still dominate for major new-to-streaming releases over here, this month including the likes of Fast X (a rare case of a Fast & Furious movie retaining its original title for the UK release), Jennifer Lawrence R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings, and, um, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Yeah, they’re still making live-action Transformers movies; though, after I wasn’t so enamoured with Bumblebee, I might finally be done with that franchise. Plus, having commented in my “Best of 2023” post that I should check out the old Fletch movies, both Fletch and Fletch Lives cropped up amongst a load of additions on New Year’s Day. Normally I’d get Sky’s ‘budget’ version, NOW, to watch the Oscars and thus intend to catch up on these films then, but the awards have now moved to ITV over here. Dilemma. I’ll probably just wait until NOW next offer me a discounted membership. That usually happens around Oscar time anyway.

Next, Netflix rustled up Marvel-adjacent vampire superhero Morbius (as with most superhero movies these days, the idea of watching it feels more like mandatory homework than pleasure; although it’s meant to be so bad, I’m curious), plus Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (I found the first surprisingly enjoyable, so I’m definitely down for the second now it’s ‘free’). Plus, thanks to the addition of Michael Bay’s Ambulance, I noticed they have the Danish original, Ambulancen. I imagine it’s quite different; the contrast could be interesting. And talking of world cinema, I really, really wanted to catch Hit the Road while it was streaming on Channel 4 throughout December and the start of January… but didn’t manage it. “Why didn’t you just watch it if you really, really want to?” Y’all heard of family commitments, and work, and… ugh, December (and early January) can be a right pain.

Talking of pains, Apple TV annoyed me — and many others, based on the social media reaction — back in early December by sending out an alert saying Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon was now available to stream, only for it to turn out they meant it was now available to rent; and at the pricey “still in cinemas” rate of £16, at that. Cheeky so-and-sos. They later did the same thing again with Napoleon, but at least I was wise to it second time round. Anyway, Killers of the Flower Moon is now available as expected — as part of an Apple TV+ subscription — but I still haven’t got round to watching it because it’s over 3½ hours long. That’s not the kind of film you just bung on, is it? You’ve got to find time for that sort of thing, haven’t you? Well, I haven’t yet. It’s a fairly high priority, for reasons that should be self-evident, but still, when have I got 3½ hours?

Back to Amazon for more low-key sci-fi with Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal in Foe, plus acclaimed in-depth (look at its length!) folk horror doc Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, which I’ve actually owned on disc for… far too long, considering it’s still sealed. That’s as nothing to Decision to Leave, though, which is now streaming on iPlayer, having been on MUBI, and which I’ve bought on disc… twice, because after I picked up the original Blu-ray (fortunately, on offer) they went and announced a 4K one. More fool me, I guess. iPlayer are almost making a thing of streaming movies I’ve recently bought-but-not-watched on 4K, with In the Heat of the Night, The Others, and Thelma & Louise all popping up recently. On the other hand, MUBI might save me some money, as they added “unique take on the neo-noir genre” Suzhou River shortly after Radiance announced a disc release for March. I like supporting boutique labels, but I’ve already blind-bought plenty of Radiance titles — my conscience can withstand one (legal) “try before you buy” (assuming I actually get round to it…)

All this talk of purchases inevitably brings us round to what I did buy this month. It’s felt quiet at times, but the final list looks pretty long. I think that’s in part because several are titles I was expecting in December that rolled over to the new year, for one reason or another (delays in either shipping or getting through the postal system, mainly). The most forgivable are those that had to come from overseas, including 4Ks of Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man) from the US and Possession from Australia (I probably would’ve held out for the forthcoming UK release from Second Sight, if they’d bothered to announce it before I ordered this one). Other 4Ks included Rio Bravo (for Blindspot), Sisu, and Vanilla Sky (which I haven’t seen since its DVD).

From Warner Archive’s burgeoning UK range, I picked up early horrors Doctor X and Isle of the Dead (the latter mainly because I happened to see it reduced), plus Fritz Lang’s US debut, Fury. As is now almost customary, there was martial arts action from Eureka in the form of Kung Fu Cult Master, When Taekwondo Strikes, and Samurai Wolf I+II (the latter meriting inclusion in the Masters of Cinema range). Plus, from 88 Films, The Inspector Wears Skirts. I could more than fuel the Genre portion of my Challenge with new purchases, never mind the massive backlog I’ve got. Oh well.

The most-represented label this month was Radiance — the aforementioned postal/shipping delays meant I got two parcels from them this month, with both December and January releases, including titles from their partner labels. The latter included Palme d’Or-nominated Brazilian crime drama Black God, White Devil; giallo Murder Obsession; and an Italian crime drama that apparently sits at the intersection of gialli and poliziotteschi, Death Occurred Last Night. From the label’s own output there was even more Italian crime in Goodbye & Amen; “a ferocious satire on Japan’s post-war economic miracle”, Elegant Beast; “pitch black neo-noir” I, the Executioner; Cannes Grand Jury Prize-winning marital drama The Sting of Death; and a box set of World Noir, which is excitingly labelled “Vol.1”, and contains examples of the genre from Japan (I Am Waiting), France (Witness in the City), and, once again, Italy (The Facts of Murder). Now, I just need to actually watch some of those before World Noir joins Columbia Noir and Universal Noir as a pile of exciting but unplayed box sets…

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).

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen All of the IMDb Top 250?

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Ever since I began my 100 Films in a Year Challenge all the way back in 2007, I’ve kept track of my progress in completing one of the best-known “best of” lists on the internet: the IMDb Top 250. At first, I just noted how many I’d seen from the list as it stood at the end of December (21 in my first year, for example). Later, I began to monitor how many that meant I had left (I first noted in 2012 that there were 119 to go — i.e. almost half). Ultimately, over the first 17 years of this blog, my annual statistics say I’ve watched 211 films from the Top 250 — but films come and go from the list, and many of those 211 won’t even be on there anymore. For example: since I had 119 films left to go, I’ve watched 145 more, but I still have 19 outstanding.

That’s why I’ve made the IMDb Top 250 the subject of 2024’s WDYMYHS: to push myself closer to completing the list. I’ve thought about doing this for several years, but WDYMYHS requires only 12 films and I’ve always had more than that left to go. But the chances of landing on exactly 12 at exactly the right time (i.e. in December/January) are moderately remote. It could probably be done, but it would require specific effort, and always carry the risk of a new film entering or one dropping out. Indeed, as if to prove my point, when I made the decision to do this in mid-December there were 17 films I’d not seen on the list and had been for many months. A couple of weeks later, almost out of nowhere, two more have popped on. If I’d managed to get my unseen count to exactly 12, it would now be 14 and I’d have to abandon the idea again. So that’s why I’ve decided to just go for it with 17 19 remaining.

All of them are listed below, in the order they appeared on the Top 250 last Sunday, from highest to lowest ranked. (The films and their ranking may well still be the same on the day I post this, but it’s already changed since New Year’s Day so nothing is guaranteed.) “But WDYMYHS is a 12 film category!”, I hear you cry (um, maybe). “How can you do it with 19 films?!” More on that post-list.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Across
the Spider-Verse

12th Fail

 12th Fail
Incendies

Incendies

To Kill a Mockingbird

 To Kill a Mockingbird
A Separation

A Separation

Like Stars on Earth

 Like Stars on Earth
The Great Escape

The Great Escape

Godzilla Minus One

 Godzilla Minus One
In the Name of the Father

In the Name
of the Father

Wild Tales

 Wild Tales
The Wages of Fear

The Wages of Fear

Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington

 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda

Jai Bhim

 Jai Bhim
The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years
of Our Lives

The Handmaiden

 The Handmaiden
My Father and My Son

My Father and My Son

The Grapes of Wrath

 The Grapes of Wrath
Amores Perros

Amores Perros

So, 19 films, eh?

Well, the rules of WDYMYHS haven’t changed — to complete the category, I still need to watch 12 films, preferably one per month — but this year it’s from a list of 19, not just a specific 12. I could have chosen 12 of those 19, but it seemed silly to specify them when any of the 19 contributes towards my ultimate aim of completing the Top 250. I don’t know if I’d bend the rules that much for Blindspot, but as WDYMYHS is my own thing (albeit created with the same intent (and, *ahem*, first)), well, I can do what I want (not that the Blindspot Police are going to come and arrest me if I did start messing with that too. But I digress…)

Plus, IMDb’s list is an ever-changing beast. It was quite stable for most of 2023, but there’s always the possibility an older film will suddenly gain enough votes to chart, or a new release will be so well-received it shoots right in — as we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks. So if I did specify 12 films, one or more of them could become outdated as the year went on.

Relatedly, therefore, even the 19 films listed above may not be the ones I watch to actually complete the category. Any film that is on the Top 250 at the time I watch it will count for WDYMYHS. So, it’ll probably be 12 of these 19, but possibly not. (If a film drops off after viewing, it will still count towards my challenge. Putting myself in the position of having to retrospectively rule out films that previously counted would be madness.)

And that’s that. Which of the 19 will make the final 12? Or maybe I’ll watch them all and finally finish that bloody list? Or could 2024 be a year of cinematic brilliance and upend the whole lot? We’ll see in (just under) a year’s time…

Blindspot 2024

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This is my 12th year doing a version of Blindspot, so I’m not sure my customary introduction to the concept is still necessary. But just in case: this is a challenge in which you pick 12 films you’ve never seen but should have (your blindspots) and watch them one per month over the next year. It’s a great way of ensuring you watch films that you might otherwise not get round to. Or intending to get round to them, anyway, as I’ve failed to complete the list on various occasions. Always a shame, but not the end of the world.

Anyway, below are my 12 picks for 2024, followed by an unnecessarily long-winded explanation of why I chose them. But to jump ahead of myself slightly: the picks all come from a ranked list, and so are presented here in their order from that list, highest to lowest.

Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary’s Baby

Yi Yi

 Yi Yi
Army of Shadows

Army of Shadows

Only Yesterday

 Only Yesterday
Le Trou

Le Trou

My Darling Clementine

 My Darling Clementine
Rio Bravo

Rio Bravo

The Innocents

 The Innocents
Where Is the Friend's House?

Where Is the
Friend’s House?

Scenes from a Marriage

 Scenes from a Marriage
The Cranes Are Flying

The Cranes Are Flying

Possession

 Possession

Traditionally, my methodology for choosing my 12 films has been some degree of complicated and thus merited explanation. (“Merited” in the sense that my procedures interest me, even if they don’t interest anyone else.) Last year, I simplified things greatly by basing it around Sight and Sound’s then-new list of greatest films. With this year’s WDYMYHS also being drawn from a list of highly-acclaimed all-timers, I was certain I’d need to return to making Blindspot’s selection process a complicated one.

Well, why make work for yourself when others have already done it? You see, the first step in my Blindspot process is to decide on and/or find lists that are going to contribute to the rankings that will decide this year’s 12. (I could just use the same list(s) year on year, but that would mean I just select the next 12 each time, which seems dull.) Normally one of the first to go in the mix is the IMDb Top 250, but that was ruled out thanks to WDYMYHS, so where else to start? I do have a couple of other go-tos, but then I remembered a list from Letterboxd: The 1001 Greatest Films, ranked as objectively as possible. I won’t regurgitate the whole rationale behind that list here (you can read the introduction at the link for that), but, suffice to say, it’s a list that has already combined multiple other lists with a view to creating a ‘definitive’ greatest films list. (The popular 1,000-film list curated by They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? has long had a similar aim, but that has certain baked-in biases that this one aims to correct.) Job done!

Well, not quite. I didn’t just take the list as final gospel — as well as ruling out films I’d already seen (obviously), I applied a few of my own rules to reach my final selection. Firstly, I limited it to things I already own or have near-permanent access to on steamers (I don’t normally trust them to keep content, but the Netflix Ghibli deal seems pretty solid). This was a common decider back when I first started WDYMYHS/Blindspot, but after a few years it seemed prudent to ignore it. I’ve brought it back again now because I’ve got a ludicrous number of films on disc I’ve never watched, so why not start with them rather than downloading even more? It’s not as if I was having to go to the dregs of the list just to include stuff in my collection, either.

Next, my most commonly enforced rule: one film per director. Normally that would have meant including A Brighter Summer Day at the expense of Yi Yi, but I decided to apply another rule I’ve used fairly regularly: no films that I’d failed to watch the year before. So out went A Brighter Summer Day, which I should’ve watched in 2023, and in goes Yi Yi (which I should’ve watched in 2022, but hey, can’t go excluding stuff forever). It also meant ditching Le Samouraï in favour of Army of Shadows. If I were ranking this in terms of my personal anticipation, Le Samouraï would’ve been higher; but the list is the list — if I wanted to make this “any 12 films I want to see”, I could’ve done that as my selection process.

Then, a few bits of housekeeping. Firstly, ruling out films that were also on the WDYMYHS list, as I’d settled on that one first. That took out three: The Wages of Fear, The Best Years of Our Lives, and A Separation. I suppose I could’ve left them on to help further complete the IMDb Top 250 (a ‘guaranteed’ 15 instead of only the 12 that WDYMYHS ‘guarantees’), but, eh. I also ruled out Apur Sansar because it’s the third film in a trilogy and I’ve only seen the first one. I’m not going to watch them out of order, and I didn’t want to commit myself to watching 13 films for a 12-film challenge. I also could have included Werckmeister Harmonies, because I do have a copy (one I went to the effort of bodging together myself from multiple DVD-era sources, to get in-sync subtitles), but there’s reportedly a 4K restoration on the way, so it seems prudent to wait for that to enjoy the film properly. I could’ve included it on the list anyway, as I did with The Hitcher, but look how that worked out. (For those who don’t remember, The Hitcher was on a 2022 list, assuming a promised release from Second Sight would definitely be out that year, but we’re now in 2024 and it’s still not been announced beyond “we’re working on it”.)

Finally, the list includes a couple of movie-adjacent TV series that fell within my catchment zone; specifically, Dekalog and Berlin Alexanderplatz. I’ve often discussed on this blog the blurred line between TV and film, so I didn’t remove them out of snobbery, more out of practicality. I mean, last year I failed to watch nine-hour Shoah, so having either one of ten-hour Dekalog or fifteen-hour Berlin Alexanderplatz on the list would likely be a failure in waiting, but having both? Maybe I could’ve attempted one, but it would’ve been inconsistent to only include one when they both qualified. The final decider was this: if I watched either of them under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t count them on the blog (because, y’know, they’re TV series, not films), so I shouldn’t really count them just because they happen to be on a list.

In the end, to get my final 12, I had to go through 36 films — ruling out twice as many as I included. Most of those (15) were simply because I didn’t own them. The remaining nine, I’ve already mentioned. As some kind of insight into those 36 films’ overall standings, the first one I rejected, A Brighter Summer Day, is in the list’s top ten (7th, to be precise), but only four of my final selection are in the top 100, and I had to go as deep as 193rd to finish my 12. Still, it’s always the way: the more acclaimed films you’ve seen, the further you have to go for your next ‘blindspot’.